Is it right to fear God? What is the difference between a destructive fear and a “holy trepidation”? An Advent homily by Fr Stephen Wang: Look around you at the chapel walls. Look at the […]
Archive for September, 2013
Called By Name: Young Adults Retreat (18-35), 25th–27th October 2013 at Worth Abbey
The Called By Name retreat offers an opportunity for you to tune-in more deeply to the call of Christ in your life, to discern His will for you, discover deeper meaning and direction in your […]
New DVD resource: Faith of our Fathers, In Search of the English Martyrs
This DVD is just out from St Anthony Communications: Faith of our Fathers, In Search of the English Martyrs. You can order it from the St Anthony website here. It looks as thought it will be […]
Opening “a liturgical Pandora’s box”? A parish priest reflects on the “family Mass”
By 9.30 am on a Sunday morning our car park is jam-packed, as hundreds of people fill Brentwood Cathedral for Mass. The whole building hums with prayerful expectation before Mass begins. Drawn together by Christ, […]
Realising that our lives are not about us
Father Robert Barron has a brilliant article responding to the recent Time cover story, “The Childfree Life”. While Time empathises with women who feel “sidelined” and “scolded” by “a culture that often equates womanhood with motherhood”, Fr […]
Pope Francis hits ‘reset’ — but not the way some imagine
It is clear, six months into the heart-warming, unsettling whirlwind that is his papacy, that Francis is pressing the ‘reset’ button on the Church’s engagement with the world. It is an ambitious ‘reframe’, one allows […]
Witness: a photographic exhibition looking at stories of Christian persecution and witness throughout the world
WITNESS: Inner Conflict and Truth 1st – 31st October 2013 Church of Notre Dame de France, 5 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BX [Just off Leicester Square] Inspired by the story of St Maximilian Kolbe, this […]
Suggestions for parents at Mass with babies, toddlers or children
The parish of Brentwood Cathedral has just posted some ideas for parents who are bringing their babies, toddlers and children to Mass each Sunday. Some of these ideas were tested in the blogosphere a couple […]
Catholic Basics: ‘A’ is for Angels
The created universe is much more interesting than we normally think. God’s intelligence and creativity have no limits. We can only see the physical world around us, but this does not mean that ‘materialism’ is […]
What kind of loyalty do we owe to political authority?
If you haven’t seen the picture of Manu Tuilagi giving ‘bunny ears’ to David Cameron you’re not spending enough time online. Was it a puerile gesture? Certainly. But it was pretty hilarious too, in my […]
Pope Francis on the Christian presence in the mass media: walking at the same pace as your fellow pilgrim
There is so much talk about the digital world, connectivity and social media that we sometimes forget that ‘the mass media’ encompasses far more than the internet. The slightly starchy phrase ‘social communications’ is the […]
40 Days for Life vigil begins 25 Sept
The 40 Days for Life vigil begins in London soon, and in many other cities in the UK and across the globe. You can read more about the vision of the campaigns here. Do take […]
Waiting
Jesus tells us to be like servants waiting for their master to return (see the passage from St Luke’s Gospel below). Waiting is a great way into the spiritual life. It is relational: we are […]
The human embryo: “One of Us”
Archbishop Peter Smith renews call to sign up to ‘One of Us’ as the petition collects its millionth signature: You may recall that earlier in the year, I invited people to sign up to the […]
The New Evangelisation: What it is and how to do it
I’ve just had a new booklet published by the Catholic Truth Society called The New Evangelisation: What it is and how to do it. They tapped into the World Youth Day Rio fervour by putting a […]
The Christian New Media Conference 2013
For any Christians interested in New Media, this conference looks good. For Catholics, of course, the idea of ‘reimagining’ how we ‘do church’ has certain limits. But most Catholics could support the suggestion that ‘those […]
St Maximilian Kolbe: the man behind the saint
Eighteen months ago, I made the decision to stage a theatre production of the play “Kolbe’s Gift” by David Gooderson at The Leicester Square Theatre, a 400-seat off-West End theatre, for a week of performances […]
Taking photos and living a counterfeit spiritual life
I came across a couple of interesting paragraphs in a recent review of an exhibition. The reviewer, Christopher Allen, describes the experience of the first room, in which are exhibited three emblematic pictures of the […]
Sacramental service station?
A little shout-out to all the parishes out there… Come on now, be honest Is your parish a sacramental service station? What do I mean by this? A service station is somewhere we pass through, on the […]
