OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  Darkness presents itself as light Death as life Ignorance parades as wisdom Wrong declares itself to be right The wolf is dressed like a lamb Hell pretends to be Heaven "Their speech sweet as honey Their throat a wide open grave" Tears of partial compassion A cult of softness. Preferring the deception We do not test the spirits Surrendering ourselves To our own destruction The destruction of our children

  From the pocket of my jeans I take the bunch of keys Fumbling bundle of responsibilities That are carried with me everywhere The discomfort of them Prodding my flesh The clumsy weight of them Too many of them And I thrust them To the bottom of my backpack And throw it to the bottom Of the wardrobe Free now for the quiet Of this strange bleak place Drab and most dreary of days But free nonetheless For brotherhood And solitude with the One And only necessary Good For whom Through whom From whom All else flows And all my follies forgotten 

At a meeting on the new Parish that will be established in November, I was struck by the fact that most of the questions and discussions focused on finance and structure, matters for which there are no adequate answers yet. Not yet. My attention went in the direction of inspiration, specifically on what Bishop Richard refers to as “communities of saints.” This is what we are called to become, though becoming saints is probably the farthest thing from most people’s minds, engrossed as we are in the throes of daily living. From childhood I have been drawn to the idea of holiness, the call of God in the Bible when He says, “be holy, for I the Lord am holy.” (Leviticus 21:8 and 1 Peter 1:16) Becoming holy and becoming saints are the same thing. For centuries in the Church, it was thought that, in order to become holy, one had to become a priest, a nun, a brother, a monk or a hermit. These were the vocations of saints yet when you look at the Bible, the very first vocation mentioned is to m

  “You had not yet come forth into the light, Not even the world itself had come into existence When already I was loving you. Throughout my Eternal Existence I have loved you” (Words of God spoken by Saint Alphonsus Ligouri)   On the fourth day of my Aran retreat, before the boats had arrived from the mainland, I took the Pump Road, turning left up past the water works, a path I had never taken before. It narrows into a beautiful lane, framed by stone walls and beautifully decorated by hundreds, maybe thousands of wildflowers.   The path led me to the cliff facing the Atlantic Ocean with the Black Fort further up to my left. This is a route I’ve wanted to take for years, and it is utterly solitary, a road not travelled before, symbolic of seeking God in places where I had not searched before.   The search is always the same but sometimes it is necessary to get a different perspective. “It is Your Face O Lord that I seek.” (Psalm 27)   Out there near the cliff edge where seagul

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

Down to the edge Of the island We will go Once more Beyond the reach Of electric power Out of touch  With everything Where Elements Alone remain Salt sea water Washing my face My sinners soul Transformed by grace Mother of Mercy Is present here Speaking of surrender To the Spirit Here is the wind The waves The crashing And the upward surge Of everything