IF, as a result of the vagaries of the academic timetable at the theological college, I am unable to cycle back to the priory in time to attend the daily Conventual Mass, I instead stroll down the few blocks that separate our university campus from St Patrick’s Cathedral and attend Mass there. On certain days of the week, I am ... Read More »
“SOME people who have no faith are more Christian than Christians.” These were the interesting words of a parishioner who was a regular attendee at the Lectio Divina groups a friend and I were organising in our local parish. They are expressive of a thought that is often bandied about; the idea that a “good person” who performs a many ... Read More »
EVERY Friday night during my novitiate in Hong Kong we would gather to discuss the readings from scripture that would be proclaimed at Mass on the following Sunday. We were expected to have prayed with the Word of God, contemplated the meaning conveyed by the scriptures, perhaps read a biblical commentary or two and – if we were able – ... Read More »
SOMETIMES I feel that Advent may be the forgotten liturgical season. Lent has fasting, prayer and almsgiving; Easter exults with the joy of the resurrection; Christmas has so many gifts, baubles and decorations associated with it that to recount them would almost be redundant; and for the rest of the year we seem to readily respond to the whirligig of ... Read More »
“WELL that was a waste of time!” I recently overhead these emphatically exclaimed words. I am reluctant to provide further details as to the circumstances that gave rise to that utterance, lest some individuals reading this be able to name the culprit. It suffices to say that a deceptively pedestrian phrase set me thinking. For a Christian, can anything ever ... Read More »
FOR those of you who have visited Salisbury Cathedral, I need not relate the fact that the thirteenth-century spire of the building towers over the surrounding countryside. It is readily visible from the local train station, making it a helpful guiding landmark for any visitor who – like myself – is unable to catch the bus due to budgetary ... Read More »
I REMEMBER the Prague metro as being a rather impressive series of tunnels and spectacularly steep escalators. The descent is so precipitous that, upon first experiencing the swift and seemingly vertiginous journey into the earth, I could not help but think that I was entering into the opening chapters of a Jules Verne novel. The graffiti on the metro walls ... Read More »
WHEN the new academic term began a few months ago we were subjected to the occasional round of ‘padding’ – a lecturer, who had seemingly not prepared sufficient material for the first lesson, allowed the students to dissipate a considerable amount of time by discoursing at some length upon the intimate details of their lives. This was ostensibly undertaken in ... Read More »
IN conversation recently I have had occasion to notice an increasing number of people making ready reference to their “conscience” as justification for a particular decision or course of action. On the face of it this would seem a rather laudable development, were it not for the fact that the rapidity and regularity of the invocation has led me to ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
