Mindful Living Children take to meditation very easily – they have a natural disposition for silence because they have an infinite openness to life without expectation. Adults can quickly tire of meditation because they feel they are getting nowhere. It seems – on the surface of things – that nothing is happening and that can…
Month: February 2020
What does it mean to be big-hearted?
Once during a baseball game in high school an umpire made a very unfair call against our team. Our whole team was indignant and all of us began to shout angrily at the umpire, swearing at him, calling him names, loudly venting our anger. But one of our teammates didn’t follow suit. Instead of shouting…
PSNI aim to recruit more Catholic Officers
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has opened a recruitment campaign this week which bids to increase its number of Catholic officers. The PSNI is looking for 600 trainees to reach full complement and address the under-representation of Catholics in the force. At present only 32% of the 6,848 police officers in Northern Ireland…
Keeping an eye on Mary Immaculate College
Dear Editor, Regarding the front page of your paper (IC 16/01/2020), I read with alarm the decision made by authorities in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick to disallow the Certificate of Christian Ethics in Healthcare being made available. Hospital chaplains clearly showed ample interest in the development of the programme – which led to it…
Opting for the good in a world full of lesser choices
The Notebook A cousin was speaking with me recently and she told me she was in London for a weekend, with her two young sons, to visit her sister and family. They went for a day trip to London and travelled on a number of trains and by underground. Later in the evening, her younger…
The Parnellite by the fireside
The World of Books Back in the 1950s, when such a case was less common, an Irish poet was teaching a course on modern Ireland literature in a US university. He chose James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) as the text for the semester. By the time he was…
Marie Evans: a life of healing
Personal Profile “I just feel I’m here to help bring people closer to God in the wider sense, and that is my work.” Marie Evans hails from Castleblaney in Co. Monaghan but has now settled, among the trees with her dog Millie, in the remote townland of Lurganboy, Co. Leitrim. She was once a…
Loughrea’s Carmelite sisters set to leave the community
The Carmelite sisters in Loughrea, Co. Galway are set to leave the town after a presence of over 300 years. Like many other religious communities, the sisters have struggled to attract new vocations in recent years and the age prpfile of the sisters is older. As a result, their prayerful presence in the community will…
Netflix’s Messiah needs divine intervention
Last week I wrote about the March for Life in Washington. During the week other significant gatherings came across my radar. Most bizarre of all was the march on Washington portrayed in Messiah, an intriguing 10-part drama series on Netflix. This dramatic march was led by a character thought by his followers to be the…
Red Velvet Macarons – the perfect treat for St Valentine’s day
Sweet Treats Macarons have a reputation for being tricky but don’t fear! If you follow the recipe carefully these red velvet flavoured versions will make an impressive gift this Valentine’s day. A top tip is throughout the recipe, make sure that all the ingredients are at room temperature. Ingredients Makes about 12 filled macarons …