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Advent comes round again

It’s Advent again and the prophecies written by Isaiah a mere 2,700 years ago have a new feel about them. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (Isa 2:4). There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear […]

Welcome, Advent!

Welcome, Advent,

herald of the Good News,

threshold of hope, matured in a long wait.

You open our eyes of the spirit

towards the eternity,

Since in what is already accomplished

you are the promise of accomplishment.

Gifts

Take a smile

and give it to those who have never had one.

Take a ray of sun

and send it flying to the kingdom of darkness.

Look for a spring of water

and show it to those who only know how to roll in the mud.

Take a tear

and put it on the cheeks of those who have never cried.

An abused woman

This happened about thirty years ago on the banks of the Ganges in Benares. A woman whose age could just as easily have been thirty or fifty, because of the way TB had taken its toll on her, was holding her young son in her arms and beside her was her daughter, who was about […]

What is the matter with Homo sapiens?

I am impressed by the advances in technology and the sciences that make it possible. It is an incredible collective success of sapiens, our species, to make life more comfortable and with less suffering. I would certainly not want to go back to the living conditions of just 200 years ago: no vaccines, antibiotics, anesthesia, […]

Love, the only religion

What can I do, oh Muslims, as I don’t recognise myself? I am not a Christian, a Jew, a Magian, or a Muslim. I am not from the East, nor from the West, nor from the land, nor from the sea. I am not from the nature, nor from the rotating skies. I am not […]

The way to Life

The princes Pandavas, dethroned by their opponents, were found in exile. The youngest of the brothers went to find water. He got to a crystalline lake, but when he approached and bent to drink, he listened to a voice that said to him: -Stop! You will only be able to drink water from this lake […]

The Abortion Debate: a Polish symptom

On 22 October the Constitutional Court of Poland ruled that abortion on the grounds of foetal malformation was unconstitutional. I remember what happened; in 1993 and defying the Church, the State legalised abortion on four grounds: rape, incest, serious risk for the mother’s health and foetal malformation. It was a symptom of the new Poland, […]

A man simply

A friend from the Balearic Islands writes to me: “Another great witness of light has left us: Mgr. Arturo Lona, the bishop of the poor. I still remember him wearing his jeans, his white T-shirt and his wooden crucifix hanging from his neck with a little rope tied to it. I met him in a […]

A Litany of Remembrance

In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them. In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them. In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them. In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, […]