Dear Editor, Covid-19 has become part of many of the themes associated with Catholic teaching in recent months. This ‘collateral damage’ of biblical proportions has sent shockwaves through society as we know it. I need not reference the impacts at this moment in time, as these are well known and quite frankly many people are…
Sacred Space: The Prayerbook 2021 (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£15.49) The cover of the new edition of this always popular book shows a lighthouse at dusk, and out at sea a barely visible sailing ship in the distance. There came into my mind at once those lines from Newman, “lead, kindly light, amidst th’encircling gloom…”, which is…
What with the #Golfgate row, the thirst for punishments and polarising conflicts worldwide you’d wonder if Covid-19 wasn’t infecting brains and temperaments. There has been much honest grappling with challenging issues but also much casting of first stones. On Thought for the Day (BBC Radio 4) last Wednesday morning, Anglican Bishop Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani took…
Notebook One of the great surprises of the lockdown, for me at least, was just how many in Ireland are keen gardeners. People simply couldn’t wait for gardening centres to re-open, and when they did, on May 18, there were enormous queues of people desperate to buy seeds, pots and compost. My own lockdown gardening…
Writing about Beethoven’s Quartets last time, I got as far as his three Op 59s. Now I’ll go on a little further. Early in 1809, Princes Franz Lobkowitz and Ferdinand Kinsky together with Archduke Rudolph combined to grant the composer an annuity of 4,000 florins. As a result Beethoven considered marriage but his subsequent rejection…
Always time to go and make some scarecrows This scarecrow making workshop in Dublin is expected to be fun for all the family and results in the creation of your very own scarecrow created from upcycled materials. All that’s needed is a bit of creativity and the Rediscovery Centre will provide all of the material…
The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. We have reached a section of Matthew’s Gospel which deals with practical moral issues that occur in our lives. Today’s reading (Matthew 18:15-20) is about the delicate matter of how to correct somebody who is going off the rails. Facing another person is one of the toughest…
Argentine bishop warns priests to distribute Holy Communion in the hand The Bishop of San Rafael, Argentina, warned last week that he will impose canonical sanctions on priests who distribute Communion on the tongue during the coronavirus pandemic, in defiance of a diocesan directive permitting the distribution of Communion only in the hand. Bishop Eduardo…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan