‘Let us live to serve our lives☀️🙏🏻

‘Let us live to serve our lives’. Words spoken softly in my sleep last night. Hard to articulate. (Like building a cloud with bricks!!) Gems come gently and if I don’t write them down right away, they disappear forever. I know that from experience!!

I have a hard copybook of them! Amazingly beautiful wisdom from above in the dead of night. One that stands out; ‘Deeper your prayer, deeper your sleep, there’s a direct correlation’. Back then I had to look up the word ‘correlation’ in my dictionary.

This morning I googled; ‘Let us live to serve our lives’ and here’s what I found!

‘Let us live to serve our lives’ is a powerful call to find purpose through selfless action, emphasising that a meaningful existence comes from contributing to others. Seeing life as an opportunity to serve God and humanity rather than just oneself. 

It means using your freedom and gifts to help others, echoing Jesus’s teachings and Paul’s epistles, and aligning your daily actions with love and purpose’.

There it is!! Divine confirmation as we head into 2026. What a Mighty God we serve. 

Our dear Dad would often say that three books are absolutely essential in any home; 1) Holy Bible; 2) Atlas and 3) Dictionary. Even now, myriad years later,  modernity with all it’s grandeur will never replace the glory of a good book. 

Another time, more than sixty years ago, dear Dad reading his newspaper (rare occurrence in his busy day). I notice the Roses of Tralee for that year. ‘Who is the nicest, Dad’,  I ask. ‘You are Bridge’, he replies with that beautiful kind smile. He meant every word. The heart knows.

‘Love alone can make fresh wonders spring forth). (Jesus/He and I)

Do the next right thing☀️🙏🏻

My new phone (Christmas present from my boys) gifted me this gem. Written February 2020! Just popped up!

In days of yore my dear Mom would tell me in the midst of my punishing panic; ‘We will wait and see’. I would reply impatiently: ‘’We cannot! we must do it now’.

Mom was right, I grew to learn with the passage of time. Hasty decisions rarely reap rich rewards.

Derm (third son) is learning it too. Time really is a great prophet’. Wait and see!! Wonders unfold at their own chosen speed!

Life is not a problem to be solved suddenly and abruptly. Life is a mystery to be lived continuously and perpetually.

‘God is the Artist, you are a block of marble and the chisel is EVERYTHING!’. (Dr. Peter Kreeft)

Sacrament of the present moment. Right here! Right now!

‘Beauty is the heart’s encounter with the living God’. (Bill Donaghy)

 

Christ our Light, light our way.☀️🙏🏻

‘May Your Presence, Prince of Peace, bless the world with peace, the poor with care and prosperity, the despairing with Hope and confidence, the grieving with comfort and gladness, the oppressed with freedom and deliverance, the suffering with solace and relief. Loving Jesus, You are the only real joy of every human heart. I place my trust in You.

Oh divine fruit of Mary’s womb, May I love you in Union with the Holy Mother of God. May my life be filled with the obedience of Saint Joseph and the missionary fervour of the shepherds, so that the witness of my life may shine like the star that leads the Magi to your manger. I ask all this with great confidence in Your Holy Name. Amen        (Magnificat)

Looking about my uncluttered compact cottage on this Holiest of days, definitely my heart feels less cluttered too. What a blessing!!

The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her’.(Luke 10:41)

(I told our priest in the Sacrament of Confession yesterday that I fret far too much about my four fine sons. I always want them to be fine and it just doesn’t feel right!! Father gifted me the above Bible verse. What a gift to my heart!)

Today☀️🙏🏻

‘My Me is God, nor do I recognise any other Me except my God Himself’. (St. Catherine of Genoa)

                                                                    Santa got my prayer!!

Many years ago I read how Shirley Temple’s daughter asked her mother one time; ‘Tell me about the best day of your life’. Her mother replied simply; ‘Today, dear’. Perplexed, her daughter asked; ‘But Mom, you always told us that your wedding day was the greatest day of your life?’. Her mother replied, smiling sweetly; ‘Yes dear, but that was then, this is now’. 

I love this!! Pondering as I stroll home from St. Anne’s Holy Rosary amidst my precious folk, on this chilly crisp afternoon. Elderly, enduring many challenges and yet joy abounds in their glorious presence. They gift my heart with countless gems. 

Everywhere, frazzled folk rush hither and thither, seeking joy where there’s none to be found. Pleasure yes! but joy is on another level altogether.

JOY    -    Jesus first, Others next, Yourself last.

Countercultural? Absolutely!! but completely true!!

I love my life of service. To give and not to count the cost, to give to those who cannot repay…..brings joy, freedom and oh so so much more. To be the Hands and Feet of Jesus in this our day and time!

Of course I know it is all HIM. What can I say!!

‘Words spoil anything that surpasses them’. (Cardinal Robert Sarah)

 

                                                         Love my new Christmas jumper too!!

Tis God doing!☀️🙏🏻

 

‘The work will continue, you see, whether I’m there or not, because it is God’s work, not mine’. 

(Fr. Edward J. Flanagan/Boys town)

As I stroll along, engrossed in my own world, passing car grounds to a halt, window rolls down and a hand appears holding an ice cream. Wow!!

Thing is I had just witnessed something beyond beautiful, ethereal even, and so my gifted ice cream was literally the icing on the cake!!

Earlier, grateful to be invited to pray at the bedside of dear Bridget as she whiled away her final hours in this wonderful world. Before I began to pray Divine Mercy Chaplet, I told her family present, that which I say and know every time, that right now there is no roof in St. Anne’s and no floor in Heaven. All of us together in this sacred sacrosanct space.

As if hearing my words, dear Bridget opens her eyes wide, gazing intentionally up above. (Unthinkable that she would open her eyes at that stage). Clearly she could see what we clearly could not! Then, closing her eyes once more, her breathing slows right down and within seconds she passes peacefully to her eternal reward. All of us cried!! Her son who told me one time, utterly kindly, that while he ‘liked what I do (pray Holy Rosary with dear residents), most certainly it was not for him), was visibly moved and shaken.

Seeing his dear Mom in her final moments definitely granting him pause. Her final gift to him before taking her well earned leave. God is great all the time!! 

Sublime gift to all of us present. Unforgettable!! Heaven exists!!

Back to that invaluable ice cream! Colette and her daughter having been food shopping were enjoying ice cream and noticing me walk along, decided to hand an ice cream out of the car window to me in the midst of traffic. Snap decision ! All part of the Master’s plan.

Uplifting Faith-filled tale of kindness, joy, love and all all that is good, gifted to our hearts from above!! Ain’t no High like the Most High!!

‘If you pray well, you will live well and if you live well, you will die well’. (St. Augustine)

Every Thursday morning, Legion of Mary meeting over, I gift our alter flowers to whoever comes my way. This morning’s flowers tattered and bereft, some Legion members of the opinion that they were not fit for ‘passing on’. However, I know that Mother Mary blesses our flowers no matter what state they are in. Our time of prayer in Her company bestows myriad graces and blessings.

Rain bucketing down, I encounter Eileen. Yes, she would like my flowers please and then, after a short pause, utters: ‘Last night I asked our Blessed Mother to please help me’ and now, this morning, She gifts me flowers. All is well’.

Our Mother Mary flowers never go astray. Many Thursdays, many stories. Like the distraught lady who had just been informed that her son’s marriage had broken down. Young unsteady guy purchasing whiskey, and many more.

Loved African gentleman’s reply as I complimented his amazing tiling work in our Church. Throwing his arms up in praise: ‘Tis God doing’. Allelulia!! 

The yield of doing what we are meant to be doing is sheer joy!