‘St Francis invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants to us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. Beyond the language of mathematics and biology he takes us to the heart of what it is to be human … just as happens when we fall in love with someone … [Laudate Si 12]’ It is more than information, the Pope is saying regarding St […]
In his Jubilee letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, Pope John Paul ll, calling for ‘a new springtime of Christianity,’ had intimations of the cosmic nuances of preparing for the third millennium. He was well aware of the significance of creation theology in this regard. ‘The fact that in the fullness of time the eternal Word took on the condition of a creature, gives a unique cosmic value to the event which took place in Bethlehem two […]
Wet and weary we entered the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. The 100 km Camino walk was over and our bones ached during Mass. As we got up to leave, a huge thurible (the botafumiero) was let down on a thick rope on to the sanctuary floor. A tangible frisson of anticipation stirred throughout the packed pews. The censer weighed 80 kilos and stood 1.60 metres tall. The Camino de Santiago, the Way of St […]
Bright mornings bring the mountains to my doorstep, calm nights give the rivers their say. Some evenings the wind put its hand on my shoulder, I stop thinking, I leave what I’m doing and I go the soul’s way.’ John Moriarty Bright mornings . . . May we have bright mornings this week when the mountains of our minds become less daunting, become more accessible to us; may our morning thoughts decide the quality […]
One Easter the Harley-Davidson annual gathering took place in Killarney near where I was born. Instead of avoiding the noisy, crowded town on that week-end as many had supposed, the local people thronged the streets to see, and touch the silver, purring monsters. Parents, grandparents and small children, excitedly or wistfully, were visibly stirred by these gleaming icons of human transcendence. I wondered about the source of our innate desire for adventure, for new vistas, […]
There are places on earth that take our breath away. There are millions of wondrous species that we never even imagined. There are landscapes that are wrapped around our world like multi-coloured tapestries. Natural history programmes proliferate on our social media, and more people than ever are enchanted by them. Over 14 million of us in the UK, for instance, 80 million in China, with numbers rapidly expanding across the world, watched Blue Planet II, […]
Our understanding of the Holy Spirit is mostly too limited and too undeveloped. It is time now to acknowledge and release her surging power throughout all life. We need to begin delighting in, and celebrating the dynamic Spirit pulsing through the Church, through humanity, through the evolving universe and through every corner of our own hearts We were on our way back home after Benediction one bright night, many decades ago, my mother and myself, […]
‘There is no Catholic God.’ But there is the loving energy of Being that sustains all things. Pope Francis said it. There is no ‘God out there’. There is the inner spirit of Life that creates and nourishes the body of the cosmos and the cosmos of the human body. Divine grace is the universal instinct for growing, healing, evolving and flourishing. It is the mysterious force that moves the human heart to create, imagine, […]
A friend of mine entered for last year’s Talent for Britain auditions. I tuned in to one of the first episodes. The panel judges were finding it all rather boring and predictable. During the interval they said so. Mr Potts, a sad-faced young man from Wales was next up. He said he would like to be an opera singer. I noticed two of the three judges throwing cynical glances at each other. Paul Potts opened […]
On a dark, chilly evening in early March I was walking home through a small park in Crosby with my shopping. Impossible to miss, I stared at the sudden appearance of the crocuses – violet, white and blue – translucent in the shadows, staked out like a rosary between tree trunks. Overnight, from drab patches of lifeless leaves and muck, something beautifully fragile and life-giving had soundlessly emerged. Pope Francis was sensitive to this phenomenon […]
Dear pilgrim, right now it is your heart’s faithful beating that is keeping you alive. Night and day it is attentive to its life’s task. Even before you were born it was busy learning its trade in your mother’s womb – an apprentice heart becoming familiar with the timing and tuning of its teacher, adapting, like second nature, to the rhythm of its model. It wept when your mother wept; it was happy when she […]
As all experienced priests, spiritual directors, prayer guides, teachers and parents instinctively know, they do not heal people; they do not give to their visitors, children, pupils, something they already lack; they do not pour out from their own fullness something to fill the empty spaces of those around them: rather do they draw out from the hearts and souls of those they are privileged to serve, the innate wisdom and beauty and healing already […]
Not every priest would readily recognise himself as a healer of fear. We hold so much fear before the unknown, especially before the unknown within ourselves. We need to recognise too that throughout history, fear has been used as an agent of control and coercion by many groups and institutions. To our shame, clericalism and authoritarianism within the church has done the same. The ministry of the priest, at heart, is about transcending and transforming […]
There once was a sculptor working hard with his hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little boy who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left and right. He had no idea what was happening. But when the boy returned to the studio a few weeks later, he saw, to his great surprise, a large, powerful lion sitting in the place where the […]
The priest farms the Field of Dreams. He divines that underground spring, the secret spark in every heart. He knows that behind the veneer of our eternal lives, the external is at work. Within us there is a secret immensity that we seldom even glimpse. In its subtle wisdom, the eternal artist carefully designs a unique destiny for each person. ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.’ To be born is to […]
Fom the very beginning 14 billion years ago, the world was already permeated and filled with God’s compassionate presence. There never was a time or space in the history of evolution when God was absent from the world. In the person of Christ this tremendous love story has finally been revealed. The human is now the home of the divine. The redemption has happened. Salvation has taken place. What was begun in creation is completed […]
A rediscovery of incarnation theology reminds us of the inseparable unity between God and us. It reminds us to that without our commitment there will always be something forever incomplete about the redemption of the world. Jesus is unambiguous about this when he refers to those who fail to recognise the divinity of the poor and needy, the loveless and the marginalised. Saint Symeon wrote, ‘these hands of mine are the hands of God; this body of […]
“I swear to you by the stars above, And below, if such there be, As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths, That’s how you’re loved by me.” Valentine greetings such as Ogden Nash’s verse will criss-cross our planet this week-end as lovers compete for new expressions of their love. Little did the third century Saint realise what he was starting when he signed himself off with ‘from your Valentine’ in a note to a girl […]
The poets and artists are never tired of playing with this fascinating theme. Unlike many of the official teachers of religion, they have never lost the sense of wonder at the mystery of the indwelling of God in creation. For them, the smallest particle of creation becomes a window on God’s beauty. Their intense energy is spent on revealing ‘the dearest freshness that lives deep down things’. They see ‘his blood upon the rose and […]
Our Popes have used the phrase ‘One God, many religions, many theologies.’ Let us look at some examples of how faith is presented from two familiar but contrasting theologies: A Sin/Redemption or a Theology of Creation – a theology of nature and grace Image of God In the story of Sin/Redemption God is seen as a distant, watchful, controlling and punishing father. He allows Bad things to happen, babies die disasters destroy people and possessions […]
Theology is a Love-Story – To grow into this welcoming, most beautiful understanding requires much unlearning. This reflection encourages us to let go of very flawed and untrue teachings about an Original Sin, a God who punishes, who allows bad things to happen, who favours Christians. Our Popes have used the phrase ‘One God, many religions, many theologies.’ We can talk about this as ‘One Love, many love-stories’. We must shift the basis of our […]
Love changes everything. Of course, the story of Creation is not just a story about us. It is the love story about everything. There is a story about Lady Julian of Norwich. One day she had a conversation with God: ‘And the Lord showed me’, she said, ‘a small hazelnut in the palm of my hand.’ ‘What is this Lord?’ she asked. ‘It is everything created’, the Lord said. ‘And how does that survive?’ I […]
‘Love changes everything’. Your heart must surrender to love before your life is transformed. It is the experience of unconditional love that empowers you and blesses what you do. Pope Francis says: ‘God loves us first beyond each person’s faults of failings. . . We are drawn by the attraction of his (Jesus) life.’ Pope Francis Pope Francis is talking here about the unconditional love of God – how do I understand this more deeply? A […]
(expansive thoughts for the start of a new year!) Your life will change when you begin to believe that God is not ‘out there’ anymore, that God is the unconditional love that lives intimately within your heart, and in the heart of the world. Your deepest and true self somehow already knows the astonishing secret that will now be gradually revealed. Be prepared to let go of the fearful, doctrinal teaching that many of us […]
It is 11.45pm on Christmas Eve. Everything is ready – except the homily! Our church had fallen down – literally. We were trying to keep our parish-family together in the school hall. The day was spent in taking care of the essentials – finding an ordinary table for a make-shift altar, replacing infant chairs with ones big enough for well-padded adults, coaxing the caretaker for adequate heating, extra lighting for the partially sighted, making space, […]
‘A flamenco dancer, lurking under the shadow, prepared for the terror of her dance. Somebody has wounded her in words, alluding to the fact that she had no fire or duende. She knows she has to dance her way past her limitations, and that this may destroy her forever . . . When the music starts she begins her dance, with ritual slowness. Then she stamps out the dampness from her soul. Then she stamps […]