Experience the Living Word with Bishop David Walker
Sometimes the expectations, the busyness and last-minute pressures of Christmas can frazzle our nerves and undo our joyful intentions. About ten years ago a wonderful colleague and friend, Marty Scroope shared this prayer with me. This be the ideal prayer to pray just before we start cooking the turkey, glazing the ham, cutting the fruit,…
I read an article by Fr Nicholas King SJ awhile back and he asked an interesting question: what was the first Christmas like? He suggests that we like to imagine what that very first Christmas was really like for the young couple Mary and Joseph. I think it captures our imagination in a very particular…
On a pilgrimage in Paris last year, I was deeply moved by the legacy of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Catherine Labouré, whose lives overflowed with charity and compassion. Standing at St. Vincent’s shrine, I reflected on his powerful words “Charity is the cement which binds communities to God and persons to one another.”…
A habit is often thought of as a routine, something we do without thinking, like brushing our teeth, tying our shoes or telling our family we love them. Yet, there is another kind of habit that’s equally powerful but less visible: the habits of the heart, particularly in our prayer life. Many look to the…
Love That Transforms: Embracing the Heart of Christ In today’s fast-paced world, where moments for introspection can be rare, the message of love often gets overlooked. Recently, I found myself deeply moved by Pope Francis’ latest Encyclical, Dilexit Nos, which explores the profound connection between human and divine love, especially through the Heart of Jesus…
One of the scribes came up to Jesus and put a question to him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with…
School holidays are a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues you haveworked with over the years – you may leave a school but you never leave the people you have worked shoulder to shoulder with in the pursuit of educatingour young people. And so we gathered for dinner and the conversation flowed. One of…
The real mainspring of all perfection you will find contained in the precept given of old by God to Abraham: -Walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). The presence of God will calm your spirit–it will give you peaceful nights, and tranquilize your mind even amid the hardest day’s work; but then for this…
A number of years ago I read an inspiring reflection by Sr Hildegard Ryan OSB. It has stayed with me over the years because it gave me a sense of hope in the midst of suffering. She makes it clear that we are first called to evangelise ourselves and continue the process on a daily…
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”– Meister Eckhart I have absolutely nothing in common with Meister Eckhart: Eckhart who was born in 1260 in Hochheim (Thuringia). He entered the Dominican Order and received most of his education in the Studium Generale in Cologne. But this quote was a…