OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

  “You had not yet come forth into the light, Not even the world itself had come into existence When already I was loving you. Throughout my Eternal Existence I have loved you” (Words of God spoken by Saint Alphonsus Ligouri)   On the fourth day of my Aran retreat, before the boats had arrived from the mainland, I took the Pump Road, turning left up past the water works, a path I had never taken before. It narrows into a beautiful lane, framed by stone walls and beautifully decorated by hundreds, maybe thousands of wildflowers.   The path led me to the cliff facing the Atlantic Ocean with the Black Fort further up to my left. This is a route I’ve wanted to take for years, and it is utterly solitary, a road not travelled before, symbolic of seeking God in places where I had not searched before.   The search is always the same but sometimes it is necessary to get a different perspective. “It is Your Face O Lord that I seek.” (Psalm 27)   Out there near the...

Samuel, "the man who listens to God" - that's the meaning of his name. Samuel who pitched tent outside our church in the winter of a few years ago. Samuel, who returns from time to time and gives thanks that we gave him a welcome. And I give thanks that he is now settled in his own home and has a job. The man who listens to God, the one by whom God is heard, turned up appropriately enough with his girl friend yesterday before the Sunday vigil Mass. Appropriate because she is deaf and unable to speak clearly. Appropriate because the Gospel of this weekend has Jesus addressing the deafness of a man and healing him. Samuel's friend is not here to be healed. She isn't healed of her deafness but what is beautiful is to see the communication that takes place between the two of them; communication on all sorts of levels; a loving communication. He is heard by her, and she is understood by him. "Be opened!" This is how Jesus addresses the deafness of the man. Be...