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Commentary on Matthew 14:13-21

The announcement of John the Baptist’s death is followed immediately in Matthew by the feeding of the 5,000 in the desert. Matthew says that Jesus, on hearing of his cousin’s tragic death, withdrew by boat to a desert place by himself. He clearly wanted time to reflect. He knew that, if things continued as they were, he too would be facing trouble.

However, the crowds knew where he had gone and followed along the shore on foot and:

When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.

His own troubles were set aside as he saw the greater need of the people. We have here, of course, an image of our God, filled with compassion for all of us and anxious to bring us healing and wholeness.

As evening comes down, the disciples suggest that the people be sent to neighbouring villages for food. It is the first mention of the disciples’ presence. In Mark’s version of this story, the disciples had accompanied Jesus in the boat at his invitation, so that they could all have a period of quiet away from the crowds. Jesus’ response is simple and to the point:

They need not go away; you give them something to eat.

They reply:

We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.

This, of course, is a sign of the future. It will be the responsibility of Jesus’ followers to give the people the nourishment they need for their lives. At times, their resources will seem very inadequate, but time will show that wonders can be done with very little. Just look at what St (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta achieved with nothing of her own.

The people are then ordered to sit down on the grass. Jesus takes the loaves and fish, looks up to heaven in the direction of his Father, blesses the food, breaks it and gives it to the disciples, who in turn distribute it among the people. The whole action clearly prefigures the Eucharist and leads up to it.

It is not explained how it all happened, but “five thousand men”, not counting the women and children also present, had their fill. Matthew alone notes the presence of women and children. As Jews did not permit women and children to eat together with men in public, they would have been in a separate place by themselves. And what was left over filled 12 baskets – a perfect number symbolising both abundance, and also the number of the Apostles.

There are two clear lessons. The first is that God takes care of his people. We can read the feeding in two ways. On the one hand, we can simply take it as a miraculous event, pointing to the divine origins of Jesus. On the other hand, there is another possibility with its own meaning. Once the disciples began to share the little food they had with those around, it triggered a similar movement among the crowd, many of whom had actually brought some food with them. When everyone shared, everyone had enough – a picture of the kind of society the Church should stand for. Some might say that this is explaining away the miracle, but it also makes an important point for us to consider in our own lives.

The second lesson is that it was the disciples and not Jesus who distributed the bread and fish. And so it must be in our own time. If the followers of Jesus do not share with others what they have received from him, the work of Jesus and the spreading of the Gospel will not happen.

Lastly, and as already mentioned, there are clear Eucharistic elements in the story – especially the ritualistic way in which Jesus prayed, blessed, broke and distributed the bread. The breaking of the bread (a name for the Mass) is very important because it indicates sharing and not just eating. The Eucharist is the celebration of a sharing community. If sharing of what we have in real life is not taking place, then the Eucharist becomes a ritualistic sham, like:

…whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead… (Matt 23:27)

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Commentary on Numbers 11:4-15

We move on today to the Book of Numbers and we will just have four readings from it (Monday to Thursday). Its Hebrew title is “In the Wilderness”, which seems a more appropriate description of its contents. ‘Numbers’ simply refers to the beginning of the book where a census of the people is described.

The book, as a whole, is divided into three main sections:

1. Preparing to leave Sinai (1:1-10:10);
2. The journey to Kadesh, where a first attempt to enter Canaan was made (10:11-21:13); and
3. the journey from Kadesh via Transjordan with the intention of approaching Canaan from the east. (21:14-36:13).

Following the estimation of the book itself, the Israelites spent more than 35 years of their 40 years of ‘wandering’ in Kadesh.
Numbers immediately follows on the book of Leviticus as the fourth book of the Pentateuch, (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). It continues the story of the journey in the desert, but also includes various legal prescriptions which either supplement the Sinaitic code, or prepare for the time when the people will have settled in Canaan.

