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Strange Beauties
“[I am] God’s little artist, a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies, a diligent worker,” writes Gwen John, inspired by the example of St Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Flower. “Strange Beauties” is a retrospective of the Welsh painter’s work and personal writings currently on exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff. A rare and…
Jubilee 2025: A Roman Pilgrimage
This July, Jenn and I journeyed to Rome as part of a Jubilee Year pilgrimage with a group of colleagues from St David’s Catholic College. We passed through the Holy Doors of St Peter’s, St John Lateran, St Paul Outside the Walls, and St Mary Major, where the remains of Pope Francis are laid to…
Visit to Oxford Oratory
This week I had the joy of taking a group of students to the University of Oxford open day. In a few quiet moments, I had an opportunity to pray at the Oxford Oratory on Woodstock Road
Henri Nouwen on the Practice of the Presence of God
In a November entry of The Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen reflects on the writing and spirituality of Brother Lawrence
Seeking Love of Neighbour
Dorotheus of Gaza, quoted in an entry from Henri Nouwen’s The Genesee Diary
St Ambrose on the Psalms
A short passage from this morning’s Office of Readings in the Breviary (Friday, Week 10 of Ordinary Time)
Robert Pirsig on Selfless Climbing
While packing for a trip I pick up an old book I haven’t read for a long time. It’s a 1976 edition of Henri Nouwen’s The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery.
Of Gods and Men (2010): Witnesses to Faith
Xavier Beauvois’s 2010 film, Of Gods and Men, begins with this ominous epitaph from the eighty-second psalm. It is to be a portent of the narrative’s themes of death and dignity, explored in conversation with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
Thomas Merton on Solitude and Simple Living
“‘Solitude’ becomes for me less and less of a specialty, and simply ‘life’ itself. I do not seek to ‘be a solitary’ or anything else, for ‘being anything’ is a distraction. It is enough to be”
Adolphe Tanquerey on the Psalms
A quiet evening reading from Tanquerey’s The Spiritual Life, first published in 1923
“This is what we are about”: The Romero Prayer
A beautiful prayer about vocation by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, often attributed to St Óscar Romero
“Be zealous in amending your whole life”: Vincent Van Gogh on The Imitation of Christ
In the years leading up to my conversion, I gradually became fascinated by Thomas á Kempis’s devotional text, The Imitation of Christ. I encountered it first in the letters of the young Samuel Beckett, and next in the interviews of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, and then in all kinds of other unexpected places. Among them,…
Vivid Expression
From distant Paris, Fr Huvelin offers spiritual advice to St Charles de Foucauld as he works as a gardener in Nazareth
Easter 2024: A Roman Pilgrimage
A selection of the sites visited during a recent Easter pilgrimage to Rome
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