Sunday 28th June 2009

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus said: "Why all this commotion and crying? The child is not dead, but asleep." But they laughed at him. A lovely feature of our Catholic tradition is that we can have a good sense of humour even about the most sacred things. However what we see in the Gospel today is not humour but ridicule. And there is a lot of that today about what we hold sacred. There are a lot of good jokes about the marriage relationship, for example. But there is also a lot of ridicule about it today which we should not tolerate. Young people find it difficult today to admit to going to Mass because their peers make fun of them for it. We need to find the ways of encouraging them to keep going. Our society will tolerate anything but people who treasure their faith. We need to stand by one another and let Christ be present as saviour for the world.

Fr. Johnny Doherty, C.Ss.R.