The recent Synod of Bishops in Rome on the Word of God (October 2008) highlighted ways of more effective proclaiming the Word of God in today’s world and having it inspire the lives of Christians. In anticipation of this, the Cloyne Commission for Liturgical Formation last year produced two beautiful [...]
We follow Ignatius with Brian Grogan SJ as he goes to Rome and on to Venice hoping to go to Jerusalem.
This book by Mgr Charles G. Vella, who has had long experience as a hospital chaplain, stresses the humanising and healing effects of the simple communicative acts of listening, caressing, smiling, stopping by and giving time to sick patients and not treating them as a number. Useful for anyone working [...]
There was a time, says Paul Andrews SJ, when the Irish Church needed the metaphor of the light of the world. for instance, in famine times when it gave us an identity to survive misery. Perhaps now it is time for another image: yeast in the dough, working for good [...]
Pilgrim, mystic, carer of lepers, civil war victim: Charles Moore tells story of the extraordinary life in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) of Catholic convert, John Bradburne.
Fr Bernard responds to a grandparent who is upset at seeing the lack of religious values being trasmitted to her grandchildren.
Businessman and Senator Feargal Quinn, former Director of Superquinn, tells how being in touch with his dead father has strengthened his faith in the hereafter.
I’m worried that our non-church-going guests might not feel at home?
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy on why now more than ever, in the aftermath of clerical sex abuse scandals, the Church must be the advocate of children.
Sister Carla Simmons writes about bringing home care to families living with AIDS in Uganda. She is a sister-doctor of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. This article first appeared in Healing and Development, a publication of the Medical Missionaries of Mary.
Kevin describes how counselling helped him to get to the bottom of his grief after the sudden death of his wife – by getting him to deal first with a much older source of grief.
Déanann Breandán Ó Doibhlin cur síos ar Imlitir an Phápa Eoin Pól ar an Phaidrín Bheannaithe.
Mary was at home in Nazareth, looking forward to being married to Joseph. She was probably a teenager at the time because in those days it was usual to get married when you were between 13 and 16. She was a good Jewish girl and would no doubt know all [...]
“There were shepherds in the fields, watching over their flocks by night.” Shepherds were poor people, they were not paid good wages. Usually they did not own the sheep, but were just paid to look after them by the owner. Jesus talked about the hired shepherds running away from the [...]
Michael Hurley SJ, renowned Irish ecumenist and co-founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics, looks back over forty years of ecumenical experience.
For many years Fr Niall O’Brien has been a promoter of active non-violence. He has a few suggestions for those who ask “What can I do?”.
Celestine Cullen OSB, a former headmaster of Glenstal Abbey school, is optimistic about the young people and has simple advice for their frustrated parents.
Mark Raper SJ and Amaya Valcárcel outline a Christian response to the plight of refugees. This is Chapter 6 of Raper and Valcàrcel’s book, ‘Refugees and forcibly displaced people’.
Michael Mullins’ lengthy commentary examines the different methods of interpretation of St John’s gospel and sets them in the context of a literary approach. Fr Mullins is a priest of the diocese of Waterford and Lismore and a lecturer on scripture at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.
John Scally takes a look at the remarkable work which Seán McDonagh SSC has done to promote the ecological movement among Christians and to develop in people a Christian sense of responsibility towards all creation.
Sean Goan sees Jeremiah as one of the most appealing of the Old Testament prophets, especially because of his very human struggle with his calling.
Philip Fogarty SJ responds to the disappearance of the sense of God’s presence in the secular culture of our day, and he broaches in particular the question of how God can be understood in the context of a world of suffering.
Sean O’Conaill argues that we’re wrong to suppose that psychic buoyancy and emotional autonomy are the norm in mental health. We are relational, not autonomous, beings; and it is in the context of relationships, friendship, and love that emotional health is best considered.
Jim Auer reflects on how all of us end up, like Christ, on Calvary, over and over in our lives; yet we can be assured that there is no dying without a rising, no Good Friday without an Easter.
Amid the chaos and the beauty of the contemporary world Enda McDonagh sees the Other, the Holy, still powerfully present and urges us to be open. We will find, he says, that the Other is both gift and call, costing and fulfilling not less than everything.
Columban Missionary Fr Seán McDonagh looks at one of the earth’s most endangered natural resources.
Conventional thinking sees grieving as something to be “got over”, “recovered from”. In this practical handbook for grievers, Jerusha Hull McCormack urges us, on the contrary, to “properly attend to” the pain of grief. Grief can then be seen as a quest that leads to discoveries that transform your whole [...]
Did Our Lady spend her last days in a small mountainside house overlooking Ephesus? Donald Carroll looks at the background to a great archaeological find near Kushadasi on the Aegean coast of Turkey.
Ronald Rolheiser plots the course and pain of growing in the spiritual life.
Sean Goan sees the book of Ezekiel, characterised by prophecies based on four strange visions, as one of the most interesting and challenging in the Old Testament.
