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OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

Eamonn Monson SAC

Homily For Michael Clarke

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- April 26, 2020

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TIME OF MY DEPARTURE

- June 30, 2025

A garden in the city. The only cool place on this rather hot morning. Beautiful. Nothing to do but watch the antics of two cats. The mother, who has been named Beauty and her unnamed kitten, whom I have decided to call Binti. A wild, frightened thing and very funny to watch. I think if I remained long enough in the garden and sat still enough she would become accustomed to my presence, not take off in fright every time I stand up. It's the morning after a very emotional weekend. Part of me feels like a traitor. It's the kind of road I naturally go down. But I really must start taking into myself the sheer depth and strength of the love that the people of Hastings parish have for me. That there is love between us has been clear all along. I know this in my head. But it's another thing to absorb it into the fibres of my being, to risk being possessed by it, overwhelmed by it, consumed. Consumed. I have been consumed by my work in Hastings. Only now do I realise it. People h...

FROM THE WOMB BEFORE THE DAWN

- January 27, 2025

“From the womb before the dawn I begot you…” (Psalm 110) Maura Monson, Andrew Molloy, Eamonn Monson, Rosaleen Monson & Noreen Carr A Sunday morning sky of two parts. To the West an ominous deep blue grey, to the East the astonishing unfolding of dawn. Hundreds of screeching, swirling seagulls are black against the emerging light and strangely luminous against the dark clouds. I’ve been up since shortly after 3am, waking as I often do now in the fourth watch of the night – that period between 3 and 6am that’s spoken of in the Bible. It was during this watch that Jacob wrestled with God and during this watch that Jesus walked on water. I was born during this watch at 3.30am and for many years I could not sleep until after that time, my nights being a constant battle, a time of conflict and injury. Now I tend to sleep early and wake up during the fourth watch and it is a quiet, peaceful, blessed experience. Perhaps I am being brought to new birth. We’re told that i...

My Name

- October 28, 2024

My name Is not a word To be pronounced More a sound Emanating From God Most High Like the silence Of interstellar space The calm deep of ocean Washing the shore The quiet falling Of an Autumn leaf And then again The roaring of wind Waves crashing on rocks Groaning of the elements A pristine primordial cry And the laughter of delighted children My name is a mystery And I have heard God call it In the unfathomable Sacrament of the Altar And in those hidden places Where only He has ventured

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TIME OF MY DEPARTURE

- June 30, 2025

A garden in the city. The only cool place on this rather hot morning. Beautiful. Nothing to do but watch the antics of two cats. The mother, who has been named Beauty and her unnamed kitten, whom I have decided to call Binti. A wild, frightened thing and very funny to watch. I think if I remained long enough in the garden and sat still enough she would become accustomed to my presence, not take off in fright every time I stand up. It's the morning after a very emotional weekend. Part of me feels like a traitor. It's the kind of road I naturally go down. But I really must start taking into myself the sheer depth and strength of the love that the people of Hastings parish have for me. That there is love between us has been clear all along. I know this in my head. But it's another thing to absorb it into the fibres of my being, to risk being possessed by it, overwhelmed by it, consumed. Consumed. I have been consumed by my work in Hastings. Only now do I realise it. People h...

When You See What I've Become

- June 21, 2025

“So if I fly too far Will I still have a place inside your heart When you see what I've become Will you love me for who I am, not who I was” ( Chance Peña ) At St. Richard’s College Year 11 closing liturgy, I was surprised to hear them sing a song from my own generation, Abba’s ‘Slipping through my Fingers’. It tells of the growing of a child, the adult’s feeling, the fear, of losing her and it speaks of wanting to “freeze the picture”, something that is natural as we grow older. The letting go must be very difficult for parents. But, keeping things as they are, holding on to what is – this is not what a young person on the verge of adulthood needs. It’s common for me to wake up to a song in the morning, for that song to stay with me through the day, to find myself singing it and, more often than not, I find that God communicates with me in this way. He is telling me something in the song. Lately, the song has been ‘I Am Not Who I was’ by Ch...

FROM THE WOMB BEFORE THE DAWN

- January 27, 2025

“From the womb before the dawn I begot you…” (Psalm 110) Maura Monson, Andrew Molloy, Eamonn Monson, Rosaleen Monson & Noreen Carr A Sunday morning sky of two parts. To the West an ominous deep blue grey, to the East the astonishing unfolding of dawn. Hundreds of screeching, swirling seagulls are black against the emerging light and strangely luminous against the dark clouds. I’ve been up since shortly after 3am, waking as I often do now in the fourth watch of the night – that period between 3 and 6am that’s spoken of in the Bible. It was during this watch that Jacob wrestled with God and during this watch that Jesus walked on water. I was born during this watch at 3.30am and for many years I could not sleep until after that time, my nights being a constant battle, a time of conflict and injury. Now I tend to sleep early and wake up during the fourth watch and it is a quiet, peaceful, blessed experience. Perhaps I am being brought to new birth. We’re told that i...

Whose Longing?

