“… fair play and auld (old) Scotland for ever!” The Black Dwarf, chap. 12 The issue at the heart of The Black Dwarf is that of suffering in that word’s […]
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Author: Fr Yuhanna Azize
The Odes of Solomon: Ode 3
The Text Having looked at Ode 1 of the Odes of Solomon, we now come to Ode 3, for Ode 2 is missing. It is not possible to know how […]
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A Tale of Purgatory and Masses for the Dead
“The Troubled Spirit of Tintern Abbey” is an interesting story from Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book (1936, pp. 201-204), chiefly because it relates to Purgatory and the effectiveness of Masses for […]
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The Odes of Solomon, Ode 1
The Odes of Solomon are the oldest surviving hymnal from the early Christian world. They were probably written in ancient Syria, in the Syriac language, between 100 and 200 AD. […]
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Review of Steve Cannane, Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia, ABC, 2016
1. My Two Scientology Stories Before I come to this book, let me tell my two Scientology stories. First, I was a university student, walking near Central station with a […]
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Peveril of the Peak
Despite the near-unanimous modern dislike of Sir Walter Scott’s Peveril of the Peak, I utterly enjoyed it, and what is more, I have profited. No novelist I know of matches […]
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“Put not your trust in princes …”
The Psalmist had it right in Psalm 146: place your most profound trust in God, not in princes or politicians, or indeed any human being. It does not mean that […]
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More on the Sugar Plague …
The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekend edition of 17-18 September 2016, had an article titled: “Dramatic changes needed as childhood obesity normalised” (pp. 8-9). Sadly, one in five children in NSW […]
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Purgatory
One of the teachings of the Catholic faith, which we Maronites share, and which has always seemed to me to be absolutely true is the doctrine of Purgatory. I have […]
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Why I Won’t be Reading Harry Potter and the Pitiless Sequels
I won’t be reading the new Harry Potter book for one simple but sufficient reason: the silliness has long outweighed any sympathy I had for Rowling’s characters. The silliness was […]
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