What thoughts, I wonder, are conjured up in your mind at the mention of the Enlightenment? If you are of a traditional bent you may be a bit like the 19th century French clergy who were inclined to blame everything they did not like on Voltaire and Rousseau, two characteristic adepts of the Enlightenment in…
With Book VI we are moving ever closer to Augustine’s conversion scene at the end of Book VIII, and we are halfway through all thirteen books of Confessions. In Book VI, Augustine considers his interactions with many significant people during his three to four years in Milan (from late 384 AD when he arrived as…
I once lived in community for several years with an Oblate brother who was wonderfully generous and pious to a fault. But he struggled to pick up symbol and metaphor. He took things literally. For him, what the words said is what they meant! This caused him considerable confusion and consternation when each day praying…
How can Scripture draw us more deeply to God? One ancient Christian practice offers a path: lectio divina, Latin for ‘sacred reading.’ It is one of the earliest forms of Christian prayer, long recommended by the Church as a way to let the Bible come alive in our hearts. From the beginning, Christians followed the…
Q: A Catholic Church near me is named after a certain saint, but has “protomartyr” after the name. What does this term mean? A: My guess is that the church you’re thinking of was named “St Stephen,” since “protomartyr” is a title specific to him. “Protomartyr” is a Greek term that is usually translated as…
Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Psalm 29 (28); Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17 ===== “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” Matt 3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptised by him. Matt3:14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptised by you,…
God’s eternal plan has been in place from the very beginning says Fr Dominik Domagala Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12 Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 John 1:1-18 What is the central theme of this Sunday’s readings? It doesn’t strike us immediately, but once you look closely it becomes quite clear: each reading points us back to God’s eternal plan…
What’s rather fun about an ancient personal story like Confessions is how reading it feels like travelling to a distant place in the past. Because it is so far away and rather mysterious, I find I am all the more curious and intrigued to read it. We have already discussed how relatable Augustine’s experiences and…
On this New Year’s Day and on this ‘World Day of Peace’, I join with my fellow columnists in The Irish Catholic by wishing you all a very happy New Year. I hope and pray that 2026 may be a year of peace for everyone and for our troubled world. On this day, we again dare to…
When Pope St Paul VI reformed the Church’s calendar, he restored the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, to January 1 — the ancient day on which the Church honoured her motherhood. Placing this feast on the eighth day of Christmas highlights that we cannot properly celebrate Jesus’ birth without also giving thanks for the…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Fr Dominik Domagala