OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

The house feels empty this evening and the High Street is strangely silent. Quiet too is the space down by the Cage at the seafront. Quiet and unusually dark. An enveloping darkness that is almost comforting. There’s a gift in the silence, the darkness, the emptiness. An opportunity. The Gospel of the Talents last Sunday is a reminder of what God has given us to live fulfilled lives in this world and to prepare us for Eternal Life in Heaven. It is stated very simply that if we accept, co-operate with, and develop the gifts of God then we will find our way into Heaven, whereas if we reject or neglect God’s gifts then we may well find ourselves left outside. It’s a sobering thought. We tend to think of talents in terms of the things we are able to do such as art, music, sport, crafting, writing and while all of these give expression to who we are, the gifts of God go much deeper. The greatest gift that God has given us is the person of Jesus Himself and it is clear that to reject...

  The church bell has been silent for most of five years. I managed to get it going for a brief period back in April and all attempts since then have utterly failed. It’s a real bell with a beautiful sound and it’s rung by a hammer that’s controlled by an electronic panel in the Sacristy and last week I had an earnest desire to hear it again. So, on my way out to celebrate Mass one morning I waved my hand in blessing over it and on the following day I stood before the panel and said a prayer to Barnabas, my Guardian Angel, asking him to do something. What happened was quite interesting. No, there was no miraculous ringing, but something happened to me, as if something within me stepped back into a remarkable stillness. The pressure to fix it left me and my entire being went pure silent, a sense of perfect clarity and calm. Then I took the manual in my hands as I had often done before and, following its instructions got the bell working very quickly, a bit out of time at first b...

  Every day has its mood and its music. Today, feast of the Holy Souls, it’s Faure’s Requiem. Every other sound seems to jar. Maura and I discovered this Requiem on cassette tape in Birkenhead not long after Dad died back in 1990 and we listened to it over and over as it brought tears and solace to our grief. This morning in the throes of Storm Ciaran, in the interior half-light, I plug Faure into the church sound system, and it is magnificent as I go around putting down buckets and towels to catch the water that is dripping, sometimes flowing down from the church ceiling. There is no grief in me now, not much anyway and even the “not much” is softened. The music of course brings Maura close and all the many others who have gone. Mam and Dad. I sit to write their names in the November list – two foolscap pages – and they all seem to float about the sanctuary. Family, Pallottines, close friends, neighbours. We’re of an age now when more seem to have gone than remain. It’s sobering...