Some web browsing for you............

Some reaction to the Pope's visit to the UK with his call for an empowered and faith-educated laity, and John Allen provides his analysis of the pro's and con's from the Popes visit and the coverage of the Church in the press in the last week and how every cloud has a silver lining. The Catholic Herald editorial in the UK has an interesting view on the Pope's visit where the "Pope exposed the very heart of the Catholic faith for all to see".

Did you realise just how historic Pope Benedicts visit to the UK really was? I hadn't until I read this from Deacon Greg.

Following on from the beatification of Cardinal Newman, today we had the beatification of a young woman who died aged 18 years old and who was very much of this century.Also here and here.

CatholicIreland.net has some interesting articles this week with a Limerick connection to Blessed John Henry Newman, an interesting sentence with a penitential twist from a judge for a man who abused a Garda, and Trocaire has called for the introduction of a tax on financial institutions that it says would generate hundreds of billions of euro every year, which would help eradicate global poverty.

No more hiding from God - or from ourselves - A reflection by Rabbi Or Rose about the Jewish High Holy days which have just come to a close with the feast of Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement.

Some good news from the Irish Church with the the first profession of eleven Dominican novices on 15th September last and the reception of two men into the novitiate in Cork on 14th September.

An inspiring story from the USA about young christians seeking intentional community among the poor.

Recently on the programme Lorraine mentioned an article that Sacred Space 102fm's own Shane Ambrose wrote for the Irish Catholic about his time in Uganda.

Continuing an African theme, this article about when a Catholic priest said Mass in a Muslim home is an interesting insight to inter-religious dialogue among neighbours but also poses questions for us in Ireland about our extremely poor liturgies.

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI poses the question this week, how large is your heaven?

And finally this week we thought you might find this reflection from Googling God interesting especially in the context of the debate about our older citizens and how we need to face up to the need for caring for an aging population:

This past Sunday I attended the 8:30 AM mass at my parish and one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen was at communion.


There was a middle aged woman who was the eucharistic minister nearest me. I happened to look up at one point and saw her hands. They were shaking, presumably from some kind of tremor, usually brought on by Parkinson’s or some other neurological disorder. The tremors are brought about when the dopamine producing nerve cells begin to die that send messages to the parts of the brian that produce movement.

She held the tiny ciboria in her open palm shaking ever so slightly, relishing in giving what she could, while she still could. She held Jesus as best she could and handed the body broken of Christ to us with a broken body herself.

Talk about a thanksgiving moment. It was a moment so beautiful and so simple and yet it comes from such a place of dis-ease, for her presumably and for those who can visibly see her tremor.

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