Voyage of discovery in the Gladsome Light of Christ.☀️🙏🏻

                            ‘My God, as long as I live, I am Your servant’. (St. Gertrude of Helfta)

Young girl serving us tea and scones seemed really sad. I could not help overhearing her tell another lady; ‘Yes, I am really tired. Long working hours late into the night’.  My heart went out to her. When I went to pay she was there again smiling brightly but still sad. ‘Would you like a beautiful morning prayer I love to share’, I ask. Never before have I witnessed such startling surprise in my prayer offering. ‘I really need this today’, she utters, on the verge of tears. We chatted some more. Unforgettable encounter at 9AM.

Young man on bicycle. Another unforgettable impromptu blessing. What a chat we enjoyed. His dear mother had just passed from this world and his poor heart is shattered. Before she died she told him that if he would not take life easier he will never ‘make old bones’. What wisdom! He attended Holy Mass next morning in our Church and he intends to be much more intentional in his Faith journey going forward. 

Lady told me that when she walked away from alcohol one year ago, my words to her at that time were; ‘You are about to embark on the most exhilarating adventure of your life. Walking with Jesus is beyond beautiful’. Yes, it is true - for both she and me. Alcohol is the supreme light squasher!

Three young folk came into our Church as I was setting up Holy Alter for Holy Mass. Italian, I learned. They were taking photographs on their smartphones. They happily, (shocked) accepted my beautiful morning prayer and one young girl said smilingly, in all seriousness; ‘You are very kind’. 

I love telling, in particular to our precious young folk, that I am a grandmother who loves to share what I know and believe without question or doubt to be totally true and totally thrilling. I say too that if each and every one of us would do something nice every day, our world will become nicer! Simple!

‘Thank God for praying grandma’s. They’re going to get you and you can’t get out of their prayers’. (Young man on YouTube).

Elderly man who replied to my prayer offering; ‘Oh I don’t know! I don’t pray at all girl’, took my prayer anyway.

I read one time; ‘We don’t have to wait for pie in the sky when we die. We can have cake on our plate while we wait!’. Exactly right!

Walking with Jesus, adventure extraordinaire!

‘May the Grace of God uphold you. May the Father’s Love enfold you. May the Holy Spirit guide you, with joy and peace now and to eternity . Amen (Old Irish Blessing)

                   ‘Look around and be distressed. Look at Jesus and be at rest’. (Corrie Ten Boom)

I awoke one morning singing; ‘Wherever I be is fine by me’. I had been ruminating over the fact that while my time in Medugorje was magnificent on so many levels, being home again is awesome too. Spending time with my dear sons and their families, sitting in prayer with my St.Anne’s Holy Rosary group, Holy Mass and Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament in our Church every morning, joyful prayer-sharing encounters, getting to serve folk, scribbling these heartfelt lines ……

Yes, Holy Trinity One God, fulfils our heart’s every desire! With the passage of time it becomes clearer and clearer that all we really need to do is SHOW UP! Circle of love which is the Blessed Trinity.

Walking with Jesus, (our elder Brother), all the way home to Father God, in the Light of Holy Spirit. That’s the journey!!

 ‘The whole of the Christian life is like a great pilgrimage to the house of the Father’. (St. John Paul 11)

                                                  Seven days without prayer makes one weak!

❤️🙏🏻

‘Taking Christ in us wherever He wants us to go to, being where He wants us to be, being what He wants us to be’. (Carlyle Houselander)

Medugorje 2025☀️🙏🏻

‘I am the Light of the world says the Lord. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’. (John 8:12)

 

 Beautiful Medugorje. Seven whole days steeped in goodness, truth and beauty.  Myriad Holy Spirit encounters, far too many to relate. Like the young man whose partner suffers with her mental health. As we stood together, into my heart dances; ‘My Grace is with you right now’. (Holy Spirit prompt to my heart on a day of deep turmoil). Grace, light of Christ, not in the past, not in the future, but RIGHT NOW! and every ‘right now’ until the end of time. Young man, smiling now, utters; ‘Yes, and I must tell you we have a little girl and her name is Grace’. 

Holy Spirit goosebumps enveloped us. All will be well, we both agreed. Live in the present moment. It is ENOUGH!

