By happy coincidence I have spent time this week in the same course of study as a couple of dozen seminarians from the U.S. I have been inspired by their vocations stories and their enthusiasm
Vocations
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday (note the Gospel reading) and marked throughout the church as Vocations Sunday. As Vocations...
Vocations Sunday
When did you last suggest to someone that God might be calling them to serve as a priest? This Sunday (“Good Shepherd Sunday”, Fourth Sunday of Easter) is celebrated...
life-long adventure
As I come to the end of my summer semester of liturgical studies at the Liturgical Institute (Mundelein Seminary), I am grateful most of all for the robust vocational...
thinking next year
A few months ago I was speaking to a young person who said he hoped to know his plans for next year by the middle of this year. Since then a number of other people have...
living vocationally
Thirty-five years ago this morning (12 February 1980) I woke for the first time as a seminarian discerning a call to diocesan priesthood for the diocese of...
one priest’s life
Bishop Basil Meeking's Homily at Requiem Mass of Father Finian Conway St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral - 10th December, 2014. An era has ended with the death of Father Finian...
Good Shepherd
When did you last suggest to someone that God might be calling them to serve as a priest? This Sunday (“Good Shepherd Sunday”, Fourth Sunday of Easter) is celebrated...
Latest Posts

highway for God
Unbridled ambition is problematic and resentment is exhausting. Love, generosity and forgiveness really is foundational,

by rote
Rote learning was a norm in my primary school days, repetition of the times tables, two times two equals four, three times two

so simple
So simple that children who naturally and naively live with open eyes and ears get it, when we adults too often miss the point.

mountains & roofs
. The prevailing sense in the Old Testament was that God lived in the heavens (above). Therefore mountain-tops (where heaven and earth seem to intersect) were a logical place of encounter with the divine. We see this in Moses, the holy Old Testament leader of people,...

opportunity knocks
I find it very helpful to hear Jesus speaking directly to me, not as a fearsome threat but as an invitation to not miss the divine presence in the midst of the routines and demands, the ups and downs of my daily life.