A Catholic Monthly Magazine

The Pandemic and the People of God (0)

Fr Gerald Arbuckle SM’s latest book, published in early October, is
The Pandemic and the People of God: Cultural Impacts and Pastoral Responses,
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021), $US25. … More

World Day of the Poor – 14 November (0)

Extracts from the Pope’s Message given in Rome at Saint John Lateran, 13 June 2021 

“The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7).… More

Hauropi Mariana (0)

A Marian Integral Ecology – Part 2 of 2

To be Mary, Virgin:
Ko te Whaea - Ko te Tātāhou 

To be like Mary, to imitate her quality of presence, is to be as soil.… More

Rejoicing in the Communion of Saints (0)

This month we celebrate All Saints and pray for the souls in purgatory.
The people we love who have died probably had as many shortcomings, quirks, neuroses and downright failures as we do.… More

Mary Assumed into Heaven / The Eucharist (0)

Mary Assumed into Heaven

The poet Dante calls the Virgin Mary, “humbler and loftier than any creature” (Paradise, XXXIII, 2). It is beautiful to think that the humblest and loftiest creature in history, the first to win heaven with her entire being, in soul and body, lived out her life for the most part within the domestic walls, in the ordinary, in humility.… More

Blessed Miguel Pro SJ (1)

On the 23 November 1927, a young Mexican Jesuit priest stood before a firing squad. He was guilty of no crime, had faced no trial, but arms outstretched in cruciform, a rosary in one hand and a crucifix in the other, Padre Miguel Pro went to his death.… More

Can You Bear It? (0)

An elderly lady had stopped to pull into a parking space when a young man in his new red Mercedes went around her and parked in the space she was going into.… More

Anniversary of the Death of the Founder of the Society of Mary (0)

Venerable Jean-Claude Colin
15 November

In August 1874, Fr Colin's secretary, Br Jean-Marie Chognard, reported that Fr Colin was growing weaker: "he can hardly stand on his own legs any more ...… More

MM 50 Years Ago (0)

St Bede’s 60th Year

St Bede’s was not the first secondary school founded by the Society of Mary in the South Island.… More

A November Thought — the Bottom Line (0)

A few years ago, a death notice caught my eye. It was for a man whose wife I had known since I was at high school (let’s call them Mary and John).… More

St John of the Cross (0)

The Dark Night of the Soul

Part 5 of 5

This is the fourth major work of St John, even though scholars say it is a continuation and completion of his earlier work, the Ascent of Mount Carmel.… More

A Sacrificial Chook! (0)

Quite a few years ago, with a small group, I visited El Salvador and Guatemala. At one parish church in Guatemala, I remember especially the colourful, graphic statues depicting the martyrdom of saints and Jesus’ death. … More

Joy (Comments Off)

The Bright Side

Part 1 of 3

‘Tears of Joy’ 

The team and supporters winning a grand final or a world cup.… More

November Saints (0)

Saint Guido Maria Conforti
(1865-1931)

Guido Maria Conforti was born in Parma, Italy, the eighth of ten children. He attended an elementary school run by the De La Salle Brothers from 1872 and each day, on his way to the school, he would stop by the church of Santa Maria della Pace, where he used to have conversations with the crucified Christ.… More

A Different Scripture Rosary (0)

Distractions at prayer are a bugbear for many of us. In his book, Introduction to Spirituality, Father Louis Bouyer mentions an aid to focusing our attention when praying the Rosary, which has been popular in a number of countries, notably in Germany.… More