- June 06, 2025

LONGING is the title of a book being advertised on Instagram. It was published about thirteen years ago. Longing is something I am seldom unaware of – all the physical longings that stir in me every day. The emotional ones. Spiritual – my longing for God. And they are all interconnected. And, mistakenly, I tend to think of them as MINE! The author, Joey O’Connor, suggests that the question we need to ask in life is not “who am I?” but “WHOSE am I?” That second question brings me back to the time after my Mother died and a woman asked me, “whose are you now, whose son?” It stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t something I had thought about. I am nobody’s, I thought, nobody’s son. This left me with a profound sense of emptiness and, at the same time, a certain sense of liberty. The liberty of no longer being answerable to my parents. But there was emptiness in that liberty. To my great surprise, at the age of fifty-three, I became my Mother’s “lovely son.” It was one of the last thing...

GLORY (Mind and Heart Raised Up)

- June 02, 2025

Sunday evening sitting on Seamus McDonagh’s bench down at Rock-a-Nore. June first. A strong westerly wind presses cold against the back of my head, the sound of it merging with the waves washing radiant white on the shore. The roar of wind and sea is all I can hear. And the occasional sound of twittering birds. Seagulls are strangely silent as they swoop and soar at high speed out into the horizon. I lean back, looking up at the white wispy clouds and further into the blue of the sky. Then close my eyes, with mind and heart raised up to heaven. The glory of it. The word GLORY has been with me all day and I estimate that I have used it at least sixty times today in prayer. It occurs more than six hundred times in the Bible, and it refers to the radiant manifestation of the majesty of God. We are touched by it; we enter into it in Jesus who shares His divine Glory with us. This is what we are called to when we pray. Our entry into glory is facilitated by two important mov...

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HERE I AM (Hineni)

This Month

TIME OF MY DEPARTURE

- June 30, 2025

When You See What I've Become

- June 21, 2025

Whose Longing?

- June 06, 2025

FROM THE PSYCHIATRIST'S DESK

FROM THE WOMB BEFORE THE DAWN

- January 27, 2025

BATHED IN LIGHT (Thoughts on Pope Leo XIV and Vocation)

THE SOUND OF GOD'S VOICE (In Loving Memory of Pope Francis)

- April 22, 2025

This Year

TIME OF MY DEPARTURE

- June 30, 2025

A garden in the city. The only cool place on this rather hot morning. Beautiful. Nothing to do but watch the antics of two cats. The mother, who has been named Beauty and her unnamed kitten, whom I have decided to call Binti. A wild, frightened thing and very funny to watch. I think if I remained long enough in the garden and sat still enough she would become accustomed to my presence, not take off in fright every time I stand up. It's the morning after a very emotional weekend. Part of me feels like a traitor. It's the kind of road I naturally go down. But I really must start taking into myself the sheer depth and strength of the love that the people of Hastings parish have for me. That there is love between us has been clear all along. I know this in my head. But it's another thing to absorb it into the fibres of my being, to risk being possessed by it, overwhelmed by it, consumed. Consumed. I have been consumed by my work in Hastings. Only now do I realise it. People h...

FROM THE WOMB BEFORE THE DAWN

- January 27, 2025

“From the womb before the dawn I begot you…” (Psalm 110) Maura Monson, Andrew Molloy, Eamonn Monson, Rosaleen Monson & Noreen Carr A Sunday morning sky of two parts. To the West an ominous deep blue grey, to the East the astonishing unfolding of dawn. Hundreds of screeching, swirling seagulls are black against the emerging light and strangely luminous against the dark clouds. I’ve been up since shortly after 3am, waking as I often do now in the fourth watch of the night – that period between 3 and 6am that’s spoken of in the Bible. It was during this watch that Jacob wrestled with God and during this watch that Jesus walked on water. I was born during this watch at 3.30am and for many years I could not sleep until after that time, my nights being a constant battle, a time of conflict and injury. Now I tend to sleep early and wake up during the fourth watch and it is a quiet, peaceful, blessed experience. Perhaps I am being brought to new birth. We’re told that i...

My Name

- October 28, 2024

My name Is not a word To be pronounced More a sound Emanating From God Most High Like the silence Of interstellar space The calm deep of ocean Washing the shore The quiet falling Of an Autumn leaf And then again The roaring of wind Waves crashing on rocks Groaning of the elements A pristine primordial cry And the laughter of delighted children My name is a mystery And I have heard God call it In the unfathomable Sacrament of the Altar And in those hidden places Where only He has ventured

Love Was His Meaning

‘Love was his meaning’: a conversation about Julian of Norwich between Dr Claire Gilbert and Fr Eamonn Monson. Click on the link below to listen to the conversation https://drive.google.com/file/d/16euftBoLdrM3X1YvEAhK3RznhdAI1LFj/view?usp=drivesdk Claire Gilbert wrote her doctoral thesis on Julian in relation to the ecological crisis, but when she was diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer of the blood, Julian stopped being the subject of her academic study and became her spiritual companion and guide through two and a half years of gruelling treatment. Claire wrote about this in letters to friends, published as Miles to Go Before I Sleep . At the end of the treatment she heard a call to tell Julian’s story and wrote I, Julian , a fictional autobiography which seeks to do justice to this extraordinary woman’s life. Dr Claire Gilbert is an author. She is the founding director of the Westminster Abbey Institute, and has worked for the Archbishops’ Council of the C...

