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Pope Gregory I, commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregorian Mission, to convert the then largely pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Gregory is also well known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as pope. A Roman senator’s son and himself the prefect of Rome at 30, Gregory lived in a monastery he established on his family estate before becoming a papal ambassador and then pope. He was the first pope from a monastic background,and a talented administrator. During his papacy, his administration greatly surpassed that of the emperors in improving the welfare of the people of Rome.

As Christians each of us is called to be a person of prayer and each of us has to discover the kind of prayer – or rather the kind of setting for prayer – that suits us best. What matters is that we pray. The methods we adopt are of secondary importance and depend to a great extent on knowledge of ourselves, of our strengths and weaknesses.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) reported earlier this week that the number of volunteers in Australia has been steadily falling each year. Sadly, a sign of the times perhaps but people say they are too busy. However, not everyone is focussed on their own lot in life and are happy to give back to their local communities, as Suvi Mahonen reports.

A woman’s rights over her own body versus the rights of the unborn has been one of society’s most contentious issues. The line in the sand has long been drawn, and proponents on either side refuse to give an inch.

On a warm spring night in April 1968, in the Zeitoun district of Cairo, Egypt, two workers saw a woman on the top of Saint Mary’s Coptic Church. The workers, thinking that she was about to jump from the roof, called the police who claimed the two men were witnessing a reflection from the street lamps.

When I was 19 weeks pregnant, my husband Christian and I went to our ultrasound appointment excited for a gender reveal! Everyone in our family thought we were having a boy, and we wanted a boy too, a baby brother for our older daughter, Lara, who was almost four.