Do you feel like you’re on a treadmill that never stops? Do you need some quiet time? Some family time? Some time when you can renew your mind, your body and your spirit? Then maybe it’s time to reclaim Sunday as a day of rest! There was a time when Sunday was a special day.…
There is a saying, dubiously attributed to St Francis de Sales but it sounds more like Venerable Fulton Sheen to me: “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer every day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.” It’s a clever phrase – and true, too. When parenthood and…
We all like things neat, uncomplicated and in good order. But as we step over the threshold into the virtual world created by artificial intelligence, it seems to me that inclination may be more problematic than ever. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a number of images circulating on social media. A baby dolphin,…
Q: A Catholic doctor who has to prescribe birth control pills as part of his job does not agree with the Church’s teaching on contraception. He says the Bible does not talk about contraception. If contraception is stopped completely, abortions will go through the roof. Doesn’t it make sense for Third World countries to use…
What has been given you to carry? Where do the needs and pains of others conscript your freedom? When is freedom mitigated by circumstance? What are the situations that you are born into or meet in life to which you must respond, perhaps even at the cost of your life? What may you not walk…
The Sunday Gospel Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24 Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15 Mk 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43 Deep below the outskirts of Rome is a vast network of underground tunnels and chambers, known as the Roman catacombs. There, the early Christians made burial spaces outside the city walls where…
According to the renowned mystic, John of the Cross, we have three essential struggles in life: to get our lives together, to give our lives away, and to give our deaths away. What is asked of us in the first two struggles is more obvious. But what does it mean to give our deaths away?…
When an individual or secularised culture has largely abandoned Faith, the Virgin Mary often lingers in grace-filled whispers. Take the ‘Hail Mary pass’ in football, or the lovely musical renditions of the ‘Ave Maria’, both of which remain popular in secular society today. As the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris burned in 2019, strains…
Q: John 6:54 states the following: “Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.’” I just met a sister in Christ who has a problem. She has a common law spouse and…
Jb 38:1, 8-11 Ps 107:23-24, 25-26, 28-29, 30-31 2 Cor 5:14-17 Mk 4:35-41 Rembrandt got it. Centuries ago, the artist captured the scene in this Sunday’s Gospel – a scene full of raging waves and gathering clouds and sheer, unabashed terror. The apostles are screaming in fear. One of them is leaning over the side…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser