Fr John is Vocations Director in the Diocese of Cloyne.
Ar mhothaís riamh go raibh rudaí imithe sa mhullach ort, ag obair nó i gcaidreamh éigin? Táimíd go léir taréis “droch lá sa oifig” a bheith againn. Sa bhaile b’fhéidir, nó B’fhéidir go mbaineann sé codhladh na hoiche dinn le barr buairt agus imní, gur mhaith linn rith agus ealú uaidh ar fad seachas seasamh…
When Our Lady appeared at Knock, she brought the men in her life! The three men featured, in order, in the Gospel are St Joseph, Jesus and St John. The inclusion of St Joseph and St John is a reminder of their relationship with Our Lady and their roles in Her life. While he has…
This feast has its origin in 1920 when the Pope at the time realised that there was the threat of much social chaos in Europe – in fact it was already present, at the overthrow and assassinations of kings and emperors in Portugal, Spain, Austria-Hungary and Russia – in the previous decade. Hence the decade…
Every generation has its naysayers and prophets of doom. I knew a man once, now gone to his eternal reward, who was convinced that the world would end in 1984 – 100 years from the date that Pope Leo XIII composed the St Michael prayer, in 1884, allegedly with a prophecy that Satan would be…
Those Pharisees! They keep showing up at awkward moments in the narrative of the Gospel – those pesky taskmasters. Like the bad guy in a play, or those baddies in beloved Christmas pantomimes, trying to foil goodness! Wouldn’t they just leave Jesus alone, cop themselves on and get over themselves?! You want to shake them…
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. Prayer is a mystery. Today we are being taught about the necessity of intercessory prayer and persevering in order not to lose heart- to pray every day. The examples of Moses with uplifted arms and the widow’s relentless pursuit of…
What the Knock apparition teaches us about being bearers of light One of the outstanding features of the Knock apparition, to those who saw it, was its brilliance. The apparition occurred on August 21st, 1879, as the evening was beginning to darken in the relentless rain. The figures were described as “all lit up”…
In this fourth article on Knock, we focus on the Cross in the background of the vision. The silence of the apparition encompasses the Cross. On Good Friday, after Jesus died on the Cross we read in the Gospel “there was a great darkness over all the land” (Luke 23:44). There is silence; there are…
We continue our series on the Knock apparition. Having reflected on the elements of silence, the Lamb of God, and the Cross in the vision, we now turn to the person of Our Lady. From a Marian perspective, the Knock apparition stands out on its own compared to others such as Lourdes, Fatima, or Guadalupe.…
In the two previous articles, we considered Knock as a uniquely silent apparition. We saw firstly the importance of silence as a necessary preparation to ponder and reflect. We focused on the absolute silence of The Lamb of God. But there is a third reason for the silence of the vision before us. Silence accompanies…