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 […]
Fr Jerome Santamaria
Fr Jerome Santamaria is a priest of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia.
Fr Jerome Santamaria's Latest Posts
Prophecy, truth, love
Last Sunday, the readings the Church gives us help us to reflect on a fundamental experience of God in our lives: the claim that truth makes on us [Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31–13:13; Luke […]
Résumé virtues vs eulogy virtues
David Brooks reflects on the gulf that can open up between your external career and your inner character: ABOUT once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can […]
Jean Vanier wins the 2015 Templeton Prize
In case you missed this news last week: Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, a revolutionary international network of communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together as peers, has won […]
Learning to speak God’s own language
The Feast of the Baptism of Jesus is a great way to meditate on the mystery of the Incarnation. It can tell us a lot about what it means to be part of a new […]
Religious difference and the responsibility of joy
Just recently, the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome dedicated a new building to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He wrote an occasional letter entitled “Renunciation of the truth is lethal to faith”. The letter is set […]
The foundations of the spiritual life
The French philosopher, Rene Descartes, famously tried to find the bedrock of thinking. He wanted the certainty he found in mathematics in all his thinking. He wanted therefore to find something he could not doubt, […]
The temptations you face when working in finance
Michael Lewis writes about the occupational hazards of working on Wall Street. He wonders why so many bright graduates still go into finance and what temptations they face when they arrive there. The question I’ve […]
How to turn your inbox from a threat into a source of renewal
Sound psychological advice here from Eric Barker about how to use email to cultivate friendships and even to find a little bit of happiness each morning: On the subject of happiness: Every morning send a […]
The lost art of dating
Heather Cicchese writes about an experiment in a Boston College where instead of just ‘hooking up’, students take the risk of actually talking to each other. In a Starbucks on the Boston University campus, Dave […]
#CapforStrat – from approaching death to superheroes to Christ
Over the last few days, the hash-tag #CapforStrat has been trending on twitter. It is the project of Sophie Caldecott (@SophieCaldecott) to get Marvel to release the DVD of the latest Captain America so that her […]
Vocation, truth, and being true to one’s name
Vocations Sunday is coming up this weekend (11 May). Let me take a slightly angular way into this. In a recent interview Swedish singer Lykke Li (of “Sadness is a blessing” fame) finished with what was […]
Raising a moral child
Adam Grant discusses how parents can help the moral development of their children, particularly in the area of becoming a ‘caring’ person. Although some parents live vicariously through their children’s accomplishments, success is not the No. […]
Taking religion seriously and moving beyond an ‘unreflective atheism or agnosticism’
In a recent article, Charles Murray advises that an important aspect of living a fulfilling life is to take religion seriously. “Start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism”. Now that we’re alone, […]
Do you want a ‘start-up’ marriage in your 20s or a ‘corporate merger’ marriage in your 30s or 40s?
Charles Murray dishes out some advice for young people. It includes looking at the difference between a “start-up”and a “merger” marriage, how to discern a soul-mate, and the importance of religious friends. (Full disclosure: I’m […]
Choosing life after not choosing death
There is a good article on Albert Camus over at the First Things website. Camus famously said that the fundamental question of our age was suicide. He thought that to live honestly, one had to […]
The difficulty of communicating the inner experience of faith
Is it possible to communicate the inner experience of faith? Take a look at this article by David Brook’s of the New York Times. There is a strong vein of hostility against orthodox religious believers […]
The creative energy that is released through the dialogue of actually making art
John Berger, the art critic, wrote a brilliant article called ‘A Professional Secret’ (collected in his ‘Selected Essays’). It is a reflection, amongst other things, on the spiritual experience of painting. In it, he raises […]
The Experience of God
The new book by David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God, is a fantastic read. Not only does it successfully offer several coherent points of departure for discussion of what ‘God’ means, it is also full […]
Making the market king
In recent days the readings at Mass have been exploring the story of the institution of the monarchy amongst God’s people. One can write for days on the different theologies of monarchy in the scripture, […]
“My wife and I are atheists, but our daughter wants to be baptised Catholic”
More and more marriages these days are between people of different faiths. One of the big discussion points with such couples is how they will raise their children regarding questions of belief. Many say that […]