The first four chapters consist of a census of all the tribes of Israel (hence the title of the book). There follow various laws and the offerings of the leaders and consecration of the Levites. Chapter 9 consists of a supplement to Exodus about the Passover. In chapter 11 we come to a section describing halts in the wilderness. Today’s reading comes from this section, and we find the Israelites still grumbling about their lot.

The foreigners among them were so anxious to have meat that the Hebrews also complained that they wanted some too:

Would that we had meat for food!

In fact, meat would not have been part of their regular diet when they were slaves in Egypt. Now that they were in a new type of distress, they romanticised the past and minimised its discomforts. And they do not mention meat as food they had in Egypt, but only fish, vegetables and fruits.

Now, they claim they are starving, with nothing to eat but manna. Manna seems to have had quite a pleasant taste, but as we also know, too much of anything can become tiresome. It also seems to have been quite nutritious, so the claim about starvation was somewhat exaggerated.

We are given a description of manna and how it was prepared. It was like coriander seed, and in Exodus we are told that it was white (lying on the ground it looked like hoar frost) and it tasted like wafers made with honey. It had the appearance of bdellium, a transparent, amber-coloured gum resin, which is also mentioned in Genesis as being found in the Garden in Eden. Every night (except on the Sabbath) when the dew came, the manna fell also. To eat it, the people ground it into a kind of flour, cooked it in a pot and made it into loaves which tasted like cakes made with oil.

The target and scapegoat of their troubles was, as usual, Moses, whom they blamed for their present situation. God, too, was not very happy with the ingratitude of the people for whom he had done so much.

Poor Moses! He was caught in the middle, receiving flak from both sides. In great distress he spoke to God. He had his own complaints to make:

Why do you treat your servant so badly?

He wants to know why he has to carry the burden of blame when it was God’s own idea to bring the people out of Egypt:

Was it I who gave them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, like a nurse with a baby at the breast, to the land that I swore to give their fathers’?

Moses felt he could no longer carry the burden alone. Our reading ends with Moses saying he would prefer death than to have to carry on like this.

In fact, God was listening. It is not in today’s reading, but God did hear his prayer and spread Moses’ responsibilities among 70 elders. As for the people’s cry for meat, they would get an abundance of quail every day for a month, until they would get so sick at the very sight of meat that they would never want to see it again! They got what they asked for, but it was turned into a punishment for their grumbling.

How much of our conversation with colleagues and friends consists of grumbling about all kinds of things? How many people do we see made the scapegoats for what we think has gone wrong? How many of the things we think we cannot do without lose their attractiveness once we have got them in abundance? We are not so different from the Israelites.

Let us today once again count our blessings. Most likely, we will see they far outweigh our grievances.

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Commentary on Matthew 17:14-20 Read Saturday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on Deuteronomy 6:4-13

Our reading comes from the second of Moses’ three discourses in this book. It is one of the key texts in Scripture for both Jews and Christians and consists of two parts. The first is to make our love for God the absolutely central characteristic of all our lives. The opening words are: “Hear, O Israel!” and give the passage its common name, Shema, which is the Hebrew word for ‘hear’. It has become the Jewish confession of faith, recited daily by observant Jews.

The discourse begins with the first principle:

Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh.

This is certainly a declaration of monotheism. It is a divinely revealed insight, especially important in view of the multiplicity of Baals and other gods of Canaan and elsewhere, which one meets right through the history of Israel, both in the time of the Kings and during the later exile. Again and again, the Israelites would worship these gods (see for example, Judg 2:11-13).

Yahweh is not only the God of Israel; he is the only God. This is not where the Israelites originally began from. Throughout their history, a faith in a unique God is something that became more precise with time and experience, especially under the impact of the covenant and God’s choice of Israel as his chosen people. The existence of other gods was never explicitly affirmed, but more and more became the affirmation of the living God, the unique creator and master of the world as well as of his people. This is accompanied by the constant denial of other gods, first as false and then as non-existing.

Then comes the necessary human response to this statement:

You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

This love, the echo of God’s love for his people, embraces the fear of God (in the sense of a deep respect and sense of awe), the duty of service and the observance of precepts. Strangely, outside Deuteronomy there is no explicit command to love God, but its equivalent is found, for instance, in 2 Kings 23:25. Speaking of King Josiah, the Scripture says:

No king before him turned to Yahweh as he did, with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength, in perfect loyalty to the Law of Moses.

And in Hosea (6:6) we read:

Faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice.

Although the command does not appear, the Psalms and the prophetic books, especially Hosea and Jeremiah, are full of the love of God.

These words, then, are to be engraved on each one’s heart. This would become a feature especially characteristic of the “new covenant”, with the emphasis on the inner spirit more than on external behaviour:

The urging to bind the words to the wrist and as a headband was surely meant in a figurative sense but it was, and is, taken literally by some Jews. They tie phylacteries to their foreheads and left arms. ‘Phylacteries’ are small boxes containing strips of parchment on which the words of the text are inscribed. They also attach mezuzot (small wooden or metal containers in which passages of Scripture are placed) to the doorframes of their houses. However, a figurative interpretation is supported by other Old Testament texts.

In the Gospel, we see the Pharisees following this custom, but Jesus criticises them because it was purely an external manifestation which did not correspond to what was going on in their hearts. They literally wore their heart on their sleeve. Speaking of some Pharisees Jesus said:

They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they! Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broader headbands and longer tassels… (Matt 23:5)

Finally, Jesus, quoting today’s passage, lays it down as the greatest commandment of all (Matt 22:37). However, he significantly links this commandment with another from Leviticus 19:18 saying:

Love your neighbour as yourself.

And, to remove all ambiguity, he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to show exactly who our neighbour is (Luke 10:25-37). In the Gospel, these two commandments cannot be separated and so we read in the First Letter of John:

Anyone who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:19-20)

The second part of today’s reading from Deuteronomy is a reminder to the Israelites that it was Yahweh who brought them into the land which he swore to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give. Moreover they should not take for granted the presence of large and prosperous towns which they did not build, houses full of good things they did not provide, vineyards and olive trees they did not plant. After they have eaten all the food they want, they must not forget that it was Yahweh who brought them there from a life of slave-labour in Egypt.

Because the emphasis in Scripture is always on what God does and not on what his people achieve, they are never to forget what he has done for them:

Yahweh your God is the one you must fear, him alone you must serve, his is the name by which you must swear.

Here, to ‘serve’ God means especially to ‘worship’ him. In this sense it is quoted by Jesus during his temptations in the desert as an argument against worshipping the devil (Matt 4:10).

Both of these lessons we need to take to heart:

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Commentary on 1 Corinthians 2:1-10; Psalm 95; Luke 9:57-62

The Gospel reading tells of three people who expressed an interest in becoming disciples of Jesus. All three get very uncompromising replies from him.

The first man seems to make an unconditional offer: “I will follow you wherever you go.” Perhaps he meant it, but Jesus makes very clear what becoming a disciple means

Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man [i.e. the Son of God] has nowhere to lay his head.

To follow Jesus means to be ready to go anywhere and to make any sacrifice necessary for the Kingdom to be proclaimed. It is the meaning of the religious ‘poverty’ that Dominic practised. It is not poverty in the sense of not having enough of the essentials of life, but rather a life of utter simplicity with only the absolute essentials for life and work. It is a life of repudiating unnecessary possessions or the search for mere pleasure and indulgence. We do not know if this man did or did not follow Jesus, but Jesus did not want him to be under any illusions.

It is Jesus himself who invites the second man to follow him. But he replies, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” No, replies Jesus,

Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

This, of course, is the very essence of Jesus’ mission – to make the carrying out of God’s will a top priority in people’s lives everywhere. Jesus’ words are perhaps not to be taken literally, especially, if the man’s father has just died, but it is a way of expressing the real priorities. Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead. It is so easy for someone to think of all kinds of excuses to delay putting the living of the Gospel into practice. The man could also have meant that he was ready to become a disciple of Jesus, but only after his father had died. Especially if he was the oldest son, he could have felt that burying his father was a special responsibility expected of him. But his father might not die for years to come. What is the man to be doing in the meanwhile? No, God’s call comes first.

