Lent as a traditional season has always had a positive impact on me, giving blessings in disguise through reconciliation, prayer and fasting. I encountered Lent this year with the same natural and rich instinct brushing aside all the temptations. At times I found it harder than I had thought it would be in a new missionary arena.

Many of us try to be somewhat disciplined for Lent and give up something that we really like and what we think needs eliminating. That’s great! Fasting has always been an important tradition of Lent. This year however, I thought we could also consider other things that we could give up, keeping in mind all the Biblical texts that guide and confront us ...

Peter’s exclamation in today’s Gospel reading catches my attention dear friends. The Church invites us today to reflect upon the Transfiguration of Jesus and to touch upon the experience of his three disciples ‘up the mountain.’

The Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent, in all three years of the lectionary cycle, is devoted to the temptation of Jesus in the desert.

As this edition of In the Word reaches your inbox we are about to enter the Lenten season, a time traditionally set apart for repentance and deepening the spiritual life through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

All of those activities are good and I will certainly give them my best shot. But what if, this Lent, as well as turning to the Word, we were also to deepen our spiritual life by more actively seeking to love our neighbour?

‘I gave his mother the money for his abortion, now look at him and see what I got.’ These were the words of Ae’s father when we drove to our Mother Mary Home for teenagers in Northeastern Thailand. 

Dear friends, we are in the First Sunday of Lent, and the liturgy of the day invites us to look forward to these forty days of grace and hold firm to our faith,