Jesus, ‘remember’ me when you come into your kingdom (Lk 23:42). The prayer of the Good Thief on Calvary is one of the most profound expressions of the human longing for remembrance. Facing death, he does not ask for power, privilege, or earthly consolation. He asks to be remembered. Human existence is inseparable from memory.…
Nettuno is an Italian coastal town about seventy kilometres south of Rome. I often travel there by train on my days off to walk the beach and pray. Nettuno is famous for a huge Military Cemetery where thousands of soldiers are buried who were killed during the Second World War in January 1944 when Allied…
Because J.R.R. Tolkien was a serious Catholic, one might assume religion would be obvious in his literary masterpiece. Yet there is no religion in The Lord of the Rings in the usual sense. There is magic and even glimpses of the demonic, but the world Tolkien creates is wholly contained within itself: large, old, mythological,…
A peculiar thing happened at the Irish Reformation Parliament, held in a number of sessions between 1536-1537. As the name indicates, the Parliament was called to enact the Reformation of Henry VIII in Ireland, a venture that had just been completed in England. Bringing Henry’s Reformation to Ireland involved a series of enactments, most notably…
Who are we really? Who are we when we are stripped naked in soul: stripped of ego, stripped of the image we have of ourselves, stripped of the hype, fads, and ideologies that we unconsciously inhale and which colour our thinking, stripped of the trauma we carry from our wounds, and stripped of our habitual…
It’s not just about external forms and structures, what’s more important is the spiritual depth that shapes the Church,” hears Pedro Esteva. As Lent begins, many Catholics ask what shape these forty days should take. Giving something up. Adding extra prayer. Fasting more seriously. Yet there is always a temptation to approach the season as…
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…
Catholics and people worldwide associate St Valentine’s feast day with love and romance. Here are five married couples who are saints today because they lived out a vocation of love for each other – and for God. 1. Sts Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin (Zélie) Pope Francis canonized the French couple Louis Martin (1823-94) and…
The renowned anthropologist Mircea Eliade once issued this warning: “No community should botch its deaths.” He’s right. Death washes clean and only after someone is gone can we fully drink in the gift that he or she was for us and the world. On January 22 the Christian community, and the Catholic Church in particular,…
Ecclesiasticus 15:16-21 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 Matthew 5:17-37 An enlightened Christian — one touched by the light of God’s wisdom — knows how to live. There is no need for constant excuses, no room for clever manoeuvring around God’s commandments. Such behaviour does not befit a disciple of Christ. The follower of Jesus is called to…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Fr John McCarthy
Fr Dominik Domagala