A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation By Martin Laird (Oxford University Press, €15.85 / £11.99) Angela Macnamara The key to unlocking doorways of prayer is in our own silence. We live in times when ”our attention is riveted to surface noise” and silence is difficult to achieve. Even though some people live alone…
Haywire (15) ‘Oh you shouldn’t think of her as being a woman. That would be a mistake.” So says double agent Ewan McGregor to Michael Fassbender about Gina Carano in this amusing spy caper that has the beautiful Carano (a mysterious government operative hired out for unauthorised assignments) gallivanting around the globe on…
Fr Michael Collins Among the greatest of J.S. Bach’s choral works stands out the Christmas Oratorio, a collection of six individual cantatas. Each was composed for a particular day of the Christmas season, concluding with the Feast of the Epiphany. Bach used a libretto by Christian Friedrich Henrici, known by his nickname Picander,…
The Iron Lady (12A) If I could pick a fault with this stupendous film — a ‘biopic’ of Margaret Thatcher — it would be that it exists too much in a continuum. In other words, the scattiness evinced by the octogenarian Baroness (played stunningly by Meryl Streep) in the early scenes doesn’t change hugely…
Nature’s Way: A Sense of Beauty By Patrick O’Sullivan (Veritas, €7.99 / £6.80 pb) ”If spring came but once a century instead of once a year….what wonder and expectation there would be in all our hearts.” Longfellow’s words are the author’s inspiration as he awakens us to the beauties of nature which we usually take for…
Father John Kenyon: The Rebel Priest By Tim Boland (Published by the author, ISBN: 9781901370362; €20.00 / £17.50) This is a splendid biography of the mercurial Father John Kenyon, a patriotic priest who should be better known today than he is. Kenyon was born on May Day 1812 in Limerick city. He was educated locally, entered…
Precious Thoughts: Daily Readings from Thomas Merton By Fiona Gardner (Darton, Longman &Todd, €13.19 / £10.99 pb) Anthony Redmond Thomas Merton died in 1968 at the age of 53. He is perhaps more popular and relevant today than ever. He was not alone one of the great spiritual guides and mentors of the 20th…
Fr Liam Lawton’s journey in song reached a milestone in 2011. Paul Keenan reports Within any chosen path, to be able to describe oneself as ”busy” after 20 years can only be what’s called ‘a good complaint’. But busy is exactly what Fr Liam Lawton has continued to be through 2011, the 20th anniversary year…
South Dakota (PG) There are many controversial questions surrounding the subject of abortion. When does life begin, for instance. Or when can a foetus feel pain. Or has a woman who has been raped more of a ‘right’ to seek termination of a pregnancy than someone who has become pregnant by choice, or carelessness. The…
Looking back over the year, our regular reviewers have selected what, for them, was their personal book, or in some generous cases, books of the year Anthony Redmond A book that impressed me quite a lot this year was Unmasking God by Father Daniel O’Leary (Columba Press, €12.99 / £11.08), whose books are always a…
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello