Head, neck, torso bent in a curve like the bend of a river. Grasping rail. I am looking up at the spectacular dome of St Peter’s Basilica. Awe-inspiring. Vertigo-inducing. No wonder Shakespeare said that human beings are little less than gods. The Bard may have exaggerated when it comes to the rest of us, but…
What thoughts, I wonder, are conjured up in your mind at the mention of the Enlightenment? If you are of a traditional bent you may be a bit like the 19th century French clergy who were inclined to blame everything they did not like on Voltaire and Rousseau, two characteristic adepts of the Enlightenment in…
In the immediate post-New Testament period, after the event of Jesus Christ, the early Christian community was faced with a mammoth challenge. They needed to reimagine, even to reinvent, their understanding of God. A tall order! The traditional Jewish conception of God did not work anymore in the light of the New Testament talk of…
How a chance encounter with a young man gathering rubbish became a lesson in virtue The professor entered, gown flowing from tall, broad shoulders, stately, imposing, dignified. Sitting down at the top of the seminar table he announced, in urbane voice, but with a hint of country: “I’ve just overheard two students, two girls, one…
A quick look at the Great Schism and why reunion might not be far off My student days are well over. Yet I still remember having ample opportunity to study the Reformation which, as every schoolboy knows, is short for the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. And why wouldn’t I remember? It is…
The pull of Mount Athos had been there for a long time. Visiting monasteries and knowing Benedictines and Cistercians, it was likely that my sights might turn at some point in the direction of that other monasticism of the Byzantine type. After all, Latin west and Greek east were for so long one and the…
It takes time, they say, to get used to an idea. It is now two or three months since I heard of the closure of Mount Melleray and like many others, I am still trying to get my head around it. The closure is, I suppose, inescapable but the final, definitive announcement of such an…