Victoria University religious studies professor Paul Morris says the study Faith and Belief in New Zealand didn’t get an accurate representation of different ethnicities, particularly Māori and Pacific populations. “It’s a very strange sample because it inconsiderably includes less than our population percentages of Māori and Pacifika, and that may have actually impacted on the result – Read more
Fr Christian Mondor arrived in the Huntington Beach, Southern California in the 1960s. He started surfing almost immediately after arriving. When Mondor spoke about surfing, it mostly focused on the spiritual side of the sport: “it can be very contemplative. When you’re out alone, between waves, you experience a beautiful calm.” Continue reading
The Second Vatican Council established that, “Christ summons the Church as she goes her pilgrim way… to that continual renewal of which she always has need”. At the launch of Wellington Diocesan priest Eddie Condra’s book, “Remapping Our Souls: Spirituality for Disillusioned Catholics”, I felt that we were responding to this summons. In a different Read more
When I think of my teen years, I mostly remember a dark road. When I turned 15 I got my license and, with a small sum of money my dad gave me after he sold my childhood home, I bought myself a real beater of a car that you could hear coming from blocks away. Read more
Growing up in an evangelical Protestant family, I didn’t hear much about the Christian mystics. My religious background tended to equate mysticism with occult practices, overlooking the mystics’ real emphasis: a direct experience of God. Yet, I sensed that the divine was a constant, companionable presence, someone who was simultaneously both within and all around Read more
An Inner Music will be launched in Wellington at Connolly Hall at 6 pm on Monday 9 May and in Auckland at the Columba Centre at 6 pm on Friday 13 May. It is a user-friendly book on the mystics by well-known Marist priest Craig Larkin. An Inner Music provides an introduction to 20 mystics Read more
Michael Fitzsimons, a former editor of Zealandia Catholic Newspaper, is a director of Wellington-based communications and publishing company, FitzBeck Creative. He has written a number of books, including the Wellington Book and the NZ Book, but this is his first book of poems. The collection, called Now You Know, includes poems by Michael Fitzsimons and Read more
All of us are pushed in a thousand directions over the course of a single day. Spouses, children, parents, work, friends—it can be hard to find the time for daily maintenance, much less the mental space to practice any kind of spirituality. Having any kind of deepened spiritual life can often seem impossible. But Sister Read more
You are Jewish; your husband, a lapsed Catholic. Neither of you believes, much, in God, although occasionally you like to meditate and you both would go hiking more if you could. You’ve had those moments — who hasn’t? — on mountaintops or in art museums or even in prayer when you’ve felt that overwhelming sense Read more
On Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, Pope Francis outlined a program for Lent in his homily, using for his inspiration the readings of the day from Book of Joel, Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, and the Gospel of Matthew. Some of the themes correlate well with films that tell stories that foster reflection, conversation and Read more