A third man agreed to follow Jesus, but first asked to say goodbye to his family. Put like this, it might seem a reasonable request. But what did saying goodbye mean for this man? How long would it take? The man must realise that commitment to the work of building the Kingdom of God is absolute. It means a commitment to a new family, the human family. Further on in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will tell the crowds who are following him enthusiastically:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

The word ‘hate’ here cannot be taken literally because it would violate Jesus’ command for us to love everyone, even enemies, unconditionally. But it does mean that our bonding to Jesus and his mission must be absolute and no one and nothing can get in the way. It is a theme which runs especially through Luke’s Gospel – to follow Jesus is all or nothing. At the same time, no other Gospel speaks more touchingly of the Jesus’ compassion and readiness to forgive – for example, the parables of the caring shepherd, the lost coin and the lost son. They are the two sides of Jesus and they are not incompatible.

Clearly, Dominic was filled with this spirit. He was totally committed to the following of Jesus, but his community also preached the love and compassion of Jesus. We, too, must combine these in our own lives.

In the First Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that his preaching is not based on intellectual concepts, but only on the message of Jesus on the Cross. The Dominicans became famous for their preaching and their academic ability but, in the long run, it was not through this that they led people to Christ. It was not a human wisdom that they preached, but rather God’s wisdom expressed by Jesus suffering and dying on the cross, something which many of the Jews and Gentiles of Paul’s time could not understand or accept. For all of us, it is the Way of Jesus that is the true Wisdom.

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Commentary on Matthew 16:24-28 Read Friday of Week 18 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on Deuteronomy 4:32-40

Today we begin the first of five readings from the book of Deuteronomy, the last of the five books of the Pentateuch. The book has a distinct plan of its own. It is a code of civil and religious laws (chaps 12 – 26:15), with a long discourse of Moses for its framework (chaps 5-11 and 26:16 – chap 28). The whole is preceded by a first Mosaic discourse (chaps 1 – 4:43) and followed by a second (chaps 4:44 – 28:69) and a third (chaps 29 – 33:29). This is followed in its turn by sections dealing with the last days of Moses: Joshua’s mission, the long canticle of Moses, the blessings he pronounces, his death (chaps 31-34).

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

”The code of Deuteronomy is in part a resumption of the laws proclaimed in the desert. Its discourses commemorate the great events of the Exodus, of Sinai and of the early stages of the Conquest; they explain the religious meaning of these events and appeal for fidelity to the Law whose importance they emphasise.”

The book was written long after Moses’ time and consists largely of an updating of Moses’ original teaching. Today’s reading is taken from the first of the three long discourses attributed to Moses which form the greater part of the whole book. It speaks of the unique privilege the Israelites have had. Moses asks the Israelites if any other people have had such extraordinary experiences of their God as they have. Was there ever a word so majestic spoken from one end of the heavens to the other?

Did ever a people hear the voice of the living God, speaking from the heart of the fire, as they have heard it and remained alive? Did it ever happen before that any god took one nation out of another, one through ordeals, signs, wonders and war with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, and fearsome terrors? We think here of the demonstrations of God’s power as in the ten great plagues of Egypt. All of this God did for the Israelites before their very eyes.

Yahweh’s purpose was to show that he was the true God and there is no other. We have here something new: an explicit assertion of the non-existence of other gods. The Decalogue simply forbade the worship of foreign gods. The God of the Israelites was the God of Abraham, of Isaac of Jacob and, at an earlier period, distinguished from the gods of other peoples. These had long been regarded as inferior to Yahweh, impotent and contemptible, but their existence was not denied. But now a new level in understanding has been reached: these gods simply do not exist.

In order to teach his people, Yahweh made them hear his voice from heaven; on earth they were allowed to see his great fire; from the heart of the fire they heard his words. They saw his presence among them in the cloud and the fire. Because of his great love for their ancestors, Yahweh chose their descendants and brought them out of Egypt. They saw the wonders of that liberation.

He went further and showed his might and power by dispossessing nations larger and stronger than they were. A reference to the people they had to overcome in taking possession of Canaan as the Promised Land:

He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, giving you their land for a possession, as it is still today. (Deut 4:38-39)

So the people should reflect on this:

…that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

This is a re-assertion of the uniqueness of God. Because of that, the people are to keep the laws and commands that Moses has given them so that they and their descendants may live long in the country that the Lord has given them for ever.

Perhaps our lives and our experiences with God have not been marked with such dramatic signs, but if we reflect a little, we will soon realise that he has done wonders in our lives. Let us recall these today, be truly thankful, and respond with loving and unconditional praise and service. Our Faith is both a gift and a privilege.

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Commentary on Matthew 16:13-23

We now reach a high point in Matthew’s narrative. More than any of the other Gospels, his is a Gospel of the Church (Mark emphasises discipleship; Luke the communication of God’s love and compassion; John unity with God through Jesus).

We find Jesus and his disciples in the district of Caesarea Philippi. This is not the fine city of Caesarea built by Herod the Great on the shore of the Mediterranean. It was a town, rebuilt by Herod’s son Philip, who called it after the emperor Tiberius Caesar and himself. It lay just to the north of the Sea of Galilee and near the slopes of Mount Hermon. It had originally been called Paneas, after the Greek god Pan and is known today as Banias.

The area was predominantly pagan, dominated by Rome. In a sense, therefore, it was both an unexpected yet fitting place for Jesus’ identity to be proclaimed. He was, after all, not just for his own people, but for the whole world.

Jesus begins by asking his disciples who people think he really is. They respond with some of the speculations that were going round: he was John the Baptist resurrected from the dead (Herod’s view, for instance), or Elijah (whose return was expected to herald the imminent coming of the Messiah), or Jeremiah or some other of the great prophets.

The Jews at this time expected a revival of the prophetic spirit which had been extinct since Malachi. John was regarded by many of the people as a prophet, although he denied that he was the expected prophet, often thought to be Elijah returned. The early Christians saw Jesus as a prophet, but with the appearance of prophecy as a charism in their communities, the term was dropped in his case.

Interestingly, the people did not seem to think that Jesus himself was on a par with these ‘greats’ of their history. We do tend to undervalue the leaders of our own time when compared with those of the past.

Jesus goes on to ask:

But who do you say that I am?

It was a moment of truth, a very special moment in his disciples’ relationship with their Master. Simon speaks up:

You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

It is a huge step forward for Simon and his companions. As we shall see, it is not yet a total recognition of his identity or mission. But Jesus is no mere rabbi, no mere prophet, but the long-awaited Messiah and Saviour King who would deliver Israel. It is an exciting moment in their relationship with him. And it is only in Matthew that Simon Peter calls him “Son of God”.

The focus now shifts immediately to Simon. He is praised for his insight but Jesus makes clear that it comes from divine inspiration and is not a mere deduction. A ‘mystery’, in the Scripture sense, is being uncovered.

And now comes the great promise. Simon from now on is to be called “Peter”, a play on the word for ‘rock’ (kepha in Aramaic, petra/petros in Greek), for he will become the rock on which the “church” will be built – a rock which will stand firm against all attacks on it. This promise must have sounded very daring at the time it was written, but throughout more than 2,000 years it has again and again been vindicated. ‘Peter’, in either its Aramaic or Hebrew form, was not a previously known personal name.

The term ‘church’ only appears twice in Matthew and not at all in the other three Gospels. The Hebrew word qahal, which in Greek is rendered as ekklesia, means ‘an assembly called together’. It was used often in the Old Testament to indicate the community of the Chosen People.

