HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Just a quick wish for you all that 2015 will be a blessed, happy and good year.  I’ve no doubt it’ll bring its moments of concern too but, please God we’ll be there for one another. Many thanks for all your kindness to me over the past twelve months and for keeping an eye on this blog.

I will remember you, ONE AND ALL, at Morning Mass in Kilmovee on New Year’s Day.

 

 

Holy Family – Wholeness in Families

Holy Family – Wholeness in Families

I celebrated Mass in Kilmovee this morning on the Feast of The Holy Family.  Sharing here the words used …

A good number of years ago there was a video produced that was meant to accompany a Sacramental Preparation Programme for First Confession and First Holy Communion.  I remember one bit of it in particular – a story told by an actor.  I can see his face but cannot remember his name.  He told the story well.

It was a story about a family – father, mother and son.  The grandfather came to live with them.  He was old and feeble.  His hands were shaky.  When he’d sit at table with the family during meals, quite often he spilt or splattered his food.  This used to annoy his son and daughter-in-law a lot and they’d correct him for it.  One evening, when eating his dinner, the old man’s hands shook more than usual and he knocked the plate over onto his lap.  The food spilt and much of it ended up on the floor.  This was too much for the family so they took him from the table and put him sitting in the corner.  They got a wooden bowl and tipped his food into it.  From then on, that’s where the old man sat and ate while the others sat at table.

One evening when it was dinner time, the old man was in the corner and the parents at the table but their son was not in the house.  They called for him to come to table but there was no response.  They went outside to look for him and found him in his father’s shed.  He was on the ground with little bits of timber gathered around him.  “What are you doing?” his mother asked, “it’s time for dinner, we’ve been calling you.  Did you not hear us?  What are you doing there”.  The little boy looked up at them, holding two bits of timber together and said; “I’m making a bowl to feed you and daddy out of when you get old”.

Silenced, they returned to the house, brought the old man from the corner, placed his food on a plate and, from that day on, they ate as family.

It was a stark story and maybe it’s that starkness that stayed with me.  There was something being said about example in the home and acceptance, in the family, of successes and failures, weaknesses and strengths.

I remember receiving a phone call from my mother about eight years ago.  It was very early on a Friday morning – maybe three or four o’clock.  She told me that she and my father were in Dublin, that they had just collected new cars and were on the Naas Road on their way home “Daddy”, she said “is following me”. (She often called my father “daddy”).  I wished her a safe journey.  On that particular Friday morning, my mother was in hospital in Sligo and had been there for a few days.  I left down the phone, saddened and frustrated that she was so confused.  Maybe angry too, that her confusion had woken me.  Certainly it took me a long time to get back to sleep.  I understood what had happened but didn’t understand or accept the confusion behind it.

Later that day, as I celebrated Evening Mass in the Cathedral, my mind went blank.  I could not, if my life depended on it, remember what I had just said.  I looked to the congregation and they looked at me.  I’ve no idea how long that gaze lasted but eventually I looked at a woman near the front and said “What did I just say?”  She told me and I picked up the line and continued.  People laughed, maybe thinking I was joking but I had absolutely no idea where I was in the Mass.  As I took off my vestments in the sacristy, I thought to myself that’s how my mother felt this morning.  I realised, maybe for the first time ever, how easily the mind can play tricks on us and throw us into confusion and uncertainty.  I never saw her confusion the same again.  Maybe I needed that moment to open my mind, eyes and heart to her reality.

You see, I think that’s what this Feast Day is about.  It’s something to do with drawing strength from one another and being there for one another.  Families are the best support we have but they can be places of tension too.  Tensions uninvited, weave their way into the home and family and can cause terrible distress.  I believe the Holy Family is calling us to rise, whenever and wherever possible, above these tensions – even if that means accepting them, so that we can make the most of life for others and for ourselves.

Stick with one another.  Maybe there are sons or daughters going through a “phase” where there’s little, if any, communication going on.  It might be difficulty between a couple or trying to cope with sickness, old age or infirmity.  Try to be there with and for each other as much as possible.  Pray with and for each other.  Fr. Peyton (The Rosary Priest) used to say “The family that prays together, stays together”.  He wasn’t wrong.

Finally, let us put our trust in the Holy Family and look to them for inspiration and direction.  May we rejoice with them, wonder with them and always seek to be guided by them.

You’d wonder!!

You’d wonder!!

Just came across this list on another site.  It’s the TOP 10 from yesterday’s TV viewing (BBC 1). Apart from not getting MRS BROWN’S BOYS and being considered boring for that … it’s strange that nothing religious features in the TOP 10.  Wasn’t it in the Mary’s Dream reflection, she spoke about having a dream of people preparing for weeks to celebrate her son’s birthday and then exchanging presents with each other but giving him nothing?  She was thankful it was a dream and assured Joseph this could never happen in reality! TV TOP 10 VIEWING LIST begs to differ …

Top 10 most-viewed Christmas Day programmes

  1. Mrs Brown’s Boys – BBC One – 7.6 million
    2. EastEnders – BBC One – 7.55 million
  2. Strictly Come Dancing – BBC One – 7 million
    4. Call The Midwife – BBC One – 6.8 million
  3. Miranda – BBC One – 6.7 million
    6. Coronation Street – ITV – 6.6 million
  4. Doctor Who – BBC One – 6.3 million
    8. Downton Abbey – ITV – 5.8 million
    9= The Queen – BBC One – 5.7 million (Another 2.1 million watched on ITV)
    9= Emmerdale – ITV – 5.7 million

MARY’S DREAM

I had a dream Joseph. I don’t understand it, not really, but I think it was about a birthday celebration for our Son. I think that was what it was all about. The people had been preparing for it for about six weeks. They had decorated the house and bought elaborate gifts. It was peculiar, though because the presents weren’t for our Son. They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied them with lovely bows and stacked them under a tree. Yes, a tree Joseph, right in their house. They’d decorated the tree also. The branches were full of glowing balls and sparkling ornaments. There was a figure on top of the tree. It looked like an Angel might look. Oh it was beautiful. Everyone was laughing and happy. They were all excited about the gifts. They gave the gifts to each other, Joseph, not to our Son. I don’t think they even knew Him. They never mentioned His name. Doesn’t it seem odd for people to go to all that trouble to celebrate someone’s birthday if they don’t know Him. I had the strangest feeling that if our Son had gone to this celebration, He would have been intruding. Everything was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone so full of cheer, but it made me want to cry. How sad for Jesus not to be wanted at His own birthday celebration. I’m glad it was only a dream. How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real!

Carried in young hands ..

Carried in young hands ..

(Few words shared at Christmas Masses in Kilmovee and Urlaur)

churchforchristmasOn Christmas Eve we gathered at midday, as we’ve done for the past few years, with children from the parish and their families.  The idea is to take a little time out of Christmas Eve and the rush associated with it, to focus prayerful thoughts on the crib in our church. The habit has been established now of leaving the figures from the crib in the porch of the church where we gather for a few moments, say a little prayer and then ask the children to take the figures and to process with them to the crib.  “Wherever you leave them,” I say “is where they’ll stay for the Christmas.”  A bit of a risk for sure:)

crib1I noticed the children left Mary and Joseph side by side.  When they left the church, I considered moving them to face one another so that we could, later in the day at Christmas Eve Mass, place the Baby Jesus between them.  Then I thought of what I’d said and decided against moving them.  It struck me later, when another child placed the Infant in the Crib, that they had gotten it right.  Parents, side by side, looking at their child – side by side, supporting each other in life and in their relationship, side by side – looking from the same vantage point at life’s journey and planning the steps to be taken.  The children got it right.

crib3I spotted somewhere on line the card that Pope Francis sent out this year with his Christmas Greetings.  It was a representation of the crib, sketched (for him I think) by an artist and the animals were at the front of the crib.  The Holy Family was situated behind them.  The point being made by Pope Francis was that the family was poor, didn’t take the prime spot and, perhaps, had to be searched for among the everyday things and situations of life.  Again, when I looked at our own crib, the children had replicated this – the cow and donkey, the huddled sheep were to the front of our crib and Mary and Joseph sitting, waiting behind them.  I think Francis would have liked the Crib arrangement in Kilmovee. A message carried in the hands of children.

Bishop Brendan called me on Christmas Eve. We’d talked a few days earlier about maybe putting a message on our Diocesan Website and he thought it would be a good idea.  I went out to his house to make a short video recording.  We chatted for a while and then started to record.  Unfortunately I’d not checked the memory card in my camera and we ran out of memory – mid-sentence. Bishop Brendan had spoken without script and I thought what he said was good and we both wondered could it be repeated were we to start again.  We decided most likely not and that we’d leave the piece as was – abrupt ending and all.  Just before we lost “memory” he had said that we exchange presents with each other to show how much we mean to one another and that’s what Christmas calls us to.  He went on to say that sometimes a “word can be worth a €1000” … the figure was by the way – the point being made was that maybe someone is looking to us for a word this Christmas.  I thought it a lovely idea and wonder what that word or string of words might be?  Maybe they’re around an apology or the acceptance of an apology.  Maybe they’re around love and gratitude.  Whatever the word, needing to be spoken or heard, maybe this is the present, uppermost amongst all presents, that needs to be uttered today in the name of Christ – the Infant at parents’ feet, this Christmas Day.

I Love Christmas ….

I Love Christmas ….

It’s Christmas Eve (not in the drunk tank!!) in my house!  This evening we will celebrate together the wonder that is Christmas Eve Mass and, please God, celebrate again on Christmas morning.  It is truly wonderful to see so many people attend Mass at this time of year.  Every opportunity must be taken to make people feel welcome.

Recently someone asked me to reflect on what it might be like for someone who didn’t especially look forward to Christmas, perhaps because of a bereavement or some other reason.  I know there are many such people.  I tried to imagine one of them and took a mother – a widow – who seems to have lost the spirit, the will to be connected.  I’m not sure I captured her but here’s how it went ….

A MOTHER PONDERS CHRISTMAS

amother

 

“Ding! Dong! … merrily on high?  Why?

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly?”  Why?

Even the Carols “Silent Night, Holy Night” bring no delight

“Angels we have heard on high ….” Too high for me to hear or care ….

 

I hate being like this.  I never thought I’d be like this.

Christmas meant everything to me.  I put all I had into it

because I knew the Infant gave all he had to me;

especially the infants; our children, our joy and our hope.

I decorated with the best of them.

I shopped for joy, hoped for peace, cooked to fill.

Joy was there, peace too and empty plates were thanks enough.

We watched Jimmy O’Dea and laughed

joyful laughs at jokes we’d heard before.

Television black and white and all seemed right

ironically, at times, there seemed more colour in the two shades

than the multicolour HD on the 48inch TV.

 

The cards are lovely.  People write

once a year and try to share

in five lines how much they care

but there’s an emptiness there

that a few xx’s or a promised prayer

won’t make disappear.

 

I hate being like this.  I never thought I’d be like this.

Some say they prefer Easter to Christmas

Never fully understood that.  I thought it was

To do with weather, days being better,

nights shorter.  But now …

I think it’s more than that.  Christmas reminds us of

all we have and haven’t. 

Of all we want to do and can’t.

 

There’s so much to miss.

Family and friends gone to God.

Neighbours’ visits and negihbours visited.

Churches filled with regular faces

and …. my own 

who tell me now they’re “Spiritual

but not religious”.

 

I want to deck the halls, to hear the calls

I want to sing with the mountain topped shepherds

Drum with the drummer boy

Sing “Glory to the New Born King” ….

 

I’m lonely though – not alone but lonely

I long to see again

the lost faces of Christmas innocence

that count not time in shopping days

But time with another – for another.

How do we get to that place in this endless race?

How do we find what’s been left behind.

 

Oh, there’s the phone … just a second:

“What’s that Peter?  You can’t come home. 

You’ve written a card …….

That’s fine Love ……

No, no, I’m grand

I understand …..”

 

Easter!

I didn’t want to leave it there.  That mother’s belief needed nurturing and her doubts needed to be set aside.  There was too much there – too much goodness that Christ would not want to go without reverenced acknowledgement at this special time of year.  I tried to imagine Peter and his own thoughts as he left down the phone.  It’s not about guilt, at least I hope it’s not, but about coming to that place where reality dawns, decisions arrived at and a difference made.

 

PETER – A SON REFLECTS ….

 

officepeter

“Peter, what’s wrong?” It wasn’t a usual question from his work colleague but somehow he didn’t mind that. 

“I was just speaking with my mother on the phone.  I told her I’d not be home for Christmas” 

“Was she disappointed?” 

“She didn’t say as much but I know she is.    She’s been lonely since my father died – it’s three years  now.  She puts on a brave face but I know her heart is broken.  I hated making that call.  I know she thought I’d be home – hoped I suppose, but the boss here doesn’t fully “get Christmas” and sees it as another working day.  Sure you know that as well as I. 

The strange thing is I love Christmas.  The even stranger thing, though my mother doesn’t know this, is that I love it for what it is – God’s greatest gift to the world.  The gift of an infant who can bring such joy if only we’d let him.   I love all its memories.  I can still smell the pines of the Christmas trees my father got “somewhere” – we never asked or needed to ask!  God how hard they worked to make Christmas for us.  The dinners my mother cooked.  The excitement of opening the “dare to hope for” gifts from Santa.  I often wonder did I say thanks …. 

I remember once telling my mother that I was “Spiritual but not religious”.  It sounded so clever at the time though, to be honest I still don’t know what it means.  I’m fairly sure I read it somewhere.  I seldom miss Mass, I never go to bed without even a short prayer and my grandfather’s Rosary Beads is always in my pocket – look! 

God, I wish she knew that for sure – my mother – that she gave me, us all, a real sense of Faith. Somehow it seems unfair that she mightn’t know that.  I’d hate to think that Christmas might now be less for her than she made it for me. 

Maybe I’ll talk again to the boss.  Certainly I’m going to talk to her about this and, as for the card I’d written, that’s for the bin!  For once and for all, I’m going to tell her,  more than that, thank her for Christmas Joy and bring it to life again for her – one way or another. 

Thanks for asking me, just now, “Peter, what’s wrong”.  Nothing that can’t be put right!”

 

Holy Family

Holy Family

Holy Family Painting St Mel's Cathedral.  Blessings on the family in front of it and all families these Christmas days.  Amen!

Holy Family Painting St Mel’s Cathedral. Blessings on the family in front of it and all families these Christmas days. Amen!

I listened to Ciarán Mullooly on Mid West Radio the other day.  He was speaking about a forthcoming documentary on RTE 1 about the restoration of St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford. Sadly the Cathedral was gutted in a fire on Christmas Day 2009.  Five years later, it will again open its Sacred Doors to a faithful people and become again a “house of prayer”. Truly a time for rejoicing in the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise.

One of the items of interest in the forthcoming documentary to which Ciarán wished to draw our attention is a picture of the Holy Family.  Remarkably, though all burned around it, the image survived virtually unscathed.  It is likely, almost certain in fact, this will become a legend in time to come.  I can see this picture drawing much attention in the short term and increased devotion in the long term.

It seems so appropriate that the Holy Family is at the centre of this story.  They, who looked for shelter on that First Christmas, remained united as the Sacred Shelter that is St Mel’s went up in flames and continue as such when its doors, so joyfully, reopen this Christmas.  It is even more appropriate that the Holy Family take Centre Stage during this season that is about their journey to Bethlehem.  When much around wants to remove them from the story being told and, even more so, sideline the birth of the Christ Child, there is no little irony in the fact that whenever this story of Longford is told, the Holy Family will be at the heart of it.

St Joseph, an honourable man, came to terms with the most difficult of truths. The woman he planned on marrying was “with child” and he was not the father.  Everything in him must have felt betrayed by that truth.  It’s almost certain he’d have wanted to walk away but he didn’t.  We are told that he was reassured in “a dream” that the child being carried was “God’ Child” and that Mary should still become his wife.  Waking from that dream, to the reality of a new day, somehow he accepted the delivered message and continued along the road he had hoped to travel.

Mary, all things being equal, wanted no more than to be the carpenter’s wife.  Her plans too were thrown head over heels and, again, somehow and from somewhere deep and rooted, she found the ability to say “yes”.

Jesus, an infant, was born into poverty and spent most of his childhood in exile.  Away from home, family and the friends of his parents, he sought to grow to maturity and allowed his path to be shaped by the Will of The Father.

Not simple stuff – the life of The Holy Family.  And yet, they remain our model and guide. In many ways, the complications they endured, lived through and overcame, should be sure consolation to us that, in the midst of our own dark days and confused nights, hope remains.  It is in finding direction and peace in God’s will that we too can find purpose and certainty.

May this image of the Holy Family in St Mel’s Cathedral ever remind all who see it or hear its story, that hope remains and peace will follow.

______________________

‘The Longford Phoenix’ – a Would You Believe special documentary – goes to air on RTÉ One on 30 December at 6.30pm

RSS
Follow by Email
WhatsApp