April 22 will be Earth Day. According to an unsubstantiated tradition, Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron of ecologists, was born on that date in 1181 or 1182. Regardless of the veracity of this claim, it is an indisputable fact that Saint Francis remains for us today an important symbol of the link between religion…
Fatherhood is neither a costume one wears nor a role one plays. It is a noble vocation, filled with “joy and pain, hard work and hope.” Pope Francis referred to the joy and pain recently in a general audience, as part of his series of reflections on the family. It reminded me of the familiar…
A glance at any greeting card display would have you believe that February is the month of love. Be my valentine, reads one card festooned with vivid red hearts and roses. These days, the word love stands against so much fear and bloodshed in some parts of the world that it’s difficult to believe in…
OXFORD LECTURE 2011 Download the PDF file .
When John Lennon recorded Give Peace a Chance in a hotel room in Montreal forty-six years ago, most people thought that he was hopelessly naive. Yet what could be more hopeful? What is naive is to regard peace as something that can be secured without love? This is the intuition that we find in the…
The radical decision that Francis of Assisi took with regards to the meaning of the Christian Gospel during the opening moments of the thirteenth century created a whole school of spirituality that has transcended the centuries as “the richest of all, incontestably one of the most beautiful, and one which has most decisively left its…
During the past few years, I’ve become increasingly aware of people for whom darkness, to varying degrees, plays a significant role in their life, in some cases overwhelming or even paralysing them. This has brought home to me more vividly than ever before the intuition that led Saint Francis of Assisi to beg a friend…
Falling in love can be understood as one of the deepest of human experiences, or as nothing more than a fleeting and superficial romantic attachment. Richard Boileau argues that, far from being shallow, the idea of falling in love with God can powerfully capture the essence of what it truly means to speak of…
In the course of finding God in all situations, which is the rich discovery of contemplative prayer, we are often surprised to find that God is revealed in sadness as well as joy; in darkness as well as light; in doubt as well as faith. Falling is an image of darkness and doubt…
The radical decision that Francis of Assisi took with regards to the meaning of the Christian Gospel during the opening moments of the thirteenth century created a whole school of spirituality that has transcended the centuries as “the richest of all, incontestably one of the most beautiful, and one which has most decisively left…
