St Francis born in Assisi sometime between 1881/82, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant,  left this material wealth to seek the wealth of the Lord. Taking the Gospel as his way of life, he worked for and lived with the poor.  For me, his charisma is his ordinariness, his closeness and accessibility to the ordinary person, his commitment to ...

On the afternoon of June 6 I travelled to Brussels via Eurostar for my first JRS training programme on Human Trafficking. The venue was Maison Notre-Dame du Chant d’Oiseau, a Diocesan Conference Centre, formerly a Franciscan monastery, just a few kilometres out of the city of Brussels; a fitting place for JRS Europe and for updates on Human Rights and ...

“A saint is someone who makes goodness attractive.” [Laurence Housman]  I know that, if asked, you would be able to give me a number of definitions of the word ‘saint’, however, the above definition is one that I particularly like. Down through the ages, however, there have been many saints who did not make ‘goodness attractive’, in fact made it ...

It was with shock that we learnt of the sudden death of Louise Zanré last month. Louise had just retired from her post as UK National Director of JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service), Wapping London, to take on a lighter job of avocation for Refugees, which was her life-long passion. Louise who had experienced sadness in her own personal life was ...

FOR the Year of Consecrated Life, Sr Una Rutledge, from the Notre Dame Convent on Churchtown Road, discusses her vocation, the charism of her order, the foundress of the order, and how she sees the future for her order. SR UNA was in her late teens when she first heard the call: “I felt that God was calling me to ...

Most of us associate the words ‘a call’ with a vocation to the Priesthood or the Religious Life, but in fact we are all called through our Baptism and our Confirmation to be witnesses to God in the world. How we do that, is different for all of us, you as married or single, and us as Religious or Priests. Pope ...