To make matters more complicated we are surrounded by signs pointing in every direction. Navigating a daily direction cannot be left to chance. It requires an intimate relationship with God and a keen and active discernment.
Chatham Islands
we will remember
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember...
Chatham ANZAC
One year ago today I was on the Chatham Islands for Anzac Day on the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign. The painting above is by one of the young Chatham Islanders....
a delighting bishop
This weekend marks one month since the death of Bishop Barry Jones, ninth bishop of the diocese of Christchurch, in the early hours of 13 February. On Monday evening...
Bp. Barry on Chats
One of the first phone calls I made on hearing of the death of Bishop Barry Jones on Saturday morning was to the furthest periphery of the diocese of Christchurch, the...
SMSM’s@Chatham
By the late 1940's the NZ government was finding it impossible to provide adequate medical care for the people of the Chatham Islands. The government made a request of...
Anzac Day
The entire morning of Anzac Day on the Chatham Islands is taken with dignified commemorations. The service at dawn is followed by breakfast. Then the parade from the...
Anzac dawn
Before dawn this morning here on the Chatham Islands, the Islanders gathered to remember that one morning before dawn 100 years ago this morning, New Zealand and...
Kaiangaroa visit
The centre of the Catholic Diocese for the past few days has been the remote Islands of Chatham and Pitt because this is where the bishop has been bishopping. We have...
Moriori
This morning, after arriving back from Pitt Island just after 7am, and before a few pastoral visits to the homes of parishioners, the bishop and I visited the Tommy...
Latest Posts
the teenagers
A few years ago I discovered the wonderful way that God uses my imagination in my prayer.
Such openness to imagination when seeking God does not take us away from reality into fantasy but instead brings me into what is most real and inescapably personal and intimate.
Annunciation
A couple of thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman was going about her normal morning routines, perhaps with a mixture of house and garden work, chatting with parents and neighbours, aware of the local drought, the sickness of a neighbour and annoyed by the neighbourhood’s lack of sleep caused by the Romans’ noisy party the night before, when God broke into her routine and entered her life in a new and powerful way.
the real centre
Over the last month I have had the opportunity to work with many people across Aotearoa and further afield. In every retreat and seminar I have been with committed and faith-filled people who often feel as though they are on the periphery of the Church
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.