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Remembering St. John Paul II on his 20th anniversary

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Meeting Pope John Paul II, 2004 Today we recall the 20th anniversary of the return home to God of Blessed John Paul II. When he came to Ireland in 1979, I viewed this historical event from the tranquility of my mother’s womb (I was born a few months after!). My father, who played the french horn in the Band of the Western Command was part of the military band for the occasion and played at the Papal Mass in Knock. So did my godfather Gerry Lacey (RIP) who wrote about this in an interview with the Westmeath Independent  here. I felt I could say ‘I was there too’. Little did I know some years after I would meet JP II face to face and have the opportunity to speak to him and tell him about this little anecdote. Our God is truly a God of surprises! Never in a million years did I ever contemplate being in Rome for such memorable events: the death of John Paul II, a conclave, and the consequent election of Pope Benedict XVI. I had come to Rome three years previous and ...
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Reflection- Annunciation: Mary's Yes and the Yes of Oscar Romero

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  With the celebration of Vespers this evening, the Church begins the celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation. Indeed, it is a celebration! The first word of Archangel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary was Rejoice . And the feast of Annunciation is, first of all, a feast of quiet heavenly joy—joy over reconciliation with God, joy over the return of grace to earth. Annunciation is also a feast of triumph of humility, purity and chastity , a feast of unshakable faith in the power of God and in His unlimited love toward us his children. We see this unlimited love every day as we look at the Cross, at the outpouring of Jesus for us. At times it’s a love that doesn’t make sense. There is a Scripture passage in the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 12 which has the image of the grain of wheat. We read: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains but a single grain.” The image of the grain of wheat dying in the earth in order to grow and bear a harvest can be seen as ...
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Mother M. Scholastica Rivata and the desert of transformation

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As the Lenten journey continues, my thoughts today went to our first sister Mother M. Scholastica Rivata. Today, 24th of March, we commemorate 38 years since she returned home to God. She was a woman who was not afraid to move through the 'desert of transformation', certain that even the Paschal mystery with all its sorrow and confusion, would lead her to the glorious celebration of the Resurrection, the explosion of life and joy upon the earth. The following is a brief reflection from our previous Mother General, Sr. M. Cesarato on the ocassion of the translocation of the earthly remains of M. Scholastica from Sanfre to the Church of Jesus Master in Rome. It also marked the opening of the cause of her beatification which is underway, having reached the stage of presenting the 'Positio'. The positio (Positio super Virtutibus) is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path...
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Transfigured by Christ and bothered by the Holy Spirit!

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Each Sunday of Lent catapults us into a different stage of Christian journey. From the desert of temptation in last week's liturgy, we move to the Mount of Transfiguration. The desert is a place of passage to get to our destination. No-one aspires to live in the desert. Peter, James and John try to stay on Mount Tabor: "Lord, it is good for us to stay here, let us build three tents." But similarly, the mountain is not the destination. We move onwards, fortified by the experience of being with Jesus. There is a small but very significant phrase: "The disciples looked up and saw only Jesus ." Only Jesus. Are we able to see 'only Jesus'? ? Are we able to live only for Jesus? Is all that matters to us, only Jesus? How different would our lives be if our permanent focus was only Jesus, the measuring stick for all that we do, the moral, spiritual and emotional compass in our lives? But this would mean making changes in our lives. Filtering through all t...
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Maria, Madre del sì

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                                                                                                                            Maria, Madre del sì , tu hai ascoltato Gesù e conosci il timbro della sua voce e il battito del suo cuore. Stella del mattino, parlami di Lui e raccontami il tuo cammino per seguirlo nella via della fede. Tu, che a Nazareth hai abitato con Gesù, imprimi nella mia vita i tuoi sentimenti, la tua docilità, il tuo silenzio che ascolta e fa fiorire la Parola in scelte di vera libertà. Parlami di Gesù, perché la freschezza della mia fede brilli in me e scaldi il cuore di chi incontro. Vergine del Magnificat, aiutami a portare la gioia nel mondo e, come ...
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Waiting in joyful hope! Advent begins

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Advent begins not with a cute baby scene but one which might even disturb us. We do not begin our Advent journey with the baby Jesus snuggled in the arms of his parents all aglow in a tranquil postpartum nativity scene.  Instead we begin right in the middle of the birth pains that accompany a difficult delivery. The prophet Isaiah lets out a gut wrenching cry: “O God that you would tear open the heavens and come down.”  The world around us is in turmoil, God.  We need your presence.  Come and occupy our world now! The world cries out for the Lord. Nowadays people don’t like waiting. In the past I’ve thought of waiting as wasted time, such as when I wait for a bus or in a doctor’s surgery. This kind of waiting requires little action on our part; it’s mostly a matter of biding our time. Everything is so instantaneous that we no longer know how to wait. Yet, these are opportunities to pray. The Second Reading from St. Paul reminds us that as we wait, we do so w...
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"It's good to visit..."

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  I have a friend who always ends our skype calls with ‘It’s been good to visit with you’. I often smile to myself because it’s not really a phrase we use in Ireland. A 'visit' to someone is usually in person. Yet it never ceases to make me reflect. Every interaction, each phone call, WhatsApp, each text, each emoji, each video-call, is in fact a visit with someone. This first year in the ministry as a General Councillor, I have learned how important the fraternal/canonical visitation is, as I travelled to our different communities throughout the world. When we visit someone, or they visit us, we allow them in our lives and we are invited into theirs- we walk on the holy ground of each other's lives, let us tread gently! On this beautiful feastday of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, my prayer for each of us is that the joy will be like that of Mary and Elizabeth when they met, as we recognise Christ in each other. May we reach out to those ...
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