Emily Stimpson Chapman In Rome, the churches are legion. Little parishes and great basilicas alike meet travellers on every block of the ancient city, their facades mingling with shops and restaurants, apartments and ancient ruins. Although unique visions of beauty and faith greet all those who cross the thresholds of these churches, on the outside precious few…
The real world that we experience firsthand and every day is a real setting in which faith really is meant to take form and grow. But does our firsthand acquaintance with our real world leave us wondering how it possibly could serve as an authentic faith environment? Think about it. Does your real world bear a full share of…
Saint of the week Arguably the most famous of the Church’s saints on June 29 we celebrate the feast of Sts Peter and Paul. Their influence permeates the entire Church and the world – Peter being the ‘rock’ upon which Christ chose to build his Church, Paul’s letters of guidance and encouragement being read out…
Effie Caldarola St Charles de Foucauld became one of Catholicism’s newest saints on May 15, 2022. This Frenchman was murdered in Tamanrasset, Algeria, in 1916 where he lived in a hermitage among the remote Tuareg people. At this point, eyes may glaze over. A saint who was a hermit? In the Saharan desert? What possible…
The Church has a long history of celebrating martyrs – those who died “in a supreme act of love, witnessing to their faithfulness to Christ, to the Gospel and to the Church” (Pope Benedict XVI, apostolic letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints). That logic is somewhat incomprehensible today, though. A certain amount…
www.ronrolheiser.com More than 50 years ago Philip Rieff wrote a book entitled The Triumph of the Therapeutic. In it, he argued that widespread reliance upon private therapy today arose in the secularised world largely because community has broken down. In societies where there are strong families and strong communities, he contends, there is less need…
Jem Sullivan 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a Ps 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19 Rom 6:3-4, 8-11 Mt 10:37-42 After Pentecost the Church returns to Ordinary Time in the liturgical calendar. The outpouring gift of the Holy Spirit begins a graced time of renewal in the power of God’s divine life and love that we each…
Fr Solanus Casey, a Capuchin Franciscan, moved closer to recognised sainthood with his beatification November 18, 2017, in Detroit, Michigan. Declared venerable in 1995, Fr Solanus (1870-1957) and his cause for canonisation remain important to many US Catholics. A soft-spoken Capuchin priest and son of Irish immigrants, he is one of the currently few native-born…
This mysterious, yet illuminating, figure of the early Church is heralded for two reasons: his writings in defence of what would come to be established Church teachings and his martyrdom. Strangely, we know much more about his writings than we do about his martyrdom – about which we know next to nothing, other than that…
Christian vision of the good life includes the reality of suffering, making it central to our flourishing; if we want to live a good life, we must follow Christ’s example and take up our cross. Perhaps surprisingly, a film from a culture (Japan) largely unfamiliar with Christianity offers a beautiful example of this truth of…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Ruadhán Jones