St Paul denied his original self, in order to replace it with something fundamentally more Precious. His narratives and actions, have been recorded in history through his own prodigious inspired writings and that of his collaborators, and in recent history by the cinematographers. When I first watched Paul, Apostle of Christ the 2018 American biblical drama film, it…
I have often wondered what our Creator’s intentions for Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 is? Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 NRSVCE A young person once argued that “vanity” was akin to a loss of…
The two consecutive Gospel Readings that confronted me on Saturday after Ash Wednesday and on the following day, the First Sunday of Lent challenged the present-day cozy certainty that a Christian life paved with good intentions, faith, hope and love will inevitably succeed – and bears witness to the angst-filled battles in the lives of…
Last year. this time, in the Gardens Reflections on Good Friday, I had cited two verses from the Gospel of St John: “they went to a place which was called Gethsemane” (Mk 14:32), “across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden”(John 18:1) “In the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in…
This is a summary of a published article on the Vatican website on the original events at Fatima and how they were documented, archived and revealed to the public. Published on 13 May 2000, on the second millennial anniversary of the apparitions of the same date 83 years ago then, it describes the world events…
In his book of spiritual exercises, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Jesuits, tells the story of a staretz, or spiritual advisor of the Eastern Church, who yearned “to begin the Our Father with the last verse, so that one might become worthy to finish the prayer with the initial words – ‘Our…
It is a constant article of faith that we live in the promise of Christ’ Advent , first in the form of his incarnation as a human, then in his continual presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit as enunciated in the Gospel of St John (“I go away, and I will come to…
Jesus was tempted in the desert at the start of his 3-year ministry. The mystery of God’s relationship with men and women, as we grapple with our existence and purpose in this world is experienced by Jesus in the first retreat in the desert. However, as Jesus is not man but the Son of God,…
Let’s be wary of false prophets, in these troubled times, when the forces of good versus evil are in constant play. Indeed it was Jesus who declared to Pontius Pilate during his trial at Jerusalem that “my kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of the world, my servants would fight, that…
Whereas the angel “came” to Mary (Lk 1:28) , he merely appears to Joseph in a dream – admittedly a dream that is real and reveals what is real. Once again, this shows us an essential quality of the figure of Saint Joseph: his capacity to perceive the divine and his ability to discern. Only…