On 24 March 1980, Archbishop Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass. He was the most high-profile victim of El Salvador’s civil war between powerful landowners and the dispossessed. This tribute is by Haydee Rodriguez, who moved to the US from Guatemala in her early teens. While studying philosophy at Loyola [...]
Borther Roger founded an ecumenical monastic community at Taizé and initiated a spiritual movement of young people working for peace.
Charles de Foucauld spent his life searching for a way to be a brother to people of all religions – especially Muslims, Jews and Christians. He wanted to found a brotherhood dedicated to this, but is was only in 1933 that the Little Brothers of Jesus were set up on [...]
Frère Roger of Taizé was a unique inspiration in ecumenical action and in interacting with the youth of the world. Fr John Murray PP gives his impression of the man and his achievement.
Dr. Stephen J. Costello, philosopher, describes himself as a seeker, searching for God within the Catholic tradition. He explains his optic
‘When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really He who is holding me and all of us, challenging the terrorists and keeping us united in His boundless love.’ These words of Fr Ragheed Ganni were spoken as his testimony at the Italian Eucharistic Congress at Bari. The [...]
Kathryn Spink describes the beginning, growth, vision and story of l’Arche, a special form of community where, for the past 40 years, people who are often rejected and despised by this world can help develop their potential of all to the full.
This book edited by Kieran McKeown and Hugh Arthurs, is about the spiritual journeys of diverse people and their personal experiences of God and religion. It chronicles the different ways in which they have been shaped and marked by their encounters with God and religion, in the broadest sense, and [...]
In June 2001, Bishop Nicholas Charnetskyj was one of five Redemptorists among 27 martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul during his visit to the Ukraine. Fr Brendan McConvery, C.Ss.R., who lectures in scripture at Maynooth University and the Kimmage Institute, tells the story of Bishop Nicholas’s heroic suffering for the [...]
Although she was only twelve when she died, Laura Vicuna had grown to a maturity of faith well beyond her years. Fr John Murray sees her life as an inspiration.
Serving as a doorman was the way Fr Solanus Casey used to become holy. He would listen to the story of everyas if he had all the time in the world….” Fr John Murray PP tells his story.
Here Christopher Moriarty introduces us to one of Ireland’s forgotten greats of the late 19th & early 20th century, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, Co Cork.
Mary Kearney tells how she experienced God in the difficulties she had in her marriage.
Jesuit student, John Callanan, tells about his experience on the “Camino de Santiago” and how interacting with some of his fellow pilgrims gave him a new sense of God.
Advertising, politics, entertainment: are we losing our grip on reality?
Henry Peel OP traces the life of Fr Peter Higgins, a Dominican priest who was martyred in Dublin in 1642, during the days of the penal laws.
Niels Stensen from a Lutheran family in Denmark brought the same relentless logic of his profession as a scientist to his pursuit of truth in the area of religion. He became singularly devoted to the Eucharist and the Scriptures. This inspired him as a bishop in Germany and northern Europe.
Paul Couturier was a priest of the Society of St Irenaeus in Lyon, France, whose vision of spiritual ecumenism paved the way for founding of the World Council of Churches in 1947 and the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second vatican Council. John Murray PP tells his story.
Lindsay tells her faith story!
John Callanan tells how a bargain struck between a mother and her daughter changed the daughter’s life and faith.
Teresita Durkan’s “Reflections on a Life” range over the seven decades of a rich spirituality from a free-ranging childhood on the Atlantic coast of Mayo, through three decades as a Sister of Mercy and re-location to Valparaiso in Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship.
In an important article about handing on the faith in contemporary Ireland, Fr Paul Andrews SJ says, “What we hand on to our children is not so much doctrine or practices, as the capacity to love”.
Miriam Duggan FMSP tells the impressive story of Teresa Kearney, better known as Mother Kevin, who worked as a missionary in Uganda and was first Superior General of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa.
Pier Giorgio Frassati lived for only twenty four years. Yet his life was so full of love for the poor that when he died the poor of Turin all flocked to his home to touch him like a relic. John Murray traces his life.
He is the Franciscan priest whom Pope Benedict canonised during his visit to Brazil.
John Murray PP tells the story of Patrick Peyton, who as a seminarian sick from tuberculosis with little hope of recovery, prayed to Our Lady and was cured. He went on to become a successful crusader for the Family Rosary with the motto: “The family that prays together stays together”. [...]
John Lonergan, the Governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, writes about his view of Christianity.
God is always with us, behind us, supporting us, loving us, ever-present – even if not seen. John Callanan SJ tells us a Christmas story that illustrates this.
This is a first-person account of a wandering pilgrim in rural Russia who wants to fulfil St Paul’s command to “pray without ceasing”. What he comes upon is the ‘Jesus prayer’ and its practice transforms his life.
