OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  ‘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