OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

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  He comes to find  Lifting her up and keeping Her 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 +++ As a Prayer Mary, You stand at the crossroads Of time and eternity Intersection of all creation A desire as old as Eden Burning in your soul The yearning of every child Who has graced the earth Embodiment of humanity's Hope  Of Redemption, Restoration You have held in your heart The wandering aridity Of the desert and there  God comes to find  ...

A man going underground Looks furtively around In case he might be found Out In his descent To the hollows That echo In the dark Where barefaced lies Parade as truth Shadows masked as pleasure God is there Because He cares Though man is unaware His Face uncovered And unnoticed He waits and waits With infinite Patience

Back in 2009 I was looking online for a retreat and my attention was drawn to an Icon Retreat that was taking place at the Redemptoristine Convent in Dublin. At first glance I thought it might be a peaceful time of gazing at these sacred images, a time of respite from the fractious life that I was engaged in at the time. But it wasn’t simply a time of gazing! It turned out that participants would have to paint (write) an icon. Painting is not one of the talents God has given me but this retreat was tugging at my soul and seemed to be inviting me to stretch myself. So, on a Monday morning in October twelve of us sat at our tables ready to begin. Our teacher was Mihai, a young Romanian iconographer. I felt like a four-year old starting school, looking at the space in front of me. The brushes, the picture that I was to work from, the blank white board onto which I would attempt to reproduce the lovely image of Our Lady. It promised to be an awful mess! We listene...

The oil in the lamps of the bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13) represents the grace that God has given us to help us encounter Christ in our life experience. It is the grace to wait in the time of waiting and it is the grace to go out and meet Him when the time for going out has arrived. It is the grace of alertness, the grace of vision and the grace of action. The life of grace is not so much a state of ethereal tranquility but more a powerful impulse that sends us crossing vibrant, stormy seas; a climbing of steep ascents that leaves us gasping breathless. Grace is an adventure into the mystery of God, an adventure in which we stumble and fall; it is a bruising and a breaking. It is rest after struggle and healing after hurt, a healing that is greater than the hurt, a grace that we would never know without the hurt.  There is always hope in brokenness. In God nothing and no one is damaged beyond repair. The thing about this grace is that it is personal, given uni...

The effortless  Rise of smoke Ascending Upwards  In the still November air Like prayer Into the nothingness Of problems solved Tensions dissolved In the warm hearth Of the ordinary Tender the Veil  Of Peace Falling over  All and a gentle Tide at night on  Shining Sandy  Shores Where searchers' Lamps explore Nameless  Mysteries Hidden In the beauty There Surfboarding The night And heading  Home again Heart of Heaven's Bliss here On Earth

The greatest among you must be your servant. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.’ (Matthew 23:12) Experiences of humiliation can lead us to become humble but they are not in themselves virtuous; feelings of inferiority can also lead us to humility but they are not in themselves virtuous. Jesus calls us to humility and not to humiliation or inferiority. My mother had a very simple answer to my inferiority complex! She said you should neither look up to anyone nor look down on anyone and that Jesus is the only one who is perfect . So in my search for humility I am called to focus on Jesus rather than on self and through Jesus to be taken into the perfect embrace of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – where we encounter love and mercy in its perfection. Humility is born when I have the grace to be still and know that God is God and in His presence I “bow and bend low” in worship. In His presence I discove...

All Saints. Black Coffee. A girl band and a fine song. It's All Saints Eve and I'm drinking black coffee on the veranda of the Azur, overlooking the dark sea with a hazy moon above and a cold wind cutting over my right shoulder. I'm hatted. There's a time for every purpose under Heaven, a season for everything. We go through them often not knowing what is the purpose - what even is the point of all we do - but God knows. God knows exactly what He is doing, what He is going to do. Knowing this is enough for me. It's the way of faith. Coming up to 4.00pm it's as if the spirit of Radio Maria reaches out to me. Memory reminds me of that most precious season in my life. Around this time two years ago Donal O'Sullivan invited me to present a series on prayer and my nervous, shaky start became a joy. The hour before going on air chatting with Joy, those minutes settling myself at the microphone and closing my eyes - it was like diving into the sea ...