One day a man visited Mother Theresa’s home for the poor and dying in Calcutta. He arrived just as the sisters were bringing in some of the dying in the streets. One of the sisters began to care for one dying man and she was unaware that this visitor was watching her. The visitor saw […]

Last week we saw Jesus outlining his dream, his plan for the salvation of the world. Today in the Beatitudes we have the essence of Christ’s mission. The beatitudes are at the heart of the Gospel. Yet many regard them as impractical and far too demanding for ordinary human beings. Try preaching the Beatitudes, to […]

On the 28th August 1963 Martin Luther King delivered a famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.  ‘I have a dream today. I have a dream that one-day every valley shall be exalted; every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the […]

John Ruskin was an English author, philosopher, and art critic, who died in the year 1900; he has written many books on different topics and one of these topics was education. He provided us with a beautiful illustration of what the Jesus wants us to be in the world. Before electricity, streets were lit by […]

Flannery O’Connor was an American writer who lived in the early 20th century. She was a catholic and being born in Georgia she lived in the Bible Belt in the Southern states of USA. She wrote a moving story called “The River.” One scene in the story is very similar to today’s gospel reading. There’s […]

When we see the crib at Christmas time, and when we contemplate the shepherds, they are usually very poor, attractive, respectable people, carrying their little lambs; but history tells us that this was not the reality. In Jesus’ time, shepherds were one of the lowest classes, they were sometimes involved in crime, and they had […]

Some of you may have heard the ad for Barry’s tea on the radio when a young boy tells his grandad early Christmas morning “you’ll never guess what Santa brought”. Christmas is a time for gift giving. Every child has made their list and even we as adults love the gifts we get at Christmas. […]

We often see how history has a tendency to repeat itself. Recently I was listening to a commentary about Syria and one commentator ironically said we’ve been here before with Kosovo, Rwanda, Srebrenica; Cambodia. Today people would say  that time is meaningless, things just come and go without any rhyme, or reason, or purpose, history […]

We all love certainty and sometimes we have our doubts.  There are things we want to know, things we need to know but we do not know. This can be very troubling; in our family life, in our work, and in our plans for the future and even in our faith in God and in […]

Many years ago in Paris there was a boy called Paul Claudel, He was from a very good family and he was very intelligent. He was also nominally a catholic,  but he did not do very much about it, he was indifferent, an “a la carte” catholic. Then one day something moved him; it was […]