It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree born aloft, wound round by light, brightest of beams. All was that beacon sprinkled with gold. Gems stood fair at earth's corners; there likewise five shone on the shoulder-span. All there beheld the Angel of God fair through predestiny. Indeed, that was no wicked one's gallows, [...]
SS. Simon and Jude are the last two apostles on the list (before Judas Iscariot that is) and Peter comes first. I guess they put them in order of priority because poor old Simon and Jude don't get much more of a mention. The old stories say they ended up preaching the gospel in Persia, which [...]
Sister Mary Lucy was a Poor Clare nun who suffered greatly. She lost her eyesight and had a degenerative bone disease which caused her spine to crumble. The doctors could do very little to help her. I used to visit her regularly, but never once heard her complain. Instead she had a huge radiant smile. I [...]
I was on pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee Year in 2000 when I met Ian. You see, I was hard up at the time and I wanted to save money so I opted not to pay a single room supplement which meant sharing with a stranger. At the airport I was eyeing up all the [...]
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture. It’s called the Fermi Paradox and it goes like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where intelligent life has developed. Given the [...]
The other day I saw a snarky comment about the legend of St Patrick casting all the snakes out of Ireland: "Thing is" said snarker "Ireland never had any snakes anyway. The climate is too damp and cold. Duh." Duh indeed. The legend was never about snakes anyway. It was about serpents--meaning Satan and the demons. [...]
As a convert you come across some unusual practices within the Catholic faith (said he, making the understatement of the year) One of them for me was to find that there was a feast day for a chair. What was I–poor Bob Jones graduate that I was–to make of such an odd celebration? There it was [...]
T.S.Eliot was baptized in 1927 and turned away from a life in the wasteland of modern atheism, decadence and despair His new found Christian faith inspired his great poem of repentance--Ash Wednesday. Go here to read the poem, and even better, click here to listen to Eliot himself reading the poem. The poem, like most of [...]
I had a Southern Baptist friend who thought it was amusing, when visiting Catholic churches, to wave to the image of Mary and say, "Hi Mary!" When I challenged him on what seemed a mark of disrespect he said cheerily, "Y'all say, 'Hail Mary' and 'Hail' just means 'Hi', so it's my way of saying 'Hail [...]
When I was researching my book Mystery of the Magi - The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men I discovered the extraordinary amount of legendary and mythical material surrounding the magi story. More than any other gospel story, the tale of the wise men who came to pay homage to the Christ child attracted elaboration [...]