Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

Mary carries the Word Advent is the season where God waits for the love of his children. He waits, silently, patiently for the moment of grace until the chronos of life (our time) becomes impregnated with his kairos (God’s time), the Word becomes flesh! During Advent we reflect on Jesus in the womb of Mary, growing slowly, silently and invisibly, present even though invisible. Mary is an Advent woman, a woman very dear to my heart. A woman of life, a woman for life, every fibre of her being says ‘Yes’ to carry Jesus in her womb. Today, 12th of December, we celebrate a beautiful Marian feastday which celebrates the gift of life, that of our Lady of Guadalupe. On the 12th of December 1531, our Lady appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego and requested that a shrine be built and dedicated to her on the Hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego, upon reporting this event to the bishop, was disappointed because the bishop didn't seem to believe him. Juan returned to the place of the apparition ...

A post just to give thanks....for the gift of life, for the gift of my parents who gave me this gift and collaborated with God's plan to bring me into this world. Life is a gift: each day I become ever aware of this. Some of you know that I was a premature baby. It reminds me that just as life is a gift, it is a fragile gift and we carry this gift in clay vessels as Scriptures remind us. My friends in Ottawa used to say I was precocious since I was a baby! I couldn't wait to embrace the world and all that it contains. I pray I may still see with world with fresh eyes each day. There is so much good to be seen, first of all, in the people around us, in the beauty of creation, in the flutters of grace which pass by each day. Birthdays can be strange things. Some people like to celebrate them, some people prefer no mention or fuss be made. For me to mark a birthday is to say to a person: "I thank God that you were born," I am grateful that you are alive and in this w...

"You knit me together in my mother's womb' (Psalm 139,13) On the 25th of March 2014, feast of the Annunciation, where we celebrate Mary accepting to be the Mother of the Emmanuel, together with some of my classmates in Canada, I spent the morning praying outside an abortion clinic in Ottawa. It was a day I will never forget and I often return to that very cold morning praying for life on this special feastday. It was an act of reparation and prayer for those who for various reasons felt they could not say ‘Yes’ to the gift of life. Some people held pictures of our Lady of Guadalupe, I remember imp loring her maternal heart to change the heart of those who went to the clinic. When I went home, I cried bitterly for the women and babies who went into that clinic and for the babies who never made it out of the clinic. I didn't think that it would affect me so much. As a woman, my maternal heart suffered with these women whose lives had been changed forever. All I cou...

I am sure that many of you have read that in the Bible there are 365 places where either in the Old Testament or the New Testament we are told: “ Do not be afraid. ” This symbolic number of 365 evokes the consoling fact that for each day of the year, we don't need to be afraid because our God is with us. However, do we pay must attention to the times when the Scripture alerts us towards the things that we should be afraid of? One of these phrases is the following: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:27-28). Do we ever think of who could destroy our body? Or our soul? Usually when we think of fear, we shirk away, we don’t like fear but yet a healthy fear keeps us alive. Over the past week we have seen how others have taken it upon themselves to ‘kill the body’. If you haven’t heard about the horrific videos released in the past week about the heartbreaking and despicable activ...

Sorry this is late but it has been a busy week and mid-term exams have even started, crazy as it seems! Just wanted to share with you some blessings which I have had over this past week. Last Sunday, Life Chain was held simultaneously in more than 200 cities across Canada each year. Life Chain involves gathering at public locations for an hour on the first Sunday of October and creating a chain of people who stand and give witness to the dignity of life. It is a peaceful and prayerful public witness of pro-life individuals standing and praying for our nation and for an end to abortion.  It is a visual statement of solidarity by the Christian community that abortion kills children and that the Church supports the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception until natural death. It does not involve the use of graphic images but of short phrases like "Abortion Kills Children," "Adoption - the Loving Option," "Jesus Forgives & Heals," ...

Last night, with my Rosary in hand, I watched the Dail live debate until the adjournment at 5am. With the five hour time zone difference, for me it didn’t entail an all-night session as it did for friends and fervent pro-life supporters who prayed throughout the night outside the Dail. Recently I have been posting links and coverage to the Protection of Life bill in Ireland on my social media but from some of the emails and messages received, not everyone is happy with my stance. ‘Free will’, ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’ are words that pop up quite regularly as people indicate that the posts are like ‘ramming religion down our necks’. Another broken record is the tune, ‘Look at the Church has done in the past, deal with that first before you lecture to people about morals’. There is also the other extreme. I remember being asked last year if I was pro-life. It is sad that in this day and age one has even to ask a priest or a sister or a practicing Catholic if they are pro-life...

  In Ireland, this Sunday, we celebrate the ‘Day for Life’. The bishops made their appeal in a special pastoral message which will be read and distributed in all Catholic parishes on the island this weekend and which also marks the start of a month of prayer around the theme “Choose Life!”, announced last month. Ireland’s Catholic bishops have called on “all who believe in the equal dignity and beauty of every human life” to “join us in calling on our public representatives to respect the humanity and life of children in the womb and to reject abortion.” Throughout Canada and the US, something similar called the 40 Days for Life is currently in course. It began on the 26 th of September and runs until the 4 th of November. There have now been ten coordinated 40 Days for Life campaigns since 2007, mobilizing people of faith and conscience in 440 cities across the United States and Canada, plus cities in Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Belize, Denmark, England, Georgia,...