Beautiful lady, her smile like a thousand suns. She gladly accepts just enough money for pizza but not another penny, no matter how I try. Then, holding up five fingers, in her own dialect she gladly tells me that she will pray ‘Rosarie📿 for me’. Gladsome Light of Christ shining brightly.

Jesus, James and me☀️🙏🏻

                                                                      Three sisters❤️

                                       Dear Father Slavko please pray to Jesus and Mary for us. Amen

Mother and adult son with special needs, his beautiful head resting on her comforting shoulder, arms around one another, swaying gently to beautiful prayerful music, all the while gazing lovingly on beautiful Jesus in Blessed Sacrament, outdoors. One whole hour! Excruciatingly beautiful.

                                              Archbishop Aldo. Goodness, truth and beauty.

               Father who heard my Confession is eighty nine years old. Goodness, truth and beauty.

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

                                             Eric (first born) came to meet me in Cork Airport.❤️

                                                  Killian (last born) picked me up at the bus stop.❤️

I return home with an even deeper conviction and commitment to ‘my life of unceasing service and unconditional Charity for all men and women without exception or reserve’.

(Thank you Fr. Denis Lemieux/Restoration magazine, for putting in words beautifully what I could not).

‘Nothing seems tiresome or painful when you are working for a Master who pays well; who rewards even a cup of cold water given for love of Him’. (St. Dominic Savio)

                 I love what Seamus in our group told me; ‘Take each problem by it’s easiest handle’.

‘I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things…..

Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light’. 

(C.S. Lewis/Mere Christianity)

Young guy sat beside me at Holy Mass, weeping when music ministry played Ennio Morricone’s ‘Gabriel’s Obo’ after receiving Holy Eucharist. I wept too. Beauty is a great reflection of God Himself. There is no other explanation!

Beautiful elderly lady who on accepting and reading my powerful prayer, utters; ‘This is not by mistake! God has prepared it’. 

One day. One tiny town.☀️🙏🏻

‘Go forth as an apostle, with no shoes, no gold or silver. Then, you too will hear the words of Christ at the end of the journey; ‘Have you wanted for anything’. (Catherine Doherty)

Sam is pensive as he walks along bearing pretty flowers. We stop to chat. His friend’s little nephew was killed (murdered more like) yesterday in her harried homeland of Gaza. His friend, living here in our town, devastated and helpless many miles from home. It so happened that a few minutes earlier, Christine gave me a plastic Rosary beads for no reason at all. (Or so it seemed!).  Sam wrapped the beads around the pretty flowers for his friend. Moment of transcendence and beauty. 

St. Anne’s Holy Rosary and dear elderly lady pining for home. Addling Alzheimer’s!! Searching for Home, just as we all are, even if we don’t realise it. We pray Holy Rosary, all of us together. Peace descends for a time. Honestly! If folk ever caught a glimpse in their heart how beautiful it is to be in their midst, St. Anne’s would be snowed under with visitors. Sadly that will not come to pass any time soon.

Strolling home and beautiful music emanating from a parked car. Of course I stopped by and inside, the driver, happy guy, playing his concertina obliviously enjoying every note. This is how he passes time in a new town! His wife enjoys browsing while he plays music to his heart’s content. Husband and wife both doing what they love!! Symphony of beauty. Into the bargain joyful gentleman happily accepted two prayers. The ordinary is extraordinary all the time!

All is so simple in the ever present moment! Everything God expects of us, He supplies. Whatever He commands, He enables.

With Faith everything is possible. With Love everything is easy.

‘Things seen superficially can disturb us, but if we regard them with the profundity of Faith, nothing can make us lose peace’. (Archbishop Martinez)

Young African boy prostrated himself as I entered their humble, beautifully simple, apartment. ‘This is how we welcome our elderly’, his Dad proudly declares. Wow!! Venerable elder!!

