This year, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola has an extra sparkle. Not only is today Ignatius Day for Jesuits around the world, it also comes nestled within the Ignatian Year. Five centuries ago, while fighting willfully a hopeless...
The women of the gospels are significant to us in so many ways. They are models of faith and discernment, and they give us a glimpse into the community of Jesus. Martha is an example and she is a significant...
COVID-19 has taught us many things, but for me one of the most painful lessons was that our society has a long way to go when it comes to treating our elders with love and dignity. When the pandemic took...
We can hardly be surprised that with so many women named Mary in the New Testament there is a little confusion around which event refers to which Mary. Add a number of accounts of un-named women and the confusion only...
When it comes to our relationship with the Blessed Mother, it is valuable for our own prayer life to see how the liturgical celebration of the Immaculate Heart has been presented to us, and to see how the changes over...
One of the most commonly depicted images in Christian art is that of the disciples at Pentecost. Around the world, there have been countless versions of the men and women gathered in a locked room in Jerusalem, each with a...
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Rita, the patron saint of abused wives. We need her help. Whether labelled the “perfect storm,” a “pandemic within a pandemic,” a “shadow pandemic,” “intimate partner violence,” or just “domestic abuse,” violence against women...
Every age has its own moments of meaning. Imagine a rural village, Cova da Iria, in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. The world was changing rapidly. Portugal was becoming increasingly more secular. The world was at war. Three shepherd children; Lucia do...
If there was a saint for our current moment in history, St. Catherine of Siena should be the one. Consider the context she lived in. It was late medieval Europe, during the years of the bubonic plague. Close to a third...
Sr. Mary Hennessey was the coordinator of Field Placements at Harvard Divinity School when my husband and I were studying there. She was well known for saying, “A hobby is something you love to do but the world does not...
