This morning, the eve of Palm Sunday mind you, the Vatican announced several new appointments, including the one excerpted below. Love it or hate it, the Vatican has a playful sense of timing. A blessed day to you all.
Category: Church life
There is nothing new under the sun: James Martin SJ and Christology 101
As part of our Lenten penance, we are listening to James Martin SJ’s Jesus: A Pilgrimage in the refectory at lunch. It has been not too bad, the bits I have heard; until today. So many blasts from the past: Jesus “discovering” his “call”, “embracing his […]
Married Priests: The Deeper Issue
A recent interview given by Pope Francis to the German publication Die Zeit has caused alarm once more, stirring the ashes of settled controversies and demonstrating how ineffective the press interview actually is as a medium of papal communication. A quick example suffices. Here is the […]
A Jeremiad against Pedantry
Though well and truly ageing, I am still capable of naïveté. As a feed for the monastery website I have set up and linked an Instagram account. By means of it it was hoped that tasteful shots taken from those amazing modern pocket computers, […]
The Death of Diplomacy
In the northern hemisphere people may not be much aware, if at all, of the storm brewing in our cappuccino cups in Australia. Since I am in Australia at the moment it is difficult to escape it. What follows is written on the far […]
Discerning the Shades of Grey
The older I get the harder it is to make the long flight from London to Sydney in one trip. It is not that the planes are not getting better and the flights a little quicker. They are. Rather, the long-haul jet-set life is […]
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and Amoris Latetitia
As you know, in a monastery the monk–priests take turns as principal celebrants of the conventual Mass. At Douai most of us usually offer a few words of reflection, a homilette, of a greater or lesser degree of depth according to the monk involved. […]
Sin and sinners
The clerical equivalent of a busman’s holiday in the Bailiwick of Jersey, with the only obligation being the offering of Masses, allows one time to read in the comfortable and hospitably fraternal presybtery at La Cathédrale in St Helier. So while here I have […]
Octave Thoughts
Happy new year! Below a little something to mull over with a beaker of what you fancy. You will probably guess for what it was written.