I love what Cardinal Robert Sarah writes about Martha (Luke 10:42);

‘Christ tenderly invites her to stop so as to return to her heart, the place of true welcome and the dwelling place of God’s silent tenderness, from which she has been led away by the activity to which she was devoting herself so noisily’. (The Power of Silence)

Yes indeed, all of us are searching for Home!,

                                  

Live hopefully no matter what.🎶🎶☀️🙏🏻

‘A bell’s not a bell til you ring it. A song’s not a song til you sing it. Love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love til you give it away’. (Oscar Hammerstein)

‘Sing and keep on walking’. (St. Augustine)

My siblings and I sing all the time, mostly without even realising that we are singing. Our dear Dad had us sing from the moment we could talk and maybe even before that. One of my regrets in life is that while he loved to hear me sing, I never once asked him to sing for me. However, I am sure and certain that some fine day we will sing together in Heaven please God. (I was only eighteen years of age when my dear Dad passed suddenly r.i.p)

Today in St. Anne’s Holy Rosary group an elderly lady, (former neighbour) shared the following story from my childhood. I just love it !!

Upon returning from school every day, as a young child, I would go sit with two guys in a haggard near our home, as they made lobster pots for my fisherman Dad. What did we talk about? I have no idea but I remember clearly gazing on the neatly piled sally rodds. Simple abundance about to be used to create something magnificent. Right now as I write, what I wouldn’t give to lay my eyes once again on one such lobster pot!!

Seemingly, one afternoon my Dad came to fetch me and not wanting to leave, I ran off to my hiding place close by. I asked the men to please tell my Dad I was not there. My Dad stood for a moment before replying: ‘I know she is here. I can hear her singing’.

In my hiding place that day I completely forgot to stop singing, and thank God, every day since my charming childhood, hail, rain or snow, the song continues on, by the glorious grace of God.

A guy in our Holy Rosary group rarely speaks but always he joins in when we sing. Singing makes him feel happy, he told me once.

I heard a Sister say recently that the practice of virtues such as compassion, kindness, forgiveness, gratitude and patience can actually change the neuro pathways in the brain resulting in healing hope and new life.

I would add ‘singing’ to that life-giving list. I remember reading one time that each activity lights up some part of the brain while music and song light up the whole brain.

Right now my crows are ‘singing’ at the bottom of my garden. How they sound is irrelevant!! They just love to sing and no one is excluded.

All together now……

‘Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music’. (George Eliot)

‘Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy’. (Ludwig Van Beethoven)

Anchored in the Lord☀️🙏🏻

‘Jesus, O Jesus, if the desire of loving You is so delightful, what will it be to possess and enjoy this love’. (St. Therese of Lisieux)

When folk get wed my only gift is a Holy Bible. Nephews, nieces, friends of my sons, everyone! One time one of my sons exclaimed: ‘Nobody wants a Bible’, to which I replied ‘Perhaps not right now but sometime maybe’. I can honestly declare that while folk are definitely surprised, at the same time they are never disappointed. One nephew proudly told me that his Bible looks beautiful on his coffee table!

Pat is getting married soon and although we know each other since he was quite young, I wondered whether I would gift him one or not. I had decided probably not when a few days ago he stopped in traffic in his truck, right beside me. Absolutely amazing! Close enough to chat. Godincidence!

‘I have a wedding gift for you’, I blurted out without thinking. This morning he called to my door and what a joyful encounter ensued. I always place the marker on Psalm 91, telling the recipient of Holy Bible that to pray psalm 91 is marvellous minding from Heaven above, every day of their lives.

‘If you do decide to pray Psalm 91, you might well be the first ever, even though I have gifted many Holy Bibles with that same invitation’, I told him. ‘You wouldn’t know what we might do’, he replied smilingly, in true Kerry fashion.

‘You will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust’. (Psalm 91:2)

(One time I placed a photo of note on Psalm 91 page for a nephew. When he decides to pray Psalm 91 he will be pleasantly surprised!)

Before we parted company Pat gazed on the beautiful leather bound Holy Bible uttering; ‘This is a great job altogether’.

He happily accepted my prayer too and laughingly told me that his friend has my prayer in his wallet. Safety in numbers!!

On my way to Holy Mass, dear lady gifted me a most exquisite gem. Ancient, well-read copy of the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. 

I love it. We give and we get. That’s the Trinitarian principle! All glory to God all the time.

‘I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I love Him, to teach souls my little way’. (St. Therese of Lisieux/Story of a Soul))

Singing recessional hymn ‘Our Lady of Knock’, at Holy Mass, in compact country Church where we worshiped with our dear parents in the sunny long ago when suddenly the sweetest blackbird outside, began to sing in unison right to the very end. How beautiful is our God.

