Jesus, all for Jesus☀️🙏🏻

Everything we say and do is through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus. Amen

Twenty years ago, just after moving into our compact humble cottage, we sat around one night, my guys I do life with and me. They were busy planning much needed repairs, should ever any money come our way. I was in my own world not taking part at all until one of them blurted out; ‘First thing we’ll do is take that picture down’ and of course I sprang into action. ‘He is going nowhere’, I replied, referring of course to our wonderful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

They got me!! Again!! To this day we laugh about it. Yes, repairs have come and gone, guys are grown, and still thank God, our Sacred Heart picture remains where first it touched down. Our compact cold cottage, once an igloo, is now an incubator. We have been truly blessed.

Today is the beautiful feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus. When I reminded Ruairi of today’s exalted feast day, adding, ‘He’s going nowhere’. Ruairi’s reply; ‘Ha, He certainly isn’t’.

The joy of the Lord is our strength, always has been, laughter got us through many many hard times, by winding means, enveloping us like a cozy blanket as the thunder rolled. We are beyond grateful.

                              ‘Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God’. (Leon Bloy)

             ‘It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world’. (St. Aloysius Gonzaga)

After Holy Mass every morning I go outside discarding water (not Holy water) left over from Holy Alter. One parishioner asked me if I was blessing the folk outside! When I told another parishioner what she asked me, she replied roaring laughing; ‘You’re crazy but you’re not that crazy’. 😂

Dear lady upset and confused about oh so many things. We sat in the Holy Oratory awhile in silence and then, impromptu, her beautiful face lit up as she uttered, face aglow; ‘Isn’t He just georgous!’ gazing lovingly on beautiful Jesus. Yes, for sure, children and folk enduring dementia, see Jesus with unvarnished clarity!

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God governs everything ☀️🙏🏻

 

‘We breathe, we eat, we sleep, only for one reason - to serve Him whom our hearts love’.

 (Catherine Doherty)

She came towards me, just after Holy Mass this morning. Cheerful, smiling, and yet plain to see that she has suffered beyond words and is suffering still. Hard not to cry. Hard still, many hours later.

Right there before my very eyes, Beautiful broken Body of Jesus in the person of this dear lady. What a privilege for me. When I offer her a brand new Holy Bible she almost cries. Everything else, how ever much needed, paling into insignificance when compared with her Holy Bible. ‘I have found a mother in a strange land’, she whispers.

I love how she utters sincerely; ‘Am grateful’. No endless ‘thanking’ as I myself am prone to do. Definitely borrowing this gem. ‘Am thankful’, from our heart says it all!!

Thank you Father God for my vocation. Thank you Jesus for walking with me every step. Thank you Holy Spirit for Your Gladsome light.

Our group ‘Blankeriers’ to the rescue as always. Together we are strong. God owns everything, we are merely His stewards.

Somebody once said; ‘God is No.1. We are No.2, each and every one of us, pauper, millionaire and everywhere in between. No need for competing. We will never be No.1’. Sobering thought!!

Holy Mass every morning. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament one whole hour after Holy Mass. Holy Rosary before Holy Mass. Total toolkit from on-High.

Saint Mother Teresa is so right; ‘Without God we are too poor to help the poor’

Dear fragile lady’s gift to my heart. Deeper knowing that God is in control, we do not have to be. Mutually illuminating encounter was ours.

I am sorely tempted to mention my disgust at the madding crowd protesting against arrival and safety of folk like fragile lady in our island of Ireland but I shall refrain from doing so. (No protestations in our town Thank God)

Keep my eyes upon Jesus! God sees all!! Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Two joyful elderly ladies all the way from Ukraine sat chatting on a bench beneath this mural as I strolled home. I asked if they would like me to photograph them in such a splendid scene. (On their own cellphones). They were delighted. Made me so happy! Cead Mile Failte - One hundred thousand welcomes!!

‘Every man is your brother, every woman your sister, every child, your child. You are to know no difference of race, colour or creed. One is your Father, and all ye are brethren’. 

(Jesus/God calling)

‘Some have everything, others nothing. Those who have everything become blind and let themselves be carried along by the whirlwind of their desires, and those who have nothing end by discovering that they themselves are the rich ones’. (Jacques Fesch)

Hail Mary, full of Grace…☀️🙏🏻

‘When we pray the Rosary, we are gazing into the mysteries of Christ with our Lady.’. (Fr. Hugh Gillespie)

‘Our Lady loves hearing us pray the Hail Mary. Of all the Marian prayers that exist, that is the one most pleasing to her because that is the one by which Heaven spoke, won her heart and filled her with the incarnate Word. When she hears it she recalls the greatness of that moment. Fr. De Montfort highly recommends a certain degree of affection simply for saying the Hail Mary, by itself’. (Fr. Hugh Gillespie)

Wow!! In our beautiful St. Anne’s Holy Rosary group, each and every resident prays a Hail Mary. Some pray a whole decade, others pray a half-decade, while many pray just one Hail Mary. In fact anyone present, staff, visitors, all pray one Hail Mary. 

We offer Mother Mary a rose (Hail Mary) in her honour. Attached to that beautiful rose are the special intentions that burden our hearts. (Thorns). Mother Mary brings our simple bouquet to beautiful Jesus and so for a while, we relax, knowing in our deepest hearts that our cares are in the Best of Hands. Our Blessed Mother has one desire and one desire only, to lead us to intimate union with Her Son, Jesus Christ.

Joe, elderly resident declared one time; ‘Now we have no worries. We can enjoy a free afternoon’. 

What joy it is to know that our beautiful Mother Mary loves the Hail Mary so very much. We had no idea!

Thank you Father Hugh from our deepest hearts.

‘Mary Most Holy, in her simplicity and humility, reflects the beauty of the Triune God, because she fully welcomed Jesus into her life. May she sustain our faith; May she make us worshippers of God and servants of our brothers and sisters.”. (Our late Holy Father, Pope Francis)

Elderly lady told me recently that when her Dad died, more than sixty years ago, she and her siblings were very young. As they sat with their heartbroken Mom around his coffin, my dear Dad came by. He knelt in prayer for a moment before uttering; ‘Let us pray the Rosary for the man of the house’. There and then, elderly lady and I shed tears of gratitude to God for our blessed humble rich lives.

‘The chair of St. Peter was vacant after the death of our dear Pope. We entered into a time where the seat is vacant. Sense of loss! Not a Father on the chair. There’s something missing’. (Father’s homily EWTN). Reminding me of returning home from work after my dear Dad died and witnessing his empty chair. No Dad on the chair. Long years have come and gone and yet that precious memory steadfastly remains fixed in my deepest heart.

‘We were never poor. We just didn’t have any money’. (Johnny Mathis)

‘Beauty takes Truth and Goodness and gives it clothes, gives it form, gives it something we can recognise. Beauty gives us warmth and light’. (Stefan Novinski)

‘Fr. De Montfort highly recommends that we pray this beautiful Magnificat after we have received Holy Communion precisely because that is the first prayer ever said by one who is enclosing God within her. In no small measure when we receive Holy Communion, Christ is within us too. So, who better to teach us how to make a good act of thanksgiving than our Lady who actually offers the original act of thanksgiving for holding the Lord within’. (Fr. Hugh Gillespie)

‘St. Louis Marie De Montfort saw the Rosary as something like spiritual rain. One Hail Mary at a time, softening our hearts so the seed of the word would fall on prepared soil’. (Fr. Hugh Gillespie)