Killian’s Birthday.🎁

 

Killian, my youngest son, is 27 years old today. Hard to believe.

He was only nine when we had no choice but pack up and leave Swords, all that he knew and was familiar to him had to be abandoned, a new life in Kerry began. He wasn’t happy about it, but Killian did what he always does - he got on with it, a powerful trait he is blessed  to possess.

He started in his new school, he got involved in football, and to us all it appeared seamless. I have no doubt that it can’t always have been easy for him but Killian never complained. 

If it wasn’t for Corona, Killian would now be settled in Canada. I know for sure that he was disappointed about that but he is happy to be here for now. He works from home and it is trouble free and uncomplicated, we have an easy alliance. We both know that this too will come to an end and so we make the most of it.

Thankyou Killian for the adventure that every day is, with you in my life. Our many laughs make the gloomiest of days brighter. Thankyou for your vigilance and quick thinking in my recent illness, without you, the ending would have been so very different.

Father God. I am extremely grateful for your many Blessings to us all the time, too numerous to mention. Today, I am extremely grateful to you too, for trusting me with your fine son, Killian.

Thankyou Killian for choosing me to be your Mom. I’m glad you did.

‘I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the Truth’. (3 John 1:4)

Prayer to The Holy Spirit.🕯

Twenty three years ago, Ruairi’s Confirmation Class were gifted this prayer. Battered and bruised now but badly needed in these Corona days of trial and testing. 

Beautiful Holy Spirit makes Christ dearer, Heaven nearer, and the Word of God clearer to us all.

Holy Spirit guide our way, in these tumultuous Corona days. Amen.

Grace and Grapes.🙏🏻🍇

‘That’s community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world’.

 (Henry J.M. Nouwen)

Mary has a fine crop of organic grapes this year, we the fortunate beneficiaries. She shares them with us  - our little church community. Christine shares her beautiful lettuce, I share little pebbles of wisdom I pick up along life’s highway. All of us share.

We attend Holy Mass every morning and have done for quite some time. Our friendship and camaraderie grew over time, now we cannot imagine life without one another. We live our lives independent of one other but whenever any one of us is absent for a few days, one of us will always text and make sure he/she is ok. A Divine Bond of friendship in these tumultuous times. Debbie oftentimes says - ‘ A friend is for life’, double-barrelled meaning in my heart - Enlivening and enduring.

To the unaware eye, we are a group of prayerful people who take life very serious but nothing could be further from the truth. We laugh a lot and often, we keep each other joyful, we swop prayer requests. We are not a select group, newcomers not alone welcomed, they are celebrated. God did not design people to thrive without the support of a loving community.

We have the Grace to witness to Jesus when we stay close to Mother Mary and it is our great privilege to serve God in an attitude of humble service through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told Gabrielle Bossis in ‘He and I’ - ‘Pray for others and God will take care of you’. Such comfort and assurance.

JOY - Jesus first, others next, yourself  last. In our modern world putting ourselves last seems so ridiculous, counter-cultural, but in God’s world it makes perfect sense. Easy to do when we know and believe that Jesus is doing the work through us, our only task is simply to ‘show up’ , be conduits for His Mercy and Love. With Jesus, there’s a newness that never grows old.

‘When someone does a Kindness, it always seems to me, That’s the way God up in a Heaven, would like us all to be’. (Helen Steiner Rice)

‘Saint Mother Teresa’s face took on a golden glow from her time gazing on Jesus in The Blessed Sacrament’, I told Mary. ‘ Really’, replied Mary - ‘It is very sunny in India too’........🤨😂

‘Serve The Lord with gladness’. (Psalm 100:2)

I would like to be an Angel, who continually sings Your Glory, offering my heart to You with face all aglow’. (Eucharistic Hymn)

September 2023 - many Asylum Seekers arriving in our town. Our Church community banding together to aid our sisters and brothers in Christ. Everyone of us has something to give, none of us have everything. To be Jesus Hands and Feet!!

Be not afraid.🙏🏻

The devotion to the Eucharist is the most noble, because it has God as it’s object; it is the most profitable for salvation because it gives us the author of Grace; it is the sweetest, because the Lord is Sweetness itself’. (St. Plus X)

I just heard Fr. Leo Clifford say on EWTN  - ‘People don’t need to be instructed so much as to be reminded’. Wonderful words resonating in my deepest heart.

We are privileged, in spite of Corona, to be able to participate in Holy Mass again, after a hiatus of three months, I am ecstatic receiving Jesus again, He is my strength for the journey, my comfort, my peace. When I wonder sometimes how long more Holy Mass will continue in these turbulent times. I remind myself that right now is all we have, right now we are experiencing a little piece of Heaven every morning, heightened sense of Spiritual Delight.

If we really believe without question or doubt, that Jesus Christ is truly present on our Alters, how can we say, in all honesty, that watching Holy Mass on our iPads will suffice? How can we stay home and miss the chance of a lifetime?

‘Seek The Lord while He is still here. Call on Him while He is still near’. (Isaiah 55:6)

Yes, many people are fearful but I can say, without the tiniest scintilla of a doubt, I feel extremely safe in our Church. We wear masks, hand sanitizer is readily available. Readers bring their own missals or magnificats, social distancing is paramount. We receive Jesus on the hand as opposed to the tongue. We do not chat after Holy Mass in Church, like we used to before Corona, we chat outside and so our sense of community strong as ever. Holy Reverence adhered to like never before, that definitely big positive.

Missing out on Holy Mass, in my opinion, is ignoring the zenith of all life events and experiences. Of course there are always very good reasons why people can not attend, myriad underlying health issues requiring vigilance. For those of us who are in a position to attend though, it would be very remiss not to do so!

 As they say in Kerry: ‘Let us make hay while the sun shines’.

‘I am the Living Bread which comes down from Heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world, is my flesh’. (John 6:51)

                ‘Totally love Him, Who gave Himself totally for your love’. (St. Clare of Assisi)

Each moment is a diamond from the Hands of God.💎

Marina and I are allowed one half hour visit per week. She has regressed in lockdown, today she has many worries, most of them imagined. Human contact is vital in this time of pandemic, particularly for our most vulnerable. 

Fears allayed, she relaxes, smiling again like the old days. I admire her newly painted nails, I write a letter to her friend as she narrates. Time comes to depart, I promise to visit again next week. Those of us who can visit Nursing Homes safely at this moment in time should do so, many residents are extremely lonely.

Walking home, thinking back to a time when Marina and I were having tea in a local cafe and Marina stopped to chat with a lady she once knew. The lady in question very uncomfortable speaking with Marina, highly embarrassed in front of her friends. What would they think? a lady of her standing in the community, conversing with a person from the psychiatric unit. I watched in pain for Marina, but ever the beautiful lady that she is, Marina said her piece and then walked on gently, dignified.

‘Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person’. (Colossians 4:6)

Ten years on, how things have changed, ’important’  lady doesn’t look very important anymore. The dust has settled and if the opportunity arose today, Marina and important lady would probably have a very pleasant conversation. But, alas, the moment has passed, that ship has sailed.

Every moment is a diamond, a jewel from the Hands of God, every interaction a privilege. Each and every person we encounter has something notable to share with us, if we just look below the surface with the eyes of our hearts. 

Each one of us is unique, God does not make copies. He does indeed throw away the mold.

‘And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye’. (Antoine De Saint-Exupery)

Thank you God for Everything.🧺

 

My dear Dad was elated handing me my new shoes. He had traveled to England for his brother’s funeral and he knew I needed shoes. Thank God my face did not reveal how I really felt, they were winter shoes, summer was almost here. They were strong shoes, they would last a long time and that was crucial, money was scarce in our humble home. I put them on and did my best to sound as happy as he was. My dear Dad had no idea how I felt.

In school, the other girls were beginning to wear their pretty summer sandals. I would look so out of place - in my own mind at any rate. There was only one thing for me to do - ask God if He would put His glorious sunshine on hold until school holidays and my summer job would enable me buy pretty sandals too. God answered my prayers, that month of June was a wet month, rain fell almost every day. My strong brown shoes fitted right in, how Great is our God.

Roll on many years until summer 2020. Having been seriously ill, I was allowed but one litre of fluid per day, tea and coffee included. How would I cope in the long hot days of Midsummer June.🧐 Only one thing for me to do - ask God if He would put His glorious sunshine on hold until I felt a little stronger. Once again, God answered my prayers, no sunshine in our little town and slowly my strength began to return. Our disappointing summer must have made many people unhappy and my heart did go out to them. As the ancient adage goes - ‘It is an ill wind that blows no one any good’.

A pattern is emerging, joy to behold. Oftentimes I am catapulted back to former times and similar life experiences, Life is becoming more and more circular all the time. One time I thought I might put my life journey with all it’s twists and turns in print, Ruairi being an English teacher would be my guide. However, writing in linear fashion would not flow easily for me. Instead, a current life situation evokes a memory from way back and both events step forward and walk together into my heart. One thing renews another, seamlessly.

Thankyou Kind Lord for this beautiful gift of writing that enriches my life so much. Thank you for my memories, thankyou for my life. Thankyou for my beautiful parents who by their words and deeds left no doubt in my mind and heart, that You are more real and nearer to me than my breath. I am never alone.

‘Go to sleep in peace. God is awake’. (Victor Hugo).

Put your best foot forward...🪂

‘It is never too late to be what you might have been’. (George Eliot)

Postman Tom hands me the package, ‘The Power of Silence’  by Robert Cardinal Sarah’. Hearing the title, Tom exclaims, ‘You will never do that’. Tom’s quick wit and word smithery never fail to brighten my mornings.

‘Have you started using that notepad’, I ask him. ‘No’, he replies, ‘I will probably be giving it back to you at Christmas with nothing in it’. When I tell him yet again of his wonderful way with words and quick wit, perplexed he mutters ‘thanks’. ‘What a shame we weren’t told such things in school’, I say. Tom’s reply makes me sad - ‘School? We were only put down in school’. 

So many of us go through life believing what we were told in our former formative years by the powers that were at the time. Their negative prognosis made an indelible mark that oftentimes remain forever.

Micheál would never sing along in our Nursing Home Holy Rosary & song group. He told me one time that in his boyhood years a teacher informed him that he could not sing so Micheal never sang again. He is eighty years of age. I suggested he give it a go as there is no right and wrong way to sing, singing is personal and unique to each one of us. Micheál is singing along with us all today, no linnet but he is no crow either. Singing lifts his spirits, he says, particularly on his down days. My heart dances with joy. 

When Pat was a little boy he was cruelly informed before the whole class that his singing was atrocious and would he please sit down. Pat is 65 years of age, nowadays he sings when he is alone. He loves it, he tells me joyfully.

Thank God Walt Disney didn’t believe the teacher who informed him that he had no talent. Thank God Thomas Edison’s mother didn’t accept that her son was ‘too stupid’ to learn - and many more besides. 

Many of us have personally experienced the paralysing power of negative words and opinions of others. However, whether we know it or not, it is absolutely certain that we can begin again. We can, all of us, step into a brighter meadow, leaving the negative behind. Once we take the first step, there is no going back, we will get the strength from within to push forward, follow our own star and a cornucopia of good things will be ours. 

Each of us has a unique song within us - a tune no one else can play, a melody composed by God for all to enjoy. 

Let us start afresh, right here, right now. Let us live our lives in the identity of who we are, leaving our footprints on the sands of Time. Each one of us has something to do that no one else can do. Christ is alive, He wants us to be alive too. This is what our heart desires.

‘The melody that you and I are destined to produce on this earth, no one has ever heard before. We are to show forth something of the infinite beauty and radiance and Love of the God who lives within us’.       (Fr. Leo Clifford)

Kay, in her eighties, a colourful raconteur. Her turn of phrase, her power of recall, her imagery. I could sit still and listen to her life’s tales all day long. Today, in the midst of it all she says in total seriousness; ‘My sister was a great artist. Me! I was always good with a bucket and mop and that’s all I was ever good for’. Did anyone ever tell her how interesting and enjoyable she is to be around, I enquire. She laughs, throwing her head back in disbelief. She wouldn’t believe that for a gold clock.