Elizabeth Scalia In Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a point where Atticus Finch, seeking to teach his son about making reparation for damaging another’s property (and about something else, too) orders his young son Jem to visit the bedside of sickly old Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose and read aloud to…
Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ In the 1970s, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I came to know and appreciate the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. He was born in Moravia, like I was, and with a similar Jewish background. Through Husserl, I encountered Edith Stein (1891-1942). As his student, she wrote her thesis…
Thomas McDonald I have a hole in my head – an extra one, that is. It’s in the temporal bone, where a useful skull covers the superior semicircular canals, maintaining an even pressure around the delicate parts of the inner ear involved in hearing and balance. My skull is not up to this relatively simple…
Lisa Hendey In a world where the 24/7 news cycle offers a ceaseless tide of disasters, a natural Christian inclination has become a polarising catchphrase. Whether the news is yet another senseless mass shooting, a disastrous act of nature, or the illness of a loved one, there’s a one-size-fits-all, yet real, response: prayer. Unfortunately, our…
Sr Gemma Simmonds CJ Does it make sense to write about a spirituality of summer? At one level not at all, if it is to suggest that the spiritual life is subject to seasonal fluctuations, or that there is something about the summer that is more or less spiritual or spiritually-significant than any other time…
Fr Patrick Briscoe World Youth Day (WYD) brings together young people from every corner of the globe to celebrate their Catholic faith. Away from home and buoyed by the witness of their peers, it becomes possible for many to have a transforming encounter with Jesus Christ. But it is not friends, travel or universal embrace…
Effie Caldarola Today, I spent time with the Gerasene demoniac. At least I did so in my imagination. I journeyed there in prayer and then stood with Jesus, watching the tortured and screaming man descending the hillside and identifying his demons as “legion”. Praying with the imagination is a hallmark of Ignatian spirituality. It’s an…
Maria Wiering “He was the world’s flower and glory, and has rendered superfluous the writings of doctors (of theology) who shall come after him.” St Albert the Great is said to have exclaimed these words upon the news of the death of St Thomas Aquinas, his former student, in 1274 at age 48. July 18 marked the…
The Pianist, about a Polish Jew’s experience of WWII, was a bit of a passion project for its Polish-Jewish director, Roman Polanski. Since coming out in 2002, it has been hailed as a classic. It stars Adrien Brody as pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman, a real-life Holocaust survivor who wrote a memoir also called The…
Saint of the Week July 22 sees the Church celebrate another of its greatest saints; indeed, one of those closest to Christ as he walked among us. The ‘Apostle of the Apostles’ according to Christian tradition, Mary Magdalene was the first to encounter the risen Lord, the first to catch a glimpse of the heavenly…
Ruadhán Jones