Recently, the people of Cork celebrated the centenary of their annual Eucharistic Procession. The Cork Eucharistic Procession began in 1926, only a few years after the end of the Irish Civil War, and the social and political context of the time is essential to understanding its significance. After the struggle for independence and the bitterness…
At the Provincial Chapter of 2016, the Irish Dominican Province faced a painful but necessary decision. Owing to a lack of vocations over the previous fifty years, it was decided that several communities—both in Ireland and abroad—would have to close. Some of these houses had histories stretching back almost eight centuries. It was a deeply…
Recently, I had the privilege of leading a retreat for English-speaking priests in Assisi during a particularly significant Jubilee year for followers of St Francis. This year marks the 800th anniversary of his death at the Portiuncula, the small chapel at the heart of the first Franciscan community. St Francis died there on the evening…
The Edict of Milan, issued in February 313 by Constantine the Great and Licinius, stands as one of the most decisive turning points in Christian history. By granting religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire and restoring confiscated Christian property, the edict transformed Christianity from a persecuted minority faith into a legally recognised religion. Its impact…
When we were growing up, my mother always insisted that we didn’t discuss religion or politics at family gatherings. On asking her why, she would say that those subjects always ended up in a row. Of course, she had grown up in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, and politics had divided families and…
When in Rome I spent some time with a group of pilgrims on a ‘pilgrimage of beauty’ centred around the works of Fra Angelico. In preparation for meeting up with them, I visited the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi. I went there with the simple intention of spending a quiet moment before Caravaggio’s famous…
Growing up in Limerick, close by the Dominican church, our go-to saint was St Martin de Porres. So, it was a particularly memorable for me to visit Lima in Peru last week on pilgrimage. Together with another Dominican priest and 35 pilgrims we visited the ‘City of the Kings’, as Lima was known at the…
At the end of his weekly public audience on September 24, Pope Leo XIV said: “Within the Church the month of October is dedicated in a special way to the Holy Rosary. Therefore, I invite everyone, throughout the coming month, to pray the Rosary each day for peace — personally, within families, and in communities.”…
I have just returned from the general chapter of the Dominican Order in Krakow, Poland. One Sunday during the proceedings we visited the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. These camps situated in close proximity to each other were the largest and most infamous Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust. Located in occupied Poland, Auschwitz…
Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary once wrote, “Prayer is a communication with God. It must carry with it our mind, and in our mind a realisation of the great doctrines in which God reveals Himself to us and which make prayer meaningful”. This insight of the greatest evangeliser of the 20th century…