Category Archives: Geoff Wood Blog

Missed Opportunities It’s during the cemetery scene in James Joyce’s classic novel Ulysses, amid all its memorial statues, that Leopold Bloom recalls the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel and there occurs to him an old Irish witticism: “Come forth, … Continue reading →

Now there were some Greeks . . . who . . . came to Philip . . . with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” (John 12: 20-21)             “I never saw color as this … Continue reading →

Trooping the Color             How I would love to be present at the Trooping of the Color of the Household Guard in London someday.  I’ve seen it on film and it’s quite stirring, solemnly so.  It happens once a year … Continue reading →

The temple he was speaking of was his body.             Flannery O’Connor, a Catholic writer from Georgia during the 1940’s and 50’s – who died of lupus at age 39 – has established herself beyond question as among the foremost … Continue reading →

Transfiguration (1998)             I used to think: how lucky Bible characters are!  They not only get to see but wrestle with angels; they get to witness miracles in almost every chapter or to see Jesus transfigured and hear the thunder … Continue reading →

When?             Occasionally as young seminarians up on the Hudson River we were given a day off to visit nearby locations like West Point or the Bear Mountain ski resort.  Usually we were packed standing into the back of an … Continue reading →

In warm indignation Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said . . . Mark 1:41 Mark’s Gospel today describes Jesus as emotionally upset when confronted by a leper pleading for a cure.  The root meaning of the Greek … Continue reading →

Why this crying and commotion?  The child is not dead; she is asleep.  Mark 5:39             Today’s Gospel episode about the cure of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law  (Jesus took her by the hand, and helped her to her feet.  The fever … Continue reading →

Press 1 . . . Press 2 . . . Press 3 . . . – Sorry, I am not at my desk.             In today’s Gospel reading Jesus begins his public career by expelling a demon, in other words … Continue reading →

A Case of Cetacean Indigestion or Even Whales Can Only Stomach So Much!               I always thought whales needed more room to maneuver and kept to the big oceans of the world – and so there couldn’t be any in … Continue reading →