New Year’s Eve☀️

‘Only by the lives of My followers can man be helped; only by seeing Mine unmoved, at peace, joyful, in a world of sorrow, disillusionment and mistrust’. (Jesus/ God calling)

Heading to 10AM Holy Mass this morning, New Year’s Eve, Feast of the Holy Family, prayers in my pocket, rain dangerously hovering. First guy walking his dog had just passed me by when I asked if he would like a morning prayer.  Highly amused, he replied’: ‘A prayer? Ok. I’ll give it to herself’. ‘No, I will give you a prayer for your wife too’, I said. ‘Men love passing my prayer on to their wife (sometimes their mother!) when they might really enjoy praying it themselves’. He seemed chuffed with my suggestion!!

‘I’m Bridget from Kerry’, I said. ‘Oh. We are going to a wedding in Kerry today’, he replied still laughing. This lovely gentleman spurred me on to keep offering my powerful prayer this beautiful Holy Family Feast day.

Holy Mass, delightful chat with elderly lady who told me that she received my prayer last Christmas and she loves it. ‘I know a man who received it too and he really loves it’, she told me. Her words filled me with joy keeping my feet firmly focused on my mission. Hail, rain or shine.

Lady on SuperValu queue told me that she will pray my prayer every morning with her husband who suffers with Alzheimer’s. Music to my ears, spending time as I do with dear folk living in that same predicament. She took a prayer for her friend too.

Sales assistant where I purchased leggings (definitely a change of clothes would be needed) was overjoyed with my prayer, others too.

Takeaway tea from SuperValu as I headed back to my loving family, blown about by torrential rain and gale force wind. Newly purchased umbrella decimated, sorry sight to behold for sure, one would surmise.

Looks can be deceiving though! Who in their right mind would venture to imagine that my New Year’s Eve morning 2023 was perhaps my best one yet!! (and yes, I probably said exactly that, last year too……)

‘O Holy Family, the Family so closely united to the mystery which we contemplate on the day of the Lord’s Birth, guide with your example the families of the whole earth’. (Pope St. John Paul11)

Beautiful Nativity scene in plain sight. Smart SuperValu, Midleton.🌟

Dinner with Donal in Dunmanway on our way back home to Kerry.☀️

My alarm, waking me up for Holy Mass this morning, intruded on my dreaming as I divulged to a lady (not known to me) that: ‘I am so in love with Jesus in most Holy Eucharist’.😀🙏🏻☀️(I am!!).

                                     Dreaming - Royal road to the subconscious.

Don’t let anyone steal your joy☀️

My God, You are my life. You never leave me alone. 

You are in my pilgrimages right to the end of my life. Amen

I told Jesus; ‘I’m annoyed with D’. His reply; ‘I’m not’. That was it! There and then my anger burden fell to the ground shattering into one million pieces. Perfect peace restored once more to my wounded heart. Unshackled, free as a bird to go about my day.

Oh Jesus I am so grateful to You. Your beautiful wisdom swopped the grey day I was heading into at full speed for a most glorious one full of light and life.

Delightful prayer encounter with German ladies in Church. Definitely their first time ever to be gifted a prayer from random Kerry granny. (Or any other granny!) Taken aback, joyfully declaring aloud: ‘This is so lovely’. Retired Docter on his way to Holy Crib visibly thrilled with his prayer gift too.

Praying Holy Rosary in St. Anne’s Dayroom, witnessing with my own eyes precious folk relax into prayerful peace, agitated minds calming for a while. Miraculous. (When all else has scarpered from one’s life, prayer, song and laughter steadfastly endure).

‘You have turned my mourning into dancing for me; You have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness’. (Psalm 30:11)

Gratefully pondering, had the water pipe that burst in our kitchen St. Stephen’s night (gushing water everywhere at the rate of knots) happened some days earlier while we were away with family, our cozy compact cottage would now be destitute. Unliveable! So much to be grateful to God for at all times.

Gratefully pondering too, regarding my sleep deprived nights (Christmas revellers returning home well past the midnight hour), always enough energy next day to carry out God’s Divine will for my life. Energy and sleep!! God owns both. Allelulia!

Living, to the best of my poor ability, an active, not an agitated life, while walking every step in the gladsome light of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Next time I get annoyed with another or maybe even myself, Jesus beautiful words: ‘I’m not’ will shift my gaze, propelling me on to higher ground.

‘To use this life well is the pathway through death to everlasting life’. (St. John Almond)

Katy’s Hymn 🎶☀️🙏🏻

‘Nothing is more beautiful than love. Indeed faith and hope will end when we die whereas love, that is, charity, will last for eternity’. (Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati)

Donal, on his way to Christmas dinner at my sister Chris and Joe’s home, joined Killian and I for beautiful Christmas Day Holy Mass. When the choir began to sing that ancient angelic hymn ‘Silent night’, poor desolate Donal shed sorrowful tears. I too, overwhelmed and deeply moved. Then, without a shadow of a doubt we knew in our heart that our dear Katy rip was particularly present to all of us. No words to articulate it, we just knew! Killian who loved his aunty deeply, and she him, felt her gentle presence too. 

Singular moment of Grace on this most Holiest of days. Christ our Saviour is born. Allelulia!

One year ago, (Christmas Eve 2022), heartbreakingly, I sang ‘Silent night’ from Dunmanway Church gallery as my dear sister Katy was being taken from church in her coffin. I watched her go as I sang. Unthinkable now. Donal wanted with all his heart for me to sing at his dear wife’s funeral Holy Mass and for sure, God’s amazing Grace enveloped and guided me every inch of the way.  

Fitting that now ‘Silent night’, my favourite hymn of all time is ‘Katy’s hymn’ too. 

‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone’. (Isaiah 9:1)

Christmas Day swim. Killian braving the broad Atlantic.🥶

‘Best Christmas Day ever’ I declared last night to which Killian replied: ‘And you say exactly that every year’. Whatta mighty God we serve!!

Christmas Eve 🎄☀️

‘The whole of my life has been has been God’s gift’. (St. Josephine Bakhita)

I love Christmas Eve. Sense of expectation as we strolled to Holy Mass this morning, my gorgeous grand daughter Aoife and I. Chatting and sharing, too wonderful for words.

Young lady from Brazil agreed to take our photo in Church after Holy Mass and for her generosity of spirit was gifted my powerful prayer. Another lady grieving the sudden passing of her dear Mom joyfully received my prayer too.  Oh to witness her smile through her tears, gracious gift to my grateful heart.

Tea and buns afterwards in local restaurant, outdoors in the crisp air. Aoife suggested renaming my blog: ‘Life of a lively Nan’. Pleasant young guy took our photo there and received two prayers, one for his brother too.

Killian and I drove home to Kerry this evening, stopping for tea and chocolate cake in Killarney. On this Holy Christmas night we are home safe and sound Thank God.

‘We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way’. (St. Francis of Assisi)

‘Grandparents are good at teaching us that life is not a sprint, that it takes time and that growth comes in often hidden and mysterious ways’. (Fr. Dennis Gallagher A.A.)

Prune my own corner of the garden!🪴

‘He who carries God in his heart bears Heaven with him wherever he goes’. (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

‘Live adherently’, words scrawled on notepad near my bed this morning. Had I not penned them (barely awake) in the middle of the night, valuable wisdom most certainly would be lost and gone forever into the ether of the night. (New word to me - Adherent - one who gives full loyalty and support to another).

Later, EWTN, Fr. Augustine Wetta relating a vision experienced by his fellow priest: In the garden of the Apocalypse and a huge scary dragon shows up. Frantic, fellow priest runs at scary dragon with a flaming sword. St. Peter appears on the scene. ‘Give me that’, he says, taking the flaming sword and handing fellow priest a pruning shears. ‘Go prune your own corner of the garden’, he tells him.

Thing is, more young folk on their cellphones received my powerful prayer today than any other day heretofore. Extremely polite and genuinely delighted to be gifted a prayer by random Granny. ‘Pleased to meet you Bridget’, each and everyone of them told me. Beautiful young folk.

So that’s it! Live adherently and prune my own corner of the garden.

‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire’. (St. Catherine of Siena)

‘May every beat of my heart be a new hymn of praise to You, O Holy Trinity’.

 (St. Faustina’s Diary/1064)

Freedom☀️

Hearing my boys tell of their Christmas work parties, in full swing right now ferries to my mind an event from over twenty years ago. One thing renews another!

I had just returned back home to Kerry in the glorious company of my small boys, after a sabbatical of twenty eight years in Dublin. Country living once again. Music lifted my weary spirit and so cd’s rang out their merry tune almost all of the time in our compact cottage. Life for me is and always has been better by far with music in it.

P.J. Murrihy’s voice captivated me, one song in particular. Gloomy tale of some poor guy trying every Christmas to save enough dollars for the flight home to Ireland from America but ended up drinking his savings instead. Alas and alack, he never did succeed in making it back home to Ireland. That lonesome line: ‘I fall off the wagon again’, deeply pierced my heart. Thinking of my own Eric and all others steeped in awful addiction, I would shed bitter tears.

One day however my P.J. Murrihy cd was nowhere to be found, evaporated into thin air! Time passed and I had forgotten all about it when some months later, while searching for something else I found it tucked away in a drawer. Thrilled, I placed it in the cd player and surprisingly, this time I could listen, enjoy and not cry.

Busy getting on with our life (and having a breather from playing that cd), unbeknownst to me, Beautiful Jesus healed another piece of my broken heart and He’s been doing just that in His own imitable way ever since. All Glory to God forever and ever. Amen

Turns out my dear boys had hidden my tearjerker cd. What kindness and compassion! No cd - no tears for Mom. Little boys doing their best to fix things. (Even though I did my utmost to hide my tears from them, they could always tell). 

‘For the curse of the drink is upon me, It softens my will and my brain. Whenever I save a few dollars I fall off the wagon again’. (The Land of the Gael/P.J. Murrihy)

I heard someone say only yesterday: ‘Freedom is the opposite to addiction - not sobriety’. Sobering thought that!!

I love to tell folk that just like me, their tears will dry too. Patience endures all things!

                                Anyone who follows you Lord will have the light of life. Amen

‘The adorable heart of Jesus is our comfort, our way, our life’. (St. Frances Xavier Cabrini.)

Tis a pleasure to be asked!☀️😀

‘Lose yourself in generous service and every day can be a most unusual day, a triumphant day, an abundantly rewarding day’. (William Arthur Ward)

‘It’s a pleasure to be asked’, my dear Mom would say every time I ranted and raved about having to milk Starry, one of our cows. I liked milking but my sister Katy never got asked to do it. Always she had the ‘nice’ chores like setting the table and watering Mom’s geraniums. I was so jealous.

Years later when I told Katy I envied her beauty inside and out, she kindly informed me that she envied me too, my freedom of spirit, chatting with everyone and anyone, anytime in any place. Thanks be to God, we held on tightly to our beautiful all-encompassing friendship up and down the long years in spite of and who knows!! maybe even because of how we oftentimes felt about each other.

Roll on myriad years and oh how Mom’s words ring true in my deepest heart as I travel down life’s highway. Tis a pleasure to be asked every single time. 

Tis a pleasure to find Jim 🐈 waiting on my window sill first thing every morning asking for food, my ravenous birds too. They know full well that breakfast is nigh!

Pleasure extraordinaire singing at Holy Mass every morning and in this Holy Advent time coming up to Christmas, singing at Senior Citizens Holy Mass and party. Today I got to sing at my third such Holy Mass and party and still more to come.

Pleasure too praying Holy Rosary in St. Anne’s with my precious folk. Yesterday Bridie, blind and deaf called out St. Teresa of Avila’s beautiful prayer with only the tiniest prompt. Kay, deeply troubled but at peace once again after our prayer uttering gently: ‘God is with us. He is’.

Not to mention getting to pray Live-streamed Holy Rosary from Church and the unutterable gift praying Chaplet of Divine Mercy at bedside of one about to breathe their last and forever leave this world and all it’s woes behind.

‘Oh how much we should pray for the dying! Let us take advantage of mercy while there is still time for mercy’. (St. Faustina Diary)

Thank you dear Mom. I had no idea what you were talking about back then but now I know very well and I am truly grateful for your sage words. Thank you too Starry.🐄. It most certainly is a pleasure to be asked!

Life indeed is a big wheel!! No doubt about it!!

‘The more generous we are, the more joyous we become. The more co-operative we are, the more valuable we become. The more enthusiastic we are, the more productive we become. The more serving we are, the more prosperous we become’. (William Arthur Ward)

Oh how I miss you dearest Katy😌🙏🏻

‘A tremendous consolation and wondrous truth of our faith, is that every time we participate in the Holy Eucharist, we are in Heaven: in the company not only of the angels and all the saints; not only with God and in Him; but also intimately united with the ones we have loved so much on earth’. 

(Sr. Niamh Galvin)

 

‘Lord You know all things: You know that I love You’. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Feed my sheep’. (John 21:17)

Blessed☀️

‘God’s works are done with clasped hands and on our knees. Even when we ‘run’ we must rest spiritually on our knees before Him’. (St. Luigi Orione)

I love my little book ‘God calling’. Comforting always all days. This morning’s wisdom from Jesus particularly magnificent and totally true I can declare. So many wonderful happenings every day and definitely not by happenstance.

Just back home from six pampering ‘rest and renewal’ days in the bosom of my loving family and wishing (telling myself I deserved) to remain on holiday mode just a little while longer. (Hubris). Then, like a gentle breeze, Jesus spoke into my heart; ‘Folk call on you just like you call on Me’. (I know so well when it is Jesus who speaks!)

Guided! without a shadow of a doubt, I knew exactly what I had to do. Dear lady struggling right now could really use some help and so I called her up. Surprised and sobbing the whole time, she spoke the same words over and over; ‘Oh Jesus, Thankyou Jesus’.   

Holiday time well and truly over for now, happy as can be back in action, by, with and for beautiful Jesus, my bestest friend. No where else in this world would I rather be!                                       

‘To use this life well is the pathway through death to everlasting life’. (St. John Almond)

Sweetest Jesus, Body and Blood most Holy, be the delight and pleasure of my soul. Be my strength and salvation in all temptations. My joy and peace in every trial. My light and guide in every word and deed and my final protection in death. Amen

 

If you go down to the woods today……🌲☀️

‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived’.     (Henry David Thoreau)

‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end’. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Time out☀️

‘Advent is like springtime in nature when everything is renewed and so is fresh and healthy. Advent is meant to do the same for us’. (St. Teresa of Calcutta)

Rest and renewal in the bosom of my fine family, in these glorious brand new Advent days. This morning, strolling to Holy Mass, thanking Father God for His bountiful blessings, into my heart popped: ‘Pay no attention to how many follow you. Pay all attention to Whom you are following’. No need to elaborate!!

                          ‘Keep our eyes upon Jesus. Look full on His beautiful Face’. (Hymn)

Friendly greeting with pleasant elderly gentleman holding his newly purchased Daily Mirror newspaper but alas no prayer in my coat pocket. All of them in my rucksack. Perhaps we will meet again tomorrow morning, please God. (Prayers in pocket from now on!)

When Father told us that as always Monday morning Holy Mass is offered for our dear ‘Holy Souls’, my grateful heart skipped a beat! I had already planned to pray especially this morning for the gentle soul of Shane McGowan rip. 

Busy little town this and yet only twelve of us at Holy Mass. (I counted). Got to thinking though that Jesus started off with just twelve!! They sure made a difference and with God’s Holy help we will too. I heard a priest say once: ‘Holy Mass every Sunday by obligation. Holy Mass every day by invitation’.

Every Monday morning too, tea and buns in Sacristy after Holy Mass. I was graciously invited and enjoyed every minute. One guy who took my prayer, will copy it for anyone and everyone he meets. Others happily accepted it too. 

If folk could only witness for themselves how utterly joyful, hilarious and interesting one Priest (in Persona Christi) and twelve Church-goers, enjoying tea and chat in a Sacristy, away from the limelight and the madding crowd, truly are!

‘I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him’. (St. Frances Xavier Cabrini)

‘The language of the Gospels, the style used by our Lord leads us more directly to contemplation than the technical language of the surest and loftiest theology’. (Garrigou-Lagrange).