One of the things that has always puzzled me is the need many people have to be reassured that the community prays for them and their intentions. Not only that, but pray in a way they have specified. Now, while I understand devotion to a particular saint or to the Rosary, say, as a form ... Read more The post Prayer and Reassurance first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

The twentieth anniversary of September 11 was always going to be hard. No one who was alive in 2001 can forget the terrible sight of aircraft crashing into the twin towers, nor what followed after. Seeing people crammed onto window ledges or deliberately leaping from them to certain death brought home to us the intensity ... Read more The post Of Tears and Laughter on September 11 first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

It has not been the summer most of us would have wished. The weather has been uncertain; the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to disrupt lives and cause grief; while natural disasters — floods, fires, hurricanes — and political convulsions —most strikingly, the agony being undergone by the people of Afghanistan — have contributed to a ... Read more The post Sunbeams first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

We are obliged by canon law to make an annual retreat of eight days. In theory, that is wonderful; in practice, not always. Ours begins tonight and will end on 6 September. I have never known a retreat to go quite as planned. Most people assume (hope?) that it will be a week of unalloyed ... Read more The post In Search of Renewed Strength first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

Mark and Matthew agree that we can, and should, love the Lord our God with all our mind (cf Mark 12.30 and Matthew 22.37), but I wonder how many of us fail to register that or settle for the easier (because apparently more demonstrable) loving God with all our heart, adding ‘with all our soul’ ... Read more The post Loving God with all our Mind first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

Not very long ago, nearly everyone seemed to be an armchair epidemiologist. We regaled one another with our opinions on vaccines, lockdowns, mask-wearing and so on, cheerfully unaware that our (mis)understanding of mathematics often made our interpretation of statistical tables questionable, to say nothing of our failure to understand the science involved in tackling COVID-19. ... Read more The post Becoming Expert first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

The shock and horror of what is happening in Afghanistan have left many in the West angry or numb. Some have taken to social media to vent their distress or accuse those they consider to be responsible. Others have found solace in tears or confided to their diaries thoughts they can scarcely put into words. ... Read more The post How do we Pray about Afghanistan? first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

Comparatively few people will be celebrating today’s feast of SS Pontian and Hippolytus with a great sense of their individual personalities. Hippolytus was an important Church writer of the third century although, as with many details of his life, there is disagreement about the exact scope and content of his work, despite many writings having ... Read more The post A Lesson from Pontian and Hippolytus first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

The feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) which we celebrate today always produces a mixture of complicated emotions in me. I must have read almost everything she ever published after she became a nun, admire her deeply, yet confess to being disconcerted by her. Is it the philosopher in her I ... Read more The post Enriching the World: St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more

A Local Event and Hiroshima This morning, at 8 o’clock, Western Power will switch off the electricity supply to this area and we shall be plunged into a temporary physical darkness. It should only last a day, but we won’t be able to supplement natural light at the flick of a switch or do many ... Read more The post Light and Darkness: Transfiguration 2021 first appeared on iBenedictines ..read more