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OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

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The Space Between: Night of the Blood Wolf Moon

on January 21, 2019

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DAD

on December 29, 2018

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MORNING CAME AND EVENING CAME ON CHRISTMAS DAY

on December 26, 2018

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CHRISTMAS 2018: All I Want

on December 22, 2018

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VOYAGER I

on December 20, 2018

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In Expectancy of surprise

on December 07, 2018

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We Are Not Tigers: The Need To Be Noticed

on November 25, 2018

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Getting Ready For God: Thoughts on Purgatory

on November 17, 2018

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LATE MORNING: Poems From Tanzania

on November 12, 2018

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Rheinberg War Cemetary

on November 12, 2018

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KNOWN UNTO GOD: Remembrance Sunday

on November 11, 2018

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ON OUR HEARTS AND ON OUR LIPS: Holy Water for the Children

on November 03, 2018

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Popular Posts

The Space Between: Night of the Blood Wolf Moon

It’s something that won’t happen again for another few years – the Super Blood Wolf Moon, a total lunar eclipse. So, I went out shortly before 5.00am to have a look. On this morning with a heavy white frost – minus 6 according to the weather app - the sky was clear and sitting over the rooftops of High Street was the full red moon. Neither as big nor as bright nor as red as I had thought but still this was it, a rare happening in the January sky. My attempts to photograph it were not that successful due to my shivering hands and not really knowing how to take photos at night, so I contented myself with walking and watching the wonderful sight. Went up West Hill where three photographers seemed to be getting it right and further from them, almost unseen but for the glow of her cigarette, sat a woman inadequately dressed on a frozen bench. I said good morning and headed down to the sea, then up the East Hill where I found myself standing in the space between the setting moon and the risi…

In Expectancy of surprise

I had gone through a very difficult meeting and, feeling bruised and sorry, I sat in the back garden in Belgrano letting the sun warm me. Tommy, who was about three years old, stood watching from a distance and when he felt it was safe, he approached and started chatting. I have no Spanish and he no English, so it was a childlike conversation that drew me out of myself.

He opened his little book to show me a picture of the Annunciation and I wished its joy would happen for me then. But it did not and I was not up to it.

Later in the evening I was praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary when the Angelus bell rang and it struck me that I was experiencing a collision of sorrow with joy - that the joy of Annunciation was trying to break into my sorrow. And I chose to accept this strange mingling. It has happened many times since that, while praying the sorrowful mysteries, the Angelus will ring. The Angel of the Lord is always declaring the Good News and we are asked to receive it.

Whe…

Getting Ready For God: Thoughts on Purgatory

I was in my room in Dublin one bitterly cold January day, getting ready to fly to South Africa to give a retreat to the Pallottine Seminarians there. Travelling light had become second nature to me and the case on my bed was fairly small but while I was packing it a voice inside me said, “you don’t need all this stuff.” But I ignored it because anything in it was actually essential – my bible, notes, just enough clothes.

And I arrived at Heathrow for the flight to Johannesburg, checked in my little suitcase and boarded the flight. By now the temperature had dropped to minus 7 and we were left sitting a long time in the plane while they made up their minds to fly or not. When they decided they would fly they discovered that there were no baggage handlers to put our luggage on the plane and after another long wait the pilot announced that we would fly without the luggage. There was a discontent murmur among the passengers but I just smiled as I thought of the voice I heard back in Dublin…

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING (In The Hands of God)

I miss you my Love this desolate night. My face turned to the cold wall, sickening silence. Hours and days of it. The only hint of You is that question You have asked these forty years and more - "Can you drink the cup that I must drink?" (Matthew 20:22). The answer is always yes, though I often kick against the way in which the cup is given.
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Recently it dawned on me that, unusually, I had come through the winter without getting depressed and I was moving towards Lent full of purpose and confidence. I knew what I had to give up and take on, fully aware that the practises of Lent should lead me closer to God, make a better person of me.
Lent had hardly begun when I was hit by a nasty cold that soon turned into a viral infection but I still went ahead with plans to spend a few days in Worth Abbey, feeling the need of a monastic experience - the first since my arrival in England eight months ago.
It was wonderful to walk into the silence of the place. The great circular church…

