OF YOU MY HEART HAS SPOKEN

May and Pentecost Mary and the Holy Spirit Conceiving Jesus, giving birth to the Church. “Wild air, world-mothering” Wind that blows where it will. The Holy Spirit teaching. Promise of Jesus Ever unfolding the More of God. And suddenly the familiar surprises. It often happens with Scripture. A passage I have been reading all my life unexpectedly says something new. You can be doing the same thing day after day, seeing the same reality year after year when, out of the blue it causes you to pause, to look and look again. To see with new eyes. The statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. It has been part of my life since birth. At home. In Castlegar Grotto. Lourdes. Here in Hastings. I’m very fond of it. But it is always just a statue, a reminder, never taking the place of the reality. Even as I pray beside it here, I turn my gaze to the Tabernacle. To Jesus. On Friday evening I closed the church as usual and went up into the Sanctuary for a brief prayer and, upon turning to leave, something about ...

The Pleasure and the Pain Sacred hush On Holy Ground I whisper to God The pleasure and the pain Of Temptation Beguiling and persistent In pursuit I fear its strength I fear my weakness I trust in grace - but for it I fall Lord, that I may      Desire You more      Love You more Than every passing passion As it once was So may it be again Amen! +++ The Train I would never  Have fallen for you Had I not left the train In search of a faster Journey home Had I not missed The connection  I would never Have seen you Your young loveliness  Drawing near to my ageing senses Seeking direction I might have averted my gaze But let my foolish eyes Linger longingly Drawing you in  To the long grass Of my dreams Falling over a threshold  That was not mine To cross

  “Behold I am making all things new… …A new commandment I give you”   The Apostles of the early Church were keen to tell what God was doing in their lives in order to encourage and put fresh heart into their fellow Christians. We need the same kind of encouragement so that we know that God is actually at work among us, doing something new, sometimes in very small ways. After Saturday evening Mass I spent almost an hour hearing the confessions of those who are keen to experience God’s Mercy in a definitive way. The thing is, these were not old people at all, but they were young people in their teens and twenties. So, when we lament the absence of the young, it is necessary to know that they are with us, even if that is in small numbers. But they are emerging, and they are very committed to their faith. Earlier in the day I heard the First Confessions of almost forty children who are preparing for their First Holy Communion. A most beautiful and pure experience of the i...

It happened while I was in the kitchen, shortly before 5pm, putting away the groceries and listening to BBC World Service which gave excellent coverage of the Papal Conclave. The reporter said there had been hope of a result around 4.30 but when that didn't happen we would have to await another ballot.  Then suddenly he exclaimed, "white smoke!" I ran to the television. What a sight, what a sound, what utter joy on the faces of the people in St. Peter's Square. It was electric!  White smoke billowing from the most watched chimney in the world. And the family of seagulls on the roof beside it. The new-born chick almost symbolic of what was taking place. Despite the abundance of seagulls in Hastings, I had never seen such a young chick before. A first! New life!  I had tears in my eyes. We were witnessing something quite unique, very special, a universal and unifying joy. A vocation unfolding before our eyes. Our common vocation. The vocation of the one w...

  I found myself sitting across the desk from a young psychiatrist who communicated with me through her computer screen, a different doctor each time for six months, and none of them ever seemed to get me. They just thought I was suicidal, which I wasn’t, and I didn’t seem to have adequate words to express the true nature of my sense of the pointlessness of life. It was a time in my life when I might have been relishing the fact that I had been elected Provincial of the Irish Pallottines, enjoying the “honour” given me. But there I was in an acute state of disintegration, embarrassed and ashamed. A priest in a position of authority, reduced to this. And I realize now that the honour was in fact in that very place where I thought it was not. Throughout my life I have sided with the underdog, felt empathy for the poor and the suffering and have found myself to be “with” people, side by side with them in whatever suffering they were experiencing. But in this case it was no longer ...