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 […]
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 […]
In one of her striking reflections Annie Dillard described how we would behave at Mass if we understood its full impact. We would strap ourselves to our seats, wear protective headgear, and be utterly attentive to the earth-shaking import of what was happening around us. We have many ways, she was pointing out, of avoiding what we would rather not face. And so we argue over translations, rubrics and rites. We distract ourselves with the […]
It was a child’s comment to her father that started me off on a whole new way of thinking about Christmas. I was studying in the United States at the time, paying my way by ‘doing supply’ at a local parish in San Francisco. They were standing together in front of the crib. Her father heard her musing to herself, “I wonder if God enjoys being a baby?” Especially around this time of Advent, the […]
Let us try to understand the background to some of the words and events recorded in the readings of Advent and Christmas every year, to go a little deeper into the meaning than perhaps we usually do. During the coming weeks in our hymns and carols, our weekly and daily liturgies, even our everyday reflections, the same Christmas vignettes, memories and stories will be continually repeated. Here is a very sketchy introduction to the way […]
Dear friends, I encourage you to reflect, today, just for a moment on some of the special people or ideas or movements that have, at some time in your life, attracted you strongly and fired your imagination. Who were the people, what were those challenges that captured your heart and brought new hope and excitement into your life? Be thankful for them. In this way I want to introduce you to today’s feast – the […]
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 […]
Often people who stop coming to Mass claim that they are bored by the irrelevance of our liturgies and homilies. The real issues, they say, are about what happens in their daily lives, and how the Eucharist might support and nourish them in their often desperate struggles. So how do we set this beautiful sacrament free of all that would diminish it? How do we provide fresh, sweet water for thirsty people? And where do […]
A sudden summons from the bishop startles most priests. It certainly startled me some decades ago when, in my first parish, the ominous call came. In the sixties, newly ordained priests were required to send in their homily notes for scrutiny by the bishop. Those endless moments in the waiting-room will never leave my mind. Riffling through my foolscap, hand-written pages, the bishop beckoned me into his office, put on his glasses, smiled grimly and […]
Soul-friends of my life I remember you by heart. It was you, for instance, who made me laugh one long, long winter; while it was you, patiently, who taught me how to play again. Some of you visited me the year no Spring came and helped me find my soul. And as you crossed my threshold each one brought a special gift. You discovered the weeping child within me and helped to set her free. […]
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 […]