As I write this, Pope Francis has just finished the St. Peter's Rome celebration of Midnight (9.30pm) Mass. His brief homily at this Mass follows: "The people who...
john oconnor
dawn from on high
It is a glorious morning here in Cheviot. I prayed sitting in the garden, the only sounds coming from neighbour's children no doubt enjoying Christmas presents. The...
Christmas poster
Each year the Communion & Liberation community marks the feasts of Christmas and Easter with a poster that brings together beautiful art with inspiring text. You...
how unexpected
The Christian community often struggles to be an effective communicator of the heart of the life of Faith. Thanks to St. Paul's Anglican Church in Auckland who in this...
no lofty idea
A couple of weeks ago the Christchurch Star newspapers called me asking for a Christmas piece. In the last few days, in their selection of local "Star" papers, they...
window with a view
It's Christmas Eve, eve today, that is, the day before the day before Christmas. I have spent some of the day travelling the Hurunui to offer the Sacrament of...
Santa’s birth
We can no longer assume that people know the meaning of Christmas. A child recently asked about the significance of Christmas replied: “it is when Santa Claus was...
turn to what is real
In the middle of the nineteenth century, much of New Zealand was divided into large runs of land for cropping and sheep farming. One of these stations was "Cheviot...
letting go
Have you ever heard a well-intentioned speaker talking of the life of faith as a journey of 'letting go'. Â Were their examples motivated by fear, or by the attraction...
deadly sins
On my sort-out of computer files this evening I found this "Spiritual Outlook" interview about the so-called "new" list of deadly sins. This news item sparked off some...
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God is…
Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.
your choice…
You would expect that any sick person would want to be healed, but Jesus understood that even unwelcome, painful and harmful realities can become attachments, burdens that we hold on to
healthy living
Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, a person experiences their powerlessness
seeing reality
Western society has reduced its understanding of ‘life’ to what is more accurately called an ‘existence’
hello brother
Then, before sundown that evening, something remarkable happened. We heard the Muslim family of faith in our city, wives and husbands, parents and children of those who had died, speaking of love