The Sunday Gospel Lent is a season of preparation for Easter when we will renew our baptismal promises to reject the wiles of Satan and to commit ourselves afresh to being a follower of Jesus Christ. Today’s Gospel (Luke 13: 1-9) is an encouragement to improve our lives with the help of God’s grace. Remember…
It is time for a call to action for Christians in the West to stand up for their embattled brethren, Chai Brady hears Given their status as a tiny minority in the region today, it’s sometimes hard to believe that the Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity. The first followers of Jesus – quickly…
This is a translation of St Patrick’s Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus where the saint excommunicated Coroticus and his followers because they had taken some of Patrick’s converts into slavery while raiding in Ireland. I declare that I, Patrick, – an unlearned sinner indeed – have been established a bishop in Ireland. I hold…
Last Sunday we were with Jesus on the Mount of Temptation. Today we see him on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). It’s such a contrast of experiences, from temptation to the vision of divine glory. He took with him Peter, John and James and went up the mountain to pray. Climbing the mountain is…
American pop-artist Andy Warhol led a life beyond the bounds of Church teaching, but his art was Christ haunted, writes Ruadhán Jones How do you reconcile two seemingly incompatible parts of the same person? Andy Warhol is arguably the most famous American artist of the 1960s and 70s. He was openly gay, unashamed to be…
Bishop Kevin Doran tells Ruadhán Jones about the lessons for Ireland from the recent symposium on the priesthood Having attended the recent three-day Vatican symposium on the theology of the priesthood, Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran believes the conference had much to offer for the Church in Ireland, at a time when vocations have plummeted.…
When I take a passage of scripture for reflection, I begin with my pencil to underline words that strike me. For the First Sunday of Lent, we have Luke’s account of the temptations of Jesus (Luke 4:1-13). First, I underlined Holy Spirit. Luke is the evangelists of the Holy Spirit so it comes as no surprise…
Dr Anca Sincan tells of the women who kept Romania’s clandestine Greek Catholic Church going under communist repression, writes Jason Osborne Catholics have never been under any illusion about persecution as part and parcel of the Faith, but World War II and the surge of Communism in Eastern and Central Europe in the mid-20th Century…
An ambitious project by Maynooth pulls together 350 years’ worth of material on Ireland’s clergy, Ruadhán Jones learns Would you like to know about the lives of Irish priests under the penal laws? Or catch a glimpse of the new vocations headed to the Irish colleges in Lisbon, Salamanca and Paris in centuries past? Perhaps…
The Sunday Gospel On this Sunday we have the third extract from the great sermon on the plain where Jesus sets out the ideals of Christian life. Last Sunday we reflected on the ideal of being forgiving and compassionate like our Father in heaven. The ideal is beyond human nature unaided, but with the supernatural…
Chai Brady
Ruadhán Jones