A modern need for adoration

St Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) born near Grenoble in France – an Apostle of the Eucharist - and founder of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation is especially remembered today.  A strong feature of his life, as with so many saints, were the many trials and tribulations he faced in responding to his vocation from opposition within his family, especially his father, to difficulties in the religious congregation he joined and later in establishing the congregation he founded. His physical health was fragile throughout.  At a young age he felt drawn to the Blessed Sacrament and a vocation to the priesthood. 

The mission of the congregation he founded is to spread knowledge and love of Jesus in the Eucharist everywhere. In practice, many of its communities carry out this mission in the heart of major cities.  By happy coincidence,

An act of spiritual communion

Today is the memorial of St Alphonsus of Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorist Order.  He assumed some degree of renewed fame during the Covid epidemic when it was not generally possible for many to attend Mass or receive Holy Communion for months at a time.  As a result, many discovered (or re-discovered) the prayer of ‘spiritual communion’ which is attributed to St Alphonsus. It goes as follows:

What more can I do for Christ?

Among the many congregations, orders, associations and institutes established in the Catholic Church over the centuries, the Jesuits have not failed to distinguish themselves by their missionary and pastoral zeal and scholarship.  Many of the sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) have distinguished themselves in diverse fields from science to poetry to theology and medicine.  Among them were the astronomer, Christopher Clavius, the polymath Athanasius Kircher, the theologian Robert Bellarmine and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.  The film, The Mission, left a deep impression on my when I saw it many decades ago.

St Ignatius was very much a product of his time – a Spanish Basque of noble birth who was trained in the military arts before his conversion to a deeper discipleship of Christ.

He did not stop at half measures. Some historians credit the Jesuits

Abundance in a world of scarcity

Sunday 2 August 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Isaiah 55:1-3 Psalm 145(144)

Romans 8:35-39 Matthew 14:13-21

Meditatio:

‘And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full’  (Matt 14:20)

Commentary:

(The miracle of the loaves and feeding of the crowds is to be found in all four gospels - Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:1-15.).

in his 1932 book An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, Lionel Robbins declared that:

Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.

This definition was taught to me as a first-year Political Economy student more than fifty years ago. Even then, I was unconvinced that economics was a

We being many are one body

St Paul wrote in his first letter to the church at Corinth:

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (10:17)

One of the fascinating aspects of life is the infinite diversity of people.  God never repeats himself: each one is uniquely made and fashioned.  We are as the psalmist says:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (139:13).

Each living human being is unique and gifted from the first moment of conception. Reason, science, and faith together point us towards this truth. When he assumed the office of Pope, Benedict XVI said:

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

An invitation to be still

The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, once wrote:

I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room [Source]

[..j’ai dit souvent que tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre].

Remaining silent for even a few minutes seems harder than ever in an age of constant digital distraction and social media. Yet if we were to set aside just ten minutes each day for silence - whether alone or in the company of others who are likewise silent - we might begin to cultivate a habit that would serve us well. If we were then to integrate this practice into

The ripple effects of adoration

The butterflies have been active throughout the summer months, helping to pollinate flowers and contributing to a healthy garden ecosystem. These are insects of such delicacy and beauty – yet we seldom associate them with powerful effects. 

There is a theory that tiny changes in one place can have ripple effects elsewhere in the world. This idea, often associated with the ‘butterfly effect’, suggests that complex systems can be surprisingly sensitive to small changes. This might seem fanciful at first, but a moment’s reflection on just how complex, unpredictable and inter-related our world is suggests that these ideas associated with ‘chaos theory’ are not so far-fetched.

The flap of a butterfly's wings may not trigger a tornado across the ocean. Yet the insight behind the butterfly effect - that small actions can have consequences far beyond what we immediately perceive - reminds us not to underestimate acts of kindness, presence and adoration.

My interest in one particular application of the butterfly effect was triggered by a chance reading of this article – The “butterfly effect” in eucharistic adoration: