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…
It was a warm June Wednesday in Barcelona. Fresh off a few days in Rome, my friend and I had set out for the day, wandering the streets aimlessly and taking in the new foreign city. As we were strolling, we came across a large group of clergy in their vestments. Instinctively, I thought they…
Fifty-six years ago my father died, late on a December night. As clearly as I remember his death, I remember the bitter cold. Within a day the temperature dipped to minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. I was still young; too young (I thought, at the time) to lose a father. Later, I’d realise I was wrong.…
Mass Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10 Romans 8:9, 11-13 Matthew 11:25-30 Anyone who has ever worked for some time in the countryside knows the quiet strength of a donkey. It will never win a race. It does not impress anyone by its appearance. Yet it patiently carries burdens day after day without demanding attention. It is…
Q: I have a question about the last judgement. When Jesus comes again to judge us all, how public will this be? As in, will everyone know each other’s sins when this happens? A: There is a lot that we simply don’t – and indeed, can’t – know about what our first-hand experience of…
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,…
Jesus said: take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls The Gospel Matt 11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and…
Before Mother Maria Catherine Iannotti entered the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate as a Catholic religious sister, she was somewhat frightened by how serious their foundress, Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, looked in photos. Her perspective changed, however, when another sister encouraged her to keep Mother Tallon’s photo in her room and pray for her intercession…
Over twenty thousand adults and adolescents were baptised into the Catholic Church in France at Easter this year. The island of Ireland has roughly one tenth of France’s population, so an equivalent number here would be two thousand. I smiled when I read that the influx in France represents a ‘major challenge’ to the French…
In St Peter’s Square in Rome, the great colonnades of Bernini begin at either side of the Basilica and wrap around most of the square’s perimeter. In the mind of the architects, the body of the basilica was designed to symbolise the body of Christ, the dome symbolised Christ the head of the Church and…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Fr Dominik Domagala