It had been a day of interacting with many people and I felt the need to withdraw to a wordless place!  It was springtime and I walked down the bóithrin - bohereen, (unpaved rural road in Ireland). There was a soothing silence, a calm just to ‘be’ in the moment, to inhale the fresh breezes, and breathe the rugged beauty ...

 I would like to reflect on our devotion to the Sacred Heart as we are in the month of June. My family instilled in me this devotion from my childhood, we were a joint family and every evening we gathered for prayers lead by my grandmother. I remember the room was filled with statues of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St. Anthony ...

The Foundress of the Pontifical Society of the Propagation of the Faith, and of the Living Rosary Movement. She was declared Venerable, February 25, 1963 by St John XXIII, and will be declared Blessed, May 22, 2022. Pauline-Marie was born July 22, to a devout family of seven children in the midst of the bourgeoisie and pious people of Lyon ...

As our global world 2022, stands at a crossroads, March and April are welcoming months with all their beauty, new life and renewed vision. Earth’s soul is  pulsating, ready to display new energy as it shifts the long, dark, bleak days of winter COVID 19.  As Lent continues, we step back and dare to face difficult questions, glaring injustices and ...

At the time of writing these reflections, the end of Lent is fast approaching. Lent: a gifted time when we can offer God “something very private but also something life-enhancing, helping to draw us even closer to our blessed Lord.” [Father J.B. Hurley]   Yes, life-enhancing—a beautiful word, full of life and meaning. Then on the 3rd Sunday of Lent the ...

“Laugh and the world laughs with you” ‘Smiling is contagious,’ my aunt always said,’ more contagious than a virus.’ She used to advise us, to our amusement, to smile slightly as we walked along, even when we did not feel like it.  A smile, she maintained, tricks the brain into releasing hormones that boost the immune system. Whatever about that, ...

  The God of Promise As we say goodbye to another year of unsettlement, disappointment and uncertainty, can we even begin to hope as the clock chimes in 2022? If we can use the words of Jochen Klepper “Neujahrslied” in his work Kyrie (Berlin: Merseburger, 1938):   New Year’s Song – in translation O you who hold all times in your ...

As the year drifts into winter, we notice subtle differences in nature especially in the quality of light, the length of days, and the bareness of the trees; nature begins to slowly fall asleep. In his poem, “The Sleeping Babe” Henry Baron describes the differences in nature very aptly in the following lines, “The moon turned white to silver On ...

With the end of summer time upon us, we enter the “royal” season of Autumn – royal because of the  magnificence of colours and a time when nature “disrobes the glory of summer” when it takes on the colours that basically soften the end of its reign of lively, lush greens to the soft yellows, reds and gold. This is ...

Some time ago, I was given a book that had a short story of ‘The Dream in the Acorn’. I was drawn to the story because I grew up near oak trees and marvelled that a tiny acorn could produce such big trees.  What did the author mean by the ‘dream’? I soon realised that the unique ‘something’ in the ...