OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

Abba by Yongsung Kim. Jesus holding and caring for a baby There is a silence That cries  A hidden cry that goes Unheard A life that goes unseen Thirteen thousand Taken here Ten million Taken there We take no notice We do not see We do not feel We do not care

  “Abundance follows in His steps!” (Morning Prayer) I was drying my right foot this first morning - November 23, 2021, feast of St. Columbanus - when time seemed to freeze and doubt arrived, clear as a bell. “What are you doing here?” it asked, “Why come all this way, when you already have everything you need at home?” It’s what happens early on in any pilgrimage. Questions arise, valid ones and those that come as temptations to discouragement. I dismissed the doubt as quickly as it came but there are questions about this place that remain unanswered and, perhaps they are unanswerable. In Medjugorje we are dealing with the transcendent. It is a place where the veil between heaven and earth is very thin. Heaven breaks into to earth here in a way that doesn’t happen too often in the world and it defies logic and reason.

A campfire in the Sahara Desert, beneath the canopy of a pristine night sky, brilliant moon. The Berber men are showing us how they bake bread in the sand. We break fresh bread, drink Moroccan tea, some of the group sitting, some of us standing in the glow of flame. Ahmed, the chief camel herdsman, sends one of the priests to say he wants me to come and sit beside him on the sand and when I take my place, he puts his arm around my shoulder, drawing me into himself. A tender and intimate moment of reverence. Throughout this journey he has had a profound respect for my age. Like everything in life this is not just a physical and emotional human connection; it also has a spiritual and divine dimension. It’s as if God Himself has invited me to sit beside him, that He has chosen me for this. We all like to be chosen, to be picked out for closeness to another at all levels of our nature.

The islands rise on the horizon, emerging through the mist. A young boy rests his head on the ship's railing, as I did in childhood, gazing down upon the foaming sea, waving at dolphins in the distance.  Memory of travelling to Aran in August. Memory of the past and the meaning that came to me through Aran and the sea. I'm looking for clarity now, waiting for mist to clear, not in an anxious way but as a child who knows how to wait and trust and ponder. "strange islands, the roaring torrents, whisper of the amorous gales, tranquil night, the approaches of the dawn and silent music" (St. John of the Cross)

When it comes as a surprise it’s extra special – coming face to face with the moon while it sits low and large on the horizon.   You find yourself saying “Oh my God” out loud. A prayer of praise - for this deep yellow moon and the pink moon of a few nights ago. Moon upon the calm sea. No photograph will ever do it justice.

  To You my Lord I come In Adoration Beneath the world-mothering Mantle of Mary Asking Your morning Blessing upon Mothers filled with purpose Parents and guardians Coming back from delivering Children to school I pray for every child And each member of staff May Your Grace descend

I feel September In my bones

  O Lord my heart Has nothing To be proud of For you have humbled me Lessons hard to heed My eyes have sought marvels Beyond Hands grasping stations Above my reach Temptations of the Desert Have assaulted my soul And I have not returned To the child at rest Arms that hold The pretence of peace  It is not the hope Of Israel past Nor any future  Promise that I seek It is You alone my Lord For whom I yearn In all  Those misdirected ways It is You You alone That I seek

“He hungered for the uncompromising life of a mendicant.”  (Priest and Beggar by Kevin Wells) I’m reading the biography of Venerable Father Aloysius Schwartz whose enthusiasm, energy and sense of purpose put me to shame, humble me. Though I have always known from a very young age that I would be a priest, always wanted to be one, it seems like I have spent my life wandering. I have always loved and been drawn to the poor, to the vulnerable but never had the courage to be poor. Vulnerable yes, but poor no. And even my presence with the vulnerable is always transient.

  11:11 and exactly 14,000 miles on the trip meter over the hump of the magnificent Dartford Crossing. I love numbers like these. John loved to see 11:11 glow red on his digital radio clock beside his bed at night. Now whenever I see it, I think of him, pause like an Angelus to pray for his eternal rest and praise the Holy Trinity.

  During a retreat in the Camaldolese monastery near Frascati in 1839 St. Vincent Pallotti wrote that he was in extreme need of what he calls an “infinite deluge of divine mercy” and he says “I found myself immersed in an immense sea of divine Mercy”. The need and the experience of Mercy was vast and abundant. To describe God Pallotti uses words such as infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible. God is immense, infinite, immeasurable and incomprehensible Mercy.

  "Why do you call me good?" asked Jesus. "No one is good - except God alone." (Mark 10:18) The woman said that her house isn’t good enough to receive a priest, especially me because she said I am so holy. The way I say Mass. I’m not holy I insisted. I’m a sinner and your house is perfectly fit for me or any priest. You’re not a sinner, she said. I am, I said! But she wouldn’t hear of it. A common mistake, not just among devout Catholics but in society at large. That’s why there is such shock when the people on pedestals are revealed to have feet of clay and worse. Oftentimes, it is we who put them on pedestals.

Show me the way Show me the way To go home Say I to the prisoner Sober

  You touched my lips I gave You my breath You took my life By the Beautiful Gate The Gate of Mercy We are stretched Out Merciless Alarmed Agitated Afraid Our wounds raw And still unhealed The well has vanished Deep into the desert sand Its waters turned to vapour Our thirst will not be quenched We are on the verge of nothingness The midnight clock is about to strike Yet Mercy still may come Like the dew of morning Moistening

“I give my children water” said the young mother, “so why should I not give them this too?” The “this” is the experience of faith, specifically First Holy Communion and personal prayer. It will be a resource for them when they grow up and even if they stop practising, they will have it within them. We would never think of depriving our children water or anything else they need for survival. Yet, we are quick to deprive them the water of spiritual nourishment, perhaps because there is no obvious or visible consequence of that deprivation but there are of course hidden consequences. This thing of faith is a real mystery and I’m very glad to have it and don’t take it for granted. It comes in all sorts of shapes, is different on all sorts of levels, breaking through where it seems not to be at all. It seems to be a given that artists become at least agnostic, if not atheist. Though that’s not altogether true here in England where it’s possible to be Catholic and artistic at the same time. ...

Take the Master’s bowl and flour And bake this daily loaf Drink your coffee Eat your bread In the Garden of His Presence Secretly Christ Centre of the universe Holding all in being Dwelling in the Chapel of your soul Your feet bare upon the grass The simple honesty of it Adoration and surrender A daisy dancing in the breeze Gentle on your waking skin Morning sun dissolving dew And all that is false Melts away in the Truth Of a single Love-filled moment 

  People are asking how I am now. Very well is the honest answer, though after some very bright and energetic days last week, I find myself flagging a bit, somewhat under par. It wasn’t so noticeable until I had to stand up in public and perform as it were for the first time since the procedure. Then it’s clear that I am rusty and have to dig deep. For the Feast of the Sacred Heart I took three short assemblies at the school, a great way of connecting with all the children and if I wasn’t on top of my game, they were wonderful. They don’t ask for much and give so generously. Their capacity for silence is astonishing. They asked about my heart and I thanked them for the fabulous video they sent me wishing me to get well, praying for me. We talked about all that’s in the Heart of Jesus, love and kindness being the most mentioned and some spoke of happiness or joy. They were amused when I said that God is so happy that He dances for joy. The idea seemed funny and made them laugh b...

It is a fearsome desire Static bristling nature By it I am enlivened Driven to pursue You To search because You Have called out to me Across inaccessible distances Unreachable in the flesh To be deprived of You Your ministry Is to die a desert thirst And so I come By the transport of this prayer And beg You then Immerse me In Your depths Caressing every aspect Of my being Ripples of Your river Smoothing out the stone Of my heart Expanding its capacity Drown me in Your Love Baptize me in Your purity Bathe the eyes of my soul That I may behold The wonder Of Your Beautiful Face In Spirit and In skin

  ‘Unbreak My Heart’ was one of the songs playing on Radio Sussex as I lay flat and still for the best part of two hours - well maybe 90 minutes - as the cardiologist first probed my heart and then proceeded to mend it. My only fear was that he would probe and find nothing wrong as happened twelve years ago in Dublin. He said as much before beginning the procedure – that the blockage he saw in my scan was nothing serious and would probably not require any treatment. And it’s not that I wanted to be unwell; I just wanted a reason to explain why I was feeling so unwell. To find a reason and have it dealt with. My breathlessness has been developing for the past couple of years and came to a dramatic head in the Sahara Desert last year where I was left gasping and panting at a ferocious rate. By last week it was quite stressful. It demanded attention and the NHS gave me a date for the angiogram which took place in Eastbourne last Friday May 28 th .

  This time three years ago many of us were in a state of shock and hopelessness following the result of the referendum on the 8th Amendment and today I woke up with 'Babylon' by Don McLean going round in my head. It expresses what we feel. And in this live recording Don McLean speaks not only of its sadness but also of the hope that is in it. So I put this slideshow together with the song. In Christ there is always hope. "In Christ alone my hope is found!" And it is He who tells us, "you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices but your sorrow will turn to joy." Let it be done. Let every human life created in the image and likeness of God from its conception receive the love, respect and protection it deserves. 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 ...

