The Gift.🎁

My day began as it always does: Holy Mass, Holy Eucharist, Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament. Beauty extraordinaire!! My grateful to God heart can find no words.🎆

Jennifer accepted my prayer, I admired her magnificent locks. ‘I did not admire your hair so I could offer you a prayer’, I told her and we both laughed. Poetry! Walking home more laughter when Nora told me earnestly: ‘He is sooo good to us. EXCELLENT!’ before walking on. I loved how she had no doubt whatsoever I would totally get who she was referring to.😂 

Snow on mountain, sheep grazing happily, sun shining brightly. Breathtakingly radiant.☀️

Delightful afternoon Holy Rosary in St. Anne’s as we sat together in cozy circle of prayer and song. Motley crew.❤️ Kitty prayed her decade even though she is completely deaf. Bridie, blind and deaf, cocooned in silence. Katy, over ninety years of age, prayed her decade ‘as Gaeilge’, every syllable perfect. Dan, blind, smiling as he prayed his decade.

Oh how my heart dances in their midst, all of us transported to a higher plane, ‘Prayer’ definitely does exactly what it says on the tin! 

‘Rising up long before daybreak, Jesus went and departed into a desert place and there He prayed’.(Mark1:35)

Bridie called out St.Teresa of Avila prayer as our beautiful Holy Rosary drew to a close just as she used to do before Lockdowns called a halt to our ‘Holy Huddle’. Beautiful Bridie unable to see or hear us remembering every word. Sublime moment in time. Many people now refer to this as ‘Bridie’s prayer’.🌺

Kind oil delivery guy gifted me a calendar for my beautiful Marina as he does every year without fail. Marina over the moon, enduring power of kindness!!

I never leave St. Anne’s without pep in my step, that is the law of the gift. When we give ourselves to others in concrete daily ways something very joyful comes into our life. We receive so much more too than we could ever hope to give and that is totally true.

‘The human person can only fully find himself through the sincere gift of himself’. (Fr. Tim Gallagher)

When I complimented Katy on her decade ‘as gaeilge’, she replied: ‘It’s a small enough return to the Lord who does so much for us all the time’. ☀️🙏🏻

                                I was asked to write a piece on St. Anne’s Holy Rosary.🙏🏻❤️

Forever young☀️

‘Free people make the world nervous’. (Fr. Dave Pivonka)

Joan’s birthday had completely skipped her mind and when I jogged her memory after Holy Mass this morning, she was ecstatic. Today she is seventy six years on God’s green earth, but no way will she even consider, let alone accept, that fact! ‘I’m fifty nine’ she announces happily, adding: ‘I may be a little more or a little less’. Joan is as young as she wants to be.☀️

She loves her birthday card, I dearly treasure our friendship. Joan wears the world lightly, her amazing authentic self in vivid display at all times. 

Be yourself! Everybody else is taken.🌺

‘I asked an old lady her secret, for she looked so young to me:

“Can you tell me how you do it, give me your recipe?”

“Well dear, I really can’t tell you, old age doesn’t bother me,

So perhaps THAT is my secret.

We’re as young as we want to be!”

(Phyllis Ellison)

‘All people are born as originals but many die photocopies’. (Blessed Carlo Acutis)

‘He that is down needs fear no fall,

He that is low no pride;

He that is humble ever shall

have God to be his guide’. (The Pilgrim’s Progress/John Bunyan)

 

Mother Mary.😍

When my artist friend Magella took charge of this beautiful Mother Mary statue a few months ago, it bore no resemblance to what stands before you now. Grey, punched through with tiny holes, drowned wet, downright hopeless and at least one hundred years old. I rescued it from the ruined remaines of Joan’s ancient cottage, with Joan’s permission of course!

As I went to collect it in Church this evening, young man sat outside on cold wet ground enjoying a packet of crisps. Tad inebriated! On my way out again he was just about to leave unsteady on his feet. ‘Would you like a prayer I love to say and share’, I asked. ‘I would’, he replied -‘What do you want? I will give you something’.  ‘No thank you’, I replied - ‘Just pray it every morning, all of Heaven will mind you and you will be happy’. ‘I will’  he replied like he meant it.

Thing is, up to that point my day had been down and lonely. Then, in one fell swoop Dear Mother Mary shifted my gaze away from little old me, elevating my aching heart in the process. 

My nephew Aonghus and his sweetheart Louise who were wed a few months ago will be the beneficiaries of this beautiful Mother Mary statue. Unique wedding gift in this our day and time to be sure. Not often included in ‘wish-lists’ I imagine.😃

‘Dearest Mother Mary Queen of peace, keep our troubled minds at ease. Amen

Splendid Sunday.🌺

 ‘We must have one desire - to become little ones; to allow ourselves to be used by God as He wishes, no matter what cost to us’. (Catherine Doherty)

Killarney Station to pick up Derm after Holy Mass this morning. Delighted dropping many books I have accrued into Station waiting-room, almost always folk avail of them. Sneakily positioned prayer in each one, no opportunity missed. Highly tactical with strategic value! 

Two young people waiting on a train gladly accepted my prayer. When I told them I was sharing - not preaching- the young guy said: ‘You can preach if you want’.😀 Young girl kneeling in prayer at Friary Crib accepted my prayer too. Overjoyed she uttered: ‘I love prayers’. Oh how I yearn to share my prayer with our beautiful young people in this our day and time. Pure privilege for me.💎

Lunch in Scott’s Hotel before visiting dear Mary in her Care Centre. I bring her cigarettes. She wishes I could stay longer but then she sees my boys waiting in the car and understands, smiling like a thousand suns. Being around Mary inspires and fills my heart.🌺

Onwards, grateful Mother and sons along sublime winding road to Gap of Dunloe. Beauty is a great reflection of God Himself - no other explanation.🤩

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

                                                  Relaxing in Murts after a perfect day. ☀️🙏🏻 

My Grace is sufficient for you.🎆🙏🏻

‘’We are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labour in them for Him. As Christ has His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also’. (St. John Neumann)

Tough ‘Katy’ day today, I returned home from Holy Mass planning to hibernate until my flagging spirits would soar once more. However, after a short time it dawned on me that Joan did not show up for Holy Mass this morning. I rang Centra Foodstore and the staff there had not seen her either. To rest easy I would go check on her, Joan seems even more fragile of late 

Sticking two prayers in my coat pocket - Holy Spirit prompt as always - I headed out my door. Earlier I had been seriously contemplating suspending all prayer-sharing until my battered heart heals a little. 

Young guy stopped to chat, his brother died tragically a few years ago. Wonderful open honest grief sharing, both of us lighter as we continued on our separate ways. Problem shared a problem halved!!

Somehow the two prayers I had no intention of sharing are now in the hands of a lovely couple who are staying over night in our town, their boat docked in the Marina. How that came to pass is beyond me, definitely wonderful Holy Spirit, my only task do what I was asked to do, have my prayers at the ready. Quite extraordinary!!

Smashing Dinner delivered to my door from Mary when I returned home! She had cooked too much. Happy mistake! 

Best of all, Joan in top form and heading to bed when I knocked on her door. Turns out I could have stayed home alone nursing my battered heart all afternoon. How glad I am that wonderful Holy Spirt had another far more elaborate plan in mind!!

Sure I’m weak and feeling desperately depleted right now but this I know without a shadow of a doubt!! My Jesus is strong enough for the both of us.

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. (2Corinthians:12)

Three prayers🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

‘If we do not risk anything for God we will never do anything great for Him’. (St. Louis De Montfort)

                 Prayer (No.3)🙏🏻 I received from my wonderful friends in Madonna House, Vancouver.

I offered the above beautiful prayer (No.3) to ‘Window guy’ Mick this morning on my way to Holy Mass, now he possesses all three, complete set!! Some years ago he received my prayer (No.1) when he changed my door locks. Then, a few months ago my doors needed tweaking and Mick received my prayer (No.2).

Last week as Mick replaced windows in our Church he didn’t recognise me dolled up to the nines for my old friend Sheila’s daughter’s wedding. Catriona and Killian getting wed, I honoured with sublime task of singing Offertory Hymn. This morning Mick had no difficulty recognising me as he told me laughingly: ‘I know you again now’. Glamour obviously a thing of the past, Cinderella well and truly home from the Ball.💃

We spoke about my dear sister Katy who passed away three weeks today, Mick is kind and compassionate to a fault. Both of us in unison declaring that life is beyond precious, every moment in time ‘pure cream’. When we will take our leave of this wonderful world, there ends any opportunities to make a difference, to ‘Do something beautiful for God’ as St. Mother Teresa would oftentimes suggest. 

‘Yes indeed’ I added, ‘I won’t even be able to give a prayer to a ‘Window guy’.😂

Every reason under the sun therefore, to make hay while the sun shines.☀️

‘Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s Love. Every moment of existence is a Grace’.                   (Thomas Merton)

Prayer (No.1)🙏🏻 I love St. Teresa of Avila and before Lockdowns changed everything, dear Bridie would pray the above after every Holy Rosary in St. Anne’s.😌

                                                              Prayer (No.2). I procured from EWTN.

                                                               Catriona and Killian.🎆🌺

                                                                          Dear Bridie 📿❤️

‘Honour the wisdom of those who went before you. Bind it ever to your heart. Tie it around your neck. When you walk it will lead you. When you lie down it will watch over you. When you wake it will talk to you’. (Proverbs 6:20-22)

New Year 2023🕯🌠

‘With God, every moment is the moment of beginning again’.                  (Catherine Doherty)

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown!”

“And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put thine hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to thee better than light and safer than a known way”.

“So I went forth and finding the Hand of God trod gladly into the night”. (M.L. Haskins)