Every Easter I look out for some innovative religious programmes and I wasn’t disappointed this year. One of the most imaginative was Heavenly Gardens (BBC1) which had an episode for Good Friday and one for Easter Sunday. Actor and singer Alexander Armstrong along with garden designer Arit Anderson (familiar to viewers from Gardeners’ World) presented…
In what has become a tradition, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has established Good Friday afternoon at the National Concert Hall as an occasion for Bach through either one of his two Passions or something else from the treasury of his choral works. Due to my commitment to my own church’s liturgies I have had…
The cover of Prof. Fr Thomas O’Loughlin’s new book Eating Together, Becoming One (reviewed in our issue of April 2) carries an image that very powerfully evoked themes that the author has explored as an historian and theologian. As a cover image it lost some of its impact as a work of art. In this…
Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians by Thomas O’Loughlin (Liturgical Press Academic, $US29.95/£19.99; available in several formats, search www.litpress.org.uk; orders@norwichbooksandmusic.co.uk) This is the latest book by well known historian Thomas O’Loughlin, the prominent Irish theologian and liturgist, who was elected president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain in 2016.…
Food, Feast and Fast: The Christian Era from Ancient World to Environmental Crisis by P. Fintan Lyons OSB (Columba Books, €19.99) Reading Fr Lyons’ title, one’s mind turns back at once to Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat and seven lean cows, and seven ears of corn ripely full, and seven ears thin and…
The World of Books by the Books Editor This year we are celebrating Easter in a time of trial. With so many of us being isolated, or rather ‘cocooned’ we have to celebrate much as the very early Christians did, just within the family circle – and indeed as Jews today still celebrate the…
I wonder what would be filling our news programmes if it wasn’t for Covid-19. Yes, I’ve got FOMO – fear of missing out! Yet it’s a serious question as significant events creep under the radar – it shows how important it is to check out and support reliable newspapers, to get a more rounded sweep of…
In these strange times when people can’t get to the cinema I thought it might be an idea to let you know of an American channel where you can watch Christian films at a low cost. It’s called the New Faith Channel and you can join up for $5.95 a month, or the euro equivalent.…
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (William Collins, £12.99/€18.19) This is a famous book of apologetics which is splendid to see back again in the shops. Mere Christianity is a collection of three books: Broadcast Talks (1942), Christian Behaviour (1943) and Beyond Personality (1944). These in turn were printed versions of a series of talks on Christian…
Early Irish Saints by John J. Ó Ríordáin (Columba Books, €12.99) When people talk in general about the saints of early Christian Ireland, that is those three or four centuries after St Patrick, they often emphasise their travels across Europe, adding in as an extra measure some comments on the relevance of this to the…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone