OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

“You have been trusted to look after something precious. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (2 Timothy 1:14) The Miraculous Icon of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa is very precious to the people of Poland where it has been venerated for about 600 years. One theory about its origin says that it was painted by St. Luke on a pine tabletop that came from the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth. Since today is their feast day, I’m staying with this connection to their home. In early November my friend of almost 50 years, Father John Fitzpatrick entrusted his precious copy of the famous icon to me and in his honour I have brought it lovingly back to my home in Hastings where I pray before it every day. It’s not a print but has been painted onto a piece of timber that resembles a small door. It is signed and dated 1979 which is the year after St. John Paul II became Pope. Like millions of Poles he went on pilgrimage to the original Icon, even doing so secretly durin...

  My body clock has altered significantly in the past few weeks. For most of my life I have found it difficult to fall asleep, often lying awake until three or four in the morning and then finding it very hard to get up when I need to. Now sleep comes more easily and I’m wide awake around 4am. By five I’m having breakfast and then a very calm movement into the day. It gives me five hours of solitude and it seems like a deepening solitude is what God is giving at this time. Sunday morning brought me down to Rock-a-Nore in the hope of seeing the sun rise and after an hour of waiting, it obliged beautifully. A prophecy, a prelude to the more wonderful dawning that visits us from on high at Christmas.   The wind was incredibly bitter, so I took shelter behind the Southern Water pumping station for a time, taking photographs, praying, pondering. Thinking about dear friends who are bearing serious illness; thinking about the little baby whose funeral I had on Friday; feeling ...

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...

  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...

  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

  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