Posts

Featured Post

MELIFONT ABBEY 2000

-
Image
Melifont Abbey: February 18-20, 2000 In 1999 I became spiritual director to “Ruah”, a small group of lay evangelizers, and in December of last year I suggested to them that it would be good for us to go to a monastery in order to experience a silence in which we could listen more attentively to God. It’s my constant belief that there is too much talking and not enough silence. So it was arranged that we would go to Melifont Abbey for this weekend. Six of the group travelled and as Brendan was here I decided to ask him to come along to keep me company. The two of us set off on a dirty Friday evening after what was a very hassled day for me. We arrived at the Abbey after dark, at 7.00 p.m., and were well received, though the reception was manic and extremely draining in many ways. Fr. William showed us to our rooms, gave us tea and talked to us for a long time. The guesthouse is lovely and old with all sorts of nooks and crannies. Dan, Pat and Louise were the first to arrive and after a...
Post a Comment
Read more

If There's a Ballroom in Heaven

-
Image
  These have been days of catching up with the past. It's been too long, years of not being in contact and then, in one day, the doors of sickness and death opened and brought me back in touch with two men from my days as Rector in Pallotti House in the 1990's. Neither of these men know each other. Both sent me their phone numbers. Agustin came to us from Argentina as a very young man, not with the idea of becoming a priest, but he needed a place to stay until he got established. We got on very well from the start and remained friendly even after I told him it was time to leave and get his own place.  He did well and now has a wife and two children, one of whom I baptized here in Shankill fifteen years ago, which is the last time we met. So, he sent me a voice message and, after recounting the illness of his friend, went on to thank me for all I had done for him. "I owe you so much" he said. And, if there is anything I need him to do, he will do. He owes me ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DID NOT OUR HEARTS BURN WITHIN US

-
Image
  The Road to Emmaus - Third Sunday of Easter Homily 
Post a Comment
Read more

IN MY MIND I GO BACK TO THE ISLAND

-
Image
  The country is going mad, I said to my sister as we stood at the pedestrian crossing in Salthill, a place bustling with  happy young families on Easter Holidays.  The couple standing next to us with two small children decided not to wait for the green man and headed straight across the road. I was telling Evelyn that I had learned always (mostly) to wait for the green man, especially if children were near, so as not to give them a bad example. Just then a little girl from the next family decided to run straight across the road too, while the 401 bus had started to move away from the stop. Thankfully her dad, with a roar, had called her back. People are distracted, in a hurry, recklessly ignoring basic rules of the road, putting themselves and others at risk.  It happens all the time when driving. You're trying to keep the speed limit which is admittedly sometimes impossibly slow. But you try to keep it when the driver behind bears down upon you aggressively, maybe ...
1 comment
Read more

SOMETHING HAPPENED (Easter 2026)

-
Image
  From the breakfast table I look towards the rising sun and over the distance to where I celebrated Easter last year, somewhat torn between two loves. It’s a “shepherds warning” kind of morning. Beautiful, with red blushed clouds that might be promising a later rain, but we will not dwell on that for now. Storm Dave pounded on the roof of St. Anne’s Church during the Easter Vigil last night, rattling the doors, giving a kind of Pentecostal drama to the liturgy which was led by Auxiliary Bishop Donal Roche, accompanied by Emmet the Parish Priest and myself. All I had to do was sit back and take it all in and it was wonderful to experience, special for an Irish congregation to witness the baptism of a teenage boy and three adults receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. Something that we have been used to in England and becoming more common in Ireland now. In the archdiocese of Dublin alone 139 adults have joined the Catholic Church this Easter. It seems there is a similar trend t...
1 comment
Read more

TREMBLING (A Holy Thursday)

-
Image
The blush of green On brown bushes Winter giving way To Spring Luminous in sunlight Fresh new leaves Trembling in the breeze A heart in the face Of adversity A soul trembling At the approach of God The tremble of anticipated Love The full extent of it On its knees Serving the reality That it encounters In this personal moment Of Salvation  
Post a Comment
Read more

MARY

-
Image
She  stands at the crossroads Of time and eternity Intersection of all creation A desire as old as Eden Burning in her soul The yearning of every child Who has graced the earth Embodiment of humanity’s Hope Of Redemption, Restoration She has held in her heart The wandering aridity Of the desert and there God comes to find her Lifting her up and keeping Her as the apple of His eye Humanity has found A response to God in her From her is deliverance Brought forth in Christ In Whom we are born and breathe Our perfect peaceful consummation Healing for our scars
Post a Comment
Read more