People around the world are discussing Pope Leo XIV’s cancer and expressing their sympathy. Yet, the fact that the health of the head of the Catholic Church is being discussed so openly is a new development. In the past, when popes were ill, often only those in their immediate circle knew how serious their condition…
There is an instance in the Gospels where, while Jesus is speaking, a woman from the crowd calls out to him: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” (Luke 11, 27). In effect, she is saying: “You must have a wonderful mother! Look how you turned out!” Jesus responds…
The opening words of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ vision of discipleship, are a list of makarioi: the blessed, the flourishing, the fortunate. Before Jesus tells his disciples what to do, he gives them a vision of the world as it looks under the reign of God. It is a very upside-down kind of…
Q: Catholic governors commit an obviously sinful act when they sign extremely permissive abortion laws. On the other hand, there is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion in my parish who told me she is pro-choice, but I’m not aware she has done anything to support abortion except maybe vote for a pro-choice candidate. My…
In the Gospel story of his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus describes the life of God within the believer as being like a well-spring of fresh water: “The water that I will give them will become a spring, welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). With this image, Jesus teaches us…
All Catholics worth their salt know that love is the meaning of life. In the First Letter of St John, we read that “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8), and in response to the lawyer of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus confirms that the summation of the law and prophets is found in love, affirming, “You shall…
I happened to be on vacation in lovely Baltimore in West Cork recently. I discovered something unusual for an Irish village or town. There was not a Catholic church building in sight. Yes, a lovely Church of Ireland building was visible on the main street, and it was closed on the day of my search.…
Charity (agape),” writes St Paul in his Letter to the Romans, “does no wrong to one’s neighbour; therefore charity is the fullness of the Law.” Charity does not denote any kind of love. It is a love whereby one sacrifices oneself for God and, consequently, for one’s neighbour. It is, moreover, a supernatural kind of…
Colleen Hoover self-published her first book. That isn’t unusual. Since then she’s sold twenty million of them. That is. The first time I saw a novel of hers on screen was It Ends With Us. She followed it up with It Starts With Us. (That sounds like an Irish sequel). It Ends With Us dealt…
Sometimes the weight of pain from watching the news can become too much. Thursday of last week was a case in point. There was the ongoing bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine by the Russian army – in particular the strikes on two buses which killed 33 people – particularly cynical and brutal. An apartment…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan