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OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

- God's Gracious Gift

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DAD

on December 29, 2018

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MORNING CAME AND EVENING CAME ON CHRISTMAS DAY

on December 26, 2018

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CHRISTMAS 2018: All I Want

on December 22, 2018

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VOYAGER I

on December 20, 2018

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In Expectancy of surprise

on December 07, 2018

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We Are Not Tigers: The Need To Be Noticed

on November 25, 2018

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Getting Ready For God: Thoughts on Purgatory

on November 17, 2018

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LATE MORNING: Poems From Tanzania

on November 12, 2018

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Rheinberg War Cemetary

on November 12, 2018

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KNOWN UNTO GOD: Remembrance Sunday

on November 11, 2018

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ON OUR HEARTS AND ON OUR LIPS: Holy Water for the Children

on November 03, 2018

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LOVE CRIES: Poems for November

on November 02, 2018

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Popular Posts

Getting Ready For God: Thoughts on Purgatory

I was in my room in Dublin one bitterly cold January day, getting ready to fly to South Africa to give a retreat to the Pallottine Seminarians there. Travelling light had become second nature to me and the case on my bed was fairly small but while I was packing it a voice inside me said, “you don’t need all this stuff.” But I ignored it because anything in it was actually essential – my bible, notes, just enough clothes.

And I arrived at Heathrow for the flight to Johannesburg, checked in my little suitcase and boarded the flight. By now the temperature had dropped to minus 7 and we were left sitting a long time in the plane while they made up their minds to fly or not. When they decided they would fly they discovered that there were no baggage handlers to put our luggage on the plane and after another long wait the pilot announced that we would fly without the luggage. There was a discontent murmur among the passengers but I just smiled as I thought of the voice I heard back in Dublin…

DAD

FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

This time 28 years ago – December 29th - on the eve of the Holy Family Maura and I were in hospital visiting Dad who had taken ill on St. Stephen's Day and was being checked out. As we were leaving him, she and I looked at each other and said "he's dying." There was something in his eyes that made us both think this. So, we went to the nurse in charge and said we thought our father was dying. She said, "not at all. He's fine." And we went off home.
When I told Mam what Maura and I were thinking she said, "well if you think he's dying then go back and anoint him." This we did and when the praying was done two interesting things happened. First Mam took hold of his hand but he took it away as if to say this is not the time for holding but the time for letting go. Then he pulled the bed clothes up under his chin looking content and complete and told us to go off and get a drink for ourselves. We did!
And at home we …

CHRISTMAS 2018: All I Want

The Bishop stands up and I get nervous because I feel he's going to make me jump from an aeroplane. It's a feeling, a sensation that runs through me, not a physical possibility. He has himself actually done it - jumped from an aeroplane. There's a challenge afoot and I'm afraid I won't be able for it - his plan for the renewal and future of the diocese. Having been through countless meetings like this and being the age I am I'm doubtful about what might be proposed. The language of it. I have no doubt about the Bishop’s own commitment, the energy that he’s putting into this whole process, never flagging in zeal.
What sets me at ease is the line of Scripture he uses, "the Word who is life, this is our subject" - one of my favourite lines of the bible, my favourite reality. Bishop Richard says that we go wildly wrong if we do not keep our eyes fixed on the Lord. This I agree with and I feel absolutely safe with Jesus.
The discussion that follows the p…

MORNING CAME AND EVENING CAME ON CHRISTMAS DAY

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth. (Psalm 19)

It’s Christmas morning, still dark and I’m wide awake at 6.00 even though it was very late when I got to bed after last night’s Masses, not that the last Mass was so late but I was buzzing afterwards and it took me a while to come down to earth. Two very different and life-giving experiences.
The earlier than wished for wakefulness was like a prompting of the Holy Spirit and I decided to go out in search of the dawn, something I’m not given to doing very often. I thought the view from the West Hill would be best and it was beautiful but I was drawn to the shore at Rockanore where the tide was out very far and there was plenty of sand to walk on. Down there I realized that I was walking where I had not walked before and it seeme…

FOG ON THE HORIZON

Symbolic of where I'm going,

Fog on the horizon
Cloaking the hills
Draping the trees

The serene fields of England
Fresh in vibrant green
White Hawthorne blossoms

Crowning - fifth mystery

Queen of the May
Help of Christians
Gazing

Down

The dead-slow stress of morning traffic

Mine a high speed pilgrim train
No less tranquil than the gentle pace of barges on the canal

Below

I take a different route
Kick the ball in another direction
Sail against the current

For the glory of You the One True God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent

The saving of the soul
The unheard voice
Of the unseen child,
Hard pressed mother,
Troubled father

Leaders who act as if they were God and reach to touch the Tree of Life

At the risk of Paradise

The entertaining gods
At whose feet the masses lay down their approving ckoaks

Jesus said, "In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving."
(Ma…

In Expectancy of surprise

I had gone through a very difficult meeting and, feeling bruised and sorry, I sat in the back garden in Belgrano letting the sun warm me. Tommy, who was about three years old, stood watching from a distance and when he felt it was safe, he approached and started chatting. I have no Spanish and he no English, so it was a childlike conversation that drew me out of myself.

