(An Extract from Daniel’s teaching in Episode 4 of An Astonishing Secret video course.) These sentences are pretty packed with meaning and they need to be unpacked so I just hope you can listen to them with the ‘ear of your heart’. Remember them when you can during the day, that’s how they become part of our consciousness. Listen, now, with the ear of your heart to this paragraph: ‘God became human so that humans […]
Love is all that we spend our lives seeking, but we forget along the way that love is present the moment we surrender to it. And the moment we surrender, we are no longer afraid of dying, or whether or not there is eternal life, because we have already found it, in love. Just one glimpse of true love, within and around us, shows us heaven. Love is eternal life. Because love sings forever, and […]
Those who are committed to defending human dignity can find in the Christian faith the deepest reasons for this commitment … ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’ (Jer 1: 5). We were conceived in the heart of God and for this reason ‘each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.’ (Benedict XVI) [Laudato […]
‘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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I pray for you at this time. Alongside the joy in our lives, in these November days there is also much anxiety – about children, about extra pressures, about memories of missing loved ones. Images of Christmas appear all around us and for many the anticipation of the feast can be a strange time. But at its heart Christmas is a stunning revelation that God is no longer an absentee landlord in heaven; each day […]
At 84 Samuel Becket was asked about the possibility of his retirement. “What!,” he exclaimed, “Me? Retire? Never – not with the fire in me now!” Not all of us are that lucky. In my travels I meet teachers and priests for whom the original vision of their vocation has all but disappeared. There seems to be a universal kind of ennui, a deep-seated sense of pressure, that is driving people to retire as soon […]
(Last part of a 3 part unpublished article) Another Beginning All of this brings us to a new way of being, a new way of seeing, a new way of praying. In the Christian tradition this revelation has been called ‘the sacramental vision’, the ‘catholic imagination’. It springs from the orthodox theology of nature and grace, from the mystical spirituality of humanity, from the astonishing implications of Incarnation. It reveals to us the nature of […]
The Urgency of Pope Francis Too many of us say a few passing prayers for the wider, wounded world, contribute our loose change, blame someone or other for the situation, and feel smug about our efforts as dutiful citizens. Such shallow involvement may work wonders for personal ego-health; it does little for the eco-health of our natural home. We are called to be present to the troubles of the world in a real way. It […]
You are away from your family. Your family is in trouble. You pray for the family. You hope the prayers will work. But you are still anxious. You decide to go back home. You arrive at home. You bring your full attention to the whole situation. You are there in person, with your total concern, your full involvement, your truest self. It is your home, where you began your life’s journey. It is where you […]
Beauty is a pillar of faith, alongside goodness and truth. In an often dark world, we struggle to ensure that its importance and sacramental quality are not lost, for at the deepest level of our being we already know beauty and resonate sympathetically with it Across the ward, a man is struggling. His body is writhing on the chair near the bed. His right leg, arthritic and misshapen, is kicking against the cubicle curtain. Sweat […]
Occasionally in the middle of my restlessness and worry I will reach for a pen and a page to take my mind off the situation I want to deny. I find a blessed relief in mulling over the love-story of Incarnation, ruminating on the forgotten theological and spiritual teachings, and their implications for our lives and that of our precious world. And so, in the lovely light of these thoughts in many of these pages, […]
Two themes are interwoven through these pages– the mystery of Creation and the mystery of Incarnation. If we get one wrong, we get the other wrong too. (And we certainly have!) For the enlightened Christian both are central – the source and wellspring of all else. They are not two separate, disparate acts of God, two unconnected epic moments for the world. Theologian Karl Rahner reassures us that Creation and Incarnation are two moments and […]
I want to focus on some delightful new glimpses and insights that are now emerging to enrich people’s faith. Millions are finding renewed and deeper ways of being Christian, of being Catholic, of being human. A radical new light is being shed on that moment of love 2,000 years ago, when God was revealed at the centre of our lives and of our evolving world. Something amazing is happening. Something that could never have happened […]
Peace, these days, is an elusive grace. There’s always something to make us fearful, stress-filled, distracted. There is no denying the current spreading anxiety, a sense of a lost order. How do we protect ourselves from daily bulletin of another crisis? How do we nourish our fragile spirit in the face of a relentless destruction of our l people and our planet that is played out before us on every evening news. To what hope […]