Category: Your Faith

Daily prayer proves to be the most perfect tonic!

Michelle Burke Michelle Burke reflects on the annual Youth 2000 Christmas Retreat Amid the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations, over 800 young people gather to prepare themselves spiritually for Christ’s coming. The annual retreat,organised by Youth 2000 in Newbridge Co. Kildare, draws hundreds of young people between 16 to 35 from all over Ireland…

Chicken pox is a grim rite of passage for kids. In my family, we even have photos of my brothers and I proudly showing off our spotty backs. Indeed, one of my earliest memories is finding this strange crop of itchy spots all over.  Last week, it was the turn of our children to undergo…

I was in a bit of a panic the other day when I realised how close it was to Christmas. While my children love counting how many sleeps until the big celebration, these festive countdowns make me break out in a cold sweat.  Christmas expectations and the pressures to please everyone seem to banish any…

After the hustle and bustle of Christmas, it can be very therapeutic and uplifting to get out into the garden in January. The garden itself is a skeleton of its usual, colourful, vibrant self. This makes it easy to see and reach the bits that need attention.  Give wisteria its winter pruning now. It's pruned…

We’re incredibly lucky if we ever get a White Christmas in Ireland. When it snows, we’re given a whole range of festive outdoor activities to enjoy such as skiing or sleighing. But even if there’s no snow this year, you will enjoy making this little sleigh to hang on your Christmas tree or to prop…

We were driving to Dublin from Donegal a few weeks ago, and there, on the side of the road beside a field was a bed. It was a double divan bed, the base lying at one side, the mattress over at the other side of the gate. It is not as if someone had been…