Zoom orchestras and WhatsApp quizzes: Dublin charity St Agnes CCMA have had to innovate to bring music to their community writes Ruadhán Jones The lockdown may be coming to an end for many, but for those with underlying conditions caution will continue to be the order of the day. Pauline McHugh is 75 and suffers…

Supporters of Catholic education should not be passive in the face of threats to an authentic, faithful and confident religious ethos in Irish schooling writes Dr Tom Finegan The term ‘religion’ is mentioned only once in the 139 page Programme for Government (PfG) adopted by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. On the…

The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. “The reason that I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding.” Jesus knew that people would listen to stories and remember them. Parable sounds like parallel. A parable is a story that runs parallel to life, like…

The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. “I bless you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, for hiding these things from the learned and clever and revealing them to mere children.” It’s easy to return thanks when things are going well and we are aware of God’s favours but it takes great Faith to…

The Irish Spirit – Issue No. 8 Exclusive excerpt from Holistic Healing, A Christian Approach by Pat Collins Postmodernism maintains that the human mind cannot know absolute truth, so at best all truth is probable, partial, and provisional. Writing in par. 91 of his encyclical Faith and Reason, St John Paul II observed, “the time…

Chai Brady speaks to a widow coping with grief and single parenthood   When a freak tornado took a woman’s husband leaving her to raise her two young children by herself, faith, family and her writing helped her through the isolation and sorrow. Ohio-born and bred, Shannon Savage told The Irish Catholic that despite the…

Elderly men, deemed vulnerable by public health officials, are now expected to roll up their sleeves and get back to maintaining essential services writes Fr Paddy Byrne Since the start of Lockdown, I have celebrated 25 funerals. I pray for all families whose bereavement was so difficult because of the restrictions in place as a…

The Irish Spirit – Issue No. 7 Lorna Siggins “Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking” is an oft-quoted observation by late Spanish poet Antonio Machado. It’s one that might resonate with “quiet pilgrims”, as in the growing numbers of people in recent years who have sought solace in landscape as…

The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. Today’s Gospel, Matthew 10:37-42, is part of the instruction given by Jesus to his apostles as he prepared them to carry on his mission after his departure. He told his followers that it would be costly at times. Sometimes great personal sacrifices would have to be made.…

As the Church prepares to honour teenagers who lived lives of heroic virtue, the message is that holiness is for everyone writes Michael Kelly During his long pontificate, St John Paul II canonised 482 saints – more than his predecessors had raised to the altars of the Church in the previous 600 years. His critics…