The disciples heard Jesus say some incredible things. But his call to forgive and to love enemies must have truly shocked them!
Sunday 18 March 2012
Sunday 4 March 2012
Heaven is all around us as we pray to Our Father.
Sunday 19 February 2012
Sunday 5 February 2012
The great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, saw beauty as a joyful experience that calls us out of ourselves to connect with others, and most importantly, to connect with the mystery of God.
Sunday 11 December 2011
This Advent, Walker Percy's words can perhaps be a call for us to 'come back' to our human personhood, to relationship, to the admission of inadequacy, to love and transcendence.
Friday 25 November 2011
By Br Mark O'Connor FMS
Weakness and cowardice have forever been part of the human condition. But so have courage and fortitude.
Friday 11 November 2011
By Br Mark O’Connor FMS
The marvellous Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann tells a story of somebody forgetting to whom things belong.
Friday 28 October 2011
Robbie Burns once famously cried out: “O would some Power the gift to give us / To see ourselves as others see us!”
Friday 14 October 2011
By Br Mark O’Connor Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. Leon Bloy
Thursday September 2011
Sometimes we feel very much alone. But we are never really alone in the mystery of Christ.
Friday 16 September 2011
By Br Mark O’Connor FMS One of the fruits of the Spirit is compassion. How beautiful it is to see this work of mercy in others – and even better to practise it in ourselves.
Friday 2 September 2011
Rabbi Abba (the scribe of the Zohar) once sat at the gateway of the Town of Lud. He saw a traveller sit down on a pile of rocks at the edge of a mountain overlooking a cliff. The man was exhausted from his journey and immediately fell asleep. R Abba watched this innocuous scene for a bit until to his dismay he watched as a deadly snake slithered out of the rocks making its way towards to the sleeping man.
Friday 19 August 2011
Bearing wrongs patiently does not come easily to most of us. However, ‘joining the human race’ often means accepting that the price of love is frequently allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and at risk of being hurt by others.
Friday 5 August 2011
Cardinal Basil Hume OSB once remarked that we have lost the virtue of ‘fraternal correction’ in the contemporary Church. Amid the bewildering pace of life and change and the pluralism all around us, it does seem a daunting challenge (and perhaps even a bit unwise) to urge people to ‘correct’ each other.
Friday 22 July 2011If faith is a relationship, it will have its ‘ups and downs’ – like all relationships that matter. We should not be surprised then that we all go through seasons of questions, doubts and aridity in our experience of believing.
Friday 8 July 2011
Our Tradition is so rich in wisdom. Our Catholic practice of the ‘Spiritual Works of Mercy’ is but one example of that depth. For the Spiritual Works of Mercy help us disciples explore how we can dwell in the mercy and tenderness of God, as Jesus our brother guides us on the journey of faith, a journey that is unique for each person.
Friday 24 June 2011
By Br Mark O’Connor FMS In 1974, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Denial of Death. The fear of our eventual extinction is so terrifying, so anxiety producing, Becker argued, that virtually all cultures construct elaborate schemes to deny our mortality and enable us to believe that we are immortal. In fact, Becker believed that perpetuating this denial of death constitutes one of the chief functions of culture.
Friday 10 June 2011
Friday 27 May 2011