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...
Blog
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...
Lorenzo RIP
Few people have had as significant influence on my life as Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, and it was with great sadness that I learned of his death earlier today. You...
October “Traces”
One of the highlights of my monthly reading is the Traces magazine of the Communion & Liberation community. A couple of months ago the decision was taken to no...
Francis the teacher
Last week a parishioner asked me “what is our pope up to?” The parishioner was puzzled and concerned by many media comments suggesting that major changes to church...
synod & chickens
News headlines this week reported an “earthquake” in Rome with the publication of the mid-term report from the two week Synod: "Pastoral challenges to the family in the...
Teresa at 500
This year's celebration of the feast day of the 16th century Spanish saint Teresa of Avila is especially significant because in March of next year we will mark 500...
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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.