Tag Archives: Spirituality

Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 23, 2023.  Thanksgiving has been celebrated independently by colonies and states for more than 200 years.  However, in 1941, Thanksgiving was established as a federal holiday held on the fourth Thursday of November.  The first Thanksgiving celebration is believed to have occurred in 1621. The story, historically told from the pilgrim’s perspective, is that Plymouth colonists from ...

As this phase of the Synod on the future of the Church comes to a close on Sunday, 29th October, and the delegates prepare to return home, Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, offered the following spiritual reflection on Tuesday 24th October, entitled:  ‘The seed germinates.’ This is a very apt and beautiful meditation that we too, as Church, can live together. ...

On Sunday morning, October 1, Dominican Friar and former Master of the Order of Preachers, Father Timothy Radcliffe’s gave a second meditation for those who would participate in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops set to begin on Wednesday, 4 October.  This meditation focused on the theme “At home in God and God at home in us”. See ...

We are familiar with Thomas (recorded in John’s Gospel) asking Jesus “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”  and Jesus answering, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.  There are many times in our lives when we need to understand well ...

In his beautiful Apostolic Exhortation ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’, Pope Francis spoke at some length about the call to holiness in today’s world. He reminded us that holiness exists not only in those whom the Church has beatified or canonised, but in those “saints next door”, who don’t appear in any book and whose names are known only to God. Such people are ...

The World Youth Day from the 1-6 August 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal was truly a moment of God for all of us who could connect with it in any way – there was no distance! When a lamp is put on the lampstand there is no limit to where the light can reach.  At his weekly General Audience in Rome on ...

In 2016, Pope Francis raised the celebration of Mary Magdalene from Memorial to Feast in the liturgical calendar.  Her Feast Day is 22nd July.  There is also a special preface to the Eucharistic Prayer included for this Feast Day Mass which is entitled “Apostle to the Apostles,” which is the honorary title bestowed upon Mary Magdalene. “Recalling that “apostle” means ...

The image of a heart has a resonance with everyone – young and old alike.  Poetically, and cross-culturally in the contemporary world of today the heart is a symbol of the human centre — our emotions, loves, passions, desires, a source and engine for life-giving actions. The heart has the capacity and potential to open us to care for all ...

Today, all of us are rediscovering our fragility. We are rediscovering that inhabiting the Earth as a common home requires much more of us.  It requires solidarity in accessing the goods of creation as a “common good”, and solidarity in applying the fruits of research and technology to make our “Home” healthier and more liveable for all. In this, we ...

The Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple takes place on 21st November each year.  This is a Feast that is celebrated with great joy throughout the world, wherever there are Presentation people. The content of this year’s novena has been prepared by Sisters Mary Kealy, Lois Greene, Prema Antony and Sheila Reen who have put together these ...