Learning to write in the tropics

 These past weeks have involved intense discussions, prayer, and thinking on a topic close to the hearts of all of my fellow discussants. Our concern, pain, and confusion is clear. St Catherine of Siena comes up regularly. Watch this space if you are interested in some weeks or a few months you might want to find out more. Independent of them and only briefly publicly saying what I think on one topic specifically, I write this very brief note. The role of women is one of those topics that has become a ‘hot’ topic for Catholics and one can be easily misunderstood if one is too diplomatic. It has happened to me as a theology student in Cambridge and being amongst anglican ordinands I was diplomatic and wholly misunderstood. The way I, a Catholic, think about this topic is radically different from theirs and I wanted to spare their already confused and frayed spirits. BUT being misunderstood on this important topic did no one any favours. As a Church we have some wonderful sources for...

 Those who know me personally know that the practice of Lectio Divina has shaped my practice of the faith for some time now. Since my student days at the Oxford Catholic Chaplaincy. Far from a pious claim this is has been and continues to be  a confirmation of how much I don’t know about scripture. It is an honest recognition that I, and most likely many other Catholics, don’t spend enough time before our Lord in the written words of Scripture.  Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark, like the past few weeks, we continue in Chapter I. Today Jesus cures a leper. Fr Nicholas Crowe at Blackfriars Oxford goes far deeper into the minute symbolic meaning of the actions taken by the Leper in today’s Gospel during the  homily  he gave at Mass, than I will do. What stayed with me from this week’s Lectio with the local Dominican fraternity was the phrase that comes at the end of the Gospel. The leper understandably joyful about his being cured tells all and Jesus can ...

 My life lately has included barely any social media outside of work related social media……here’s looking at you Las Casas….but I do sometimes log on to facebook to see if it is still there. I sometimes come across something that really makes me laugh, today the thing sort of went in that direction. One of the brothers (dominican) of a well known priory in that place on the Cam asked a random question. WHAT suggestions do you get for reels and videos? This coming right after seeing the comment by a mom somewhere in the midwest about the effects scrolling has on people’s mental health. She writes some very good essays on substack about spirituality though her thinking was going also a bit in this direction. Both comments and the brother’s question made me stop and think about something I rarely think about: what is in my own social media feed? I decided for this exercise, and so as to respond to the brother, to exclude twitter….yes I know it’s now X but just don’t like the sound of ...