Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

Even the most courageous people have fears to overcome. Fear does horrible things to us. It makes us doubt those closest to us and it can make us afraid to love because we are afraid of being rejected. If you ask someone what they are afraid of, at first they may answer with something tangible, like spiders or heights or water. If you probe a little deeper, they might volunteer that they are afraid of death, of suffering, of losing a loved one, of failure, of loneliness. Fear about tomorrow is what keeps people awake at night! In today’s Gospel, we see the disciples in the middle of a storm which threatens to capsize their boat. It isn’t long before they are afraid. “The boat arrived at the shore to which they were heading”: On the water, Jesus doesn’t need to get into the boat. Jesus is doing just fine without them or their boat- It’s that they need Jesus. So many people know Jesus is there, just outside their boat, but they won’t let Him get in. He wants to get in, and we’ve esta...

  Have you ever tried to thread a needle? Even with the best of eyesight, it can still be a complex task- to get that thin piece of thread through that little eye and then proceed with the task at hand. So can you imagine trying to get a camel (yes, a camel!), through the eye of a needle! This image is one which Jesus uses in this Sunday’s Gospel. The Gospel sets the scene of a man who comes to Jesus to seek out eternal life. He had lived the commandments all his life. What more could he do? We are told that Jesus looks at the man with a deep love, an agape love, a love which is not superficial but reaches the soul.  His response to the man is: “Go and sell everything you own, give the money to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven.” The gaze of Jesus steadies him to look inwards. When we come to pray, in the words of St. John Vianney, the Cure’ of Ars, “We look at Him and He looks at us”. It is an intimate time of heart-to-heart interaction. The encounter with J...

This is from the talk I prepared for Radio Maria in February 2017 as part of a 6 part series on Beauty. Week 3- Beauty and Suffering This week we are going to look at Beauty and Suffering. It might sound very strange to put these two things together, without sounding slightly sadistic. You hear a lot about happiness these days. You have to be happy 24/7. You have to only do the things you love. You have to wake up everyday and jump out of bed, because if not, you’re broken or you’re unhappy or not motivated. While I certainly wish that were the case, the fact of the matter is, it’s unrealistic. We can’t always be happy, we can’t always do the stuff we love, we can’t always wake up every day feeling like we can take on the world. While there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be happy, we all too often make that our main objective in life. And in our quest for bliss and contentment we fail to embrace the beauty of suffering, when we are faced with it. One of the l...

Already at the second week of Lent, the liturgy presents us with varying images for the journey. Sunday is the day in my week where I  stop and take stock of how the journey is going. We are on a Lenten pilgrimage but from where and towards where? Pope John Paul II writes in Incarnationis Mysterium 7: “A pilgrimage evokes the believer's personal journey in the footsteps of the Redeemer: it is an exercise of practical asceticism, of repentance for human weaknesses, of constant vigilance over one's own frailty, of interior preparation for a change of heart. Through vigils, fasting and prayer, the pilgrim progresses along the path of Christian perfection, striving to attain, with the support of God's grace, “the state of the perfect man, to the measure of the full maturity of Christ” (Eph 4:13).” A pilgrim needs to be able to read the signs of the times around them, of the people with whom they live and journey with and of nature itself. A few years ago, a friend of min...

Litany of Spiritual Confidence ( R/  Lord, keep me close to You.)  Lord, I can do all that You ask of me because it is You who strengthen me. R/ Lord, whenever I fall You delight in my confidence to trust You all the more. R/ Lord, let me look to You and not to myself to find what is needed to please You. R/ Lord, when I am overcome by fear it is because my peace depends on some thing instead of on Your will. R/ Lord, free me from my hidden attachments to self-righteousness. R/ Lord, let me always remember that it is You who move me to ask for Your love. R/ Lord, help me to see that the meaning of my faults is to learn to depend on You more and more. R/ Lord, give me the strength to cry out for Your love when all that I see is nothingness in myself. R/ Lord, save me from the impulse to look for my peace and security in my own strength. R/ Lord, the more you let me see what I am left to myself, the more You give me the grace to cling to Yo...

I know I have blogged about Oscar Romero throughout the years but today, above all days, merits a blog post! Today, 23rd of May is the day when the Church proclaimed him as Blessed. Throughout history, the voice of the prophet is one of the vehicles through which God speaks to the community and to the world. Today, we commemorate one of these prophets. On the 24thof March 1980, 35 years ago, evil men in El Salvador tried to silence the voice of a prophet. Archbishop Romero gave his life, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “for the church and the people of his beloved country” of El Salvador. His death from an assassin’s bullet crowned a life of service as priest and bishop. I claim this date as being special to my life story because it was the month and the year that I was to grace the world. However God had another plan and myself being a little precocious, I arrived a little earlier on January 24th. It continues to be a day where I remember Archbishop Romero. His great motto was ...

“At this hour – 20.00 Rome time, 28th of  February 2013, 2.00pm Canadian time – the Chair of Peter, the Holy See of Rome, is vacant upon the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.” I sit at my computer and type, occasionally looking at the snowflakes which quietly continue to fall and join the 30 cm or so of snow that fell over the past 24 hours. There is a somberness in the air: it is not a death so to speak but things have changed. It doesn’t call for tears but for a deepening of prayer which says: “Holy Father, we are with you” In my heart, I hear the gentle words of the Nunc Dimitis:  “At last, all-powerful Master, +, you give leave to your servant to go in peace, according to your promise. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared for all nations, the light to enlighten the Gentiles and give glory to Israel, your people.” Many will continue to judge Pope Benedict XVI for what he has or hasn’t done for the Church, for the world. The Master, God alone kno...

Conversion of St. Paul (Caravaggio) Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some people seem to think. It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving. I remember as a child watching my Dad pruning roses and plants. When he would cut the rose bushes, a white fluid would come out, almost as if the rose was ‘crying’ because of the cut. However where there is grafting there will always be a cutting, the graft must be let in with a wound; to stick it onto the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back or there will be no sap from root to branch. It is not a nice process, it hurts, it is messy, just like the birth of Jesus was a messy event. The Bible is filled with figures who sinned, became repentant, and underwent conversion, such as Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. Peter denied three times that he was an Apostle of Christ during the Lord's Passion; when the cock crowed, ...

Anointing at Bethany by Marko Ivan Rupnik “Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, the house was filled with the scent of the ointment” (John 12: 3) The excitement within begins to build for myself, my religious sisters, family and friends as we draw nearer to the 19th of June 2011. On that day in my home parish of St. Peter and Paul’s Church in Athlone, I will profess my ‘yes’ forever as a religious sister! On my vocational journey, it closes one chapter which began back in 1998 when I came for a live-in discernment in the community in Dublin whilst it opens another of a love which has been maturing, tried and tested and which peaks in Perpetual Profession and then continues to mature on life’s journey! The particular Gospel passage which has accompanied me during this past year of preparation for this solemn moment and which also will has been used for the liturgy of the rite of Profession is a passage from John’s Gosp...