Jack

- February 17, 2025

Young Jack Six or seven years ago I spotted Jack sitting against the windowsill by the back door of my house. He was dressed in his signature black tracksuit, and he looked at me sideways with a very shy kind of a smile. He didn't ask for anything, but something in me said that he would at some point. That he would make his way into my life and that is exactly what he did. He became part of our life here, mostly looking for help in whatever way he could get it. Over the years, I came to like him. Came to love him. A bond of friendship developed between us, and I must confess that my helping him was not always the best. He knew how to get out of me what I shouldn't have given him, but we were connected. We did come in some way to belong to each other, and he saw me as a father. It was surprising a couple of years ago as we stood in the centre aisle of the church he said to me, "I want my funeral to take place here and I want you to do it", and of course, I said th...

COME ALONE TO THE ALONE (A Silence to be Felt)

- September 09, 2024

Samuel, "the man who listens to God" - that's the meaning of his name. Samuel who pitched tent outside our church in the winter of a few years ago. Samuel, who returns from time to time and gives thanks that we gave him a welcome. And I give thanks that he is now settled in his own home and has a job. The man who listens to God, the one by whom God is heard, turned up appropriately enough with his girl friend yesterday before the Sunday vigil Mass. Appropriate because she is deaf and unable to speak clearly. Appropriate because the Gospel of this weekend has Jesus addressing the deafness of a man and healing him. Samuel's friend is not here to be healed. She isn't healed of her deafness but what is beautiful is to see the communication that takes place between the two of them; communication on all sorts of levels; a loving communication. He is heard by her, and she is understood by him. "Be opened!" This is how Jesus addresses the deafness of the man. Be...

THINKING ABOUT SALVATION (In Loving Memory of Simon)

- November 20, 2024

Sometimes I have to haul myself up out of the pit of my body – with great effort – in order to keep going and do what must be done. It was like that at Mass on Sunday and my voice felt raw, deep, and oddly too strong. Too loud. This morning it seems like I have no voice at all. And I need it. But sorrow seems to have sucked it out of me. In the end it was all right, as it often is, though it still demanded that I dig deep. But it was all right. The funeral was remarkably tranquil. Dignified and heartfelt. Perhaps we all felt that his time had come. His time for rest. Many years ago, someone told me that animals have an instinct for good people, even for what is Godly in them. It must have been like that to a near perfect degree with St. Francis. Simon had a way with dogs – the wounded and the strong. They were safe with him and, perhaps, he with them. The first time we met, about thirty-five years ago, there opened up in my heart a special place for him. His mother aske...

FROM THE PSYCHIATRIST'S DESK

I found myself sitting across the desk from a young psychiatrist who communicated with me through her computer screen, a different doctor each time for six months, and none of them ever seemed to get me. They just thought I was suicidal, which I wasn’t, and I didn’t seem to have adequate words to express the true nature of my sense of the pointlessness of life. It was a time in my life when I might have been relishing the fact that I had been elected Provincial of the Irish Pallottines, enjoying the “honour” given me. But there I was in an acute state of disintegration, embarrassed and ashamed. A priest in a position of authority, reduced to this. And I realize now that the honour was in fact in that very place where I thought it was not. Throughout my life I have sided with the underdog, felt empathy for the poor and the suffering and have found myself to be “with” people, side by side with them in whatever suffering they were experiencing. But in this case it was no longer ...

ALONG THE BEAUTIFUL WAY (Climb or be Carried Advent 2024)

- December 04, 2024

In the past I understood AI in relation to farming and the person making it happen was sometimes referred to as “the bull”, but now AI has another meaning – artificial intelligence – and I have used it to alter photos, removing bits that I don’t like. Sometimes with serious intent and other times just doing it for fun. As I approach another milestone in my life I am naturally looking back over the years I have lived out in this world and part of me would like to alter some of what has taken place. If I could, I would delete aspects of my personal history – the embarrassing things, things of which I am ashamed. And I would also like to delete evidence of my vanity, much of which is public in both photos and writing – and I could, even might delete some of these, especially the writings. Such an amount of vanity and self in them! Then, last Monday, I thought – so what! So what if I am vain! It would be better not to be, but deleting the evidence of my vanity would be dishonest becaus...

THE SOUND OF GOD'S VOICE (In Loving Memory of Pope Francis)

- April 22, 2025

You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence, at your right hand, bliss for ever. (Psalm 16 from Mass on Easter Monday) Do not judge and you will not be judged. Words of Jesus. Mostly I have thought of this in terms of not judging others negatively but it also means not judging others at all. Who am I to judge someone to be good or bad, right or wrong? The death of Pope Francis has shocked us all and there has been a great outpouring of affection and respect for him. Largely positive assessments. Yet, even in the positive comments you get the sense that experts are judging him to have done a fairly good job. But who are we to say even that? As Jesus himself said, human assessment or approval means nothing. Only God can judge. But we have to say something because Pope Francis has touched and affected our lives from the moment he came out onto the balcony and stood in a long silence before speaking on the day he was elected. We remember ...