I spent a couple of hours during the week with the teachers in one of our Catholic primary schools.
Good Friday
Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering,
facing fear
We spend most of our lives running from death and the daily moments that feel deathly. We do our best to avoid such uncomfortable realities and expend time, energy and resources trying to avoid anything that hints at death.
Good Friday
There is one moment in the year when Christians around the world gather at the same hour, 3.00pm on Good Friday for the celebration of the Lord's Passion. This is one...
the Triduum
These three days, from Holy Thursday evening until the Saturday evening Vigil of Easter, are at the heart of our life as Christians and therefore the core of our human...
Ave Verum
The depths of human pain, suffering and grief can produce some of the most exquisite beauty in art. The suffering and death of Jesus is an example, and one of the most...
the CROSS road
This evening I plan to be at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament choir and orchestra performance of Bach's St. John's Passion. Details below. But before then, at...
these three days
This Holy Triduum beginning with this evening's Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper is at the heart of our Christian faith, and therefore at the centre of our human...
Christians together
This Good Friday morning, in the Good Shepherd Hurunui parish, and around NZ as in other parts of the world, Christians of all denominations gather to carry the cross...
facing fear
The liturgy of Good Friday gives us an opportunity to face our greatest fear, the fear of death.
Latest Posts

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.