Alban McCoy

The cross may have become for us a religious symbol, but the actual Cross of Christ is God’s revelation of himself in an act of utterly unselfish love, says Fr Alban McCoy OFM Conv in his latest sermon.

With rampant chauvinism in the ascendancy, no woman was safe. Jesus’ teaching was a return to a long-lost ideal that respected the standing of both the man and the woman in marriage.

Even at the best of times, the beginning of a new year is ambivalent, inducing disparaging cynicism in some and easily deflated optimism in others. But neither is appropriate. Hope, “remembering forward”, is the virtue we need.

It's Corpus Christi and we are thinking of bread – a symbol of physical sustenance, and of life itself

If the Son of God was sinless, why did he undergo baptism “for the forgiveness of sins”, as related in today’s gospel? Precisely this question initially perplexed early Christians; but what at first had appeared contradictory, came to be seen with time as summing up the whole Gospel: Jesus’ baptism was a further manifestation of God’s humility, demonstrated in the Incarnation.

The desire for love and the mercy of Christ

The reason we pray for those who persecute us

The glorified humanity of Jesus in the Transfiguration