Fr Joshua J Whitfield Through the liturgy of the Church, we are brought into intimacy with the Lord. Catholic worship always carries us there – to the real person of Christ and to his Passion. That is, it is no mere memorial what we Catholics experience in worship. Rather, the liturgy always brings us to…
Recently I was one of a number of Irish bishops who paid a short visit to Ethiopia to see the work that Trócaire is undertaking there. Founded in 1973 by the Irish Bishops Conference in line with Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, Trócaire’s mission is to give concrete expression to the Church’s social…
The world’s oldest living person has been revealed – and she is a 116-year-old nun from Brazil. Sr Inah Canabarro, who was born on June 8, 1908, became the world’s oldest person following the death of a woman from Japan on December 29. LongeviQuest, an organisation that tracks supercentenarians around the globe, said the wheelchair-bound…
Sing in the Quiet Places of my Heart: The Life and Works of WM Letts (1882-1972), by Bairbre O’Hogan (South Dublin Libraries, €20.00 / £16.99); available through Alan Hanna and other retailers. J. Anthony Gaughan Winifred Letts is one of those many poets of the Irish Literary Revival, once widely admired, who lead a fugitive…
For most of us, New Year’s Day means both celebrating what’s ahead and learning from the year that’s ending. For Catholics, it’s seeing the past year not just through the rearview mirror but refracted through the lens of faith. A new year offers us more than a fresh start. It can be an opportunity for…
As a new year begins, it’s natural to look to the future with a sense of hope. But for Catholics, the holy year 2025 presents a unique opportunity to explore and cultivate hope – and to examine what makes it so difficult to hold onto. Most of us know that hope is not wishful thinking…
Q: What is the significance of a Jubilee Year? A: The short answer is, a Jubilee Year is a special year of grace and reconciliation. Today, the Catholic Church celebrates a Jubilee Year every 25 years, although the Pope can also declare an ‘extra’ extraordinary Jubilee year between the regularly scheduled jubilees (as Pope Francis…
We crave few things as deeply as self-expression and recognition. We have an irrepressible need to express ourselves, be known, recognised, understood, and seen by others as unique, gifted, and significant. A heart that is unknown, unappreciated in its depth, lacking in meaningful self-expression and recognition, is prone to restlessness, frustration, and bitterness. And, truth…
Scott P. Richert We… see all round us every day the living turning into the lifeless. What we never see is the lifeless turning into the living,” said Owen Barfield. When I was a child, I used to collect common fossils – trilobites, brachiopods and cephalopods, mostly. I was fascinated by their shape and symmetry,…
Carol Glatz When Catholics come to Rome for the Holy Year, their journey should have the specific goal of encountering and listening to Jesus, Pope Francis said. With a jubilee, the destination is the Holy Door, which “represents Jesus Christ, his mystery of salvation, which allows us to enter into the new life, free from…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser