With the recent celebration of St Valentine’s Day, various expressions of the tinsel of love were on display. Most of it was fun, but all of it inadequate. Still, all such expressions help us touch the hem of something deeper and keep open a portal to love’s sacred depth. The plot of the film P.S.…
It is that time of the year again, where everyone scrambles to find at least one thing they wish to avoid for the next 40 days. Some find it a way to regain some sort of stability in their lives, others find it a near annoyance. Options weren’t a thing back in the day however.…
They left knowing the risks because the risks had already been named: fever, isolation, death. West Africa was not imagined. It was spoken about plainly, as a place where many did not survive long. They went anyway. The women who would become the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles entered mission with their bodies first.…
Experience, wrote CS Lewis, is a brutal teacher. And former politician Peter Mandelson, who has been disgraced over his ties to notorious sex offender and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, once taught me a lesson. We were both attending one of those awful receptions for “the great and the good”. I was there as a BBC…
A disobedient child used to be called ‘bold’ in Ireland, ‘naughty’ in Britain and ‘méchant’ – which can also mean ‘bad’ or ‘nasty’ – in France. Occasionally, the more forgiving term ‘contrary’ might be applied. And bold children were slapped for their wilfulness or sent out of the classroom to be given a humiliating scolding.…
Movies, documentaries and books can leave an indelible impression on the mind. When they deal with historical subjects, and especially when they deliberately play on the emotions of their audiences, they can give people a highly distorted view of the subject under examination. For example, if you went along to see the movie Small Things…
As we enter this holy season of Lent, we are invited into a deeper encounter with a truth at the very heart of our faith that through baptism we are not merely marked with a sign, but drawn into a life of communion, participation, mission; a life of discipleship. This Lent, the Irish Synodal Pathway…
It wasn’t when Vandalising Ireland hit No.1 on Amazon Ireland and in the National Book Charts that I realised that something special was happening, even though for the book to achieve that milestone based on word-of-mouth alone is almost unheard of. Rather, it was when people began posting images of their orders from all around…
The chapel of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, was filled last Sunday evening to honour and celebrate the music and ministry of Fr Liam Lawton. Many of Fr Lawton’s family and friends attended the event including Archbishop Eamon Martin, singers Eimear Quinn, Malachi Cush, Karl McGuckin and the Carlow Cathedral Choir. Mary Kennedy presented the evening’s…
Many of us could use more silence in our lives. I say this cautiously because the place of silence in our lives isn’t easy to specify. Silence is a complex; sometimes we fear it and try to avoid it and sometimes when we are tired and over-stimulated we positively long for it. Generally, though, we…
Martina Purdy
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Renata Steffens
Fr Ronald Rolheiser