Living as Christians☀️🙏🏻

One year ago today ‘Blanketiers’, our WhatsApp group was born. Countless asylum seekers in our town, we could share with them. No files, no policy. No office, no queues. Needs met as they would emerge.

We began with four members. Now we are eighteen! Amazing awesome adventure. Attics emptied!

In the beginning folk were suspicious. I remember two young girls refusing everything we offered them. They told us later that they were beyond shocked to be offered stuff for nothing and were scared of what they might be letting themselves in for. 

Today, both of them received two fine winter coats with smiles of gratitude. As always we remind them that God owns all, ‘Blankatiers’, merely His stewards. (Someone kindly told me one time that ‘to be eternally grateful to any one person is a terrible place to be’. I share those wise words all the time).

God-incidence! Today’s Gospel reading right on target: ‘So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say; We are merely servants; we have done no more than our duty’. (Luke 17:10)

Why ‘Blanketiers’? In the beginning many folk’s greatest need was a warm blanket. Ireland colder by far than Africa! Mary came up with the name and we are so happy with it. Blankets needed and blankets bringing folk comfort too. 

In turn, our African friends pray for us all the time. Unashamedly they love God and whether folk realise it or not, our visitors shine a bright light in this post-Christian land of ours.

‘With prayer one can go on cheerfully and even happily, while without prayer, how grim is the journey. Prayer is as necessary to life as breathing. It is drink and food’. (Dorothy Day).

I love Dorothy Day. She is the inspiration behind what we do and how we do it! Her beautiful book ‘The Reckless Way of Love’, is forever within my reach. No home should be without one!!

Woke up this morning with these beautiful words on my lips: ‘No award for anything I do. All is hidden in You’. 

‘Sometimes in thinking and wondering at God’s goodness to me, I have thought that it was because I gave away an onion. Because I sincerely loved His poor, He taught me to know Him. When I think of the little I ever did, I am filled with Hope and love for all those others devoted to the cause of social justice’. (‘Reckless way of Love’ Dorothy Day)

‘There is no point dwelling on the past excessively. My mother used to warn us against that; she’d say, “doting on what’s gone is wasting precious time”. It’s stealing time, really, from the present and from the future. If you believe in the mission of Jesus Christ, then you’re bound to try to let go of your past, in the sense that you are entitled to His forgiveness. To keep regretting what was, is to deny God’s Grace’. (Reckless way of Love’ Dorothy Day)

I am so glad and grateful to my dear friend Barbara for gifting me this book. Divine inspiration without a doubt! Kindred spirits!

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Jesus, light our way.☀️🙏🏻

 

This morning we walked to the bus stop, just the two of us, all of her worldly goods stuffed tightly into one large suitcase and two bags, one medium size, one small. Little old me, chosen by God, to accompany and lend a helping hand to this courageous exceptional lady. No place else I would rather have been. Simple abundance!

Eight months ago she landed in our town and right away we became steadfast friends. How utterly she needed rest and recovery in those early days. Today, thank God, she takes her leave of us, sunny and strong.

‘Your Government kindly allowed me to come here’, she told me a few days ago. ‘They gave me free money and a place to lay my head. I am so grateful. Now that my work permit has arrived, time has come for me to brazen up and once again step out into the unknown’. She will live with another African family (they haven’t met) in one of our big cities while tirelessly she seeks much needed employment.

She quotes Psalm 37:23: ‘The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives’. Like me, she has not a scintilla of doubt about the sure and certain fact, that beautiful Jesus walks with her every step of the way. Nothing to fear, Jesus is here!

Right this very minute, as I write, I receive a message on my phone: ‘Hi Bridget. Thank you for your love and support’💕

My reply: ‘My joy. My total privilege. God is good all the time’. 💕

I love to tell her how much she inspires me to ‘brazen up’ too, be the very best I can be, good times and bad. Every action a sacred transaction. All of us give, all of us receive. God owns everything.

