When my boys were younger, grocery shopping almost always felt like a painful ordeal. Shopping with a four-year-old and a one year old in tow was highly stressful and fraught with difficulty. I remember my best shopping days back then, however, were when complete strangers would let me push in on the supermarket line or when they would entertain my boys while I concentrated on paying the bill.
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘peace be with you!’” (John 20:19)
Our lives have changed dramatically since COVID-19 spread across the globe. The virus has damaged many aspects of our lives. The pandemic has brought us to a dark place. We have become frightened, isolated and even stopped us from seeing the good in others.
In 1948, Alan Paton, a white South African, wrote a haunting book called Cry the Beloved Country which described the situation in South Africa under apartheid. In a truly prophetic book, he spoke of his dream that there would come a day when there was justice and equality for all.
Our readers consistently rate the Jokes in The Majellan as a favourite. Here are some more giggles for you
“Fratelli tutti”. With these words, Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel. This saint of fraternal love, simplicity and joy, who inspired me to write the encyclical “Laudato Si’”, prompts me once more to devote this new encyclical to fraternity and social friendship. Francis felt himself a brother to the sun, the sea and the wind, yet he knew that he was even closer to those of his own flesh. Wherever he went, he sowed seeds of peace and walked alongside the poor, the abandoned, the infirm and the outcast, the least of his brothers and sisters. (par 1-2)
Former Master General of the Dominican Order, Timothy Radcliffe OP, observes in his latest book, Alive in God (2019) an interesting phenomenon regarding the inclusion or exclusion of words in a dictionary:
One of the biggest issues for couples often revolves around their finances. They come into a relationship with different ideas about money which I refer to as money ‘habitudes’. That is, people have certain habits when it comes to spending their money.
It’s Summer! Did you know all through 2020, I thought Summer would never come? But the longest year ever is finally over and it’s time to enjoy the sunshine.
Firstly, if you’re going out, here are some suggestions for how to make the most of these long Summer days.
If I were to describe my experience in lockdown with my husband and six children in a not overly large house, I would call it “crowded isolation”. So much of 2020 has been spent negotiating space. Space to play and space to study. Space to be noisy and space to keep quiet (daddy’s on the phone). Do you want to build with Lego or play a boardgame? Clear a space. Want me to sit with you on the couch? Budge up! Make some space. Want to wrestle? Go outside. There’s no space for that here.
News stories in the final weeks centred on the thousands of tourists who were keen to scale the monolith’s mighty heights before the ban took effect. And many did line up in their thousands for one last chance to climb Uluru. Most Australians were reportedly ‘comfortable’ with the decision to prohibit climbing but there were …
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