Rohith Kinattukara You are excited. Finally you are at the Apple store to get the latest MacBook, one might say, everyone’s dream computer. You get back home and unbox your brand-new machine in all its glory and start typing away, sending emails, watching Netflix and maybe even doing some creative writing. Little do you…
Sunday Gospel Dn 7:13-14 Ps 93:1, 1-2, 5 Rv 1:5-8 Jn 18:33b-37 One thing is clear from this Sunday’s gospel: Pontius Pilate is a man looking for answers. All of what he has to say in this passage from John is offered in the form of a question. “Are you the King of…
Who do you say that I am?” It’s the question Jesus posed to the men closest to him, the one Peter answered with an unequivocal confession of faith in him as the Messiah and Son of God. The entirety of our Catholic faith rests on Peter’s response and, for 2,000 years, the Church has proclaimed…
The religion of Christ is love,” said St Teresa of Calcutta. Lord, we forget sometimes that love of You is the essence of our religion. It is the first and greatest of all commands… ‘To love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul mind and strength.’ This is why we are created,…
The Sunday Gospel Dn 12:1-3 Ps 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11 Heb 10:11-14, 18 Mk 13:24-32 Fr Joshua J. Whitfield Jesus is on the “Mount of Olives opposite the temple area” talking about the end of the world (Mk 13:3). That’s significant because according to prophecy it is from the Mount of Olives that the…
St Laurence O’Toole, known in Irish as Lorcán Ua Tuathail, born in 1128 at Castledermot, Co. Kildare, Ireland, became renowned as a reformer, peacemaker, and man of deep faith. Laurence’s early life was marked by hardship; at just ten, he was handed over as a hostage to the King of Leinster, a political practice intended…
Gerard Bennett Every now and then, you realise that you are part of something historic, quite possibly, a once-in-a-lifetime moment. In that situation, you don’t want to miss anything; you know you want to recall each part of this special time. So it was when the relics of St Bernadette visited the Oblates of Mary…
Q: Please explain what an indulgence is and how it can reduce or eliminate the time a soul must spend in purgatory. A: Indulgences are perhaps one of the more misunderstood parts of Catholic practice. But indulgences are deeply rooted in several key Catholic theological concepts, such as the nature of purgatory, the Church’s…
At the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, He chose to use two elements, bread and wine. The images are now so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we never stop to ask, why bread and wine? Among all the things Jesus might have chosen, why these two? What do they carry in themselves…
Russell Shaw Lately I’ve had occasion to read two books by St John Henry Newman. One is Newman’s first novel, Loss and Gain, while the other is that classic “history of my religious opinions” (Newman’s words), the Apologia Pro Vita Sua. Although the two volumes could hardly be more unalike in most respects, both…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser