Val Farrell's Blog

NOTHING NEW?

2012-02-24T11:05:00.003Z

In the unlikely event that nothing new or interesting catches your eye on this blog, why not give our parish Newsletter a try.We change its content every Friday morning. It's permanent address is:

http://www.holy-family.org.uk/5.html

2012-02-22T08:09:00.000Z

The Gospels are as bursting with life as ever,
but if they are to have any chance
of leading us joyfully to the altar of God,
the Church must listen humbly
to the voice of Christ
speaking from the hearts
of those it is called to serve

This blog tries to help that process.

WHO'D BE THE DEVIL ON ASH WEDNESDAY?

2012-02-22T08:06:00.000Z

WHO'D BE THE DEVIL ON ASH WEDNESDAY?

He's been labouring all year with his schemes and attractions, some of them quite ingenious in their simplicity, and then with the first sign of the Blessed Ash we humans suddenly get wiser than we've ever shown oursleves before. The poor chap has to listen to us renounce him, denounce him and generally tell him to be off. We have finished with his blandishments and will now listen only to the Good News of the Gospel. He must be wondering as he limps off, "what on earth do they put in those blessed ashes?"

Well I'll tell you, but don't breathe a word to him. Mine, (ashes that is) come from Hayes & Finch. Sometimes I blacken them up with a spot of the old crushed charcoal but mostly I like to believe that they are as people say they are; the ashes of last years blessed palms. What would old "Nick the Trick" think if he knew that on the first day of every Lent he falls a sucker to one of the simplest tricks of all, Ashes?

Why ashes? Simple. Those ashes are all that is left of our proud Palm-waving of last year when we felt sure we could do something for Jesus. Well, we've learned our lesson and smearing ourselves with those ashes we freely, happily, joyfully admit that it is Jesus who does things for us. He is to be the centre of our Lent, not ourselves. Ashes to everything else. No wonder recovering Alcoholics say, "a power greater than ourselves!"

Mind you, you probably don't you see yourself as recovering from anything. You're absolutely determined to impress the Lord with your own determination, discipline and self-denial, aren't you? Ah, well! Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if God doesn't have you etc. etc.

SINGING LENT'S SONG

2012-02-18T11:35:00.000Z

ALWAYS THE SAME TUNE:

The Gospels of the first two Sundays of Lent are always the same,

The Temptations of Christ, and his
Transfiguration.

Together they are “pitch-perfect” for the season, setting the tone just right.

Satan’s “IF” in the desert - implied rather than spoken in Mark - (Week 1) and the Father’s Voice of Approval on the mountain of the Transfiguration (Week 2) set the score clear upon the page.

There can be no mistake. Between these two Gospel Poles (Temptation and Transfiguration) the drama of our Faith Lives is given to us like a Chorus Line for Lent. This will be the tune whatever the action.

Our diocese (Lancaster U.K.) has intensified the rhythm for us this Lent with the "RECONCILIATION" initiative outlined in the image above. It seems entirely in keeping not only with the ever-present song of this Holy season but especially apt for us in this parish,"Holy Family, Blackpool".

Here we will once again find our heartbeats quickened to words we have sung for many Lents now, words we learned many years ago from a recording made by the monks of Weston Priory, "Come back to me, with all your heart”.

I'M NOT AFRAID OF DEATH, AM I?

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000Z

A friend warned me not to go here. "Put Death on the blog,"he said, "and it may be death to the blog. If you feel you must engage with the subject, at least hide it away somewhere. If you put it on top spot like you seem to do with each new topic, every Blogger in the place will leave and you'll never hear from them again. Nobody wants to talk about death, unless to make a Will."

I think he's wrong. I even think that there can actually be a spirituality of death. Put it another way, engaging with the thought of being dead can nourish our living and not just in making us grateful that they have not yet carried us off.

So here we go out along the rim of our existence, out along Eternity's Edge. Let's first of all have a brief look at what others have made of it; we may learn something.

William Wordsworth, for instance. In the last of his Duddon sonnets, he reflects on how the river (Duddon) was there long before us and will remain long after we have gone. This leads him to speculate about how it may all turn out. Lovely lines these, listen.

For backward Duddon as I cast my glance,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; — be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

Not much mention there of meeting up with old friends in heaven and a smiling God assuring us that we have laid aside all aches and pains, have had the "joy of our youth restored." We can play out now for the whole eternal day. How does that sound?
The most W.W. seems to hope for is some kind of good reputation others can remember us by and on the strength of that that are to go calmly to our graves.

There is a passage from the biblical "Book of Wisdom" or "The Wisdom of Solomon" which we often hear at Roman Catholic funerals. It was written just before the time of Jesus, 1,900 years before Wordsworth. Why is it that Wordsworth cannot sound as sure of himself as the writer of Wisdom? Hardly a failure of the imagination, this is Wordsworth! Watch the contrast in styles, in wording and most of all in imagery. Here's the reading from Wisdom, compare and contrast with Wordsworth above.

The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God,
no torment shall ever touch them.
In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die,
their going looked like a disaster,
their leaving us, like annihilation;
but they are in peace.
If they experienced punishment as men see it,
their hope was rich with immortality;
slight was their affliction, great will their blessing be.
God has put them to the test
and proved them worthy to be with him;
he has tested them like gold in a furnace,
and accepted them as a holocaust.
They who trust in him will understand the truth,
' those who are faithful will live with him in love;
for grace and mercy await those he has chosen.

In the early years of the 19th century, there lived in the hills near my native village in Ireland a poet by the name of James Tevlin. He was not a great poet but was gifted with a colourful imagination which he expresed best in his native Irish. He was given to personifying death in a vivid way that witnesses to the place it occupied in the minds of people at that time. Listen to just one small example of his imagination at work.

One afternoon late,
as I sat in my seat, Death from a dark shade did threaten me,
And when he drew near,
I trembled with fear,
His ghostly cold sneer did so frighten me.
His bones were all bare,
half joined here and there,
His visage was pale and all horrible,
No pencil or pen can picture to men,
An object so grim and so terrible.

In complete contrast, or to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, we have the Four Last Songs of composer Richard Strauss. Strauss wrote these towards the end of his life, reflecting on the journey that was now coming to a close. The last song, “In the gloaming” gives a peaceful, almost welcoming picture of death, very different from poor James Tevlin
Through want and joy we have
walked hand in hand;
we are resting from our travels
now, in the quiet countryside.

Around us the valleys fold up,
already the air grows dark,
only two larks still soar
wistfully into the balmy sky.

Come here, and let them fly about;
soon it is time for sleep.
We must not go astray
in this solitude.

O spacious, tranquil peace,
so profound in the gloaming.
How tired we are of travelling -
is this perchance death?

The Christian belief about death is stated in the creed, "We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting" but writers and poets may be able to help us imagine what our beliefs look like. And since Death is something we must all face, it would be helpful to hear from members on just how they imagine it. Just click the comment line at the end of this post.

__________________________________

But let us finish (for now) with Cardinal Newman's well known prayer so often a feature of funeral services and memorial cards.

"May He support us all the day long,

till the shades lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over and our work is done!
Then in His Mercy
may He give us a safe lodging
and a holy rest
and peace at the last."

CANDLES IN THE PARK

2012-02-04T09:08:00.000Z

I wrote this piece eleven years ago, and I have trotted it out from time to time since then. I hope it helps as we endure this present cold spell.

For days it had been bitterly cold. A wind too. Not a blowing wind you'll understand, but a stealthy, biting, hostile air, that seemed to seek out and penetrate every chink in bodily insulation. And it was dry, though not with the dryness of fair-weather days, a bare, barren, unsmiling dryness. The streets seemed swept clean of even the tiniest trace of rubbish. Not the smallest sweet paper or discarded bottle top to be seen. It would indeed have been a most welcome sight had it not been so bitterly, bitterly cold. In weather like this, people did not delay to remark on such things as the bareness of the streets. It was far too cold to stop for anything much.

But some things still had to be done, which is why he found himself seeking the scant shelter of the Hawthorn hedge. There he stood, reminding others how bitterly cold it was, or being told by them in turn. Plastic bag in hand he kept an impatient vigil, while his dog worked up the energy to perform. "Come on, boy", he muttered, "get on with it, this is no weather for hanging about" and the dog seemed to agree. There was something forlorn and desperate about the hunched back, as he bent to his task.

It was when he broke from his flimsy cover to clear the mess the dog had made that the flash of yellows and whites and purples caught his eye. He came that way every morning but had not noticed them before. Yet suddenly they were here. He can't have looked closely enough yesterday! Surely they could not have come through the hard barren earth of the park in just one night.

However it had happened, there they were, and his heart lifted. "The crocuses are up" he called, and then felt a little silly for there was no one there to hear. Of course, had there been someone there, he would still have called out, for this was surely good news indeed. If the crocuses were up, the snowdrops were too. Spring must surely be on its way.

Though he could not claim to be young, the thought of spring brought a rush of fancy to his head. Perhaps during the dead days since New Year, there had been some kind of underground convention, a gathering of snowdrops, crocuses, and all such as bring the yearly news of spring's arrival. Overnight these standard bearers of hope had agreed that today would be the day when they would arise and wave the flag of warmer days ahead. They had resolved to cheer the hearts of all those who trod the cold earth above. "Surprise, surprise, here we are".

This seemed to him to be such a proper concept of nature's affairs that he stood there in the otherwise cheerless air, positively enraptured by these first flames of spring. So uplifted of heart was he that he failed utterly to notice the white fall of flakes coming to him from out of the leaden skies. He did however have the distinct impression that it was not now, quite so cold.

SENSATION IN CHURCH

2012-01-29T21:16:00.001Z

To begin with the Gospel reading was from Mark. Our priest enjoys reading Mark; he's told us so. He finds it really exciting and dramatic. Sometimes he gets really carried away, throwing his hands about and doing the different "voices" and so on. Well, this morning's reading was right up his street. Jesus is teaching in his local synagogue, and then:

"In their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit, and it shouted, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.' But Jesus said sharply, 'Be quiet! Come out of him!' And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him".(Mk, 1:24 & 25)

As I say, our priest reads Mark very well and we all felt very moved, but the best was yet to come.

Apparently our priest had spent some of the previous night in one of the Rest Homes of the parish with an elderly lady who was dying. He told us about her. He reminded us of what a huge moment "dying" is and how moved he was to hear the old lady trying to follow the prayers he was saying. He felt privileged to have a role to play in keeping the devil out of things in the last hours of the old lady's life. "I felt a bit like Jesus in that synagogue just now", he said. "I'm sure that the teaching and example of that old lady's parents and teachers long ago, kicked in at the sound of the prayers I was saying and saw her safely home". [She did die a few hours later]

Yes, of course we were all moved, wouldn't you be? But wait, there's something else. He then took up the Sunday Newsletter and went through all the usual "who does what" and what's on the agenda this week. We know most of it by heart, but somehow this time it sounded better, especially when he said that all these small things helped to make us a parish and made us able to help others at the really BIG moments of their lives. Not a sound in the house, you might say. but wait, the best was yet to come.

Just before our priest gave the blessing, a young lady went up to the microphone dragging a sheepish-looking young man behind her. This is what she said to us.

"Most of you will remember me. I became a Catholic in this church two years ago. Just what that means really struck me during Father's words today. I owe a great deal to Father for helping me, but I owe even more to you all for being such a nice congregation and supporting me all that time".

"I am getting married to James on Valentines' day and of course our priest is doing it for us. When we get back from our honeymoon in Morocco we're going to throw a party after morning Mass just to say thanks to you." Cheers rang out all over the place, but the best was yet to come.

As we all pushed about at the end of Mass, this man said to our priest, "your sermon was quite good this morning, but that young lady really did it for me. When she said that we had all helped her into the faith, I felt as if I too had a hand in driving the devil out, just like in the Gospel."

He was probably right too, which makes that the best bit.

A PROJECT FOR SCHOOLS

2012-01-16T09:07:00.001Z

Interdisciplinary of course

My Bishop (Michael Campbell O.S.A. Lancaster diocese, England) has been in the news lately. If you are one of those readers who lives in what we like to call the "English Speaking World" which includes the U.S.A. you may already know this. But for others, and ever so briefly, let me explain.

Bishop Campbell wrote to his diocese on January 1st, a letter full of heartfelt concern for the success of the New Evangelisation AND his concern for our Catholic Schools.

The schools part attracted most attention, and that being so, this blog would like to help "the debate" as it is called, not by offering yet another opinion on the Bishop's observations, but by offering our schools something through which they can show the stuff of which they are made.

We hereby offer our schools a creative and imaginative project exactly right for these quiet weeks before Lent is wheeled out of storage one more time.

It concerns the passage, 1: 14 - 20 from the Gospel according to Mark, which just happens also to be the Gospel passage to be proclaimed at Mass NEXT Sunday, January 22nd, 2012, the Third Sunday of Year B.

If Mark were around today he would be in great demand as a scene writer in the film industry. He has the happy ability to plunge us into the very heart of the Christian message without losing his listeners in a sea of theological verbiage.

Drama, colour, action, these are his methods. There is no pretence at being an expert in these things, but he succeeds brilliantly in getting the message across. He just tells the story and suddenly we are in there, out of our depth but enjoying the experience, and learning.

So, here's your project school: Using Art, Drama, Music, and those boring old reliables known to us all as the three R's, unwrap Mark, 1:14 - 20 and do it so well that everyone in school wants to get out of whatever boat they are currently in and "follow Him".

Speaking from experience gained long ago, I can tell you that the arrival of Jesus on the scene can be done very well with the slow violins and crashing of drums which you will find in the introduction to Nial Diamond's "Hot August Night". And that's just for starters!

Go to it everybody. Let the Gospel explode in your school.

Master, Where Do You Live?

2012-01-14T11:13:00.002Z

It sounds as if someone needs a SAT NAV, but these are the Gospels, and we have learned to look deeper than that. If we are to discover just what's going on we need to go beyond the circumstances of what happened back then.. Let's do just that now. The passage is from John's account of the Gospel, 1: 35 - 42.

The scene is easy enough to imagine. These are "heady" days down by the Jordan where John the Baptist has been whooping it up for some time, drawing large crowds too. Some of these attached themselves to him and became his disciples. They hung on his every word. He ignited their interest, excited them with expectation of what might be next. So keyed up are they that when John draws their attention to Jesus, referring to him as "the Lamb of God" no less, two of John's own closest disciples want to know more and set off in pursuit of this new kid on the block.

The new man sees that he is being followed and turns round on them to ask, "What do you want?". An honest question like that deserves an honest answer and gets one in the form of another question, "Master, where do you live?" Jesus' answer to them is clear and simple, "come and see".

But they are not about to discover the hideout he has made for himself in some hillside cave, nor are they about to be led to a nice little pad Jesus has found on the outskirts of town. The invitation, "come and see" has nothing to do with location and living quarters. This is the Gospel and we must look deeper.

When the Baptist drew their attention to Jesus, mysteriously referring to him as "the lamb of God" he was guiding his disciples to a relationship that would prove beyond their imagining. That's why the Gospels were written. They are not diaries describing a life lived long ago in a foreign place, but ultimately part of other people's yesterdays. They are interested in what lies within and behind the circumstances of the life they describe.

The Gospels are not interested in getting the details of the life of Jesus absolutely "spot on" for our entertainment. They were written out of the conviction that Jesus who had died so publicly on that cross, was actually alive and that they could now live their relationship with him more fully in the circumstances of their own living.

Ultimately the Gospels were written for us and the lives we are living today. The writing of the Gospels was driven by the awareness that future generations would be the better for knowing what had been revealed to them. Knowing how to relate to this Risen Jesus, people yet unborn would have the opportunity to live lives that hummed with the excitement of his presence, just as theirs did then.

So just where do we find this Risen Jesus today: "Master where do you live?

No matter how strong our devotion to these things, no matter how much we are urged on by number-crunching clerics, strangers to this world of faith will not be impressed if all we can do to answer their question is to lead them to a cold church building and point at a tabernacle. We will need to go beyond the treasury of our own religious practices, beyond the inspiring words of scripture, beyond the example given by the lives of the saints.

Only when we have found a community that lives the kingdom Jesus preached, and only when we ourselves have become part of that community, only then will we be entitled to take the enquirers hand and answer their question as to where to find Jesus with the words of Jesus himself, "Come and see".

Just Like A Woman

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000Z

It's all of 48 years ago now, but I still remember it and probably always shall, as long as I am able to remember anything.

I was in Seminary, in Dogma class, studying Mariology (Mary). Our professor was conducting one of his occasional spot checks to see if we had been paying attention. I was on my feet.

He had asked about the role the Assumption of Mary into heaven played for the church. I knew the exact phrase he was looking for as I had noticed how much he liked it when he first mentioned it. Could I recall it? No way, not then when it mattered in any case. In shame and confusion, I was told to sit down. I had failed the test.

The phrase my teacher wanted to hear was, "Our Lady is the eschatological icon of the church". It means that by the grace of God, Mary was the image of everything the Church could become by remaining faithful to the grace of God. It's put rather well in the preface of the Mass of the Assumption. If you haven't noticed before now, try reading it privately.

But that is the thing about the Church and Mary. The great doctrines we think of as connected with Mary, are actually about Christ and his church, and therefore also about US.

The Immaculate Conception, which by the way has nothing to do with the presence or absence of sexual intercourse, points to the preparation of Mary for her forthcoming role as the Mother of Jesus.

The Virgin birth likewise teaches us that Jesus is a direct gift from God and not the product of human sperm. And now that you know it, please don't you forget that the Assumption is about Mary being the Eschatalogical icon of the Church!

All this is very fine and worth knowing for it helps us to a true (and orthodox) grasp of Church doctrine, BUT....

I can't help thinking that Mary also reminds us of something else also very important to our being Christians. It's there in the opening line of the Gospel passage we use in the Mass of the Assumption."Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth." Luke 1: 39.

And there you have it, one hugely exciting truth about Mary and about all of us too, especially women.

Ask yourself why Mary, having so recently become pregnant herself, set out on that long trip into the hills. The people at mass here the other day had no doubt. "It's what women do, Father". And he was right, it is. Mary was obeying something else God had given her, her womanly instinct to show concern and kindness to one who might need it. Most women seem blessed with this instinct and obey it easily enough, even at the risk of being exploited.

We don't have to travel far to discover the great things God has done for us, they are written clear enough in our better human instincts. Obeying these instincts even at the risk of being exploited may not teach us much about the great doctrines of the church, but they will surely ensure that we will share her Assumption with Mary in heaven.

THE ITALIAN JOB

2012-01-11T07:49:00.006Z

The lady with the photographs has made contact.

Years ago, when I was a young lad struggling with Latin and Algebra at a local secondary school back home in Ireland, this girl, even younger than I, was having her picture taken on the doorstep of the very house where I now sit typing. She was the parish May Queen and had lots of other beautifully dressed girls (and some boys) in attendance. It was a highlight in her young life and was dutifully recorded in the family photo album. But like all days, "Crowning Day" finished, the photos were carefully tucked away in a safe place and the years began to pass. The young lady married and moved away.

Now suddenly, without any warning, out of Italy comes her voice, and the pictures. And with the pictures of those far-off days, comes an image of me which I struggle to recognise, every bit as much as others struggle to name the faces in the pictures of a parish which was then but is not now.

"That looks like old Betty who lived across the street from us when we were young, but I think she had died before you came". Another voice ventures that the youngish lady standing at the back might just be someone they vaguely recall, but in the end they decide otherwise. Soon the struggle to recognise and remember proves too much. The pictures are laid aside and the chat returns to "today" things, the sort no one bothers to photograph.

And now I am here alone, the pictures before me, just a few feet but many years from the place of their taking. I am not however entirely alone, for I have become aware of an image of myself that comes not "out of Italy" but out of the photographs before me.

He is there in many of the pictures, a central figure, not always smiling for the camera, but clearly "looking pleasant." He is one of my predecessors as Parish Priest in this place and his coming to me from the pictures before me asks questions even as it comforts and entertains.

I find myself wondering if I sometimes take life a little too seriously. But then again, who can blame me; so many things these days have an urgent ring about them, even alarm. The easy-going confidence of his day seems far away tonight. Now the prevailing background beat is "something must be done, this can't go on".

And yet if the easy-going confidence which I imagine was his, came only from conceit, I do not envy him. But if his pleasant style and manner were rooted not in himself but in how he identified himself in his calling, then indeed I have an image I should hope some may yet come to recognise in me.

WHAT DID YOU GET FOR CHRISTMAS?

2012-01-05T08:22:00.004Z

Did you get what you were hoping for this Christmas ? Or are you long past the stage of wanting anything in particular, just happy if you are remembered in some way, especially by those you yourself could never forget.

These quiet days after Christmas are ideal for remembering how you were indeed remembered and basking a bit in the love expressed in that remembering. The Church seems to think that way too by asking us to bask in the wonder of the EPIPHANY, a feast that brings it all home to us.

Most of us have just ONE picture of the EPIPHANY: three men coming in search of Jesus and laying their gifts before him. But in fact the Feast of the Epiphany offers us THREE pictures and together they help us appreciate the great gift of Christmas itself.
Each of these three gets a mention in the official prayer-life of the church at this time of year, though the story of the three wise men grabs most of the attention.

For our own good, let’s look at each of them in turn. In their own way, each of these incidents gives us an image of God’s love reaching out to us in the midst of our own daily lives.

EPIPHANY first meets us in three travelers, men from a far country. Using their own limited vision, they get to the very edge of the great discovery, but there, close to Bethlehem, their own star deserts them so that they need to humbly ask directions from the wisdom of the Bible and then they can continue their search. Finding Jesus they lay their gifts before him (the tools of their trade) and as the bible tells us they go back to their own country by a different way; Changed Men.
EPIPHANY reaches for us again by the waters of the Jordan where we hear the Baptist proclaiming that one of those gathered for baptism, is in fact the Chosen One, on whom the “favour of the Father rests.” Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus. They ask him, “Master, where do you live?” and hear those loving one words of invitation, “Come and see”. For them too, things are never the same again.
EPIPHANY meets us lastly and conclusively at Cana in Galilee. The wine has run out and in that easily understood domestic problem we are given an image of how it is to be in our own following of Christ. Our own selves too will be exhausted, but that is not a moment for despair. It is in moments of our greatest need that under the power of Jesus, the water of our best efforts becomes the wine of celebration. It is living testimony that our own fruitfulness will always be found in doing his bidding.

We learn these lessons from stories in the Gospels, but they only begin to mean something to us when we recongise them as moments in our own lives. And thus it is that, "The best gift you got this Christmas may be one you are still receiving".

"At the Gate of the Year"

2011-12-31T09:54:00.014Z

Minnie Haskell was her name, or so I have been told, and she wrote the poem, or so I have been told. But it was surely King George VI quoting it in his radio broadcast of Christmas 1939 that gave the poem its staying power. Here are the opening lines. They are the best part of it, or so I have been told.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

"Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!"

And he replied:

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

And here we do indeed stand at the Gate of a New Year. The new year, now advancing upon us with such determined and eager strides shall be called "2012". In due course it will itself become the old year and we shall wave it good bye with the same mixture of fondness and regret with which we now let go of its predecessor, "2011". But for now at least, all is new. Fresh possibilities offer themselves with courage and daring. Hope stirs us at our depths even as we emerge from the old year, dog-tired and trodden upon.

We have seen enough New Years to know we have no control over what will come our way in 2012, but we can surely do better than stand at the Gate of the year, empty-handed and forlorn. Let us at least ask ourselves what to take with us into the unknown.

There is a game, a game of quite serious intent. It is known as the "Balloon" game. We are asked to imagine ourselves hundreds of feet up in the basket of a Balloon, sailing high over dangerous, raging seas. Around us in our balloon are not only the possessions of a lifetime but our friends, our habits and our principles, that mish-mash of things that help us feel we belong here. The balloon starts to lose height and we are asked to discard one thing after another to prevent our being thrown into the raging waters.

We've probably all played this game at one time or another. Have we got the time, the inclination, the courage, to play it just once more as we stand here at the Gate of another New Year? Beneath us, not the raging of the ocean, but the apathy, the misunderstanding and even the enmity of the world through which we will travel in 2012. What one item will see us safe to the farthest shore where lies safety, even salvation?

As is my wont, I shall read Hardy's "Darkling Thrush" today, but I hope I shall also find time to clear the floor of the basket under my balloon. I shall be trying to take with me not necessarily the things I have been told, but the one thing I hold most dear, which I think I have expressed in the picture. Then I shall be ready when the call goes up, "we have lift-off".

A Banging and a Wailing

2011-12-27T00:48:00.002Z

This Blog has readers right across planet earth, China, Brazil, Japan, Russia, France, Australia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Georgia, Italy, Romania, Taiwan, Poland,France, Colombia, Canada, Estonia, Zambia, USA, Sweden, UK, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Singapore, Chile, Lebanon, Mexico, Lithuania to date. But it is a fair bet that many of these people have never heard of the town where I live, so let me offer you all a very brief description: Blackpool is a holiday resort on the Northwest coast of England which sometimes glitters but often stinks.

I drove through the glitter tonight. The Christmas lights in front of the famous Tower and running south along what was once called the Golden Mile, really are pretty and even (hold your breath) tasteful. But there was no getting away from the stink either.

I was out late in that part of town on what might be called an errand of mercy. Earlier in the evening, just above the sound of the television set, I fancied I heard someone cry out. At the front door I saw a hand struggling to get through the letter box. The poor girl looked absolutely wretched; wet, emaciated, desperate.

I happen to like those soups in plastic cups you can get in Sainsbury's, so there are usually one or two in my top cupboard. I have never seen anyone demolish one of them as "Teresa" did, sitting there at our kitchen table in the warmth of the electric fire. She took mightily to the cheese sandwiches too. She was ravenously hungry.

She needed money too, don't we all? But once we had secured her accommodation for the next few nights, her sobs died.

We found her a place near enough to my place (too near?) but needed to go all the way to South Shore to get the key and it was on the way to South Shore that I drove through that section of the famous "Illuminations" and noticed how well they look since the re-organisation. It was then too that I noticed the stink. And no, it was not the girl, it was me.

You can call me a hero, if you like; after all Teresa had already been turned away at three churches. But I had a guilty secret gnawing away inside and it wouldn't go away. I knew in my heart of hearts that at this stage all I really wanted was to be rid of the creature, and (forgive me) her incomprehensible accent.

I had given her food and arranged her lodging, but somehow the words "as long as you did it to one of these the least of my brethern, you did it to me" didn't seem to fit how I felt, inside.

I passed "Funny Girls" on the way home, a famous night spot where men dressed as girls entertain audiences who pay over the odds for their night out. I had a real urge to snort "this town stinks", but I held my tongue for I was acutely conscience of my own B.O. problems.

I know he said, " the poor you will always have with you", but does he have to send them banging and wailing at my door?

Search and You will Find

2011-12-26T10:07:00.004Z

After three days, they found him.

Back in the Nazareth of his childhood, just one of a scattering of small towns in remote, far-off Galilee, he will have noticed how his parents looked south to the Holy City, how they spoke of it with awe and longing.

He will have grown up among subsistence-level people who, in the midst of their carefully eked-out existence, still managed to save and "put aside" for their trips to Jerusalem. And not just to Jerusalem as holiday makers but to the Temple as pilgrims.

He will have heard the other villagers sing from the psalms as they made their long journey to the Holy City, "it is there that the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord". And again, " I rejoiced when I heard them say 'Let us go to God's house, and now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem' ".

When those who came in search of him eventually found him, they discovered that he was doing much more than merely "standing within the gates of Jerusalem". He was in the Temple itself, sitting among the very leaders of the law, asking them questions. The growing lad was finding his own voice and in the process revealing the Word within him. Not everyone would come in search of such a word for being "in Control" had shut them out from what was yet to be revealed.

Many years from now there would be another "three days", three dark and violent days when the veil of the Temple that shut out the Holy of Holies from mere Pilgrims, would be "rent in two from top to bottom." The child they had found in the temple had now not only become a man, but in his death made access to The Holy open to all. In revealing the Truth of his Word, he now asks questions of us all.

Some do not find it easy to listen to the questions he asks for they seem to threaten Orthodoxy, THEIR orthodoxy, and therefore also their control of "the temple". But those who come to the crib this Christmas, ready and willing to be changed, must not come in control of anything. Should their search be genuine, they will find Him a revealing answer.

Here is a Sign for You

2011-12-23T07:19:00.008Z

Click on Image to Enlarge

If for any reason the image does not now inspire you as once it would have done, get some children to help you with it.

UNPACKING THE GIFT OF CHRISTMAS

2011-12-07T13:33:00.013Z

FIRST PART: Find the gift.

Step 1. – Look in the Gospels, and in other parts of scripture too.
Step 2.– Get ready to be surprised. Lots of us imagine we already know what Christmas is all about, and consequently miss out the bit that really matters.
Step 3. – Be prepared to search. The shepherds and the wise men had to do so, why should you be different?
Step 4. – Ask real questions, not just clever ones. Our questions should bring us face to face with what we want for Christmas – from Jesus
Step 5. – The Gospels are not stories for children, they are serious theology done in a friendly way, a way which only the heart of a child really understands.

SECOND PART: Know where the writers are “coming from”.
This is nothing like as difficult as we imagine. We already know what the writers of the Christmas stories had at the back of their minds, because we have the same thing at the back of our minds.

In big serious theology we describe the work of Jesus by using words such as, "Redemption", "Atonement", "Salvation" etc. But the Gospels explain it all using simpler words and colourful stories. Here’s a good example of how they do it.

Theology reminds us that before Jesus, only Jewish High Priests could go through the curtain in the Temple into the very presence of God (the Holy of Holies). It then goes on to use big words like “Justification” to teach us that by his death and resurrection, Jesus changed everything. Now, because of Jesus, we can all meet up with God. Wonderful stuff, but heavy!

The Gospels put all that wonderful but serious-sounding teaching in a way we can easily picture and remember. Even a child could. Here it is. When Jesus dies on the cross, the Gospels say,“The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

There you have it, big serious theology expressed in an unforgettable image. That’s the way the Gospels work with Christmas too.

When we come to unwrap Christmas that's the kind of thing to look out for. The events surrounding the birth of Jesus are NOT there to entertain us or give us nice memories of our childhood but to explain what the birth of Jesus means to us now that we are grown up. This takes us very nicely to part 3, below.

THIRD: Now you have found the gift, you should do like they do in Scripture:

1. Like the shepherds in the Gospel of Luke, you should praise (GLORIFY) God for the sheer wonder of it all.
2. Like The Gospel of Matthew talks of the wise men laying their gifts before Jesus and going back to their own country by a different way. You too should let the your meeting with Jesus change you so that you go back to your own life and live it differently.

That done, you have definitely unpacked
the Gift of Christmas

HIGH TIME

2011-12-03T08:54:00.001Z

In the readings of the second Sunday of Advent (B)
there is much talk of the plans God has for a future time.
The words used are those of the Prophets long ago.

It may be "High Time"
we learned to see the plans and promises of God
expressed, not only in the lovely poetic phrases
of the ancient Prophets
but also in the often confused utterances
that come from out of our times,
our own lives.

TIME was there at our beginning; had it not been we would not have been, ever! Without the gift of TIME our existence is unthinkable. Without the gift of TIME, no Register or Record book, and no family photo album would ever have revealed the slightest trace of us. If we were to exist then we needed TIME to be there before we even arrived.

Saying all of which you may feel is a waste of time, for isn't it painfully obvious? Well, yes and no. TIME is the umbilical cord between creature and creator; obvious when you think about it, but when do we do that? THINK about it, I mean. Hardly ever, which is why Advent is so handy.

If we give Advent our best attention entirely for its own sake, and not just like a film trailer for the main event on December 25th, the roots of the season will go deeper inside us and help us ENGAGE with our real selves.

Advent may find us thinking of things of the past, but we can go one better. We can think of the promise of TIME being fulfilled in our own lives now.

The trouble is our lives seem too ordinary. How often do we feel like describing our Mondays and Tuesdays in the lovely images the prophets use. Try picturing your own day-to-day life and then try declaring over it, "it shall come to pass." Try imagining something of great worth emerging from within your own time-frame, something of a quite different order than a mere stroke of good fortune like winning the lottery. The TIME you were given when you arrived in this world holds just such a promise, why not dare to imagine it this Advent?

It's like that little boy isn't it? The one who was on his way to school and noticed a man with an iron chisel chipping away at a block of stone. He passed by thinking what a hard, boring way of spending the day. Every day he passed and every day the man was there chipping little pieces from the great hard stone. Then one day when the boy reached the spot where the man was, he noticed that the block of stone was now the statue of a horse. "Mister", the boy asked, " how did you know there was a horse in there?

Please pay attention to your life, be patient with it; it takes time, and it is the only time you've got.

Please pay attention to your life, be patient with it; it takes time.

ADVENT IMAGE

2011-11-29T21:02:00.000Z

Both texts needed to complete the picture

GOD IS A SLOW MOVER

2011-11-27T16:30:00.003Z

President Mitterrand (France) and Signor Craxi (Italy) emerge from their talks in Florence calling for a new step towards European Union.

In London, a grandfather cradles his grandson, whose father (the older man's son) had died aboard Sir Galahad. The picture is from the post Falklands memorial service in St.Paul's.

The royal family complete with Princess Diana assemble in the Cathedral for the service while Jean from Bolton whose husband had also died in the conflict, is pictured tear-sodden with her three year old son. The little lad would be 29 now.

We read too of awards in the Honours list for those who helped to rescue people from the IRA blast at Brighton's Grand Hotel.
Lebanese gunmen upset President Regan's hopes as they hijack a TWA jet with 126 American tourists aboard. At Headingly, Leeds, England and Australia play the latest in their never-ending Ashes series while BBC Saturday night television offers us quick-fire funny stories from the Comedians.

All this and more from a yellowing copy of The Times at the bottom of my sock drawer. How it's managed to survive so long, I can't say, but as it provokes such thoughts, I have a yen to keep it safe for a little longer

The French, Jesuit Priest, poet and scientist, Pierre Teillard de Chardin took a long view of such things, referring to them as The Slow Work of God

Here is how he put it in his "Hymn of the Universe"
See what it means to you, and have a good look in your own sock drawer.

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay,
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.

And yet it is the law of progress
that it is done by passing through some states of instability
- and that it may take a very long time.

And so it may be with you.
Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say grace and circumstance acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing,
that his hand is leading you
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense.
and incomplete.

Above all trust in the slow work of God,
our loving Vine dresser."

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay,
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of progress that it is done by passing through
some states of instability - and that it may take a very long time.

And so it may be with you.
Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on
As though you could be today what time
(that is to say grace and circumstance
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing,
that his hand is leading you and accept
the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense.
and incomplete.

Above all trust in the slow work of God,
our loving Vine dresser."

Pierre Teillard de Chardin from "Song Of The Universe".

GIVE ADVENT A CHANCE

2011-11-26T09:44:00.008Z

The first signs that Christmas was on its way appeared in shop windows weeks ago, but now, as we near the end of November, things are really hotting up. And it's not just the shops and supermarkets.

Its been years since we first complained about how Christmas had begun to squeeze Advent out of our homes and schools and even our parishes. Our complaining seems to have got us nowhere. The noisy, forceful bustle of "getting ready for Christmas" is more insistent than ever, and we may have no one to blame but ourselves.

Do we honestly know what we are supposed to be doing during Advent? Do we know what we mean when we preach about the coming of Jesus, even his second coming? What are we trying to say when we sing of John the Baptist on Jordan's banks? Even if we do get around to an Advent wreath and a Jesse tree, are we all that sure about the message we are sending out?

We had better be careful out there, because there's a lot at stake in the message we give Blaming the festive enthusiasm of our schools and our shops is no excuse.

Of course we are not such fools as to spend Advent pretending that Jesus has not actually come yet and that these four weeks give us just the space we need to show how getting ready for his arrival should really be done. Not such fools? Who says we're not?

If we are not utterly convinced that Jesus Christ has indeed already arrived among us, "the word made flesh" and that in his risen presence he lives and moves among us, then even the very best of our Advent efforts will dissolve into little more than playing a vast game of pretence. "For the sake of the children" we tell ourselves.

What a rotten shame! Advent is an opportunity, a time for adult Christians to grow up. We should not allow the beauty of the daily readings at Mass , or the hymns or anything else we like to bask in at this time, to lull us into doing nothing more than waiting quietly until our various lists, (mailing and shopping), leave us no other option but to join the mad Christmas rush.

To do that would be a tragedy, because faced with the great questions of meaning and purpose all humans must face, those who acknowledge the Risen presence of Christ are given the great gift of a clear way into plumbing such depths. The season of Advent is a blessed time precisely because it helps to focus our attention on the answers we have been given. That, rather than once more playing the usual waiting game; for the children of course.

This blog will try to play its part in this exploration by examining the difference His coming amongst us HAS ALREADY made to our understanding of time, that great umbilical cord that here on earth serves to tie us in to eternity.

We begin our Advent efforts with two posts, one entitled Time Travel and another named, "God is a Slow Mover".

More next week.

ADVENT THEME 1.

2011-11-23T05:45:00.000Z

You can't sleep. Just when you feel you are about to drop off, a random thought rouses you again. Eventually, you call out into the darkness, "what time is it, Love?" But "Love" does not answer.

Then you remember that there cannot be an answer, not now or ever again, for the other half of your marriage bed is empty and will go on being empty into the future. For whatever reason, "Love" will not return. Suddenly, not just your bedroom, but your whole life feels empty.

As you become more aware of your loneliness a ghost enters your room, not the ghost of someone you have known and loved and called by name, but a ghost who would rather you did not know its name. This ghost does not love you. It comes first to deceive and then to destroy. Beware of this ghost. It is the ghost of self- pity.

Advent asks us to become more aware of time; time that wags a finger in warning, even as it beckons us forward in hope.

Advent fills us with promise, and then, so that this hope is not wasted on us, Advent also offers us words of caution.

Advent reminds us of Time in all its phases. Advent speaks of vision and days to come and of days that are now here. Advent chastises us for the waste of Time and enlivens us with its promise.

Above all Advent reminds us, not of clock or calendar or the daily routine of life, but of the hand that first gave us the gift of Time. He gave it to us without letting go of it. It acts now like an umbilical cord forever connecting he who gives with those who receive.

Once we accept time as a gift from the hand of the Giver, the ghost of self-pity runs away from us. In the company of Times' giver, we are never alone. Once we accept Time as a gift, Love will always answer.

GOD IS A SLOW MOVER

2011-11-23T05:40:00.006Z

President Mitterrand (France) and Signor Craxi (Italy) emerge from their talks in Florence calling for a new step towards European Union.

In London, a grandfather cradles his grandson, whose father (the older man's son) had died aboard Sir Galahad. The picture is from the post Falklands memorial service in St.Paul's.

The royal family complete with Princess Diana assemble in the Cathedral for the service while Jean from Bolton whose husband had also died in the conflict, is pictured tear-sodden with her three year old son. The little lad would be 29 now.

We read too of awards in the Honours list for those who helped to rescue people from the IRA blast at Brighton's Grand Hotel.
Lebanese gunmen upset President Regan's hopes as they hijack a TWA jet with 126 American tourists aboard. At Headingly, Leeds, England and Australia play the latest in their never-ending Ashes series while BBC Saturday night television offers us quick-fire funny stories from the Comedians.

All this and more from a yellowing copy of The Times at the bottom of my sock drawer. How it's managed to survive so long, I can't say, but as it provokes such thoughts, I have a yen to keep it safe for a little longer

The French, Jesuit Priest, poet and scientist, Pierre Teillard de Chardin took a long view of such things, referring to them as The Slow Work of God

Here is how he put it in his "Hymn of the Universe" See what it means to you, and have a good look in your own sock drawer.

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay,
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.

And yet it is the law of progress
that it is done by passing through some states of instability
- and that it may take a very long time.

And so it may be with you.
Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say grace and circumstance acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing,
that his hand is leading you
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense.
and incomplete.

Above all trust in the slow work of God,
our loving Vine dresser."

ROUTES AND ORIGINS

2011-11-20T16:58:00.000Z

Like a silver ball being bounced about on a Pin-Ball machine, the traffic in Birmingham's city centre, slides from roundabout to roundabout as it finds its way out of the city's confusion and on to the great roads that connect with the bigger world beyond.

For mapping purposes these great roads stretching out across the middle of England, carry alphanumeric titles such as A38, A41 and A34. But for the city’s natives, and those requiring easy-to-remember directions, they are more often referred to by names that mark their destination, thus: Bristol Road, Coventry Road, Warwick Road and so on.

Among this vast network of roads are housed millions of people from all parts of the world. Some are indeed indigenous English, but many more have roots which, like the great roads themselves, reach out far and wide, geographically and historically.

There are people here whose origins connect with Pakistan, India, Ireland, China, Turkey, Tibet and elsewhere. Their presence indicated by names over shop entrances, modes of dress, places of worship, their language and accents.

One of these roads leaves the city bearing the title A41 and the name Stratford Road. It is bound for the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford upon Avon. Shortly out of the city centre it sprouts a sibling which is to be known as "Warwick Road". The newly born road takes on the title of A41 while it's older brother now becomes A34. This, the "Stratford Road" is our route.

The traffic is less confusing than in the city centre, but still needs careful handling. There is a steady flow of vehicles both in and out of the city, while all the while cars turn left and right, their occupants finding their way among the thousands of semi- detached houses to that numbered dwelling which, regardless of their personal origins, is now "home".

We take one such a turning and find ourselves in the home of an Irish couple in their seventies. They have given most of their adult lives to this great English city, but their origins have always been dear to them and remain so today. Husband John hails from Diralagh a mere townland in the country parish of Moynalty, itself far from conspicuous on most road maps. But today, Diralagh is more of a presence to husband John than any of the more well known places roundabout him.

Only a couple of rows of houses separate him from the lines of traffic humming past on the great "A" roads stretching across the country. But today Diralagh is writ larger than ever on his private inner map, the map of his feelings.

It is March 17th, St.Patrick's day, a day dear to all born in Ireland but especially dear to this man from Diralagh. "My father always planted potatoes on St.Patrick's day" he had once told her, and so she was not in the least surprised when she saw him head for his garden, spade over shoulder, to answer an inner call many of his neighbours in this cosmopolitan place might well regard as "foreign".

Later as he accepts the proffered cup of tea, he looks at her and laughs. "Why wouldn't I?" She knows better than to reply. An answer would only disfigure the question. The heart will always do its own reasoning.

MOTHER CHURCH?

2011-11-18T05:12:00.000Z

THE CHURCH AS MOTHER
©Valentine Farrell 1996

Up on the hill it stands,
back from the road, a bit.
Strong and brown and black and big,
the Church

Daily I pass it, on my busy way.
It looks at me, I look at it,
Nothing happens.

I’m not disappointed, I never expected much,
From it.
“Sign this, sign that, tell me where”,
My needs are few and simple.

But, big and black and brown, it Gospels out Compassion.
“I would go with you on your busy way”, it says,
“For I am not a building,
Though these I seem to need.
I am the voice of One who echoes down the ages,
‘This is my body given for you’
Come, let me suckle you in your deepest need,
For I am the voice of She,
Who would have you call her, Mother”.

LEARNING TO SEE

2011-11-18T04:00:00.000Z

Why do you come back to me now, Miss Julia O'Brien? Now, after all these years? You were the sightless one who helped populate the days of my childhood. Often when we poured out from the school gate, we village children would find you there where earlier there had been no trace of you. It was as if you had been dissolved from the land of shadows to emerge into our noisy, rowdy world, a ghostly presence though real enough to all who could see.

Miss O'Brien I was afraid of you. I was there with the other children, on the fringes of those who crowded about you. But you were the "blind teacher" and I was afraid. I was afraid because you seemed to live in a foreign place. Your appearing among us as we came from school spoke to me of mystery. I held my breath.

You "knew us by our voices", yes I know, but you can't have known much of me for I rarely spoke. And I knew so little about you, Miss O'Brien. I once called to your home up in Billywood with Rosary Tickets. I remember peering past your sister into the darkness of the house behind her and finding you there faded into the shadows.

Miss O'Brien, you taught my mother. She once told me a great secret about you. She told me that you were not a trained teacher but a monitor who, it seems, was someone who was so good at school that they were put in charge of other children and then simply got promoted; teachers by popular acclaim. Miss O'Brien, I never told anyone about this. But now I would like to tell you something about me.

It's not my eyesight: that's fine. I do wear glasses, but, as people say, I don't miss much. But Miss O'Brien, I am going deaf. I keep on referring to it as " hard of hearing" but it is getting worse. In the room next to this I have lots of musical recordings, but it is becoming harder and harder to hear them properly. I can't play any musical instruments but I love Beethoven, his late quartets and some of his piano sonatas and I dread the day when I will not hear them. That day is very near for already the sound is distorted as if someone was cooking breakfast in the background.

Miss O'Brien, how did you cope? Was it enough to know people by their voices, or were you just a brave soul, keeping up appearances? How did Ludwig van B cope? Perhaps it is not really about coping but something else entirely?

You loved the Church didn't you, Miss O'Brien, you and your Rosary Tickets. But Miss O'Brien I am even more afraid of the Church than I ever was of you. The Church can be a brutish place. The best of our leaders often seem more concerned with securing the triumph of the institution than the message we carry. Do you think it is blind or deaf? It claims, sometimes very loudly, that it has the best of all vision, the clearest of hearing, but Miss O'Brien I can't help asking, why, in that case, does it try to force peoples' minds into the straightjackets of history. You know as well anyone, Miss O'Brien, people do grow up.

Miss O'Brien, what's it like to be really blind, or really deaf for that matter? Why can't we all look and listen?

IN THE NAME OF A WOMAN

2011-11-17T20:00:00.002Z

We called her "Mammy".

When I first came to live in England I noticed how unusual that was. Here it’s "Mum". There is something chirpy and matey about "Mum", even a touch of humour. "Mammy" sounds too much like breast-feeding.

Waving a placard that says "Hello Mum" at the television cameras is fun, but "Hello Mammy!" you wouldn’t dare. But that’s what we called her, my mother. Mammy she was to all eight of us. All the other mothers around were "Mammies" too. It’s the way we were back then. I don’t know what the present generation says, I can’t recall. I do recall however coming face to face with the reality behind, "Mammy". That comes easily into focus even now.

I was thirty six years of age and my mother was not well. I was sitting there just "being with her" as they say, in her bedroom, the same bedroom it had always been. Here she had retreated to "say her prayers" when the sound and fury of family life got on her nerves a bit. My sister, a busy woman in those days with children of her own, handed me a bowl of milk pudding, semolina I think. "Help Mammy with that, will you?" she said and left. I did, immediately, without thinking. But I had only just begun to help her with the first spoonful when the power of what was happening struck home. I was spoon-feeding my mother in the same room, on the exact same big brass bed where thirty-six years previously she had given birth to me. I suddenly felt quite overcome. Foolish? Maybe, but it was and remains the most difficult thing I have ever done for another human being.

She dribbled, or was it my hand; what’s the difference? I took her face flannel and wiped her chin, then offered another spoonful. No big deal really! But all the while I was thinking of a Thursday afternoon in August thirty six years before, my father working away from home and the kindly old Nurse Gogarty helping my mother, "Mammy," through the pain and the sweat and the blood to bring me into the world. And it had all happened right here on this same bed, this same big brass bed. And now she needed me, the labour of that long-gone August day. I should have loved it for I’m made that way. Ask any of my family and they’ll tell you how I’m a great one for seeing meanings in things, latent significances in dates and places. I should have loved it, but I didn’t, I did not enjoy one moment of it. And the reason I did not enjoy it is quite simple; she did.

There was I, her son, the priest, complete with breviary, black suit and a mind full of theology. There was I the "Man of God" at the place of my conception and birth faced by the work of my Creator as it was before ever my learning coloured things in and taught me how to name them. This was no page in a book, no nice prayerful thought, this was life plain and simple and if God is at the heart of life then maybe Life is God’s maiden name. Could she sense that I felt out of my depth, out of my depth in the very circumstances where I should have felt most at home? I don’t know. Nor should I know for this was her moment as well as mine, her side of the experience. She laughed, not a laugh you could hear, but still one that lit up in her eyes and for a moment at least brought back that same old flicker about her mouth.

As that smile appeared, an old awareness gripped me again. Here was a real human being, separate from me. Not just "Mammy," but someone with her own story and her own "take" on life. Here was a local girl who had done her growing up in the same place I had done mine, except earlier. Here was a young woman who had caught my father’s eye and in their furious courtship had set the tongues of the neighbourhood wagging. Here was the widow who had bravely faced very difficult years. Here was Angela.

She has her own grave now. Long ago I thought of putting her maiden name on the stone, but convention won. But I had thought about it for it seemed a truer witness to her selfhood. After all, growing up, getting married, having the eight of us, that and lots more, is her story, distinct, and individual. "What I do is me, for this I came" – so the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. True enough; and what our "doing" means to others, the relationship it puts in place, even how, in the end, they choose to name us, that is their story.

MIDDAY PRAYER

2011-11-16T07:30:00.000Z

The day thou gavest, Lord, is nowhere near ended, though it has been traveling steadily onwards since that first grey moment when you gave it leave.

It has already acquired a name and number and in its own good time will take its place in that mysterious world we call the past. Filed away in its proper place it will await the scrutiny of visitors from other days and may well contribute to what these visitors call history. But all that is in the future, for the day thou gavest, Lord, is still ours for the shaping.

Some will come to know it by different names; names that record what this particular day meant to them. A birthday, an anniversary, some sporting triumph, the coming of a time of peace, a financial disaster, these, or others, will ensure that this day, the one thou gavest, Lord, just a few short hours ago, will be marked forever, not simply as one among so many, but destined to wear forever a fame it did not seek and for which it was not designed.

"Ours for the shaping", Lord, this day thou gavest, so grant us too, O Generous Giver of all good gifts, the wit and wisdom to shape well this day thou gavest.

CAMPING OUT IN THE CHURCH

2011-10-30T23:26:00.005Z

"The Duchy of Cornwall, a private £700m property empire that last year provided him with an £18m income"

The "him" in question is Prince Charles and the quote is from a Guardian article this weekend.

Should we do something about THE GUARDIAN or about THE PRINCE OF WALES ?

Or should I as a non-British citizen, mind my manners and shut up?

TRINITY: A COMPASS BEARING FOR LIFE

2011-06-15T21:06:00.006+01:00

Attraction, Longing, Desire,
Ownership, Power, Influence, Control;
Fickle and misleading signposts on all our journeys.
They read like place names on the tortured map
of the human heart.

And not just the web-like story of individual human beings;
the political map of the world,
the roll call of Statesmen, Churchmen, Businessmen,
Educators, Writers and Artists,
bears equal testimony
to the ideals, the ambitions, the plans and hopes,
the schemes and machinations
that are the route map of history.

With wonderful directness,
the first page of The Bible tells us:
"In the image of God He made Him, Male and female he created them."

Placed against that statement of belief
All our twisted motivations lie revealed.
The pain is like a crucifixion.

Today, Trinity Sunday,
We do our daily blessing of ourselves,
With care, and awed awareness.

To bless is to dress,
To go out into the day, wearing the livery of God.
Invoking the Blessing of the Trinity on our lives,
We present ourselves as we would have people
see us
and bring to them the blessing we enjoy.

We do not worry that words fail us on this day ^
for the Trinity is not a riddle to be solved
but a mystery to be explored,
not an arrangement of characters,
but a relationship of persons,
a relationship of love;
free, yet interdependent, life-giving, love.

We know this by the sign we drew
while invoking the Trinity
It was the sign of all that we had to offer Him
that empty token of all our failures,
the Cross.
God took it as the token of His self-expression,
A compass-bearing for LIFE,
His Word is all.