‘The bread you store up belongs to the hungry. The cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked. The gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor’. (St. Basil the Great)

Thanks be to God.☀️🙏🏻

She arrived in our town, frail, lost and all alone. Our privilege to share and care, as gradually she grew strong in mind and body. Remarkable transformation right before our very eyes. Then, one fine day she just took off without a word. No goodbye, nothing. Last we heard she is doing well in another town, another county.

Of course we are happy to know she is well but this morning I was thinking to myself how odd that she would take her leave of us in such a cold careless way. 

Still deep in thought when the words: ‘So you were looking for thanks!’, fluttered into my deepest heart. Holy Spirit wisdom, no doubt. No mistaking wonderful Holy Spirit when He speaks. Strength-giving and comforting at all times.

How often have I impressed upon impoverished folk: ‘We are sharing God’s stuff. He owns everything’, meaning, as much as I was able, every word from my deepest heart. However, those same words will mean a whole lot more going forward. God does actually own everything. All thanks is due only to God alone.

What a gift to my heart. I knew it before but now I feel it with every fibre of my being. We own nothing except our free will!

Soon after, another lady called, ecstatically telling me that her husband and family will be joining her in Ireland soon, please God. Our first meeting, that lady and I, remains forever in my heart, deep trauma darkening her beautiful face. Just nodding, she spoke not a single word. Today she is laughing and thanking God at the same time. I am too. ‘God did it’, she utters joyfully. ‘Dear Mother Mary in charge of everything’. Transformation extraordinaire!

This evening, strolling with yet another exquisite lady from a land far far away. Countless complications to contend with but like all our visitors, she thanks God for bringing her to this place of peace.

Folk marooned in our town, owning nothing but possessing everything! They know God. God knows them. Know God, know peace. No God, no peace.

Our teachers in disguise, each and every one of them. All will be revealed in God’s own time. God owns everything. We merely His stewards.

‘O my God, teach me to be generous, to serve you as you deserve to be served, to give without counting the cost, to fight without fear of being wounded, to work without seeking rest, and to spend myself without expecting any reward, but the knowledge that I am doing Your Holy Will. Amen’.        (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

                                     

New York at home🇺🇸

On my way from St. Anne’s Holy Rosary I stopped to chat with Bill. ‘Did you enjoy New York’, he asked. I told him we had a wonderful time. ‘Time with my boys is always enjoyable, whether home or away, but yes indeed New York was amazingly beautiful in so many ways’. When we are happy at home with our loved ones, chances are we will be happy everywhere!

‘Just thinking Bill’, I added. ‘If folk realised how beautiful it is to sit with St. Anne’s folk in prayer, people who have walked the walk. Sitting in their midst while the healing power of Jesus Christ shines through their brokenness onto mine. What a gift to my patched-up heart. 

Some call out a whole decade, some simply pray one Hail Mary. One lady, completely deaf, prays the sign of the Cross over herself as we all join in. Honestly, she is drawing a cozy blanket around all of us straight from Heaven above.’

Bridie, blind, deaf and now Alzheimer’s too, prays St. Teresa of Avila’s beautiful prayer aloud, profoundly meaning every word. She does not know how much we love and need to hear her pray for us all but one day in Heaven she will know it all.

Oftentimes I say that if our town folk would come and see for themselves the beauty and majesty of our St. Anne’s Holy Rosary group, staff thereafter would not cope with the crowds. Best kept secret in town. Best gig around!

Every day I emerge from our time of prayer a little more exhilarated, tad more healed’.

Bill stood in silence, deep in thought.’I guess that is the real New York’, I said, pointing to beautiful St. Anne’s Nursing Home, full of light and life.

‘Yes indeed. We have New York at home’, he added, smiling sweetly.

                                                                     🇺🇸 New York squirrel.

Happy together ❤️

                                                                               Bridie’s 🙏🏻