Gerry O’Connor CSsR and ACP Leadership – Holy Thursday Homily
Video homily for Holy Thursday 2025. The Title is ‘Sustaining Grace’.
Video homily for Holy Thursday 2025. The Title is ‘Sustaining Grace’.
Jubilee 2025 and Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta Is teach foilsitheoireachta Íosánach é Foilseacháin Ábhair Spioradálta a bhfuil leabhair á bhfoilsiú aige as Gaeilge faoin gcreideamh agus faoin gcultúr Críostaí le seachtó…
by Michael J O’Loughlin From the beginning of his campaign, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. framed his quest for the White House as “a battle for the soul…
The next meeting of our Edinburgh Newman Association is on Monday evening next, April 15th at 7.30pm at our usual venue, Mayfield/Salisbury Church of Scotland, 18 West Mayield, Edinburgh EH9…
by Nancy Sylvester There is a wisdom in the liturgical cycle. The yearly remembering of the life of Jesus of Nazareth accompanies our own evolving self. It invites us to…
The CDF has issued its first document, “Iuvenescit Ecclesia” or “the Church rejuvenates.” under Pope Francis.
Can a leopard change its spots? Not according to some commentators;
“Much of the text reads like the “desk-bound” or laboratory theology that the 79-year-old pope finds unhelpful.” commented Cindy Wooden, Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service.
Others such as Massimo Faggioli see it a little differently;
“There is a very interesting admonition about ordained members of new movements that seek ordination to serve only their movement (par. 22) – a very well-known problem that so far has been officially denied by the Church leadership – and an interesting phrasing about the danger of having the movements creating a “parallel” path in the Church (par. 23). This is something that came up at the 1987 Synod, but no pope before Francis had the courage to talk about. There is also the clear intention of Francis not to create new precedents in the recognition process of new movements.”
Thoughts on priesthood and faith Priests as magicians? I was in Birmingham (St Mary’s Harborne) during the week. We were celebrating 402 years of priesthood: Eight Golden Jubilarians. I was…
A poem generated by AI — plausible but unsettling. Someone played me a poem supposedly in the style of the late Yeats generated by AI and it was horrible. Will AI write our sermons for us? It would be less challenging than poems… but there is a draining away of soul, of real warm human voices. Here in Rome I followed the Holy Thursday: liturgy, with washing of the feet, at Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri, the sublime church designed by MIchelangelo in 1562 using the central aula of the Baths of Diocletian, followed later by a thoroughly vibrant performance of Mozart’s Requiem by a choir and orchestra from the region of Molise. For Good Friday, the Via Crucis at the Colosseum was very gentle. Visibility was poor, I mostly gazed at the Arch of Constantine, which I first saw 53 years ago; it’s a book in stone, every detail of which has been pored over by scholars for centuries, and it’s very much in line with the celebration of Nicaea this year (the Council had geopolitical significance as one of Constantine’s great achievements in uniting the Empire after the decades of civil war that he had lived through). The prayers, read chiefly by women, were in the mode of encourage ment, and were clued in to the characteristic pressures of today, very much in the style of Pope Francis. An American seminarian was disappointed — he wanted to hear more about sin, pain, death, and so on, and fewer feel good messages. But the messages made the crowd feel that they were united as brothers and sisters, rather than consigning each to the gloom of private conscience. Each Station ended with the Pater Noster and a sung stanza of the Stabat Mater. For the Easter Vigil Santa Maria Maggiore is recommended. I feel a bit like Cardinal Des Connell, who said one day when here in the Irish College: “You know, I don’t want to go back…”