He opened his little book to show me a picture of the Annunciation and I wished its joy would happen for me then. But it did not and I was not up to it.

Later in the evening I was praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary when the Angelus bell rang and it struck me that I was experiencing a collision of sorrow with joy - that the joy of Annunciation was trying to break into my sorrow. And I chose to accept this strange mingling. It has happened many times since that, while praying the sorrowful mysteries, the Angelus will ring. The Angel of the Lord is always declaring the Good News and we are asked to receive it.

Whe…

BOOKENDS: My Induction As Parish Priest of Hastings - Eamonn Monson sac

I’m wearing vestments that were made for my predecessor Fr. Seamus who was a much, much bigger man than me by a long shot, so there’s no way I can fill them as he did. There is no way that I can fill the space occupied by him when he was Parish Priest. But all the same the vestments fit me in a different kind of way. Something of Seamus remains here but things are not the same. His death brought an unexpected change and I have become part of that change. When I was his novice master I never dreamed that he would die before me, never thought that I would succeed him.
On the front and back of my chausible is the Pallottine seal with the motto "Caritas Christi Urget Nos" (The Love of Christ Urges us on). This seal is testament to our communal calling, the mission given to each of us personally and together as community.
The emotion of his passing is still strong! He is very much missed and was greatly loved here in Hastings. He touched people’s lives for the better. People tell …

A SOLITARY STAG

I sit near a solitary stag in the long white grass. We look at each other and, for a while, he seems not to care until he stands up to his full stature sniffing the breeze between us and turning his back to me he bellows into the sky. I dare not put his tolerance of me to the test, so I leave him his space. Alone.

Richmond park is dotted with herds of deer of every age and size - the graceful, elegant and cute, each herd having one stag as far as I can work out. All of them are beautiful, captivating and I feel I could just lay down among them finding a belonging there. Not that I could become one of them, I just feel a closeness to them inside me.

You couldn't say that the lone stag is either elegant or graceful but he is beautiful, majestic and I love him more than all the rest.

I'm curious about his solitude. Why is he out there on his own? Has he been driven out by a younger, stronger stag? There's no way of knowing but I have an affinity with him. He has become the symb…

EVERY BREATH BECOMES A PRAYER

“God of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, O Lord, abounding in love and truth, turn and take pity on me.” (Psalm 86)
The dates are different but it happened on this Sunday nine years ago. My mother was in hospital in Merlin Park during, what turned out to be, her final illness. I had asked the nurse if it would be alright for me to celebrate Mass in Mam’s room and she said, “why don’t you say it in the day room for all the patients.”
So it was! I came in the morning to help Mam get ready for Mass and she said to me, “I can’t pray”- something that is very common during sickness and old age. I told her not to worry about it because it’s written in the Bible that, when we are not able to pray, the Holy Spirit prays within us. He is in every breath we take and every breath becomes a prayer.
I hadn’t done any preparation for Mass so I didn’t know what the readings were and there to my delight was the very thing I had said to Mam. Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:26-27 “The Spirit comes to …

ON OUR HEARTS AND ON OUR LIPS: Holy Water for the Children

It’s an idea I got from Elaine in Shankill, giving the children in school a bottle of holy water to bring home; small plastic bottles that remind me of Caroline in St. Anne’s Resource Centre, Caroline preparing hundreds and hundreds of them in preparation for Easter. Good ideas always need someone who will do the practical part.
I brought up the idea at the Spiritual Life committee in Sacred Heart School here in Hastings. Head Teacher, Mr. Hellett loved it. He sourced the bottles - 250 of them - got them filled with water and labelled with each child’s name.
And so, on Wednesday, Eve of All Saints I spent most of the day in school going from class to class. The children, from the youngest up, were very enthusiastic about the Mission I was sending them on and they all understood the idea of mission. Their task was to bring the holy water home to bless their families.
The chats we had were lovely and they had a very good grasp of what a blessing is, when a priest gives a blessing – the bre…

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