There is an old adage that we build our buildings and then our buildings build us. This is most true of a Catholic church
architecture
church beauty
We call things beautiful when they reveal to us their inner essence, their reality as understood in the mind of God, who knows no untruth and inspires people to act toward the Good
building blocks
Today's offering from The Liturgy Guys is especially timely for the parishes in our Christchurch diocese that are in the process of building or restoring churches. The...
build or restore?
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...
over the hill
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...
a new earth
This week-end's (6 August) feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus has got me thinking again about church building. Let me explain the connection. In recent weeks I have...
building a church
Five years on from the devastating Canterbury earthquakes, a number of parishes around the diocese are looking to build new churches to replace destroyed and damaged...
building beauty
One of my classes this morning with Denis McNamara got me thinking anew about beauty. It is commonly commented that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but certainly...
church building
I was speaking to a Christchurch diocese parishioner a few weeks ago who is a part of her parish committee preparing to rebuild their parish church. I was surprised to...
Sagrada Familia
One of the must-see places in Spain is the Basilica of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It is 130 years since construction of this magnificent church began, and it is...
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the adventure
It’s easy to make the mistake of seeing life as a treadmill, day after day ups and downs, a movement through time from youth to old age, then death and beyond.
Too often if feels as if we are helplessly captive carried along by the momentum of all that is expected of us and demanded from us, and we risk falling into an existence mode, a daily rhythm of survival, enduring, coping and so the treadmill rolls on.
the bigger picture
Over the years, and even in recent months, weeks and days, I’ve prayed many prayers which have not been answered as I had hoped.
You’ve probably had the same experience: praying and wondering if and when or how your prayer will be answered.
moving waters
Bible questions still pop up regularly in quiz shows and they often cost otherwise sharp players much needed points.
I’m ready for a question asking for the two names for the last book of the Bible. The book often known as Apocalypse is perhaps more often referred to as the Book of Revelation.
It’s common (thanks to movies) to think of an apocalypse as a devastating and unwelcome time of destruction.
to dream
The pics I use on these daily posts are sometimes snapped by me, and often borrowed from free-use websites. I thought it might be interesting to move towards using only my own snaps, and then only those taken in the past 24 hours. We’ll see how I go.
I took the pic above yesterday morning on an early walk.
to really see
Perhaps we find the miracles of Jesus too difficult to understand. How can we cope with what we may not have seen with our own eyes?
Many people cope with the miraculous by reducing it to what they can understand. They say Jesus just increased the blind man’s psychological vision, or opened his eyes of faith rather than actually giving him physical sight.