Maisie Ward, in her book, The Splendour of the Rosary tells how she was a nurse at the height of the Battle of Britain as bombs were raining down on London. An air-raid warden was carried bleeding and broken into the hospital. In the darkness, she took out her Rosary beads and began to pray. The young man reached out his blood-stained hand and said: “Let me touch it. It's something to hold on to!”

And I don't need perfection to have a perfect day’. Shane Filan's lyrics end with, ‘I just want to see a smile on your face’, and, it is fair to say, that heavy demands can wipe a smile off your face. Facing life choices can be tough going and it is best to begin with a wide horizon rather than narrowing your vision to just one option.

Spring is a season for change. Leaves are changing bare branches into green. Birds are awake at dawn, singing their hearts out. The brown earth is alive with waves of green. Spring is a time of change for Christians as well, who recall that Lent is an invitation to grow at the inner level of soul. Christians all over the world hear this old, familiar call: change and believe the good news! It has echoed down the years to the twenty-first century.

SARAH MacDONALD speaks to Martin Jim McFadden who found sobriety after many years battling alcohol addiction. With the wisdom of hindsight, he sums up his life as an alcoholic in the title of his book, Don’t Go There.

This question is, in one sense, a very dry one. It’s like asking, do you believe that there is a place called Hawaii? – when you, like me, may not have been there. It is a skeleton-like one – with little emotion in it. It is far richer, when it is put this way. Do you believe in a God, who is all loving, all good, all-powerful, and all wise? If the answer is ‘yes’, then it is made, and has to be, in humility and in a spirit of adoration. A negative answer is the shutting out of a vast amount – the whole spiritual world.

A man badly wounded in the firing-line, Sir.’ Fr Doyle opened his eyes slowly. He had been dreaming of somewhere hot. One always dreamed of lovely hot places and things on these cold winter nights in the trenches – warm blankets, roaring fires and lots of steaming, hot food.

One of a collection of the Stories of FR WILLIE DOYLE, SJ, the saintly Irish Jesuit and military chaplain and once a member of the Central Council of the PTAA, who was killed while ministering to the soldiers in August 1917 during World War 1.

During the Mission I heard, accidentally, of two men who had been away from the sacraments for forty and fifty-two years respectively. One was a hopeless case, the other in desperation, upon whom missioner after missioner had tried his hand in vain. Clearly, no ordinary course of action would do here; so Our Lord, having, as I said, accidentally made known these poor souls known to me, put a thought into my head. 

SR THÉRÈSE MARIE FROST recounts the life of Sr Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, better known as St Edith Stein, the brilliant Jewess who perished in Auschwitz and is now one of the heavenly Patrons of Europe

Edith was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on 12 October 1891. She was the youngest child of Auguste and Siegfried Stein. The family were Jewish and Edith was always special to her mother because she was born on the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of Jewish Holy Days. Edith’s father ran a lumber business but, sadly, he died before she was two. After his death, her mother took on the business and made a great success of it.

There is a widespread opinion among sociologists that at least 60 per cent of the population of any country regard whatever is legal as moral. It would seem that many people think that if you will not be summonsed, fined or sent to jail for something, then it is all right. This is true even in highly educated populations. Surely, France comes into this category. The precision of its language was forged in the philosophical debates of its great medieval institutions of learning, particularly the University of Paris. There, high academic standards and concern for philosophical accuracy in the areas of law, medicine, theology, etc. have been attracting students from all over the world ever since. Presumably, that high level of education still exists in the country.

The Israelites made a mistake that we all make. They underestimated the full implications of their vocation. They were convinced, and rightly so, that they were the Chosen People of God. Most of them, however, seem to have had precious little understanding about what this entailed. Over the centuries, different prophets, especially Isaiah, tried to convince them that their divine vocation was not simply to cling tenaciously to the strip of land given them on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and to keep themselves apart from the other peoples on the face of the earth. Their calling was nothing less than to bring the message of salvation to all these nations. Only gradually did it emerge how this was to come about. Isaiah anticipated it several hundred years before the Israelites actually gave us the Messiah. ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the nations, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth’. (Isaiah 49:6.)

A telegram for you, Father”, said the Sister, laying the envelope on the table. Father Doyle looked up from his writing with a smile. “Thank you, Sister,” he said. “I was expecting one.” 

Having finished the letter he was writing, Fr Doyle opened the telegram placed by his side. As he read it, a slightly puzzled look passed across his face. He thought for a moment, and picking up a railway guide, studied it. Then he crossed to the electric bell and pressed the button. 

“Sister,” he said when the she appeared, “I wonder could I see reverend Mother for a moment.”

“Certainly, Father,” I’ll get her at once.” 

SARAH MAC DONALD attended a conference in Dublin recently where Dr Robert Enright spoke on the theme of forgiveness. Here’s what the American Professor had to say on the subject.

Dr Robert Enright is a pioneer in the scientific study of forgiveness. A psychologist and professor of educational psychology at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, in 1994 he helped found the International Forgiveness Institute. This not-for-profit organisation is dedicated to disseminating information on the effectiveness of forgiveness for personal healing as well as spiritual and community renewal. An author and much sought after lecturer, his ‘process model of forgiving’ is a twenty-step intervention which has helped people all over the world learn forgiveness and cope with the wounds inflicted on them. 

The Church will soon celebrate one of the most important days on the liturgical calendar, the feast of Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit. There are three great symbols classically associated with the third Person of the Trinity, namely, water, fire, and wind; and each of these has a negative connotation, for the Holy Spirit is dangerous.

Kateri Tekakwitha was known as Lily of the Mohawks and had a short life during which she experienced great resistance to her embracing Catholicism, yet she persisted in her love for Jesus. Kateri was born at Ossernenon, which was a village near present-day New York in 1656. She was the daughter of a non-Christian Mohawk chieftain. Her mother came from an Algonquin tribe and had been reared as Catholic. At that time, the various tribes were frequently at war with each other. During one of these battles, Kateri’s mother had been taken hostage and brought to where her father lived. Apparently her mother was very beautiful, so Kateri’s father chose her as his wife.