Experience the Living Word with Bishop David Walker
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…
As someone drawn to absolutes, I have always been haunted by the words of St. Ignatius about the Examen. He writes, “If you prayed no other prayer, you should at least pray the Examen once a day.” As someone who has been diagnosed with learning differences and neurodivergence—after years of being labelled a “space cadet”—it…
We take each moment for granted. It is here and gone, often without us noticing it or being aware of its importance and richness. Yet, in some sense, it is all we have. Someone once said that it is all we do have: the past is gone, the future is not yet here; this moment…