God of love, listen to our prayer for Mothers’ Day. We celebrate all mothers and grandmothers on this day. We remember the great mothers of salvation history: Sarah, mother of Isaac; Rebecca, mother of Jacob; Ruth, mother of King David; Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and especially Mary, Mother of Jesus whom we call…
Summer is on the way and bright days are ahead. But our world is in danger not only from violence and climate change but because of the loss of many species. We are learning to cherish and appreciate our world. We need to preserve our green spaces, control our use of chemicals and keep our…
St. Patrick’s Day is the day when millions of people, even those without a drop of Irish blood become honorary Irish for the day. The day itself has become traditionally associated with parades and the wearing of the green. Globally the 17th March is penciled in as a day for everyone to celebrate the impact…
Ash Wednesday this week marked the beginning of the Holy Season of Lent. This is the time every year when we make a special effort to fast, do penance, reflect on our faith and perform acts of charity. In this way we prepare for the great celebrations of Holy Week; the Passion, Death and Resurrection…
This summer will mark my 20th anniversary as the priest in Rosbercon Parish. Being in the parish for twenty years is a gift. Now, when I celebrate a funeral Mass, I know the person whose funeral I am celebrating. I know the family, and who is related to the deceased. This pastoral knowledge is a…
Jesus with His newly chosen apostles have just come down from the mountain. He is quickly surrounded by a large crowd who are interested in his teaching. The crowds want to know from Jesus, how they can live, how they can love, how they can be happy.
Because the people feel rejected, they think…
On Tuesday next, we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The reason for this is that on the 11th February, 1858 Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette for the first time.
The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is famous for a number of other reasons: On this date since 1993 we celebrate…
Outside a Metro Station in Washington, DC, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. The man playing the Bach pieces was Joshua Bell, playing incognito as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities, organized by the Washington Post.
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In mid-winter as we are now, only the barest signs of Spring are visible. But we have no doubt that Spring is just around the corner even though the ground still carries many of the dead leaves of last Summer.
We continue to live in a time of change, in society, in political life,…
One hundred and seventy-nine years ago the world was plagued by the cholera epidemic. In his poem In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “Ring out old shapes of foul disease”. Could he ever have guessed that his words would ring true again for the time of Covid. The human spirit is strong and now again,…
