SPECIAL NEEDS: Giving Sound To The Silence

Awaking what is dormant…giving sound to the silence

I’m thinking about the arrival of Jesus, the new arrival for this time in my life, for all our time and I wonder in what space will he choose to be born again. There are the usual suspects – my sin, the areas of my life where I’m not in control, my vulnerability.

But then I remember an add on tv. A man is walking along the corridor of his company building when he hears an old phone ringing. The sound comes from behind a door of ‘The Complaints Department’. The man enters the room which is covered in dust and cobwebs; he answers the phone, listens to the voice on the other end of the line and replies something like, “sorry, you’ve got the wrong number!”

The product they are advertising has not had a complaint in years and there is no complaint now, so the man emerges from the room satisfied and he closes the door on the gathered dust within.

I’d like to be able to stand before God with no complaint made against me and, at Christmas, I’m hoping that Jesus will come and make his home within at least one of the areas where there is some complaint and need for improvement. But I suspect now that God has a different idea.

In the place where there is no complaint there is also no life, no engagement. It is in decay, dying, dead. The birth of Jesus is about life and engagement in places where decay is at work.

Yesterday I celebrated Mass with a group of special needs adults and their families at the St. John of God Centre, Ravenswell in Bray. I’m not used to a setting like this but decide at the outset that I would “be myself” as much as possible and go with the flow.

Most of the residents are not able to speak in the conventional way. Some make no sound at all and some make a lot of noise, different people would let out a spontaneous roar from time to time. I had no idea if I was communicating or not but I said what I had to say and had to shout a lot of the time to be heard.

Joy, the chaplain had prepared a lovely liturgy in which various members of the community placed a figure in the crib and a member of their family would read a prayer. As Louise placed a shepherd in the crib she was pure delighted that the red of his cloak matched the red of her jumper. She said it with signs and with a smile that had been previously absent on her anxious face.

When it was complete I suggested we sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. A bit cheesy maybe but it connected, so we sang it again. Everyone connects with happy birthday. And at the end of Mass we sang ‘Silent Night’ everyone joining in with whatever sound God gave them to sing with. I don’t think anything else I do over Christmas will compare with this.

After Mass I went down to Eugene, a man I anointed a couple of months ago because he was dying and here he is, revived, his beautiful blue eyes smiling. He has been silent for a long time but his sister sitting beside him said he was very animated and excited by the Mass. She hadn’t seen him so animated for a long time. He was one of the ones who let out a roar from time to time. And I understood the connection that had taken place. It was pure joy! And to think our society is moving in the direction of saying that most of the people at that Mass should not have been born.

There was part of Eugene that had gone silent, something that lay dormant within him. Yesterday at Mass God came and awakened that which was dormant and gave a sound to the silence within him. There is part of me that lays dormant, a fear and a love choked within me. This is perhaps my special need.

It reminds me to allow God himself to choose what part of my life He will enter and touch this Christmas or at any other time. Like King David, the most noble part of me  wants to provide Him with the most appropriate dwelling place but God insists that He will make the choice and, like Mary I will now let Him do just that.

My prayer for the remainder is simply, “Come Lord Jesus, let it be done to me according to your Word!”

Eamonn Monson sac www.eamonnmonson.com

THIS HOUSE IS MY SOUL (for Peg)

Nights I cannot sleep
Mornings I cannot wake

It’s one of those times
Now

Twenty five minutes
Past twelve

Midday

This house is my soul
The kitchen its centre

Telling the prayer
Of a battered chair

Ablutions in a cold
Basin

Cinder ashes tumbled
On the concrete floor

No fire

An idle shovel leaning
There for want
Of a hand

Holy water
Faded photo
Clear memory

The sieved life

Womanly pink painted
Over manly blue

Peeling away
The old distinctions

Male or female
No different now
In Him

ii

He is not here
The One I love

He might have gone
The One I need

My Saviour Brother
Beyond

The fields of herding
Cows

Over the hills of grazing
Sheep

It could be late
When He returns

Or am I the absent one
The blind who cannot
See

The numb who does not
Feel?

The Immaculate Heart
On the mantle piece

Must help me here
Assure me

That we will connect
Again

That He is here
Even in the waiting
Emptiness

Take the shirt that hangs
There waiting too, She says

Be covered, comforted
Warmed in the scented
Meantime

In the inner chamber
Where Love lays down
With every loss

Listening to the distant
Washing Waves of sea
That whispers hope

WHITE JASMINE

Scent of white
Jasmine mingled
With burning turf

Taste of arabica
Coffee ground brown
 Toast

Sounds of the house
Stretching awake

The creak
Of beaking day

Damp hiss of wood
On fire kindle
Crackling

Repressed flame leaping
Into life

The uncertainty of wounds
Not healed finds expression

Blended ecstasy
Of agony and hope

SERIOUS ARTIST

You’ve had it

As a serious artist

Now

Your songs are on

The mellow music playlist

Of Sunshine Radio

Stroking

The nostalgic flabbiness

Of the middle-aged

Who hanker pastwards

Your edge

Sharp with meaning

Relevant

Become a blunted

Blandness

You can have it

As a serious artist

Now

In the stripped down

Stillness

Prophetic silence

That gives birth

To forward thrusted

Yearning

Fire of soul

Sharpness of sword

Sound of the deep

IN PRISON - I Will Be The Face Of Christ For You

Feast Of Christ The King

I was in prison and you visited me

The book and the movie ‘Dead Man Walking’ tell the true story of  Matthew Poncelet, a  man facing death alone, except for the love of a Catholic sister. He is a castaway, considered untouchable and worthy of death by his society. The nun comforts him and says, "I can't bear the thought that you would die without seeing one loving face. I will be the face of Christ for you." She is Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille. He is one of four convicted of murder whom she has accompanied to the death chamber in Louisiana and he asked her to accompany him spiritually in his journey to death.

(http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr1996/feature1.asp)

In celebrating the feast of Christ the King we honour a King who is a shepherd, one who looks after all His people, with emphasis on the word ALL. Not just SOME  but ALL - each and every one!

“The Lord says this: I am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view. As a shepherd keeps all his flock in view when he stands up in the middle of his scattered sheep, so shall I keep my sheep in view. I shall rescue them from wherever they have been scattered during the mist and darkness. I myself will pasture my sheep, I myself will show them where to rest–it is the Lord who speaks. I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong. I shall watch over the fat and healthy. I shall be a true shepherd to them.” (Ezekiel 34:11-12,15-17)

As Jesus Himself is, so we are called to be; we who are the Body of Christ in our time. And when it comes to the end of time and our lives are assessed and judged by God then the bottom line will be “whatever you did to one of the least of these you did it to me and whatever you neglected to do to one of the least of these you neglected to do it to me” (Matthew 25:31-46)

He will not be asking how much did you pray but how much did you do for the poor. All our prayers and all the Masses we celebrate are supposed to translate into true service of those most in need. And of course this is what is generally happening. As a people the Irish are very generous in donating to charitable causes; here in Shankill there is great generosity to the St. Vincent de Paul. I myself have always had a love for the men of the road, perhaps because my grand uncle was one of them and died on the streets of London; perhaps I feel that I myself could be one of them. In all my dealings with these men I have found myself to be profoundly blessed.

But there is one group of people that has stirred my conscience from today’s gospel - the prisoners. Jesus says “when I was in prison you visited me!” Sadly, I have never visited a prison and so have never visited Christ in this way. And I’m not suggesting that we all need to go running off to start visiting prisons because there are people called to this ministry  but we are all called to be aware of the prisoner, to be concerned for the prisoner.

The prisoner is the criminal, the wrongdoer, the guilty one who deserves to be punished. And the prisoner is one who needs to be saved, to see the face of Christ, to experience that love that God has for every single person. Jesus the  innocent person died for the guilty, so that he could bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18)

While the world leaves the prisoner in his condemnation, God is saying I will rescue him from his darkness, I will look for him in the place where he is lost. That’s the extent of Christianity’s reach - that we have a heartfelt desire to save the guilty, the criminal, the most detestable of people. That we say with Sr. Helen “I can't bear the thought that you would die without seeing one loving face. I will be the face of Christ for you."

And though most of us cannot do this face to face with the person in prison, we can and must do it for the guilty people we meet in the ordinary course of life. To be the face of Christ so that Christ Himself can transform guilty lives.

It occurs to me that we can't always reveal the smiling, kind face of Christ. Sometimes the true face of Christ is the wounded, hurt face and perhaps the guilty one needs to see this hurt face in order to come to his senses, to be saved, rescued and brought to God.

It’s what Pope Francis is trying to inspire us to do as Church - to be the face of Christ for those who find themselves in difficult situations, whose lives are at odds with the Catholic and Christian teachings, those who are stuck in destructive ways of living.

I suggest that we create a space in our prayer for the prisoner and for his victims. One of the inspiring things is that Sr. Helen prayed with Matthew and later prayed with the family of his victim. Pray for the lost, those who are stuck, those in the wrong, those who are victims. In doing this we are touching Christ himself in a real and meaningful way.

Whatever you do to the least of these you do it to me. We need to do this with urgency as if there were no time to waste.

Prayer of Fr. Slavko of Medugorje,

"Lord, grant

that I may always think as if it were to be my last thought

that I may speak as if it were to be my last word

that I may work as if it were to be my last deed

that I may suffer as if it were to be the last cross I could offer

that I may pray as if it were my last opportunity to speak to You while on Earth!"

(Fr. Slavko Barbaric OFM, Medugorje)

FAREWELL TO EDWARD

I am present
At his passing
This fine strong gentle

Man

Builder of boats
Husband father grandad

Deep strength of faith
On his knees even

In his agony
I brought him
Communion

He loved the sea
In me and made
Tea

Made me feel
Special

While we talked
Galway and other
Common ground

Fingering old timber
Caressed like the tender
Flesh of a loved one

The last call
Talked of hours

Urgent

Time to heed
Better instincts
Without hesitation

All generations gathered
Around his fading moments

To sing and say
Final farewells
Whipsered in his ear

One by one
Unrestrained Love

Anointing
Praying
Sé do bheatha
a Mhuire

Child's head
Resting on his breast

He falls asleep
Slips away
Rested

MEDITATION IN THE RAIN

In the premature falling
Night

Head bowed bent
Forward against the absence
Of an Indian Summer

Rain like Rice Crispies
Snap-crackle-popping
On the flapping plastic
Of my hood

Wind whipped ears

My eyes in custody
See only the ground
On which I walk

Isolated

The world empty now
Except for the odd stray
Runner squawking seagull
Scared crow

Swan heads buried
In the river

Hidden
But not hiding

I think of all the false
Belongings

I have tasted

The true belonging
Of Love

That draws me in

To the Claddagh church
Before Mass

Enfolded in the radiance
Of Your Face
Lifted up to intimate communion

YOU NEVER SAID

How is a child
Supposed to know

That the truth lies
Somewhere in between

Your scolding emotion
Scalded devotion?

You never said
That it was love

It feels like hate

The too-tight noose
Of your embrace

Sword of tongue
Tasting like captivity

Though you keep promising
Freedom

LAST LEAF FALLING

I.

A bit rough around the edges
Said Love

With tears
And a quivering voice

Like the fields he farmed

The soil that felt his footfall

Strong and straight
Loyal

Not easy then with
Weakness in another

Vulnerability became him
As with surprising grace
He himself surrendered

Allowing us a glimpse
Of something more tender

Faith-filled

Praying his way Homeward
With an eye for the frailest
Left behind

II.

He is laid to rest now
In this land that he loved

A calm November day
Sun shining, birds singing

Breeze blowing
Bough of trees bending

River flowing
Rainbow in a clear
Blue sky

Last leaf falling
Whistling in the wind

In this place there is
Peace

(In memory of Fr. Roger Rafter sac)

INTERCESSIONS FOR THE DECEASED AND THE BEREAVED

THE FEAST OF ALL SOULS 2^ND NOVEMBER 2014

INTRODUCTION As we remember the dead today we pray with great hope to the Lord who is constantly bringing life out of death and light out of darkness.

PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL

We remember our own dead and our own sadness … Tears speak out our grief, but they also witness to our love and we are glad to have loved so much that we can cry.  May those we have loved rest in your embrace, O Lord.  LORD HEAR US

We remember the loss and grief of others around us.  We think of the funerals we have been at in the last year … We pray especially for those who are without consolation.  LORD HEAR US

We pray for all the people who have died in our community and in our country this past year – older people; younger people; those who died content; those who died struggling – all sharing in common that they died into the arms of our loving God.  LORD HEAR US

Wherever there is grief, may hope be allowed to enter in and sit beside it, as its silent companion.  May we learn to believe what we cannot see, that our life is hidden with Christ in God.  LORD HEAR US

We pray for all who have died around the world in the last year.  We pray for those who have starved to death; for those who were victims of natural disasters; for those who were killed by their fellow human beings.  We pray, knowing that you, Lord, have carved their names on the palm of your hand.  LORD HEAR US

We know that each person dies just as they are.  We ask you, Lord to work through our prayers, for the forgiveness of their faults, the purification of their souls and the completion of their journey into the arms of your everlasting love.  LORD HEAR US

CONCLUSION (by the Presider)

We make all our prayers through Christ Our Lord Amen

MORE PRAYERS FOR NOVEMBER

Prayer (In Loving Memory of Paul)

(In loving memory of my cousin Paul who found solace in the words of this poem and whose untimely death has given these words another meaning. November 3, 2012)

Place me on a shore at dusk
By the sea’s healing waters
Where thoughts like boats
Go floating by my mind’s eye
Some circling round
Or anchored to distract
Yet not to hide your Light
My Love


Place me at dusk on a shore
Where the soul’s calm sea
Is stormed and laid to rest
At your command
To contemplate your Light
My Love

This I ask
Amen!

FROM EXILE

She waits in the shadows
Of a winter evening’s dusk

Eyes grown slowly dim

Everything slowing down

Children wandering

Away and astray

The tight control

On life’s unfolding

Unravelled

In exile

Looking homeward

With a wondering

Would it have been

Better not to have left

At all in the first place?

The question might

Be better left

Unasked in the end

The answer left

Unsaid.

EXILE

I am
An exile torn

Between home

And the foreign

Land that welcomed

Where I have

Put down deep roots

And borne

Part of me

Is left behind

In every arrival

Given to each

Person encountered

And home

Is only gained

Again when all

Is lost

And there is no more

Letting go

CHAINS

The child understood

Chains of the heart

The cold of exclusion

Before his conception

Formed felt forth

By Creator
Mother Father

Uttered into sound
Issuing from the deep recesses
Of pre-creation chaos

The cry for deliverance
Abiding wordless language
Of his fettered flight-bound

Yearning ever upward

WHEN ONE COMES TO VISIT LOVE - The Real Presence

Sitting at the back of an empty church on a dark evening, I look up the distance to the tabernacle and think of Judith Hearne (from the novel by Brian Moore). I had intended meditating, taking up the usual posture, when something within suggested that postures are not necessary when one comes to visit Love. So, I took to gazing and thinking.

Judith Hearne was a woman lost in alcoholism and absolutely lonely at 40-something. She had prayed all her life and had gotten a raw deal and she comes in the end to a similar church demanding some answer from Jesus in the tabernacle but He remains silent and her faith is weakening rapidly. The sacristan and later the priest come out into the sanctuary and their attitude in front of the tabernacle suggests to her that they don’t believe either that there’s anyone there. We who are familiar with the sacred can become so casual that we forget the Presence and maybe stop believing in reality, without ever thinking about it.

Now in this church where I sit, the sacristan comes out to prepare the altar for Mass. She waddles around the sanctuary without seeming to have any interest in the tabernacle. Instead she repeatedly peers down towards the shadow in which I am sitting. Does she notice the stranger that I am? It is good to be here.

After a while a young woman comes through the side door, walking briskly across in front of the altar, without so much as a pause or a glance. She has NO idea that He’s there; she takes no notice. “Does it bother you” I ask Him “that people ignore you like this?” But He remains silent. It bothers me!

A young father with his teenage boy and girl arrives. They’re dressed for an occasion and in the absence of wife and mother I take it that she’s dead and that this Mass is being offered for her - in the event it wasn’t for her. I feel a pang of grief and might even cry. There’s an air of grief about him, while they (the children) seem quite happy. He genuflects passing the altar. They do not. “Do you not mind Lord?” I ask again.

Soon they are joined by other families, similarly dressed with the same mixture of knowledge and ignorance of the Presence. They take up two pews between them.

The Mass is rattled through with a frightening speed. It pleases a lot of people. The only part that’s taken slowly is the homily and that is simply a drag! At the consecration at least I want him to please, please slow down and give us a chance to savour. But no!

Faith in the Real Presence of Jesus! Saint Faustina had a vision in prayer of looking at the Blessed Sacrament and seeing the face of Jesus in all its glory and He tells her that He is pleased with those who see Him by faith and not by vision. “Oh, how pleasing to me is their great faith! You see, although there appears to be no trace of life in Me, in reality it is present in its fullness in each and every Host. But for me to be able to act upon a soul, the soul must have faith. Oh, how pleasing to me is living faith!”  (Divine Mercy In My Soul: Diary, N.1420).

We tend to think of faith in terms of vision and consolation but the reality is that faith is exercised and lives in desolation. It is a labour a lot of the time, a labour of love.

Faustina had her experiences of desolation. “I feel such desolation in my soul that I do not know how to explain it even to myself. No one understands a heart wounded by love, and when such a heart feels itself abandoned interiorly, no one can comfort it.” (Diary N. 943).

No comfort! At times there is no comfort, a sense that God is standing back in silence, doing nothing. The abandonment of Jesus on the Cross is the abandonment of us all. WHY have you forsaken me? And the Father says absolutely nothing in that moment. Faith is moulded, carved into shape in this desolate and dark abandonment.

“Patience, silence and prayer - these are what give strength to the soul.” We might easily run away from desolation. We  DO run away sometimes. And the Hound of Heaven chases us down until we face it. Then faith grows like a seed in the dark soil, like a piece of china that comes shining out of the burning kiln. It is a lovely thing that comes out of the fire and the dark earth.

EPIPHANY

The Cross is upon me

This Epiphany

Myrrh for death and burial

I have no other gift

Knees that must fall down

To worship

This birth, this child, this life

The collision

Has always been there

But we prefer not to notice

Leaving the dealing

For another time

I was praying the crucifixion

On a hard day

When all my effort

Had lost meaning

The futile taste

Of bile rising up

The little child of God

Not yet familiar with words

Came to speak

Annunciation to the crucified

Birth to the dying

Beginning to the ending

Hope for the hopeless

There are possibilities

In everything  

CONGO MURRAY

We were largely content
To play in the avenue

Stadium of our invention

Sixty something children or so

Largely content with skilled

And innocent games

But there were days

When we needed to know

Courage and how much of it

We had in us

As one we marched down

To the top of Tone Avenue

Pitting ourselves against

The patience and restraint

Of Congo Murray who had

No patience in him at all

Here Congo! here Congo!

We in unison roared

Springing him into leap

And chase till we were

Safely home and he was

In retreat

We did it again and again

Until  he got so vexed

He decided to put a stop

To our collective gallop

The girl let out a screech

That turned us cold

Pumping blood that made

Us colder still

Congo had taken a huge

Lump out of her leg

Swear to God we said

Crossing our throats

Our tails between our legs

For a while

CAN OF PAINT

I would love my children 
To know

What it was like to work

As a boy

I grew up at eleven

And loved it

The job and the first

Two pounds wages

Upstairs in a music shop

With a speaker on the window

For all the town to hear

Black Velvet Band

Was huge that Summer

And all the days were hot

I did errands and the tinker

In me revelled

Going off to the hardware

For a can of paint

And there I was

The cat that got the cream

Crossing Eyre Square

In sunshine

And out of the blue

I collapsed black out cold

Opening my astonished eyes

To a crowd of grown ups

Looking down

But worst of all

The can had leaked

And I ran with it

The boss roared

You bloody eejit

Never thinking to ask

How or why the leak

And I never thinking

To explain

Calming The Storm?

Are these the wonders of the Lord

That we behold now

Is this the sea

On which we sail

The unleashing of

His pent up tears

The gale of His panting

Is this what it takes

For us to really pray

To scream out our need

Of  Him?

Peter’s boat is old now

Unsafely holding all

That is needed

Him and us

For everything there is

A season

There will be an answer

To the prayer

He will awake

There will be again

That quiet calm of His

But this is the season

Of our being tossed about

The tumult

The season of our crying

And it is the season

Of His sleeping