-
A Beautiful Moment
I had a touching experience a few days ago which left an impression upon me. We had a visiting priest, who has ben here for the last few weeks and who is aware that I pray the Divine Office before the morning Mass. This particular morning, he asked me had I already prayed Morning Prayer and I said I had not; he then asked if it would be alright for him to join me in praying it. Of course, I was delighted and said ‘yes’. And so we sat there, before the Tabernacle in a Church which was still empty apart from us, and we prayed that Hour of the…
-
Gathered As Church
A couple of evenings ago, our diocese held a Synod event at Carfin Grotto. The weather wasn’t the best as there were various weather warnings in place thanks to Storm Babet. And this almost certainly reduced the numbers of people who were present that evening from across the diocese. Alongside this, there were anecdotes of some parishes not having been told anything about the synodal event taking place; and at least one parish – whose priest is perceived as being not in favour of the Synod taking place – was said to have arranged a service at the same time that evening, seemingly as a counterpoint to what was taking…
-
Listen
Way back, our parish community gathered week after week in deep prayer in preparation for the Synod which would follow later, doing this at the request of the Holy Father. Our intention was clear – to try to listen and discern the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We prayed each time over the Scriptural account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Every meeting began with a very slow reading of this account and then we prayed silently. And only then did we consider saying anything. We listened first. Many parishes and groups all over the world were doing the very same thing as we were. Everywhere, the Church…
-
The Path To Encounter
The final countdown to the Synod has begun and one of the words we have been hearing a lot is ‘encounter’. The Synod is all about encounter, about walking together on this missionary journey of the Church. Encounter is really at the heart of it all. But it is, I think, actually a double encounter. First there is the encounter between each of us as members of the Church. Without this encounter, there can be no listening, no communion – the vital steps before the next phase of participation and mission. Before we can begin these last two – first, we must meet each other in open encounter. This encounter,…
-
Locked Out
One of the most extraordinary furores has been taking place over the last few days within the realm of social media, but also extending far beyond it. Twitter decided to limit the ability of it’s users to interact with the platform – limiting the number of posts a user could see and respond to, and distinguishing between different layers of membership, so that what each user could do was defined by what type of membership was held. You will have almost certainly seen or read the reaction to those limitations being imposed. What was really astonishing about this is that the platform is designed precisely to encourage engagement and interaction…
