OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  "... a lonely place... this is a lonely place" (Matthew 14) I went to visit my cousin Johnny in hospital late last year. His regret was that he had forgotten to bring his Rosary beads with him. They were as familiar to his hands as the mobile phone is to mine. I gave him my beads and we prayed the Rosary together. Anyone who ever visited his house would understand that at least a decade of the Rosary would be said before they left. It was as natural to him as a cup of tea. Unashamed. Unpretentious.  The Rosary and the Mass were pillars of his life. Nothing could separate him from them. As in the words of St. Paul in  Romans 8: " Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked. These are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of him who loved us. For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists...

  Homily for July 19,2026

There is a small stone church on top of a hill about 10 km from the beautiful city of Salta in Argentina. It is the shrine of the Immaculate Mother of the Divine Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. I call her Our Lady of Salta. About twenty years ago, while on visitation as Provincial to the community in Mercedes, a man from the parish told me about the apparitions of Our Lady that were taking place in Salta and insisted that I should go. He was very sincere, but I didn’t want to get caught up in the hype of something that might not be true. I wanted no false visions, no false hope, no false religious experience. A second person in Mercedes — Marta, a friend of Derry — also spoke to me about it and was equally insistent. I had experienced her as a forthright, honest person. At that time, two challenging situations in Argentina were causing me great distress — encounters that had previously gone very badly wrong, harsh words spoken, hurt inflicted. The thought of facing them again was stressing...

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 ...