NCR Thomas Reece Pope Francis has made perfectly clear that he is opposed to ordaining women as deacons. Although I disagree with him, I accept that we are not going…
LIVE AID – 40TH ANNIVERSARY: Michael Buerk reported on the Ethiopian Famine in October 1984. His words inspired Band Aid Charity (Do they know it’s Christmas?’) and then ‘Live Aid’…
HEALING AND AWARENESS, A SPIRITUALITY OF INTEGRATION AND WHOLENESS. This will be the theme for a retreat in Ballyvalloo Conference Centre, Co. Wexford, which will be led by Fr. Jim…
Seamus Ahearne is moved by a speech in the U.S. House of Representative by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York to ask “If we as Church, listened to her words, might we find much of her address applicable to ourselves? How women are treated? How they are excluded for spurious theological reasons. How even the language of our Liturgy insults them; disrespects them; belittles them.”
‘Surrounded’ 3rd Sunday of Lent Year A – 8 March 2026
Western People 3.6.2025 The more books I buy and don’t get to read, the more I return again and again to the books I treasure. The practice has shaped a…
The Youth Of Age
…”I used to worry about sin;
now I have no time for this.
When I pick up the Scriptures,
the light streams out at me
The words tremble with life,
and shout:’Abundant Life.’
My memory is memorising:
all the strands are being drawn together.
I can now say:
‘I see, I hear, I know, I smile, I love.’
I see new words, hear new music, know in deeper tones,
I smile at my dreams, I love with the trees.
I see bright flames coming from human lips.
I see rippling water flowing in endless light.
No container on earth can keep this flowing.
All my life is now here in the palm of my hand:
I am child, maid, woman, crone.
I live it all, now more fully.
How can I now describe my lightsome life?
I see
I yearn yet.”
Hildegard of Bingen ( Praying with the Women Mystics, Mary T Malone, the Columba Press 2006)