Various places within our everyday experience hint that ordinary experience contains more than just the ordinary, that God is there. One of these is laughter. Jesus teaches that laughter will be part of the final state in heaven. ‘You shall laugh!’ But, beyond that, Jesus' message as a whole assures us of joy, a joy that no one can take from us, and laughter is the lively expression of that joy. It is the apex of our final state in heaven.
The full text of Fr Martin Maier's address at the ecumenical service that took place on 22 March in St Martin in the Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London, to mark the 34th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero.
We are being urged by Francis to move on. If our Catholicism is to truly live, it must not be strangled in its growth by fear of condemnation, fear of the Spirit, and a retreat to 'safety'.
The first year (2009) I did week of guided prayer I really didn’t understand why everyone found it such an amazing experience, I found it incredibly tough and at the end of the week felt like I didn’t fit in and hadn’t done the experience ‘right’.
A personal reflection from a JRS volunteer, Sr Juliana, who offers her thoughts after being with JRS for a couple of months...
JRS as an international catholic non-governmental organisation with a mission to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people; is very much in line with our Charism of Peace through Justice.
God writes straight with crooked lines, it is said. But can good really come out of evil? Do love, truth, and justice ever work out through hatred, lies, and injustice? Do crooked lines really straighten?
