john oconnor

God’s kind keeping

Nov 2, 2016

It is the evening of All Souls day. Always this day is, for me as for many others, a day filled with memories of those loved and loved by who have died. As we pray in...

solving stress

Nov 1, 2016

It's the feast of All Saints today. Happy Feast day! Perhaps the most common daily ailment in citizens of the western world is stress. Most mornings many of us wake...

Hurunui’s Holy Door

Oct 31, 2016

It is a great delight for us here in the Hurunui to have, for the first two weeks of November, a Holy Door. The new entrance gate at the Amberley church has been...

build or restore?

Oct 26, 2016

The gift of Tradition In recent months I have been invited to meetings at several Christchurch Diocese parishes which are facing the building or restoring of churches...

Saint Solomon

Oct 16, 2016

On Sunday September 2, 1798, Brother Solomon Leclercq was martyred. He had a choice in the matter. He had been imprisioned in Paris and was, with a group of his fellow...

faith & commitment

Sep 23, 2016

This afternoon's diaconate ordination was a wonderful celebration of faith and commitment in this year of mercy as Cardinal John Dew emphasised in his homily. Cirilo,...

streaming live

Sep 22, 2016

www.foodforfaith.org.nz is branching out this week with our first live streaming. Four young men will be ordained as transitional deacons at Holy Cross Seminary,...

duck church

Sep 19, 2016

One of the great joys of sharing a home with another priest is the opportunity to try out our homilies on each other before we subject a congregation to our reflections...

on the bus

Sep 16, 2016

On a bus journey across the north of Italy following a faith-focussed four-day meeting of people representing 80 countries, a number of participants were interviewed....

over the hill

Sep 15, 2016

On Tuesday afternoon I drove "over the hill" to the West Coast for an evening adult formation session for the parishes of the West Coast. The drive across the alps was...