Silence plays a mysterious and important role in a healthy spirituality, writes Jason Osborne “There’s nothing so much like God in all the world as silence,” 14th Century German mystic and theologian Meister Eckhart is reported as saying. Whether he said it or not, it certainly sums up a certain vein of the Church’s spiritual tradition,…
Saint of the week One of the most famous poets in history, Dante, in his masterwork, the Divine Comedy, glimpses a moving scene: the stoning of a young man, who, while dying, asks forgiveness for those casting the stones at him. Dante chose to commemorate the unparalleled charity of the man often held up as…
The patriarchs and heads of Churches of the Holy Land spoke over Christmas of the suffering Jesus and the Holy Family endured in his early life, likening it to the way many people and refugees suffer today. “Similar sorrows and travails continue to afflict the world in our time, whether they be in Ukraine, Armenia,…
Questions of Faith The Catholic Church teaches that moral values are objective – that is to say, certain actions are always good or always bad, regardless of the circumstances or what anybody thinks about them. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states this quite explicitly in CCC 1756: “There are acts which, in and of…
Christmas is the time to renew our commitment to fighting the “culture of indifference” that Pope Francis speaks of, President Michael D. Higgins has said in his Christmas message for 2022. The president used his yearly message to highlight the “culture of indifference” that Pope Francis notes in his encyclical Laudato Si’, that relates to…
Internet star Fr Mike Schmitz and Scripture scholar Jeff Cavins are looking to bring the facts of the Faith to a new audience in the new year, writes Jason Osborne By any measure, Ascension’s The Bible in a Year podcast, hosted by Fr Mike Schmitz and featuring Jeff Cavins has been a runaway success. At…
Spiritual programme Exodus 90 challenges men to become better through prayer, asceticism and fraternity, writes Jason Osborne Exodus 90 is touted as a “roadmap” to a more fulfilling life for an increasing number of men year on year. Started in a seminary in the US in order to help seminarians grow spiritually and to overcome…
Pro-life advocate in the UK Heidi Crowter has been listed as one of the BBC’s ‘100 women of 2022’, in what was a big year for the 27-year-old. A woman with Down’s syndrome, Ms Crowter has worked in recent years to challenge England’s abortion law which permits abortion up to 24 weeks, but allows unborn…
Saint of the Week “In his loving providence, God made St Peter Canisius his own ambassador at a time when the voice of the Catholic proclamation of faith in German-speaking countries risked falling silent.” So wrote St John Paul II of St Peter Canisius SJ, in a letter to the German bishops to mark 400…
There’s a widespread interest today in the possible existence of life on other planets. With the development of telescopes that are able to reveal things our eyes have never seen and the expansion of human efforts in space, questions have naturally been asked about who, or what, we might bump into “out there”. Many claim…