According to the Jerusalem Bible:

“By using this term ekklesia side by side with ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, Jesus shows that this eschatological community (community of the ‘end-times’) is to have its beginnings here on earth in the form of an organised society whose leader he now appoints.”

And Peter is given power and authority, the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”, all that he will need to make the Kingdom a reality. His authority and that of the ‘church’ is the authority of Jesus himself. Whatever Peter and the church formally decide is immediately ratified by God; they are his appointed agents.

Lastly, they are strictly ordered not to tell anyone else that Jesus is the Messiah. The people are not ready to hear it. The people have their own expectations, which are very different from the Messiah that Jesus is going to be. The disciples themselves have a totally wrong idea, as becomes immediately clear in what follows.

From the moment that they recognise Jesus as Messiah, he begins to prepare them for what is going to happen:

[The Son of Man] must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

This is the first of three ominous predictions.

After the euphoria of knowing their Master was the Messiah, all their dreams and hopes are shattered by these terrible revelations. It is hard for us to imagine the impact these words must have had. Peter, who had just covered himself in glory and been appointed leader, almost patronisingly takes Jesus aside, saying:

God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.

For him and the others this was an unthinkable scenario for the Messiah for whom they were all waiting. How much more shocked Peter must have been at Jesus’ reaction:

Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.

The man who was just now called the Rock is accused of being Satan’s advocate! Instead of being a rock of stability, he is seen as a stumbling block in the way of Jesus.

Peter is seen as doing the very work of the devil in trying to divert Jesus from the way he was called to go, the way in which God’s love would be revealed to us, the way in which we would be liberated for the life of the Kingdom.

It will take time before Peter and the others both understand and accept the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah. It will not happen until after the resurrection. Before that the “Rock” will be guilty of a shameful betrayal of the Man who put such trust in him.

We too should ask ourselves to what extent we accept Jesus the rejected, suffering, dying and rising Messiah.

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Commentary on Num 20:1-13 Read Thursday of week 18 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus is seen on one of his few visits outside Jewish territory. The cities of Tyre and Sidon are on the Mediterranean coast in what is today Lebanon. While he is there he is approached by a Canaanite (i.e. a non-Jewish) woman whose child is “tormented by a demon”. Whether it was an actual possession or some natural physical or mental ailment does not really matter.  Already the woman’s faith and trust in Jesus is indicated by the way she addresses him, “Lord, Son of David!” coupled with her plea for his compassion.

At first, Jesus ignores her completely. The disciples intervene and ask Jesus to give her what she wants because she is making such a nuisance of herself. Jesus replies that his mission is only to the “house of Israel”, to which this woman clearly does not belong.

In the meantime the woman continues her pleading, “Lord, help me.” She is following, in fact, advice that the Gospel gives – keep on asking. Jesus replies in words that sound very harsh, if not racist:

It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.

‘Dogs’, together with ‘swine’, was a common colloquial expression among Jews for Gentiles. We see this also earlier in Matthew’s Gospel:

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you. (Matt 7:6)

The dog was regarded as an unclean and promiscuous animal. Because it was such a common expression, it is probably not as harsh as it sounds to us and, if spoken with a measure of humour (implied by Jesus’ use of the diminutive word, ‘doggies’), would not have given offence at all. As they say, everything is in the tone of voice. Jesus was not a racist — that is clear from other situations where he dealt with non-Jews and with other commonly despised groups.

For her part, the woman certainly is not in the least fazed. She comes right back, saying:

Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.

That was enough for Jesus. She had proved her genuineness:

Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.

Her daughter was cured on the spot. It is a hint of what is to come. Membership as one of God’s people will be measured, not by birth or circumcision, but by a living faith in Jesus as Lord.

A story like this is an occasion for us to look at our own attitudes to people of other races, ethnic groups and nationalities, not to mention the socially disadvantaged or physically or mentally disabled—in other words, any people who are ‘different’. How inclusive are we in word and action? And does our parish community go out of its way to provide a welcome for the ‘outsider’? These are very real questions in societies which are becoming more and more multicultural.