Allow me to share with you one of the high points of my life – a short, yet deeply enriching encounter with a saint. Nearly 30 years ago, I worked at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington’s emergency food warehouse. Missionaries of Charity sisters caring for HIV/AIDS patients at their Gift of Peace House Read more
A friend who divides her time between New Zealand and the European country of her birth, says New Zealand is the most caring country in the world. “People look out for each other,” she says. “If someone falls in the street, people run to help them.” Her opinion may be fashioned by her own compassionate Read more
During the final weeks of her life, all spent in an Indian hospital, my grandmother deteriorated peacefully, and gracefully, until she slipped into a coma and breathed her last. My 10-year-old self remembers a thing or two about this time. The hospital’s egg curry, a much-loved north Indian dish, was amazing. The tiny cakes with Read more
Let’s start with a story from Jon Muth’s book “Zen Shorts:” Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. Read more
Truth is, in many ways, a simple thing. But there are times when it is not so simple. As I’ve written before, my wife Marty has Alzheimer’s. Caring for her exercises my wit in ways I never expected. It also reminds me of that fundamental, liberating truth: that she is, even now — especially now — a Read more
I have vivid memories of attending Mass throughout my childhood and youth and listening to the priest, financial parish secretary or visitor explain, as an auditor would, why there wasn’t enough money or why they needed more. The person speaking said something like this: “We are doing fantastic work, but we can only continue because Read more
On the weekend, I joined Robert Manne, Tim Costello and John Menadue in calling for an end to the limbo imposed on proven refugees on Nauru and Manus Island. I think this can be done while keeping the boats stopped. I think it ought be done. Appearing on the ABC’s 7.30 program last Thursday, after Read more
The latest proposal to save Island Bay’s Erskine College chapel is probably the chapel’s last hope. A plan for the Erskine chapel’s restoration involves a $30 million 94-townhouse complex of terraced houses and apartments, $7m restoration of the chapel and Reverend Mother’s garden, and new home for the Aubert Childcare Centre (formerly based at the Home Read more
Imagine, right now at this very moment you and your loved ones need to run for your lives! With hardly more than the clothes on your backs, you and your family must flee from an invading armed force. Or imagine your quick exodus is due to the fact that gang members have threatened to kill Read more
The most remarkable year of my life and easily the one in which my faith grew the most was the 12 months I spent as a young man working at a rural college in India. The double blow of not knowing God and not knowing anybody at all brought me to a place of loneliness Read more