Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem, just days before He was to be crucified.

There was a priest who got assigned to a new parish. While listening to  confessions of the people, he noticed that a lot of them confessed that they “fell off the bridge”.

One Saturday afternoon, after an AA Meeting, one woman came up to me and said: “Larry, I don’t have a Higher Power I can relate to.  Can you recommend something I might read that could help me?”

Whenever I would go on “Home Leave” to Chicago from England or Australia, my brother and I would visit the cemetery to pray at the graves of our parents and brother and sister and some other relatives.

Whenever I have the chance, I watch a movie every now and then. Sometimes there is something at the movies that catches my attention and if I have the time, I’ll go and watch it as my form of stress-reducing recreation.

The temptations of Jesus in the desert is the theme for this Sunday. We’ve well and truly begun the season of Lent.

One of my favourite late night shows was the “Late Show with David Letterman”. David Letterman was a late night show host from the late 70s and he has just retired lately.

In this day and age we may well ask what meaning and relevance such a season of the year could have for us. When I was young it was about “giving up something” like chocolates or biscuits.

Now, for me, it means more about being aware of certain attitudes and behaviours that need healing.

As the headlines continue to swirl around the Catholic Church in Australia it is a distressing time for both victims of abuse and also for regular Catholics who have been rocked by one scandal after another for years.

We often hear the phrase that these years of crisis and shame have led to a “humbler” Church and lately I’ve been wondering what that humbler Church might look like in practice.

About 25 years ago while on retreat I read a book by the Scripture scholar, Dominic Crossan, entitled The Historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.