DAD

FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

This time 28 years ago – December 29th - on the eve of the Holy Family Maura and I were in hospital visiting Dad who had taken ill on St. Stephen's Day and was being checked out. As we were leaving him, she and I looked at each other and said "he's dying." There was something in his eyes that made us both think this. So, we went to the nurse in charge and said we thought our father was dying. She said, "not at all. He's fine." And we went off home.
When I told Mam what Maura and I were thinking she said, "well if you think he's dying then go back and anoint him." This we did and when the praying was done two interesting things happened. First Mam took hold of his hand but he took it away as if to say this is not the time for holding but the time for letting go. Then he pulled the bed clothes up under his chin looking content and complete and told us to go off and get a drink for ourselves. We did!
And at home we …

MORNING CAME AND EVENING CAME ON CHRISTMAS DAY

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth. (Psalm 19)

It’s Christmas morning, still dark and I’m wide awake at 6.00 even though it was very late when I got to bed after last night’s Masses, not that the last Mass was so late but I was buzzing afterwards and it took me a while to come down to earth. Two very different and life-giving experiences.
The earlier than wished for wakefulness was like a prompting of the Holy Spirit and I decided to go out in search of the dawn, something I’m not given to doing very often. I thought the view from the West Hill would be best and it was beautiful but I was drawn to the shore at Rockanore where the tide was out very far and there was plenty of sand to walk on. Down there I realized that I was walking where I had not walked before and it seeme…

CHRISTMAS 2018: All I Want

The Bishop stands up and I get nervous because I feel he's going to make me jump from an aeroplane. It's a feeling, a sensation that runs through me, not a physical possibility. He has himself actually done it - jumped from an aeroplane. There's a challenge afoot and I'm afraid I won't be able for it - his plan for the renewal and future of the diocese. Having been through countless meetings like this and being the age I am I'm doubtful about what might be proposed. The language of it. I have no doubt about the Bishop’s own commitment, the energy that he’s putting into this whole process, never flagging in zeal.
What sets me at ease is the line of Scripture he uses, "the Word who is life, this is our subject" - one of my favourite lines of the bible, my favourite reality. Bishop Richard says that we go wildly wrong if we do not keep our eyes fixed on the Lord. This I agree with and I feel absolutely safe with Jesus.
The discussion that follows the p…

A SOLITARY STAG

I sit near a solitary stag in the long white grass. We look at each other and, for a while, he seems not to care until he stands up to his full stature sniffing the breeze between us and turning his back to me he bellows into the sky. I dare not put his tolerance of me to the test, so I leave him his space. Alone.

Richmond park is dotted with herds of deer of every age and size - the graceful, elegant and cute, each herd having one stag as far as I can work out. All of them are beautiful, captivating and I feel I could just lay down among them finding a belonging there. Not that I could become one of them, I just feel a closeness to them inside me.

You couldn't say that the lone stag is either elegant or graceful but he is beautiful, majestic and I love him more than all the rest.

I'm curious about his solitude. Why is he out there on his own? Has he been driven out by a younger, stronger stag? There's no way of knowing but I have an affinity with him. He has become the symb…

REPAIR WHAT IS SHATTERED: Easter Monday Ponderings

You wake up feeling like you've been hit by a train and, on a day when you've absolutely nothing to do and you want to stay in bed, you're awake too early. It's Easter Monday morning and a second sleep isn't happening.
Over breakfast my mind wanders back over the past few days – all the ceremonies of Easter from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, the images and sensations. It was like being immersed in an intense ocean of Mercy, exhausting and exhilarating. After the family Mass yesterday morning my arms were full of chocolate bunnies, cards and cakes given mostly by the children. Symbolic of the fullness of heart and soul.
I’m reading an article by Liz Dodd in the Tablet about one of her cycling adventures. Two words register with me - "breaking" and "solitude" - and a quote from Thomas Merton at the end of the article, "As soon as you are really alone you are with God."
I am really alone now but I want to avoid both God and solitude,…

ANOINTING: The Fragrance of Love

Chrism Mass reminds me of Mam and Dad, even though we never attended one together but it was one of their favourite events of the year. Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway began the custom of inviting the parents of priests to the Chrism Mass every Holy Thursday and afterwards to lunch in the Sacre Coeur Hotel. They felt honoured and acknowledged. And why shouldn't they be because there is no priesthood without them!

This year for the first time I'm at the Chrism Mass in the Cathedral in Arundel, following a frustrating two-hour drive. Beautiful church, lovely liturgy, magnificent singing! And heart-warming encounterswith priests and people I have never met before.

My mind wanders back and forth to my parents, to the other Chrism Masses I attended in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin during my time in Shankill, to those who attended with me – Joan Duignan, Derry, Jaimie, Liam, Pat Maguire. We would go for coffee afterwards.

This is an occasion for the renewing of our priestly commitment in t…

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