In the early 1990s I spotted a new fashion in mountain trekking: retractable poles. In my eyes, people using them looked very professional. I would have been happy to have my own set, but they were horrendously expensive. Luckily I had a pair of disused one-piece ski poles, and I decided to use one of them. What a boost to…
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Years ago, in my second parish, I was extremely fortunate to find a group of young musically talented people. They formed a modern band and after several weeks they started playing and singing modern hymns of worship. Sunday evening Mass, one of the five in the parish, became a Youth Mass. The main difference between this and the more traditional…
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Last Sunday I was speaking about people feeling guilty because their adult children were rarely going to church or not going at all. My suggestion was to stop thinking about your past errors – regardless whether they were real or just imagined – and supporting them here and now. Obviously we cannot change the past, but we can and should…
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Recently I had a chat with a very nice couple. Among several of the different things we were talking about was one sensitive topic that surfaces time after time: that of their grown up children having little or no contact with the Church. The parents’ feelings seem to be of disappointment mixed with guilt. It’s particularly painful for parents who…
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As a teenage schoolboy I was struggling. The end of each school year faced me with a battle to get enough credits to go up to the next year-group. My Achilles’ heel in particular was physics – it was my nightmare for six long years. But, and this is funny, at the same time I was devouring all the available…