With the arrival of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, our Lenten journey is almost over. The concept of Lent as a journey, rather than a time of denial, has been frequently suggested and promoted by Pope Francis.

A few years ago a friend of mine,  a fellow priest,  shared this story with me: He and his brother were the joint heirs to their father’s estate. Several months before their father died, he called his son, the priest, saying he wanted to talk about something very important.

I’d like to borrow a very good story from Miguel de Umanumo, a Spanish philosopher and novelist from the 20^th century about the origin of hell.

The Gospel on this 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time presents us with Jesus’ beautiful teaching on forgiveness and an encouragement for us to forgive one another, as God forgives all our wrongdoings.

There was a priest who got assigned to a new parish. While listening to  confessions of the people, he noticed that a lot of them confessed that they “fell off the bridge”.

One Saturday afternoon, after an AA Meeting, one woman came up to me and said: “Larry, I don’t have a Higher Power I can relate to.  Can you recommend something I might read that could help me?”

Whenever I would go on “Home Leave” to Chicago from England or Australia, my brother and I would visit the cemetery to pray at the graves of our parents and brother and sister and some other relatives.

The Year of Mercy ended on the 20th of November 2016, the Feast of Christ the King. It started on the 8th of December last year, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Parishioners of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart parish in Alice Springs celebrated the Feast of Christ the King by coming together for Mass and then gathering at the historic Telegraph Station for a fun family picnic and barbecue.

They were celebrating the end of the Year of Mercy and the beginning of the Year of the Family which is taking place across the Diocese of Darwin as a way of responding to Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Amoris Laetitia.

Well here we are at the beginning of a new Church year in the wonderful season of Advent – those precious few weeks of reflection and preparation of heart and mind, before the great feast of Christmas.

I love it that, at this time of year, when the world is telling us to hurry up and get through the list of things to be done before Christmas – shopping, food preparation, social events – the Church is telling us to slow down, reflect, wait, repent. What a breath of fresh air that counter-cultural message is.