Blogging With Purpose

Sr. Dorothy Stang chose to live in extreme poverty in order to help others living in poverty. She had a passion for people of all cultures, for social justice, peace making, fairness, and respect for the environment.  She dedicated her life to defending the rainforest and indigenous people. Dorothy Stang is known today as the “Martyr of the Amazon”.     ...

Nano Nagle’s spirituality had a transformative effect on the Catholic community in Cork, in Ireland and eventually in many places throughout the world. What was Nano attentive to? Nano was attuned to the edges of things. She was in touch with the experiences of people who were poor and pushed to the margins. She was in touch with their experiences ...

The Gospel life was never meant to be lived enclosed, but on the edge of a new future in God, writes Ilia Delio in an essay about religious life.   I recently returned from a retreat at San Alfonso Retreat House in Long Branch, New Jersey, where 110 sisters gathered each day for liturgy, prayer and presentation. The sisters were ...

Like very many others, I have followed the daily world media reports on the recent fourteen day journey of Greta Thunberg the sixteen year old Climate Activist from Sweden as she took on the gruelling challenge of sailing to New York for the UN Climate Action Summit in September.  I have been mesmerised by someone so young courageously taking up ...

“If we believe, that we, members of the Presentation family have been gifted in differing ways with sharing in that original divine shaft of energy which Nano received, and if we believe that we continue to sing her particular song in the Church and in the world, then certain things follow. The first is that we have a responsibility for ...

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was born in England in 1943 and named Diane Perry. She and her older brother were raised in London by her mother, after her father’s death when Diane was 2 years old. Mrs Perry was a spiritualist who held séances in the family home, and Tenzin Palmo credits this as being a strong and positive influence on her ...

A spirituality of desire makes us appreciate that we are all mystics in the sense that the interior space that is in us is a privileged place of encounter with God.   In our lives and in our prayer practice, we often unconsciously live out two different types of spirituality:   1) A spirituality of duty is focused on following the ...

The message of the Resurrection was first entrusted to Mary of Magdala according to John.  She stayed with him during his crucifixion and was a primary witness of his resurrection.  But images of her throughout the ages and still today portray inaccurately. Nowhere in scripture is Mary of Magdala identified as a public sinner or a prostitute.  Yet, even in productions ...

Etty Hillesum was a vital, life-giving presence in the midst of darkness and evil.  Through the months in the concentration camp, as her contemplative heart attended to her inner life more and more, she developed a deep sense of solidarity which her people, and she found she longed to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. She interrupts the scoffing ...

The three approaches that I would indicate are: holiness, as a calling that gives meaning to one’s entire life journey; communion as the fertile soil for vocations in the Church and vocation itself, as a keyword to be preserved and “conjugated” with others – “happiness”, “freedom” and “together” – and finally “declined” as special consecration.   Holiness Talking about vocation always leads to thinking of young ...