We can’t ignore the fact that, at the very centre of these past couple of chapters in our lectio, the subject of faith has been held up for our consideration. It has been absolutely essential in all these stories – an increase in faith, the testing of faith, the growth in faith, the witness of faith, the lack of faith.
Author Archives: Bethlehem Abbey
Vocation – Two Becoming One
If we haven’t already said it then perhaps we need to be explicit about it now: every vocation is about love. About a search for love; about how to give myself in love; about how to be open enough to receive another in love; about how to let another’s love transform…
Mark 6:1-6 – There’s No Place Like Home?
After the blockbuster Chapter 5, with its scenes filled with drama and shock, and their insistent invitation to consider the role of personal faith in relationship to Christ, and Christ’s own emerging personality and authority, Mark leads us back to Jesus’ hometown – Nazareth, of course, although he doesn’t say it here – and to his own people.
Sunday 5th July – Retreat Sunday
On this Retreat Sunday we invite you to consider these words: Listen; Obedience; Scripture; The Tent; A School for the Lord’s Service; Eternal Life. Have a peace-filled day of prayer and Christ-encounter!
Setting Out Your Stall – St Benedict’s Prologue
The Prologue, or introduction, which begins the text is not in fact, according to the author, part of the Rule itself – that begins formally with Chapter 1. But it nonetheless forms a weighty, and comparatively lengthy, foreword, which cannot be skipped. Benedict lays out for us his fundamental notion of…
Mark 5:21-43 – Jesus, Life-Giver (Part 3)
We reach the closing section of this long passage in Mark Chapter 5, and the unfolding of the scenes which commonly give the passage its name. But there is much here than the restoring of the little girl to life.
Vocation – Where Do I Fit In?
Odd as it may seem, some of the most beautiful and useful texts for discerning vocation, and seeing where it is I fit into the Church’s life with regards to choosing and living vocation, can be found in the official legislation of the Church, contained primarily in the Code of Canon Law…
Mark 5:21-43 – Jesus, Life-Giver (Part 2)
We left last week’s lectio divina with a plethora of questions to ask ourselves and upon which to reflect – they may still be resonating with us, and so we should continue to allow them to resonate, as we look now at the woman who is very much at the centre of this passage…
Introducing the Holy Rule
Having taken something of a whistle stop tour of the life and times of our Holy Father, St Benedict, we need to spend a little time considering what is, as far as we know, the only document which he left to posterity. It’s not simply that it is, in many ways, Benedict himself speaking…
Mark 5:21-43 – Jesus, Life-Giver (Part 1)
Having just concluded a long and technically beautiful passage, Mark presents us with another carefully constructed section of narrative. We are really drawn into the heart of these two stories for many reasons – technically, he weaves the two stories together, sandwiching one with the beginning and end of the other; emotionally, both the scenes are incredibly moving…
Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey, Portglenone 