“After 39 years it is time to hand it over to someone else.” These are the words of a 80-year-old parishioner who has been in charge of the parish shop for half her life. A Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) member for over 12 years recently said, “If I don’t do it, who else will do…
Personal Profile When Declan Lawlor was coming of age as a young man at college in the 1980s, the Church in Ireland was beginning to ebb and the secular tide was rising. Declan’s own faith was drifting, but Our Lady intervened, drawing him first to Medjugorje and then to the Legion of Mary. After this,…
Pornography is the biggest addiction in the world today, and by a wide margin. Mostly it afflicts men, but is also a growing addiction among women. Much of this of course is driven by its easy and free availability on the internet. Everyone now (not least our own young children) has immediate access to it…
Marta Osborne Both myself and my wife were very concerned about the virus and reduced our social contacts to the minimum since the beginning of the pandemic. Now with restrictions lifted, we’d like to make a renewed effort with our friends and family. Any advice? Most of us breathed a sigh of relief after hearing…
Pornography is more widely available than ever before, so it’s important to be aware and educated about the threat it poses, writes Jason Osborne While technology certainly has its many advantages, one of the unfortunate aspects of it is that it allows all manner of unsavoury things to infiltrate our homes. Whereas once the television…
Medical Matters There are approximately 500 people living with motor neurone disease (MND) in Ireland with about 140 cases diagnosed every year. Though rare, in recent years, the stories of several well-known people with MND has been highlighted in the media and has increased awareness of the condition. The globally recognised ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ that…
Personal Profile Fr Jim Connolly OFM Cap. first arrived in Zambia in December 1970, one of around 50 Irish Capuchins based in the country. Almost 52 years later and one of the last two Irish Capuchins remaining, Fr Jim continues to keep up their great tradition. Fr Jim, who grew up on a small farm…
Giant pandas stay chubby on bamboo diet due to gut bacteria Despite almost exclusively eating fibrous bamboo, giant pandas manage to stay chubby and healthy due to a seasonal change in their gut bacteria, a new study has shown. Researchers have found that the animals’ gut bacteria changes at the time of year when nutritious…
The Sunday Gospel In today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 4: 21-30) we continue last Sunday’s story of Jesus returning to his home town, Nazareth, where he preached in the local synagogue. After reading from Isaiah about the power of the Holy Spirit inaugurating a time of liberation and a new way of seeing life, he handed…
Kabir, a 15th-century Hindu mystic, writes: “What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death. If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? …. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in…
Ruadhán Jones
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Dr Kevin McCarroll