Vocations Sunday 2018

Vocations Sunday 2018

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  We reflect on Vocation within the church.  Vocation at its widest, includes every man, woman and child of us, who tries daily to respond to God’s Call to be a better person and a sign of His presence.  We focus too on vocations to priesthood, permanent diaconate and religious life.  It is from here, these few lines come.  I wondered yesterday what I had to say that might not have been said before and realised that I’ve nothing new to bring to the people, other than a belief that priesthood is still a call worth hearing, considering and responding to.  Deeply aware of my own limitations but also still happy that I made the decision to travel this road, I wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how.  The idea of writing a letter came to my mind – a letter to the people but then, I thought maybe a letter to myself might be worth looking at ….. this is how it worked out!


Dear Vincent,

Thought I’d drop you a line.  It’s Vocations Sunday and I know you’re wondering how to rise to it again, to encourage and pray for vocations when, for more than thirty years, you’ve done the same and nobody seems to have responded.  I know that at times, you find yourself going through phases of self-doubt about the effectiveness of your own vocation.  I’m sure you’re wondering who I am!

I’m that boy in you who knew priests to be decent people who seemed to bring happiness to your family home and who showed themselves to be friends. I’m that teenager in you who, in St Nathy’s College, came to admire the priests on the staff – for the bits and pieces they did “beyond the call of duty” to encourage students to do their best, not just in the classroom but on the sports field too.  I’m the son in you who heard your mother’s prayers to Fr Casey a priest who died back in 1939, when your mother was scarcely a teenager herself, but remembered forever his kindness to her family, after her father’s death when she was just seven years old.  I’m the Spirit in you that made you think there was a place for you in priesthood and encouraged you to go ahead – to give it a try.

I am the family and neighbours around you who wished you well that September and who cared more about where you were going than your leaving cert results.  I am a grandmother of a school friend who lit candles for you every time she passed the church throughout your years in Maynooth.  I am the friends you met – men and women – who made you feel special and loved.  I am the dream within you that accompanied you through the years and assured you that the road chosen, like the one to Emmaus, was an open road but a safe one too where you’d not walk alone.

I am the twenty-four year old in you who knelt before Bishop Flynn in June 1987, put your hands in his and promised to do your best and who lay mouth-under, on the floor of Gurteen Church, as the saints were called down on top of you in a litany of prayer – “Bless this chosen man”, “Bless this chosen man, make him holy”. “Bless this chosen man, make him holy and consecrate him for his sacred duties” …. I am that young priest who was welcomed to his first parish by decent people who helped him believe he’d done the right thing with his life, though he had much to learn.

I am the fifty-five year old in you.  Standing this weekend in a parish, surrounded by a community at prayer.  People looking to the priest in you to offer a word, to be a friend and above all to break open the Scriptures and to nourish through Eucharist.  I am the priest in you who wants you to push yourself and to have courage and self-conviction.  I am the ongoing dreamer in you who believes the Church can find her voice a-fresh and that the world can be a better place and will be a better place when it opens itself to see again the presence of God and the real difference a lived faith can make.

I am your vocation Vincent, encouraging you to take all that’s good from your past, to accept your mistakes and to reach out again and again, to hope and believe again and again, that the story, the dream of the boy may find words in the mouth of the man and say, even if you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said it …. “this is a good life”.

They’re listening Vincent, speak to them!

Miracles and Memories

Miracles and Memories

Today’s Gospel Passage about the loaves and fishes is among my favourites.  I love the idea of the boy offering what he had with him so that a crowd could be fed.  One of the traits that most annoys me in people is that of meanness (sometimes coupled with cuteness) and always it annoys me.  On the contrary, generosity in word and deed has a good effect – a knock-on effect – and should always be encouraged.  I read this Gospel passage at my father’s Funeral Mass in March 2011.  It very much reminded me of him and his ways – anybody who called to our home knew what I meant.  My father was obsessed with feeding people and “no” was seldom, if ever accepted as a response to having something.  I asked my cousin, Sean McDonnell, to read a few words I’d written as a reflection that day and thought I might share them here again.  They honour generosity and good example …


They asked me why I did it?

The truth is I don’t know – it just seemed the right thing to do.  We had been standing there for hours.  He had spoken so much, said so much – time just went by.  People were hungry.  You could see it in them and yet nobody wanted to leave.  There was a muttering through the crowd – “he wants to feed us” – “With what?” someone said – “there’s no food here”.

That’s when I heard myself saying “I have something”  – my voice seemed so loud.  I was only a child but my voice rose above all others.  “I have something”.  A man asked what had I and I said “five loaves and two fish” – he smiled.  I suppose now I would think it was a dismissive smile but that day I thought he was pleased.  He passed on the message “There’s a small boy here with five loaves and two fish” – my heart sank when he added “but what is that between so many?”  I blushed and even with my childish counting of two and two making four, I could see he was right.  The man who had been talking to us did not agree.  “Bring it to me”, he said and they took my food.  I’ll never know how it happened but the feeding began.  Bread and fish fed to five thousand.

“Why did you do it?”  I’ve often thought about that.  I did it because my father would have done it.  He was always sharing bread with people at home.  I grew up seeing him do that.  Truth be told, it was he who had given me the few loves and fish before I left the house.  I did it because he would have done it.  It was the right thing to do.

There’s nothing to beat a father’s good example.  Thanks Bill!  We will not forget.

Mercy and unlocked doors

Mercy and unlocked doors

There have been many references to Pope Francis’ repeated call to bishops – indeed to all involved in ministry – to “know the smell of the sheep”.  It’s a challenging but necessary call to get to know people and not just from a distance.  It involves being with them in the ups and downs of life.

Patrick Kavanagh in a poem called “Father Mat”, describes the local priest as he was encountered by his flock “He was part of the place/Natural as a round stone in a grass field;/He could walk through a cattle fair/And the people would only notice his odd spirit there”.  In the same poem he speaks of people’s attitude towards going to Fr Mat to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Saturday Confessions): “The knife of penance fell so like a blade/Of grass that no one was afraid.” I think Pope Francis would be happy to share a parish with Father Mat.  Chances are we all would!

Kavanagh remembers this priest and puts him before us in verse not because he was a fireball in the pulpit or because he built churches, schools and halls but because he moved among his people.  He knew them.  He most likely never said it in as many words but it seems clear, he loved them.  He saw before him, behind and around him, people in need of love and that bit of compassion that never ever goes astray. He embodied mercy – Divine Mercy.

On Divine Mercy Sunday there’s a call going out to us all to be kindly in our dealing with others, to avoid being judgmental or condemning.  We are asked to hear again and again Jesus’ first words in nearly all his post-resurrection appearances: “Peace be with you”.  Anything in us, about us or from us that is not encouraging “peace” is most likely not rooted in faith or a clear and thought out understanding of the Gospel message.

We are born to live.  We are baptized to belong.  We are here to make a difference.  What “locked room” can we walk into today or in the coming days?  Is it an ongoing row?  Is it a strained relationship in the home?  Is it a reluctance to acknowledge our own sinfulness and need for repentance?  Is it doubt?  What locked door stands between us and peace right now? We need to be honest enough with ourselves and others to recognise and name this door and we need faith, hope and every ounce of love that is within us to find the key, unlock and set free what is trapped within.

Recently Pope Francis spoke to the bishops of Ireland.  He might or might not have mentioned the smell of the sheep to them but either way they know where he stands on that. He spoke to them about the “apostolate of the ear” – the need to listen to people and respond to what is heard.  There’s a lot in that.  Kavangh’s Father Mat seemed to have mastered it and that’s something to be thankful for – people who listen to us when we need to speak.  Chances are though, we need that same “apostolate of the ear” when it comes to ourselves so that we can truly hear what we need to hear from our own hearts so that we can be set free, like Lazarus of the Gospel, like Thomas who had his doubts, like the disciples who had locked themselves away.

Only then can we truly appreciate the “Mercy” of the Shepherd.  Only then are we in a position to shepherd (care for, truly love and mercy) those around us, depending on us for example and love.  Only then can we truly grasp the depth and gift of mercy.

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

“The Crib” complete – the Kings have arrived. Twelfth Night

As a child, I remember going to Sligo with my parents on Christmas Eve.  We’d go in the afternoon, spend a few hours in Sligo and call to Cloonamahon (then a Passionist Monastery near Collooney) or maybe to the Friary or Cathedral in Sligo and go to Confessions.  We’d have a bite to eat as well and I remember these days as being very special.

On our way home, my mother (God rest her) would comment on the candles in the windows of houses.  They weren’t electric nor were they “bridges” but single candles burning in the windows of houses.  The darkness of the night made them all the more present and my mother would tell us these candles were put there to pave the way for the welcoming of Jesus.  Santa Claus was everything to us, as children, but the candles weren’t for him – they were for the Holy Family and meant to guide their way to the Bethlehem Stable.  She’d talk about candles in her own home in Cloonloo and the memories she had of them.  The candles burned through the night and just for two nights during Christmas; Christmas Eve and the “twelfth night”.  On both occasions, people on a journey it seems, needed help to trace their path.  People were more than willing to help them. It’s a good memory.

Nowadays candles burn in the windows throughout Christmas and maybe even longer.  The wick and wax are replaced by electric “Candle Arches” or LED tee lights.  The idea is there but it’s not exactly the same. There’s something about the candle – burning itself away to give light where otherwise there would only be darkness. There’s something too about just lighting on Christmas Eve and the Twelfth Night. Something linking journey with our homes and our homes with people on journey.

We’re at the “twelfth night” now – tomorrow Christmas comes to an end.  Somehow we seem to miss this point year after year that, though the Season ends, its purpose remains.  The birth of a child marks the end of a pregnancy and months of waiting and hoping that all will be well.  It’s not an end though for the life of the child becomes the focus, and the child becoming a boy or girl and in time, man or woman, is the full story. We’d never imagine leaving the baby a baby – even if we wanted to, we couldn’t for life brings with it growth.

So too, the Spiritual Life.  We move away from the crib tonight but we journey into the Ministry of Jesus and find again, hear again, his Call to be better people because He lives.

Messenger Magazine

Messenger Magazine

Some months ago, Fr Donal Neary S.J., asked me if I’d write a piece for the Novmeber issue of the Sacred Heart Messenger Magazine.  I was honoured to be asked.  He wanted me to write a piece on the Pope’s Intention for the Month of November.  The Messeger is a very popular magazine here in Ireland and in other countries.  I’m amazed how many people I have met in recent weeks who told me they read the piece and enjoyed it.  Most recently a woman today in Duffys’ SuperValu who told me she had read it before realising the words were mine and had enjoyed them (I don’t think discovering they were my words lessened the enjoyment!)  In any case, I thought I might put the few words here as well.  Just to keep a few thoughts going.

That within parishes, priests and lay people may collaborate in service to the community without giving in to the temptation of discouragement. 

(Pope’s Intention for November 2016)

 “You did it again!”  John Moran often said that to me after a Sunday Mass.  He didn’t add to it or take away from it, just left it at that as he shook my hand.  To me, he was saying, that something I said or did at Sunday Mass made a difference to him.  I’m not sure how I responded or if I did respond but I appreciated what he was saying.

A small boy told his mother on a Monday evening that she could never wash his hair again.  When she asked why, he told her that a neighbour had put his hand on his head as they left Sunday Mass together the day before and said “you’re a great little boy”.  That man was found dead in bed the following morning.  The boy, hearing this and knowing that his neighbour had said these words, felt his hair could not be touched again lest the blessing – the praise be erased.

I asked her, following her First Confession, if she’d say a prayer for one of our two clerical students. I named them both, asked her to pick a name and suggested she pray for him.  Before leaving the church, she came back to me and whispered “Can I say a prayer for the two of them?”

“The temptation of discouragment!”  How tuned in is Pope Francis!  How blessed we are for that attentiveness to the local at the service of the global that is central to all he is about. It is indeed the real temptation for people in parishes, priests and laity, to be discouraged. There are seeds of it blowing in the very wind that should be at our back but is instead, at times, reaching gale force pitch as it meets us head on.  We want to say “enough”, “what’s the point?”, “nobody’s listening” but as Francis says, that’s “temptation”. There is a point: people are listening and it’s never a good time to stop.

Least of all now!  “You’ve done it again”, “You’re a great little boy”, “Can I say a prayer for both of them?”  This is collaboration.  This is the message we need to hear, to share and to re-imagine.  We have the framework already.  It’s rooted in Schools, monthly visitations, parish groups, Pastoral Councils, sharing parish resources, clustering and so much more. It’s heard in God’s Word proclaimed by people who believe they are sharing a treasure, in Eucharist carried to the sick and housebound as treasure, in choirs hearing a hymn and making it their own that they might share it with others, in priests meeting their people and people meeting their priests so that a conversation of hope may continue. But without the framework of this encouragement of each other, many of our new structures lose life and become part of parish history.

It’s time to make real the talk of all of us “being church” and to focus less on the history of boundaries and more on the geography of truly knowing one another and caring where we live.  It’s a time to look for signs of hope rather than weep into pools of despair.  It’s time to face the road as one knowing that He who is the ‘One’  will walk with us, break open the Scriptures and the Bread for us and cause our hearts again “to burn within us” because he truly cares about the matters we are discussing as we walk along.

Deliver us Lord from temptation, grant us peace, grant us eyes to see and ears to hear all that is already collaboration in our day.

Words acknowledged

Words acknowledged

Firstly I want to say thanks to all who visited the blog in the past few days.  I just did a count and more than 5600 views of the previous post have taken place.  This is undoubtedly the biggest flow of traffic I’ve had and I’m not naive enough to think it’s likely to happen again soon!!  I am thankful to the website www.balls.ie who kindly picked up on the piece I posted last Sunday and asked if it could be re-posted on theiir website. Needless to say, I was happy for that to happen since the words were born of a sports event and to think that lovers of sport, especially GAA, might get to read them was special for me.  I was told by the site that more than 75,000 views of the post had taken place and the man added “that’s a conservative estimate” and that more than 10,000 shares had taken place on Facebook.

Before the post, there’s an acknowledgement to be made as well; because I’m not sure it would have happened at all had a man not spoken to me after Mass in Urlaur.  I spoke more or less the same words at Sunday Masses in Kilmovee and Urlaur – focusing on the two photos featuring Andy Moran, his daughter Charlotte and Bernard Brogan. The man seemed teary eyed (I hope it wasn’t just a cold) and he said he felt very sorry for Mayo though, like myself, he’s not a native of the county, and added “your words were meaningful and helpful”. Then he said “Thanks for them”.  That’s all he said but as I came home from Urlaur I thought he’d said a lot. I decided to try to remember the words and put them on the blog.  So it’s likely had that man not spoken to me after Mass, the post might never have taken place.  So thanks to him as well.

In any case, I don’t live in a place where posts of mine go “viral” but it was a nice place to be for a few days because I truly meant those words.  The photos (not mine of course) painted a thousand and more words and the few I added were just that – a few added.

So thanks again to all mentioned above and to YOU who are reading these words.  Chances are you’re one of the regulars and, as such, you’re my audience and friend.  Thanks for the loyalty.

Now I want to share some words that a priest sent to me during the week. I’ve just put them on the front of our Parish Bulletin for this week.  The priest, Fr John Cullen, was recently appointed Parish Priest of Roscommon and he is editor of The Angelus (Diocese of Elphin publication).  Fr John writes some very meaningful reflections and this, to me, is among the best of the best.  It’s as timely as it’s sad and as necessary as it’s timely.  He calls it “Refugee Prayer”.

I believe it’s important to acknowledge words that are meant to help, heal and provoke a thought. So thanks John for sending me this prayer.

_________________________________

REFUGEE PRAYER

On the wide open seas
our small boats drift.
We search for land
during endless days and nights.

We are the flotsam
floating on the vast ocean.
We are the dust,
wandering in endless space.
Our cries are swamped
and lost in the howling wind.
Our stinging tears, one by one
float into the vast ocean.

Without food, family and friends
our children lie exhausted
until they cry no more.
We thirst for our land,
but are turned back from every shore.

Our distress signals rise and soar
to the open sky and beyond.
The passing ships do not stop.
How many boats have perished?
How many people are beneath the waves
of the open seas, now in a watery grave?

Lord Jesus, do you hear the prayer of our hearts?
Lord, do you hear our weeping sobs of wordless prayer
from the abyss of death?

O welcoming shore, we long for you!
We pray that the bread of mercy
a crust of compassion and
a few crumbs of loving friendship
be given to us today,
from any land to
nourish and sustain us.
Amen.

 

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