OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

In the early hours of July 4th 1976, five members of the Pallottine community at San Patricio, Belgrano, were taken from their beds and executed in the living room of their presbytery. It was during the era of military dictatorship in Argentina. +++ Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything that is now hidden will be made clear. Jesus spoke these words to us a few weeks ago, reminding us that God scrutinises the heart and soul, uncovering what is hidden within us and revealing what is truly there. There are times when what God reveals to us about ourselves calls us to be converted, to change and to try to improve certain areas of our lives. But the scrutiny of God also seeks to uncover what is authentic within us: who we truly are, who I truly am, in my authentic self, deep within my heart and my soul. To uncover and to use it in His plan of salvation. I was walking in the garden at Pallotti House in Dublin, and I found an old statue of Our Lady propped up agains...

According to Your word I have laid bare my wound And have not disguised my sin With vague expressions of sorrow But named it for what it is So that Grace may find and heal And still Lord Nothing changes We go round and round The same circle Hoping against hope With despondency Kept at bay Is it thus that Pride is humbled? That I must learn again That Your Power Is at its best in weakness And Grace itself is enough? +++ ... a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses... For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

A bold boy sitting at the back of an empty church when he should be at school. A complex, troubled boy who is threatened with the industrial school because he mitches and doesn’t do his homework. The teacher said he was a house angel and street devil. But to himself he was simply afraid and didn’t know how to explain it. So, he took daily refuge in the empty church, feeling that Jesus hidden in the Tabernacle somehow understood what no one else did, the thing that could not be put into words. That was me when I was ten years old. It is not me now, but I still possess the gift that was given me in adversity, a strong relationship with the hidden life of Jesus in the Tabernacle. St. Vincent Pallotti places great emphasis on the hidden life of Jesus in Nazareth, the life he lived away from public view from the age of twelve until He began His public ministry. The Tabernacle is my Nazareth. Forty years ago during a thirty-day Ignatian retreat, while praying before the Tabernacle in ...

O night O night You come to fight With me again And I take flight Into the wandering Avenues of my phone And hide And hide From all that assails The mind The body The soul O night O night That I might recognize The gate of heaven That you are And be a Jacob Wrestling For the injury And the blessing

“You have veiled the Godhead in a cloud, in the clay of our humanity” (St. Catherine Of Siena) The Image of God That you seek In the mirror Might not be The beauty you require Of yourself It may be more The Hidden wounds Of your heart Scars of your illness Sickness of soul Or perhaps you behold The bloodshot eyes of Christ Afflicted with addiction Jesus weeping harrowed tears Over the loss of a child An unspeakable grief It is the Face of God In you.

  I can’t stop writing in my head. It’s like everything I experience; I’m thinking about how I will write it. Or take a photo of it. And so, it is now, here in Our Lady of Silence Abbey where I’m spending two nights. The thought came to me in the chapel in Dundrum the other day when I was finding my mind to be rather frazzled and in need of some release. The time here is also an opportunity for me to say a personal farewell to a place that has blessed me for more than fifty years. We would come here occasionally on Sundays when we were students in Thurles in the 1970’s. I’ve always been attracted to the monastic and also to the fabulous brown bread that they used to bake here. We came here for our diaconate and ordination retreats in 1979 and 1980. The former took place during Holy Week when we had our feet washed by the then Prior Father Laurence who is still here in his nineties. A pillar of this community. At the washing of the feet he kissed our feet, something I had never ...