  After my sister Maura died unexpectedly in 1999 at the age of 46, our brother Harry wrote this song for her. It came to birth as a recording during the coronavirus pandemic. Maura Monson Foster May 9, 1953-July 28, 1999

Saturday There was a tree in the garden in Thurles. An ordinary tree it seemed to us in the winter but in Springtime it revealed itself, giving forth two different coloured blossoms - pink and yellow. We learned that the tree with the pink blossoms had been grafted onto the main tree with the yellow blossoms, the two becoming one. One trunk, two identities. It reminds me of a couple getting married. Such a couple came to the church today. A wedding in the time of covid-19 with fifteen guests, my first since before lockdown last year. And what a joy it was to feel and behold the love of this young couple. There was a moment in the ceremony when both were kneeling, leaning shoulder to shoulder, holding each other's hands, eyes closed in intent prayer and you could sense their lives merging in a new way, in the way of the sacrament. As time goes on they, like the tree, will become more and more one while each retains something of their own distinct identity. Something similar is the d...

  The sighing breeze in the wake of a howling wind. Such is grief in the wake of death that is unexpected, in the wake of any death. A sigh that settles in upon one’s life; a grief that does not have words. No matter how much people want you to talk and unburden, you can't. You grow weary of its effects on the everyday things, weary of its exposure to the gaze of others who in turn must have grown tired of seeing how you are and are not. Do they want to say, “get over it and get on with life”, as is often said, or at least thought? It’s what you want to say to yourself. But it doesn’t work because you are flattened and disabled. Disabled. Mentally, emotionally and, as a result, physically. Winds that go howling, breezes that sigh. A line from “All Kinds of Everything”, the song that won the Eurovision for Derry Lindsay, Dana and Ireland way back in 1970. The excitement and innocence of it all. An innocent song that I have always thought of as harmless, associating it with butterc...

  I’m thinking about the quest ion Jesus asked of those who came to arrest Him – “who are you looking for?” and the answer they gave is, “Jesus of Nazareth”, though they were looking for Him for all the wrong reasons. We are looking for Jesus. The whole of humanity and all of creation has been searching for Jesus down through the ages. This is the core purpose of our lives as Catholic Christians and St. John of the Cross compares this searching for Christ to the exploration of a mine that contains precious minerals. We enter into the cave of the mine and, when we reach a certain point, thinking that this is the end we discover a new turning that takes us down a new channel and the discovery of new riches goes on infinitely. In this world we are never finished discovering who Jesus is. As St. Paul says, now we see in a glass dimly, now our knowledge is imperfect but then in eternity we shall know as fully as we are known.” The women in the Gospel show us what the searching is like...

Monday of Holy Week. The wind is cold but in a sheltered place on the seafront the sun is warm on my face, my head resting back into the silence of the morning, John’s Ray Ban’s shielding my eyes. He bought them in Marrakesh from a street vendor who approached us as we were having coffee al fresco, reviewing the week that we had just spent together in the Desert. He is with me in spirit as I sit where we would normally sit at the half-way stage of our walk. We would go just beyond the Azur and double back down the lower level and sit a while. As well as his Ray Ban’s I’m also wearing his ring. Both were given to me after he died. Being back with the parish congregation was emotional, especially when I said thanks to the people for their messages, cards and support on John’s death. One man said very kindly, “we lost our priest but you lost your friend” and I’m touched by the recognition of our friendship. At the end of Mass on Saturday evening my breath failed, my voice trailed off as...

"I suppose we're as well as can be these days” he said when I asked how they are doing. “Fed up with it all” he went on, “fed up with being fed up, but mornings like these help a great deal." A morning in Annaghdown. Fed up with being fed up! It’s a good way of describing how we are feeling on the anniversary of the first lockdown. There’s a litany of things that covid-19 has done to us all and we could go naming them all out but “mornings like these” – that’s where I would like to go now. To think about the things that “help a great deal.” I’m just back from John O’Brien’s funeral and the self-isolation that was required of me at home. In spite of the sorrow that is in me, everything fell into place as the graciousness of Divine Providence accompanied me all along the way, soothing my fears, softening that nameless guilt that can arrive from nowhere. That nameless guilt! Sitting on the edge of my bed at home, just after waking, I was feeling guilty as though I had alr...

Morning of John's funeral. I sit on the chair where he used to pray, in the room where he slept. Facing out into the garden and the fields of Ballynoe as far as the eye can see. Daffodils beneath the fence and a pale sunlight on the grass - sunlight growing bright and brighter still. All is neat and still and quiet. Quiet but for the occasional bellowing of cows in the parlour.   And dark clouds marching slow across the blue sky with the look of rain in them. But as it turned out, it was snow, not rain that they bore into the early part of the day. Later there would be rain after the burial was done. Torrents of rain that drove us out of the cemetery, tearing us apart lest we be tempted to linger in unsafe social closeness that is forbidden now.   Lines from a hymn come to me:   "The day is come, the accepted day When Grace like nature flowers anew, Trained by Thy hand, the surer way Rejoice we in our Springtime too.   Let the whole earth in worship bow Great God bef...