A question: Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? In recent days I have watched a couple of videos from Brian Holdsworth who is passionate about getting the message of faith into the public square. This brief four minute clip is especially helpful for our Christchurch diocese where a number of parishes are engaged […]
TED introduces Pope Francis: “A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you, says His Holiness Pope Francis in this searing TED Talk delivered directly from Vatican City. In a hopeful message to people of all faiths, to those who have power as well as those who don’t, the […]
It has been over a week since we finished our Food For Faith for Lent pilgrimage. The last post was on the morning of Easter Monday when I invited your comments and feedback. Your response was overwhelming, both in numbers and depth of your comments, suggestions and reflections. Thank you. The days of the Triduum were […]
The poppy from Flanders Field in Belgium has become the most visible symbol of Anzac remembrance. When I was a very young child my father taught me the John McCrae poem: “In Flanders fields, the poppies blow, beneath the crosses…” Today New Zealanders and Australians will wear poppies in remembrance. We are in the midst […]
In the Jubilee year 2000, Pope John Paul initiated this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, as Divine Mercy Sunday. In his homily on that first Divine Mercy Sunday, as he canonised a Polish nun Faustina Kowalska as a saint of the Church, he proclaimed: “It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes […]
Happy Easter on this second day of the Octave of Easter. At one of our Lenten evening sessions I asked the question, “how many Easter Sundays are there in ten years”? Naturally most people responded “ten”. But there are really eighty! This is because every day of the Easter Octave (from Easter Sunday to the following […]
Happy Easter. It is late Saturday evening as I write. I am just back from the Easter Vigil at Hanmer Springs, a wonderful celebration of faith and new hope. Happy Easter especially to the great community of friends who have followed this daily Food For Faith Lenten journey from dozens of countries around the world. It […]
Most of us if asked “where do you live” would probably respond with a street address. But imagine that someone asks you this as a significant meaning-of-life question, what would you answer then? The question is in significant part about where your mind and heart, energy and passions spend their time. The question is about […]
The depths of human pain, suffering and grief can produce some of the most exquisite beauty in art. The suffering and death of Jesus is an example, and one of the most beautiful works ever composed is Mozart’s Ave Verum. Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary, Who truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross […]
This evening I plan to be at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament choir and orchestra performance of Bach’s St. John’s Passion. Details below. But before then, at 3.00pm in Hawarden, I will unite with Christians around the world for the solemn Celebration of the Lord’s Passion. This liturgy seems to focus on death, a […]
This Holy Triduum beginning with this evening’s Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper is at the heart of our Christian faith, and therefore at the centre of our human existence. So often we struggle to make sense of the joys, griefs, hopes and anxieties of every day, and in our confusion we grasp at anything […]
In the midst of Holy Week I can’t resist paying a tribute to John Clarke, best known in New Zealand for his Fred Dagg role which made him a part of our national lore from the moment of his first TV appearance as Dagg on Country Calendar in 1974. John Clarke died this week aged 68 […]
The Monday evening of Holy Week is a highlight for a priest in the diocese of Christchurch. At 5 in the afternoon we gather to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation together. It is both humbling and moving to be a brother among brothers as we confess our sin and receive God’s forgiveness through a brother […]
You will read this on Monday, but I’m writing on Sunday night, the end of a full day. It’s brisk outside, “a touch autumnal” as Bishop Ashby used to say. But the cool air is not enough to put me off stepping outside at 10.15pm to barbecue the steak I am now enjoying. If I […]
You might like to join me in considering this week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday as a week of retreat in daily life. For a Christian, to retreat is not to run from reality. Instead a Christian retreatant is seeking to engage with the reality that is greater and therefore more real than much of what […]