                                  ‘His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me’. (Hymn)

Eventful day☀️🙏🏻

‘I am consecrated to God and totally dedicated to His service’. (Venerable Bruno Lanteri)

Our beloved Church is undergoing a much needed extreme makeover and so Holy Mass will be celebrated in tiny adjoining oratory for the near future.

I arrive early. My privilege to be Sacristan and our new setup required time to spare. Already I am loving it all. Compact and cozy in the arms of Holy Trinity one God and all of Heaven.

Soon after, lady walks in. Visitor to our town from Holland. Glancing all around, she speaks the following words: ‘I am agnostic but I would very much desire a Catholic Mass for my funeral’.

Wow! What a conversation starter! We talked, she accepted my prayer, loving its simplicity.

Her husband is Catholic but ‘he knows nothing except the sign of the Cross’. Their children attend Catholic school.

‘Tell me why you love Jesus so much’,  she enquires excitedly. My favourite topic!!

I finish by saying: ‘Your heart’s desire is also beautiful Jesus heart’s desire for you, and that is why you walked in here this morning. Our first morning in this tiny holy place’.

‘Let me give you a big hug’, she replies. Then standing still, she touches her heart uttering; ‘Something wonderful has just taken place’.

What joy and adventure there is in living a solid life in the identity of who we are!

‘The Catholic Church proposes but it does not impose’. (St. Pope John Paul 11)

I love the way delightful Pakistani lady articulated how her life has miraculously unfolded since painfully setting out on her arduous journey from Pakistan to our town; ‘Everything in zigzag mode but God keeping everything straight for me’. 

‘God writes straight with crooked lines’. (St. Teresa of Avila)

My powerful prayer🌟

Poor man lying on the cold ground in the pouring rain. I recognised him despite his devastatingly unkempt state. (One time he told me quite irately; ‘No way. I am a communist’ when I offered him my prayer.)

 I called the Garda, there was nothing else I could do. While we waited getting soaked, I began to pray; Our Father who art in Heaven…. He joined in, praying along. We both prayed ‘Hail Mary… and then abruptly he told me to please stop praying. Suddenly it dawned on him that he was actually praying…..(Communists don’t pray much!)

I prayed Act of contrition; ‘O my God I am heartily sorry….He listened quietly. Garda arrived and soon after, an ambulance came for the poor man. Heartbreakingly sad but incredibly beautiful all at the same time.

Sadder still the fact that folk passed by in their cozy cars and did nothing!! I feel more pity for them than I do for my poor man half dressed on the cold ground in the pouring rain.

‘Mercy is having pains in your heart for the pains of another and taking pains to do something about their pain’. (Fr. George Kosicki)

‘The joy of the Lord is my strength’. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Joan☀️🙏🏻

‘Real goodness is always simple. Simplicity is so attractive and so profitable, that it is strange that so few people are really simple’. (Leo Tolstoy)

Just a few nights ago, our lovely Joan passed away from this world to her eternal reward. There are no available words to remotely express our beautiful friendship and so I will not attempt to do so. Suffice it to say I miss her greatly and probably a little piece of my heart will go on missing her until we meet once again on that Heavenly shore by God’s glorious Grace.

In her final hours I ask if she might drop by one night in my dreams just to let me know anything of our Heavenly homeland. ‘Yes, perhaps I will’, she replies, smiling sweetly.

This perfect poem I chose for her Funeral Holy Mass reflection, speaks eloquently of our lovely Joan!!

Our St. Anne’s Holy Rosary group have now, three saints in Heaven interceding for us. Marina, Bridie and Joan. Goodness, truth and beauty in vivid display for all the world to see, all through their long lives.

                                                                       Beloved Bridie❤️

                                                                      Majestic Marina❤️

‘I urge you to remain steadfast in faith, so that at last we will all reach Heaven and there rejoice together’. (St. Andrew Kim Taegon)

Dear Pope Francis rip. Just three days after our dear Joan. May the Lord have mercy on their gentle souls. Amen.

February’26. Joan did visit me in my dreaming. Looking bright and beautiful, smiling non-stop. I have no memory of our chat except at the end. ‘I miss you lots’. I told her to which she replied: ‘I miss you lots too’. Then she was gone again. I am overjoyed. Thanks be to God.