Last week, if you came to Church, you would have heard Jesus telling us to “pray continually and never lose heart.” He reminded us persevering in prayer, because prayer is not just for hard times, it is not just when we need God we start to pray — it’s a way of living for our life. Keep trusting. Keep knocking the door. Keep speaking to God who loves us.

In 2018, I attended the episcopal ordination of Bishop Ewald Sedu, in Maumere. Maumere is a very Catholic town, on the very Catholic island of Flores, in very Christian eastern Indonesia. Not surprisingly, this ceremony was a very grand affair.

The parable about the pharisee and the tax collector, like all of Jesus’ stories, makes his listeners stop and think…  Here Jesus talks about two men, both of whom are honest. But there is a problem with one of them.

I feel blessed to admit there is very little need for comment in today’s readings. They speak for themselves!

As the headlines continue to swirl around the Catholic Church in Australia it is a distressing time for both victims of abuse and also for regular Catholics who have been rocked by one scandal after another for years.

We often hear the phrase that these years of crisis and shame have led to a “humbler” Church and lately I’ve been wondering what that humbler Church might look like in practice.