OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  The days are overtaking us and departure beckons again. Moving on, not remaining in one place is the pilgrim journey. Spirit of the Camino. There are strong emotions stirring for all sorts of reasons and there is also a quiet peace in me. This morning I brought the car back to the community in Dundrum, stopping at the service area near Athlone to use the vacuum cleaner. The token I was given wouldn't fit into the slot so I went back into the shop where the young girl behind the counter looked perplexed, as if she didn't know what to do. But that was just momentary. Maybe she had been daydreaming. She came out to the machine with me and, to my vain relief, she couldn't fit the token either. Then she kicked into a knowing, efficient action, opening the padlock and unbolting the machine as if it was a gun. Got the machine going. A clean car again. It was good to sit around the table with the community for lunch, to sit a while in the tranquil chapel of Pallotti House. A ...

The college campus is at its best this October morning. We walk slowly, creating a precious memory, stopping for coffee at Butler’s van. “Enjoy every coffee” she says, “and eat everything you can.” John O’Brien said something similar to me a few years back and I try to follow such advice, to find a balance between watching what I eat and simply enjoying my food. It’s my opinion that there is too much caution around food, an obsession with it in this “first world of ours” while throughout the earth there are people who cannot choose what they eat and, worse still those who have nothing to eat at all. Claire, who is very health-conscious, said recently that if you eat your food with love, then no matter what it is, it will be good for you. Within reason, of course. That is something I agree with. The hunger of the hungry challenges me to cherish the food that I eat, whatever it may be, faithful as I can be to the instruction of Jesus who said, "eat what is set before you." ...

There's an unstirred stillness about fog. Silence of a Sunday morning, the sun attempting to break through, promising something, delivering nothing. The beautifully haunting cello of Spiegel im Spiegel is the only sound to enter into the day, reminding me of my friend Fr Míceal. We used to listen to it together in the car. It's in the car now that it spontaneously pops up on my playlist.  A high tide blubbers in the chambers of my soul, like the swell of the sea in the crevices of rocks at Ballyloughán. An echo of emptiness in the falling night. A young man on a bench is doing something I've only ever seen in Argentina. He's pouring hot water from a thermos into a gourd cup with a steel straw. I nod at him and say, "Mate" - pronounced mathé, a kind of tea made with bitter herbs. His face breaks into a big smile, delighted at the recognition. A man alone and far from home. We are briefly connected in that moment. Briefly, and perhaps forever. Aloneness hovers a...

Imprisoned fire Of a kiln Burns within My bones Rages within My heart I just don't know What to do To hope Or not to hope To trust Or not to trust To speak Or not to speak To reach out Or not to reach out To be restrained Or To burst forth A bellowing flame And wail and wail Like an animal in travail Writhing in the horror That has befallen From the blueness Of a Summer's Fading day Do I bellow Or do I remain Silent?  

Waves break black And fretful Upon the Stony shore A jagged breeze Beats upon my brow This first September Night of shadowed walkers There is trouble in the air Challenges on every side And still the Curlew Sings above it all Reminding us of songs Yet to be sung Melodies to be heard And hope of healing Held

Yesterday I helped with the Pallottine Mission Appeals in Limerick Cathedral and St. Michael's church. I'm useless at selling anything and can't do the usual pitch that will motivate people to empty their pockets, so I settle for the Word of God as it was given to us in the readings. For the first Mass I concelebrated with the young Father Peter from Nigeria, a member of the Sons of Mary Mother of Mercy, four of whom serve in the diocese of Limerick. A tall, fit and charming man who was most hospitable. It was an interesting expression of how the Mission of the Church has evolved. An African missionary to Ireland who leads the penitential rite in Irish and a former Missionary to Tanzania. "Think of God's Mercy...and worship Him." So wrote St. Paul. The Mission of the Church, our Mission in East Africa, is nothing other than one great act of God's Mercy and one great act of worship. God's Mercy in Hosea is expressed in terms of a Mother leaning over her...