Best wishes to you all

Best wishes to you all

St Joseph’s Church, Urlaur

As we continue through the Christmas days and in the lead-up to New Year’s Day, may I wish you one and all every blessing, good health and happiness as we journey on.

Thank you for keeping in touch and for your support and kindness.  Nothing, I’d hope, taken for granted.  I’m glad to have had the chance to post a few bits and pieces here again throughout the year.  This is the tenth year of “sherlockshome” and I think we’re doing okay. Sometimes I’d like to do a bit more and other times, I think I do too much so it’s about balance.  Will continue to work at achieving this and, who knows how that will go!

I enjoyed Christmas in the parish this year and was so happy to see large congregations at our four Christmas Masses in Urlaur, Glann, Kilmovee and Kilkelly.  There’s more than sentiment at work on days like these.  There is something about connection and connecting and I am always pleased to witness that and be, in some way, part of it.

For many years now I have sung “The Little Drummer Boy” after Holy Commnion at Christmas Masses.  It’s one of my favourite carols as it speaks of doing what comes natural and bringing the gift you might not even know you have.  In the Drummer Boy’s case, the very drum he carried was to be his best gift that brought to the lips of the Baby Jesus, the wonderful response of a smile.

In Kilmovee Church this year, Kevin Kenneally, a Leaving Cert student from the parish, joined me for the Carol.  He played the guitar and it was lovely to be joined by him.  We had a bit of run through on Monday and I recorded it.  The “live” version was better I think but thought I might include it here.

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.

There’s news and there’s gossip

There’s news and there’s gossip

Earlier this Christmas Eve I received a text from a friend – a classmate – saying that he wasn’t sending Christmas Cards this year but wanted to wish me peace and blessings at this special time.  I called him back and asked if he was getting mean in his old age.  I continued to slag him for a little while and then he said, “you mustn’t have heard that my mother died”.  I hadn’t.  He went on to say she died the beginning of December.  I felt more sorry than embarrassed because I knew he wasn’t trying to embarrass me.  He told me his mother had been diagnosed with cancer and died shortly after the diagnosis was given. Needless to say, I was sorry for him.

I told him I’d not heard and of course he knew that because, had I heard, I’d have been there for him over those December days.  The reality was the news never reached my ears and I was sorry about that too.

As I prepared for Christmas Eve Mass I thought about Ray, his mother Rosie and how easy it is not to hear news.  Gossip is all around us and seems to blow easily on the wind – easily and dangerously – but often the news we need to hear passes by unheard or untold.  I wondered does God feel that way sometimes, not least around Christmas and wonder how it is that this Story, this very Sacred story, can remain unheard and untold?

That’s the thought I brought to Mass with me just now and shared with a very full church.  I was so happy to see so many people there and wanted them to hear the NEWS that Christ is born but not to remain a baby.  He needs to become a Man alongside us and we need to hear his news, some not always easy to hear or understand but news nonetheless that calls us to be better people – decent people.

It’s the choice of this Season in many ways.  To hear and be shaped by the news or to settle for gossip. I know which we’re called to and I know how easily we can ignore or park that call.  I felt the church tonight was filled with people who want to hear the story and came, in many ways, in response to it but how quickly we can forget and go back to our old ways.  We need to be people of the Good News, tuned in to what is real and important in life, otherwise we miss opportunities to be better people, to be with people when they most need us.

Share the news.  Avoid the gossip ….

Happy Christmas and thanks, thanks for being my friends.  I’m sorry if I missed any important events in your lives and wasn’t there …  keep in touch, keep in focus, keep the News, the GOOD news in circulation, even when it might be difficult to hear, understand or accept.  If we need to hear it, let it be heard.

A story told

A story told

I was at a school concert in the parish during the week. The Junior Classes presented a Nativity Play. I always enjoy when these are presented. A memory from an old film (“THE BELLS OF ST MARY’S”)  comes to mind and, thanks to YouTube comes to life. If you’ve about seven minutes to spare, spend them with this. Hope you enjoy!

 

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