Take up your cross

If you want to become a follower of mine, you need to deny yourself and take us your cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24)

Changing habits

M sister Philomene Tiernan entered the convent in February 1957. We said goodbye to Phil in the parlour of Rose Bay Convent in Sydney. We stood silent as the Mistress of Novices escorted Phil from the room carrying her single suitcase. It held a prescribed contents of modest skirts, blouses and flat shoes. Mum, Dad, my two brothers and I made our way through the heavy front doors back to our car. How we missed our sister as we drove through the starless night to Brisbane.

Taken down

The worst thing that can happen to any Christian is for their experience of the cross to become bland. It’s understandable that this might happen when there are crosses everywhere. You find them on churches, schools, badges, uniforms, flags and even on hot buns. The cross is so familiar that we could pass by without recalling what it represents

Women and the war

During this special anniversary year of ANZAC, our thoughts turn to those events of 100 years ago. In the May 1915 edition of Madonna, regular writer Constance M. Le Plastrier wrote a long reflection on the role that Australian women were playing in that great conflict. Here is an extract from her article.

Surprising the synod

Long-time commentators on family, Mavis and Ron Pirola, made world-wide headlines with their address to the recent Synod on the Family.

A wide-ranging talent

Artist Martin Tighe is not much into self-promotion, happy to let his art do the talking. And there’s much to be said about his work, particularly his portraits and his most recent exhibition of bread paintings, which he calls religious icons

Bread, broken for you

On the final day of his three-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May 2014, Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the Upper Room—the Cenacle—in Jerusalem. In his homily he referred to the power of the gift Jesus left us through the Eucharist

Soul Matters

As I pen this from Hong Kong on the last day of October, the feast day of famous Jesuit brother, St Alphonsus Rodriguez, I realise that I am not only a long way from home but also a substantial time from the publication of this Autumn edition

The Bread of Life

Our Community of Prayer - June, July, August

The Pope's prayer intentions, calendar of saints and reflections on the liturgical readings for each day of the month. Click here to visit the website

Nostalgia and memory

The process of memory is such a complex field of human existence that it is difficult to know where to begin in trying to grasp its conceptual slipperiness. And yet it is hard to find a more basic element in our lives than they way the past is present to us in the here and now

Lion and flowers

n Melbourne, in Carlton’s Lygon Street, come across the usual run of urban resources: the restaurants, the supermarket, the butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. And if you did this some time late in 2003, you might have noticed, on the narrow divider in the middle of Lygon Street, a very simple fountain, which, several days running, had fresh flowers in its bowl.