Author: Saintstephens

Discovering Christian Meditation with the Parish Group

In these times of social distancing, many people are discerning a call to rediscover the value of silence in their lives. We are distancing from each other but the good news is that God is present to us all the time. God dwells in our hearts in loving silence. We need to be present to the divine presence and many hearts are now stirring. Be still and know that I am God. In the silence of our hearts, we find that we are profoundly connected.

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Reflections for the Month of May

How are you coping with lockdown? It will affect each of us differently. With so much time on our hands we might become the classic couch-potato. The constant ‘News updates’ repeated continually all day is depressing enough, pointless speculation on when it will end; who’s right or wrong; passing the buck and looking for a scape-goat is how the world responds to disaster.

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A New Perspective on our Eucharistic Fast

“BEHOLD THE PIERCED ONE”
Joseph Ratzinger, 1986
A quotation transcribed from a talk given by Tony Hickey on 9/4/2020

In the present era we do not celebrate Mass on Good Friday, but we do receive the pre-sanctified Blessed Sacrament, whereas in the early Church the Eucharist was not received on Good Friday. In the light of the Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown of our churches, the following excerpt from Ratzinger’s book, Behold the Pierced One, first published in 1986, gives us a new perspective to our ‘Eucharistic fast’.

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