Homily for the 8 o’clock Mass, 3 November 2024, Sunday 31B: Mark 12:28-34

Also St. Margaret’s Forres

Today's Gospel comes as a brief moment of relief amid the tension and foreboding of St. Mark's Gospel narrative. The episode is set in Holy Week, after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, to cries of Hosanna. Before and after it we read only of bitter confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish authorities.

Homily for Sunday 30B, 27 October 2024: Psalm 104:3; Mark 10:46-52 etc.

As the procession entered Mass this morning we sang the Introit Laetetur cor - Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and be strengthened. Seek his face always. These words are taken from Psalm 104 (in our Greek numbering. St. Benedict has us sing it each week at Saturday Vigils). The idea of seeking God occurs several times in the Psalms (cf. e.g. Ps 39/40:16; 68/69:6 etc.) Another familiar Introit has a closely related text, taken from another Psalm (26/27:8-9): Tibi dixit cor meum - To you my heart has said, I have sought your face. I will earnestly seek your face O Lord. Do not turn your face away from me.

Homily for Sunday 26B, 29 September 2024: Mark 9:38-48 (& James 5:1-6) 8 o’clock at Pluscarden, and 11.00 St. Margaret’s Forres

In today’s Gospel we heard three or four somewhat disparate sayings of Jesus. These are part of a series of five or six which St. Mark has grouped together here. They are united by linking “catch words”. Also there’s a general theme of belonging to Jesus, or not; and the ultimate consequences of that.

I should like to focus now on the last of our sayings today: the really shocking one about millstones around necks, and hands and feet being chopped off, and eyes gouged out.