While the weather doesn’t support it at the moment, the ever-shortening summer implores us to get the grills out, writes Jason Osborne Summer’s close is always somewhat anxiety-producing as you realise how little time you have left for all of the things you wanted and planned to do during the summer. While the current weather…
Personal profile Sr Máire Bríd of the Drumcondra Redemptoristines has followed God’s call to the very margins of human experience: enclosed, monastic life. It wasn’t a step she took lightly. Asked whether it took courage at the time, she responds, “It certainly did”. “It certainly did [require courage] because it was going against the grain.…
Reading the Letters of Dorothy Day recently, I ran into this line, “doubtless we need a Savonarola as well as a St Francis”. She was speaking about what spirituality needs in order to be healthy and balanced. That triggered something inside me, something I have never been able to sort out. I have always been…
A parent’s perspective How many of us have made the mistake of comparing our family and children with some other family down the road or someone else’s children? My own late mother did it, I’ve done it and I’d say most parents have engaged in comparisons at some stage or another. When I was young,…
Donegal ram sells for record €44,000 A farmer from Co Donegal has sold a ram for €44,000, which is the highest amount ever paid for a male sheep at a sale in Ireland, RTÉ reports. The record-breaking, seven-month-old Suffolk ram attracted notice when it went on sale in Wicklow. It was sold by Ballybofey, Co.…
The summer holidays have again crept up on us. We go through our workaday, busy lives with a vague notion of respite at some distant time, until suddenly you realise that the long-promised date with idleness is next Friday. Then, panic ensues. Getting ready for holidays means work: there’s grass to be cut, bills to…
Children’s Corner The oldest evidence of the use of musical instruments dates back tens of thousand of years ago, with ancient flutes often discovered carved out of bone. Humanity has certainly come a long way since then in terms of technological advances in music and instruments. Now a person just needs a computer to recreate…
Jodi Marlin “To have…To hold…To honour: Supporting God’s gifts of love and life in marriage” was the theme of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week July 25-31 in the US. The annual educational campaign of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops aims to celebrate God’s vision for marriage and promote the methods of natural family planning…
At just 23, Luke-Peter Silke leads a very busy life. As well as studying Creative Writing in university, he is the secretarial assistant to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, a local representative for the same party and is active among many of the pro-life organisations around the country. Mr Silke believes it’s important that Catholic values…
The idea that you can’t say anything meaningful about what you don’t understand has a lot of intuitive appeal. If, after all, you know nothing whatsoever about the thing you’re talking about, then you can’t say anything whatsoever about it either. Imagine overhearing the following exchange: “I just happened across a Fringle.” “Oh cool! What’s…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Maria Byrne
Chai Brady
Ruadhán Jones
Ben Conroy