A Celtic Journey with St. John of the Cross
We would like to share with you two beautiful musical reflections in honour of Our Lady and St John of the Cross recorded by Kerrie O’Connor and friends in our Chapel. We vacated the Chapel one afternoon while they did all the hard work!! The first one is available on youtube and the second will be available for the feast of St John of the Cross on 14th December. We hope you will enjoy. https://youtu.be/R2YGDeZ0haE
Prayer & Reflection
for Women
From time to time we host days of prayer and reflection for women interested in exploring a vocation to Religious life. For further information please contact us at: carmel@roebuckcarmel.com
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Sunday Reflection
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026
Ecclesiasticus 15:15-20
1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Matthew 5:17-37
The opening words of our first Reading today really jump out at us: “If you wish, you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power.” This is one of the chief passages in the Bible stressing our own free-will. It comes in the Book of Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, which was composed towards the end of the age of the prophets and promises of coming salvation and when this era ended the Jewish people relied on wise sayings from various sources. These wise sayings were collected by Ben Sira.
The people learned that, of their own free will, they could choose good or evil. God called them to respond to the law given to Moses by a free act of love. When the Jewish people heard Jesus speak they, understandably, feared that the foundation of all that they believed in was under threat.
But when Jesus addresses the Law in his Sermon on the Mount he deliberately begins by saying “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them.” Jesus, of course, respected and valued the Law given to Moses and would not change it one ’dot’. He wanted to enhance that Law and He wished that people would go beyond the letter of the law and be guided by what is new and what comes from heaven. All the words and teachings of the Law and the Prophets of old pointed towards the Messiah to come. The Messiah was now among them and presented to them what is the new Law and the fulfilment of the Prophets.
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