This weekend's feast of the Dedication of the Roman basilica of St. John Lateran might seem like a strange focus for a Sunday. It’s not very often we get to celebrate...
Blog
Pike River
In the early 1990′s I lived for four years in the small West Coast township of Ngahere. It was a privilege to serve as the priest for the people of the Grey Valley, on...
fireworks
There’s nothing like a good fireworks display to bring crowds together with ‘ooh’s’ and ‘aah’s’ in an atmosphere of celebration. I really enjoy a spectacular display...
still close
Today, November 2, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Souls. The month of November is marked as the month of Holy Souls. In this month we take pause to remember...
horizon shifting
Perhaps the most common daily ailment in citizens of the western world is stress. Most mornings many of us wake with the sense that the things we have to do today...
happy feast day
502 years ago today Michaelangelo‘s Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were ‘completed’. I am sure that there was no coincidence in the date: the feast of All Saints was a...
saints interview
An interview for the November feasts of All Saints and All Souls at this link.
Halloween
People have always had a need for annual moments in a year that are highly ritualised around social gatherings with food and drink. Halloween has relatively recently...
restless press
There are a few websites that I choose carefully and follow closely. They provide safe surfing since I can rely on them to give a sound diet of good food for faith....
diverse & centred
In early December 1979 I met with Bishop Brian Ashby, then bishop of the diocese of Christchurch, asking if he would consider me for seminary. He asked what work I...
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let’s talk it over
In the midst of good and evil, ups and downs, and through the routines and demands of life we need to be able to express ourselves and to know that we are heard.
with many voices
I was pondering what piece of music to use tonight with the seminarians to help them to understand and appreciate how the beautiful texts of our faith can be enhanced by beautiful melody.
opening the door
The Transfiguration of Jesus is the event that opens the door between earthly ordinariness, days and weeks of routine, mundane and struggling existence, and divine eternity.
good enough
And then I was reminded at my uncle’s 90th birthday party last month of the priest who married my grandparents telling them at their 1927 wedding: “Do your best, and leave the rest to God.”
all is well
While we say that fear is an emotion we don’t like and seek to avoid, many people seem irrationally attracted to what instills and aggravates fear.