20 Apr 2016 |
Michael McVeigh
Pope Francis’ latest exhortation has come out just in time for me, as I prepare to be married in June.
While many have focused on the aspects to do with the divorced and remarried, and couples in crisis, I’ve chosen to focus my reading more on what the Pope is saying in the exhortation about our relationship with God and with each other.
09 Apr 2016 |
Susannah Bishop
Easter is that season where ‘Alleluias’ are plenty, where the dazzling figure of a levitating Christ, shows his open but bloodless wounds across churches. And why wouldn’t we celebrate? It is all so bright and joyous! Soon enough we will go back to the tried roads of ordinary time, when we go back to having God in heaven, death below and us wandering somewhere in the middle.
28 Mar 2016 |
Susie Hii
‘Do you love me?’ Jesus asked Peter three times, to Peter’s annoyance (John 21: 15- 17).
26 Mar 2016 |
Steph Unger
I'm well loving Easter this year... It's just really special this time around for some reason. As Lent drew to an end and I entered Holy Week, I was relishing this time of the year more than ever. I work as a youth minister in a parish, and I’m finding myself inspired and touched by the gift of young people, their insights, and our faith.
16 Mar 2016 |
Mary O’Brien
Recently, I was asked to talk about survival. Yet, the things I’ve survived aren’t a patch on some of the issues others have survived. Some people have survived horrendous upbringings, illness, accidents, natural disasters, crime, injustice, or other catastrophes. Mine are what people call ‘first world problems’.
09 Mar 2016 |
Beth Doherty
‘My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms’ wrote Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. These words were likely written between 1960 and 1975.
05 Mar 2016 |
Andy Hamilton SJ
Cultural diversity is a fact of our daily lives. In the streets we see people with turbans, head scarves, clerical collars, the latest sneakers, Armani suits, smell people with Chanel perfume, hear Greek music from the next car, and walk past people playing bocce and others doing Tai Chi in the parks. And mostly we appreciate all this diversity as a blessing.
24 Feb 2016 |
Genevieve Nicoll
It started with a billboard next to a quaint Anglican church in Copenhagen, last July. I was travelling for a wedding and very much enjoying the lack of schedules on my holiday. For once, there was nowhere I had to be, nothing I had to do. This made me more receptive when I stopped to read the priest’s message. He spoke of rest and recreation as “goods” in themselves and that we didn’t have to justify taking a break on the grounds that it would make us more productive. He said that ‘on the contrary, Sabbath rest is an intrinsic and indispensible part of the divine cycle of creation and re-creation.’ The bit that really made me pause was when he said that: ‘taking time away from the incessant demands of phones, emails and social media might be one of the most counter-cultural things that people of faith can do in today.
01 Feb 2016 |
Andrew Hamilton SJ
The best spiritual guides both comfort and provoke us. Pope Francis is no exception.
27 Jan 2016 |
Andrea Grant
I’ve returned to work for 2016, fresh from a delightful holiday with my family touring our nation’s capital. It was one of those family holidays that lifelong memories are made of: a road-trip, late night board-games, corny puns, sun burn and many many laughs and hugs. One of those ‘you really had to be there’ experiences.