Flashes
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Juxtapositions: Lent, liturgy and life
From Ash Wednesday dispensations to Ramadan night bazaars and Iranian strike headlines, this Lent in Singapore refused to stay tidy. Fifteen days of overlapping seasons, obligations, and emotions came to the liturgy — and were held together without any of them being erased.
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Christians — loving, caring, forgiving, friendly and good-natured believers
Jorge Mario Bergoglio attracted people by being ordinary — and in doing so, exposed just how extraordinary ordinary goodness has become among those who hold public influence and trust.
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Five small parishes model the future of the Church
Perhaps the wider Church does not need to invent new models of synodality. In some places, the model is already there — faithfully lived, week after week, in ordinary parish life. Mizoram is one of those places.
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Peace starts here
Genuine peace is not always comfortable. Some people try our patience repeatedly. Yet that is precisely where world peace must begin — not in diplomatic summits, but in the ordinary, difficult relationships of everyday life.
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A ‘rupture in the world order’
If today’s moral disorder is embedded in political, economic, and religious structures, then individual repentance alone is insufficient. The response must be equally structural — public, organized, and sustained.
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Seeking. Skepticism. Sanctuary.
Moses Mendelssohn observed that we can never fully know another person’s interior beliefs – and often can’t be certain of our own. The article draws on that insight to ask how parishes can make space for faith at every stage of certainty and doubt.
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It took three times in a darkened theatre
Something about Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg wouldn’t release its grip. I returned twice more, each viewing peeling back another layer of certainty about justice, morality, and the convenient distance we imagine separates us from history’s villains. By the third screening, I understood my discomfort completely.
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Selfless living lights darkness
Real change begins close to home. Radical forgiveness and generosity are not weakness — rather they are the very thing that turns ordinary lives into lights, lights don’t just illuminate a room but rather lead the way out of the darkness entirely.
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Discipleship not a checklist
Authentic, relatable, responsible — these are not soft words. They describe a Christianity that is visible in how we treat people, spend money, use power, and show up for those who need us. Not someday. Now.
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Being counter-cultural or just being awkward
From the women’s movement to immigrant rights, faith often finds itself at odds with society in ways that require ensuring these tensions are rooted in justice rather than fear of social change.
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