The Feast of the Chair of Peter
On Monday February 22 we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. What do we mean by the Chair of Peter and...
When I Die, Do I Want to Be a…Tree?
This phrase recently appeared in the Ottawa Citizen in an article on the greening of death, a quote from Susan Koswan, a Waterloo writer...
Almsgiving in the Twenty-first Century
“Grace builds on nature.” (Saint Thomas Aquinas)
This statement from Saint Thomas’s Summa expresses in succinct form the theological insight that creation and redemption are...
Saint Gregory Narek, Mystic, Monk and Doctor
The Armenian monk Gregory Narek (Grigor Narekatsi), whose life spanned the latter half of the 11th century (ca. 950 - 1003), was enrolled amongst...
Pope Benedict’s Ash Wednesday Address
BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Ash Wednesday
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this day, marked by the austere symbol of ashes, we enter...
Contra Cardinal McElroy’s Moral Muddle
In January, Cardinal Robert McElroy, one of the most recent Bishops elevated to the cardinalate by Pope Francis, published quite a controversial article in...
Lent’s Little Lights
One of the most beautiful uplifting things that helps me stay focused on Lent is the theme of light. In his Angelus address of Sunday 28 February 2021,...
True Christian Tolerance
In Lent we pledge ourselves to acquire virtue. The one, perhaps the only, virtue universally honoured today is tolerance. It is a useful Lenten...
Third Sunday: Purifying the House of the Father
‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace! (Jn. 2:16).
The cleansing of the Temple speaks to the nature and...
Echoes of Ronald Knox and C.S. Lewis
Some years ago I wrote rather a long winded play, Shaw vs Chesterton, an imaginary debate between two great friends, G.K. Chesterton and Bernard...