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Tuesday |
Nov-30 |
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'Those we love don't go away. They walk beside us every day, unseen, unheard but always near: still loved, still missed and very dear.' ~inscription on a candle last night as part of a Remembrance liturgy for deceased past pupils and staff of Mount Mercy College, Model Farm Road
Today is the last day of November. Traditionally during this month, we remember and pray for our loved ones who have died. These people were special and important to us. The following words of the late John O'Donoghue sum it up best:
"Though we wake to your loss, you dwell in that place of our hearts where no storm or night or pain can reach you. Though your days here were brief, your Spirit was alive, awake, completed. Though we cannot see you with our outward eyes, we know our souls gaze is upon your face, smiling back at us in everything. Let us not look for you only in memory, where we grow lonely without you. May you continue to inspire us, to enter each day with a generous heart, to serve the call of courage and love. Until we see your beautiful faces again in that land of where there is no separation, where all tears will be wiped from our minds and where we will never lose you again." |
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Monday |
Nov-29 |
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'Winter can be symbolic of the spaces in my heart that seem cold, dark, barren, empty, fallow, dormant, infertile, inactive - a hard place to be, a place that invites me, if I can, to wait for the thaw and the melting that leads to new life.' ~Finola Cunnane'
Ireland and much of Europe has been gripped by freezing Artic conditions. The icy grip of winter has never been as early before with temperatures plumetting to -9C and lower in places. The cold snap looks like continuing for another week at least. On a spiritual level, winter and the icy conditions can speak to us too. We have just begun our journey through the season of Advent. It's starting point is recognising that we all have cold, dark, barren, empty and bleak places within. We should not feel that it's just you or me. These places are within every person. It can indeed be a tough place to be, but one that we can also move out of too. The invitation of Advent is to allow God breathe new life, hope, energy and a sense of new beginnings into all those cold, dark and dreary places in our lives. This is something we all yearn and long for. Every big freeze up always has a turning point and a thaw sets in. These coming weeks of Advent could be that turning point. |
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Saturday |
Nov-27 |
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Another Thought from the new book 'A Year To Remember'
November is the pause button of the year, if we could but open our hearts to it. It comes to us, not wrapped in the glowing colours of other seasons, but in sombre, dark tones.' ~Charlie Meagher
Not many would put November down as their favourite month. It is easy to see why. All around the landscape is bleak and bare, our gardens are empty of colour, we feel starved of light and long for those warm summer days. We try and distract ourselves away from the dreariness of November by simply being busy. But it is our loss if we try and run away from what November has to offer. It offers us the invitation to pause, to look at our own lives and to think about those parts of our lives that also feel bleak, cold and in darkness. Jesus was laid into a dark empty tomb on Good Friday and the stone was rolled into a sealed position. It was meant to be the end. But it wasn't. Whatever is bleak, barren, dark or cold in our lives comes with a promise of new life, change and most importantly hope. November may not be our favourite month but it does have a lot to offer.  |
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Sunday |
Nov-21 |
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The following reflection is by Fr.Tom Cahill
Bye, bye 'ordinary' time. Welcome cosmic. The Church's liturgical year ends this week and with a bang by celebrating Jesus Christ as King of the Universe. And what a universe it is! Its sheer size, astonishing age and confounding complexity are beyond anything our minds can grasp. The more we see of it through the Very Large Telescope in Chile, or the Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, the more awesome it appears. From data obtained 22,000 light years distant, astronomers have lit upon a new class of star so colossal it shatters current theoretical limits as to how large a star can be. Then, last June in just one download of information the Kepler telescope doubled the number of known planets outside our solar system to 700. Just as scientists realise through their impressive discoveries how little they know compared to what can be known, so too should we as people of faith realise the same as far as our faith is concerned.
Dogmas don't close doors. They ensure that the right doors are opened. The door to the cosmic Christ is clearly marked in today's Second Reading (Col 1:12-20). There we have the risen Christ described as the one in whom all things in heaven and on earth were created, even these newly discovered colossal stars, and all things as yet undetected by human technology.There's more to faith than morals. There's the breathtaking, visionary, near cockeyed, mind-stretching promise of a fullness of life beyond death that no telescope could ever reveal. That's what faith is for. Happy New Year!
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Friday |
Nov-19 |
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'As we continue during these days of November to pray for our loved ones who have died, here is a little story to a make us smile'
The wise old Mother Superior was dying. The nuns gathered around her bed, trying to make her comfortable. They gave her some warm milk to drink, but she refused it. Then one of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen and added some whiskey into the warm milk. Back at the Mother Superiors bed, she held the glass to her lips. Mother drank a little, then a little more and before they knew it the glass was gone, down to the last drop. "Mother, Mother", the nuns whispered, "please give us some wisdom before you leave us." She raised herself up and with a pious look on her face, she looked out the window and said, "Don't sell that cow!"
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Tuesday |
Nov-16 |
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'One of the greatest mysteries in life is the mystery of time. Everything that happens to us happens in and through time. Time is the force that brings every new experience to the door of your heart.' ~John O'Donoghue
We're all very much aware how time goes by so quickly. We're half way through November and the weeks seem to be flying by. Much of our time and what happens in our lives is outside our control. But much of it is very much within our sights too, particularly what is happening in the present moment. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago. Nothing is as close as right now. Our faith reminds us how God journeys with us in the right now. Nothing else matters. For all of us the right now is a massive collection of joys, sorrows, pain, happiness, struggles, hopes, fears, weakness, fun, relaxation, anger, freedom, disappointments and so on. It can be a scary place and it can also be so exciting. We're in there somewhere and so is God. It would be very limiting, if we thought that God only chose to be with us during the good days. It's in the middle of our darkest hour that God is also particularly near.  |
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Monday |
Nov-08 |
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'Thank you Lord, for so many things that brighten up our lives and thank you too for the annoyances that come our way. Too much sunshine would make our lives a fruitless desert. Teach us that that the storms of life come, not to destroy, but to deepen and make strong the roots of our faith, hope and love.' ~Extract of a Prayer in the Macroom Parish Newsletter
The much anticipated storm that was predicted for Ireland didn't quite blow up yesterday. But it was good to have got the warning and to be prepared, particularly in relation to flooding. Often in life we don't get much warning when it comes to personal storms. They often hit us quite suddenly and when we least expect. But when we are faced with any sudden storm be it an illness, a bereavement, a broken relationship, the loss of a job, an unexpected crisis, we have to dig deep. Often the only things that will get us through, is the love of family and friends, the hope that their support and encouragement can bring and faith in a loving God to help us through. What is the personal storm in your life at the moment? What is the personal storm of someone close to you? Can you be the one to reach out and bring God's hope, comfort and love into their lives at this time? |
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Sunday |
Nov-07 |
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The following reflection is by Tom Cahill
One thing can be said about life: it never ceases to amaze. Take, for example, a decade-long ocean census completed early this year. It uncovered a whole new world of a billion marine microbes. That's an incredible 50,000 times more microbes than were known to exist before the census. How much more of life's largesse do we short-change, I wonder.
Do we short-change life's extravagance even in the case of human beings, particularly when a person's earthly life has come to an end? How many are tempted to think, 'Well that's that!' Finito! The Jewish sect in today's Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38) holds such a view. The Sadducees don't believe in life after death. For them there is no such thing as bodily resurrection. Today, lots of people think that way too, or would claim they do. But that's such a bleak outlook to have!
Even were it true, I'd still crave some comfort, even that of delusion, to face the abyss of oblivion. Let delusion cushion the icy impact of eternal emptiness and the sickening thrust of a risible freedom that leads nowhere and to nothing. In such a case one might as well be a robot as a human being. So much of what we experience each day tells us that life is not a trickster. It tells us that we are players in a drama, not a farce. We can trust our intuitions, our insights and our feelings. There's more ways to truth than through scientific observation and logical reasoning. Let's never forget our gut.  |
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