Lent | Multyfarnham Friary

Temptation and Testing

In his reflection this week, Fr Kieran takes a deep look at the text from the Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent, the journey of Jesus into the desert for forty days, which marked the beginning of his public ministry, and which would lead, on Good Friday, to his death on a Cross as the overwhelming expression of His love for us.

The Gospel speaks of temptation, which can be defined as, “the desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise.” Well, no doubt Satan would have wanted Jesus to do just that. But was it temptation? Or was it ‘trial’ or, ‘testing?’ After all, Jesus was about to embark on the mission given to him by the Father, to begin a life of public ministry and He was to bring the word of God to all those around him, to make real, in the lives of the people, the Kingdom of God to which we are all called.

And so this time of testing, this time of getting ready.

Homily from Fr Kieran at the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion – Good Friday

In Fr Kieran’s Good Friday homily, he reflects on the two Passion accounts, viz., that of the suffering servant from the prophet Isaiah and the main focus of the Good Friday liturgy, the Passion of Jesus and the theme that joins both of these accounts. Fr Kieran explores these two accounts as calling on us, to find a unity in our whole life span between the active stage and the stage of passion. Often our world identifies those lesser ones with the inactive, the passive, but Jesus identifies these same ones as the most important in the heart of God. He has come to make us all one and what a price he pays to get that message across.

On being ambitious for the higher gifts

In this reflection on the Gospel for the third week of Lent, Fr Kieran considers the text of St Matthew’s Gospel and the story about the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Mt 20:17-28). Their mother (we don’t know her name) makes a request of Jesus, that her sons be allowed to sit on his right and on his left. While this request upset the other apostles, Jesus reminded them (us!) what the true request must be, viz. to serve and not to be served.