Prayer

How to make holiness a habit

As the fervour of Easter and Pentecost begins to fade, Ordinary Time offers an opportunity to deepen our commitment to God through the sacraments, prayer, spiritual reading and community

Dear Father: Should eulogies be permitted at funeral Masses?

The Church’s teaching on funeral Masses helps explain why eulogies can be pastorally and liturgically problematic

The Herald Chaplain

Visions of Heaven

A child’s reflections on heaven reveal how closely wonder, attention and trust are bound together in the spiritual life

The forgotten God

The feast of Pentecost calls Christians to renew their devotion to the Holy Spirit and to draw upon His gifts in daily life

Dom Alcuin Reid

Why you should go on retreat

From St Ignatius Loyola to Mother Teresa, the saints understood retreat not as escape, but as the place where vocation becomes clear

US bishops to consecrate America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Catholics across the United States are being invited to prepare through Eucharistic Adoration, works of mercy and a novena to the Sacred Heart

Without me, you can do nothing

A return to Fr Jacques Philippe’s spiritual classic reveals the hard truth that peace begins with dependence on Christ

Why imperfect family prayer may be the most honest kind

Family prayer is rarely neat or uninterrupted, but it can teach parents a deeper kind of trust

Why prayer to the saints is not idolatry

Examining the distinction between worship and veneration and its implications for prayer to the saints within the wider life of the Church

A Lenten leveller in the Tyne Valley

A retreat with the Order of Malta in Northumberland brings together the wounded and the devout in a shared search for God