We wake up into life with the incurable sense that we’re special, that we’re the centre of the universe. And, subjectively, we are! In our awareness we’re the centre of the universe and life does revolve around us. Our own being is what’s most massively real to us. As Descartes famously said, the only thing…

What does it mean to ‘be born again’, to ‘be born from above’? If you’re an Evangelical or Baptist, you’ve probably already answered that for yourself. However, if you’re a Roman Catholic or a mainline Protestant then the phrase probably isn’t a normal part of your spiritual vocabulary and, indeed, might connote for you a…

The problem in the world and in the Churches, Jim Wallis suggests, is that, perennially, conservatives get it wrong and liberals (over-reacting to conservatives) then don’t get it at all. Nowhere is this truer, I believe, than in how we discern the finger of God in the events of our lives. Jesus tells us to…

Simone Weil once commented that it’s not enough today to be merely a saint; rather “we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment”. She’s surely right on that second premise; we need saints whose virtues speak to the times. What kind of saint is needed today? Someone who can show us how we…

Each year, I write a column sharing with readers the title and a brief synopsis of the 10 books that touched me most that year. Occasionally, however, I judge a book to be exceptional enough to merit its own column.  Robert Ellsberg’s new book, A Living Gospel – Reading God’s Story in Holy Lives, is…

Growing up as a Roman Catholic, like the rest of my generation, I was taught a prayer called, The Act of Contrition. Every Catholic back then had to memorise it and say it during or after going to confession. The prayer started this way: “Oh, my God, I am truly sorry for having offended thee…

The question of intercommunion within our churches today is a big one, an important one, and a painful one. I’m old enough to remember another time – actually, to remember two other times. First, as a young boy growing up in the pre-Vatican II Church, intercommunion with other Christians, non-Romans, was a taboo. It just…

No community should botch its deaths. Mircea Eliade wrote those words and they’re a warning: if we do not properly celebrate the life of someone who has left us we do an injustice to that person and cheat ourselves of some of the gift that he or she left behind. With this in mind, I…

A common soldier dies without fear; Jesus died afraid. Iris Murdoch wrote those words which, I believe, help expose an over-simplistic notion we have of how Faith reacts in the face of death. There’s a popular notion that believes that if we have strong Faith we should not suffer any undue fear in the face of…

‘Our differences are not a 
threat but a treasure’   Jean Vanier, the Founder of L’Arche, who died in Paris on May 7, wrote the words above, but their truth is far from self-evident. One might question whether those words are simply a nice-sounding poetics or whether they contain an actual truth. Our differences, in…