Drifting Away

 

I feel like a Yank

Returning to this rugged

Remoteness

Her face in repose

Utterly unfamiliar

In death 

It is her voice

That remains

The bright kindliness

With which she used

To speak my name

Summoning summer days

Of another time

Young men

Fishing

Fast driving

Effortless friendship

I remember

David diving

Into the bottle-green

Calm of the deep

To retrieve the oar

That had slipped

Drifting away

Like a prophecy

Coming back

To the shallow shore

And the dying

Out of our friendship

I still don’t know

How we became

Such strangers

I think of him now

Pray for him sleeping 

Slipping away

Far away from here

The innocent bed

We shared back then

In the way that young friends did

As close in soul

As in body

The tender warmth

Of it

The beauty

And though it is lost

It is a history

That abides within my soul

Treasured

Waiting

Across the field

to dawn at sea

a corner in the midday sun
beneath the sky at night

alone within his heart

the warrior waits for death
the watchman waits for dawn

to this have I been called
to wait on God

a moment forever
in expectancy of surprise.

ANGUISH

A hoarse groan 

Echoes in the cave

That you have become

Death has been mining

Digging out the rich

Mineral of your life

Haunting your emptiness

Breaking our closeness

Apart

Not knowing what

Your eyes are trying

To say

Their pleading

And the fear

That you want me

To leave before it’s time

We no longer know

How to be

With each other

A tautness has entered

To replace the ease

Learned of lifelong

Intimacy

Parting is approaching

And we are not able

For it

SEPTEMBER

I feel September
In my bones

The cool air of Autumn
On my skin

The colour of Summer
On my face

And peace within

The youth grown suddenly tall
Returning in the joy of festival freedom

A church bell tolls

The passing of the Hours
The turning of the days
And night lengthening

It will soon be time
To go inside
With quiet reflection

New lessons learned
And all things gathered
To the fire and to the soul

The warmth that keeps us
Through dark seasons
New beginnings and fresh hope

LEAVING HOME

He left home
A stranger
The heat of winter's
Fever burning

On the wrong
Side of everything
While she claimed
The honour 

Of a  superior choice

He wasn't worth
A word of farewell

Did silence tell
That they might never
Meet again?

(January 2020)

DEBRIS OF HUMAN FRAILTY

Bare tree
Naked rosebush
Spiking the dawn

Dripping drops of dew
The tears I cannot shed

My heart a mayhem of crows
Swooping on a single seagull
Outside in the Green
Where we played by day
And partied by night

Until grief disfigured our joy
Love fatally fractured

The man has died
He who became my enemy

We made our peace
A defrosting
Long before it was too late

Yet still a broken legacy
Remains

The wounds of hate
The scars of love
Debris of human frailty

We must stand still
And wait for God
To win the victory
For us all

(January 2020)

Veronica

Vera icon

True image of Christ

Imprinted on the towel

Of her kindness

Love did not allow

Her to be cautious

Self-conscious

It thrust her

Into the path

This bloodied battered

Body

Christ in degradation

Etching his sacred

Countenance

Upon the soul of one

Who attends to those

Most in need of mercy

Pangs

Bare stalk of tree thrust

Claw into gut of sky

And mine

Winter-sharp vision

I can see and feel

Everything

Labour pains

Dying throes

Pangs of birth

In tandem

Subconscious memory

Playing out

Beginnings and endings

Fresh flesh failing

Body bent in pain

And adoration

The spirit is willing

Pre deliverance restlessness

Upon us

Mother and child

All over again

Curled up in bed

Whoever lives

Whoever dies

I do not know how

I can survive

Without her

WATER (A Womb In My Dreams)

Water is a womb
In my dreams

It nurtures
Some unknown subconscious
Still to be born

Water is a woman
In my waking

A still inspiring tranquil
Sea at the dawn
And dusk of day

Now
And then

A tempest inflicting
The frailty of man upon
Perishing rocks

A river rushing
From mountain top
To ocean depth

Tears of compassion
And delight

Uninhibited flow
Of love and every
Emotion

Water is a calm swell
Rising imperceptibly

Breaching boundaries
Seeping in where it does
Not belong

You open your eyes
On a bed floating in flood

The damage is not
Beyond repair
But it will take forever

And she flicks her eyelids
Glancing sideways
She sighs

Get over it!

Maybe she really wanted
Me to drown
To save me again

In that unfathomable
Logic of her love

THE TOUCH (Uncover These Wounds)

I have fallen in a heap
Of stones on the beach
At the quieting of the evening

Waters gathered up

As milk in a basin 
In the crook of a mother's arm
A place to uncover wounds

Wounds heavily bandaged
Wounds un-nameable
Wounds that I protect

From touch for fear
Of further pain too much
For me to bear

Uncover these wounds
For I have run out of options
Every treatment tried

I am hemorrhaging
And have not even strength
To touch the hem of Christ

But let The Touch come upon
The waiting of the open sore
That I have become

I can do no more than wait now

(Killiney Beach August 29, 2013)

MY FIRST BELONGING

Relationship begins
In Eternity

Perfect pronouncement
Of Name

Unutterable Word

You have made me
For Yourself

You are my first
And present

Belonging

I have been made
Unmarriageable
By You

And still I yearned
For my child

And You have heard
My hankering

And claimed me
Still more
As Your own

ROBBIE40

HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY TO MY FIRST BORN NEPHEW ROBBIE

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MEMORIES

MARY (A Prayer)

http://eamonnmonson.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/mary.html

PARDON IN THE SAND (John 8 - A Meditation)

I am the woman
Discovered undercover
Caught in the act
Exhumed from hiding
Beneath skin and flesh
The secret desirings
Of heart and mind

I am the boy
Who took refuge there
A place of escape
And safe solace
My habitual habitation

I am every one
Who exists on the outside
The other side of right

And there is nothing
That will not be revealed
In the end

And this is my end

The law abiding strong
Throng my orthodox accuser
With only one solution
The right of righteousness

I am petrified
Panic stricken stood bowed
Barely able to breathe

What will the first
Struck stone feel like?

What part of me
Will bleed and break
Before I am all blood broken
Bone splintered?

I gasp for air
For life

But God is merciful
He who alone is Good
Stands upright
Sees all that I am - ALL -
Absorbs me into Himself

He bends down
So that my bending
Now has no shame in it

And He writes my Pardon
In the sand.

Great is His Name
Amen

ASCENSION: SEPARATION AND UNION - A Farewell Homily by Eamonn Monson SAC

It’s providential that we are saying farewell to each other on the feast of the Ascension, the day when Jesus and His disciples said goodbye. Somehow, I feel that our parting is graced by the Ascension, is lifted up with Jesus and then it becomes a sacred and holy experience, an experience in which separation and union become one and the same thing because we are all held together as one in Jesus, especially every time we come to Holy Communion at Mass.

In all my years of leaving different places I have never felt as emotional as I do on leaving Shankill. I have always said that you have taught me to be a real priest but I completely underestimated the depth and strength of the bond that exists between us and I have been really touched by your response to the news of my leaving that was announced a couple of weeks ago. We are truly one body, one spirit in Christ.

The preparation for my life here came in the form of the Camino to Santiago, a journey that emptied me of every burden and left me free to be filled with something new, something very precious. St. Paul talks to Timothy about becoming a vessel fit for noble use (2 Timothy 2:21) You have filled my cup and made of me a vessel fit for God’s lofty purposes.

It seems to me that I haven’t done all that much in my five years here and my strongest memory is of celebrating Mass at this altar – the ordinary Masses of every day and Sunday; the profoundly sorrowful funeral Masses; the beautifully innocent and joyful First Holy Communion Masses; Masses of healing and hope. In every Mass, we have come together to meet Jesus, to be touched by Him, filled by Him and in every congregation, I have seen the face of Jesus – the wounded and sometimes fearful face, the challenging face, the hopeful face of youth, the graceful face of age and always the loving face of Jesus.

So, like the first disciples in today’s gospel I have no hesitation whatever falling down on my knees to worship Jesus – Jesus in Himself and Jesus in you. I would kneel in love, I kneel as a sinner who has experienced Mercy and I kneel in the weakness of who I am because I have nothing of my own to boast about.

And of course, the children have always brought me to my knees. When I anoint a baby in Baptism I am often moved to kneel – in many other ways I kneel to a child because I find my true size and height in them. I have three beautiful nieces and five fine nephews who have blessed my life and the gospel I have so often preached is about children, especially my two youngest  nieces Katie and Laura who have taught me so much about how to live a truly Christian life in a childlike way. Jesus himself places the child at the centre of the gospel, at the centre of the Kingdom of God.

This part is very difficult to speak of but it encapsulates everything that really matters!  Two days ago at a special assembly in Scoil Mhuire, I came face to face with a little boy whom I love dearly, a boy who has suffered more than anyone I know in the past year, a suffering that is often misunderstood. He was crying so I went and knelt in front of him, hugged him and started crying with him. We sobbed together in that embrace, we ministered to each other, cried for each other and represented the love of God for each other. It wasn’t that I was minding him but he also was minding me. And a while later we came together in a lighter moment with a bit of a smile when he gave me a card, I gave him a high five and a teacher gave him a piece of chocolate cake. There has to be chocolate cake and God always gives us reason to smile after we have cried!

Yesterday, when I was praying the fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, I realized that the encounter with this young boy was for me the finding of Jesus in the Temple and what I felt for him is what Mary and Joseph felt, what God Himself feels for the lost child in all of us.

Shankill represents the happiest period of my life but in every life happiness is often accompanied by pain and in such times, you need a place where you can be totally yourself, accepted in whatever state you’re in. I have found comfort in many people and a few good friends but there are two groups in particular who have sustained me through dark times – my family in Galway and my Pallottine community in St. Benin’s with Frs. John, Mike and Jaimie. It is a sustenance that is often without words, a safe place, a haven.

And so, as St. Paul said, “the time has come for me to be gone”, to go as Jesus Himself went “to other towns and villages” where the ministry of the Good News is needed. It is a calling from God and not just the arbitrary decision of my good friend and Provincial. 

I already felt that call as far back as November. I was celebrating Mass at 8 one Sunday morning - and it might have been at the offertory – when I heard a seagull cry clear as a bell and a voice that seemed to say, “you will go to Hastings!” When God calls, the only thing to do is follow. And you have equipped me to do exactly that. You have given me plentiful food for the journey.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to  which he has called you..." (Ephesians 1:17)

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.jordan.3705157/videos/826992264116830/

I WILL GO

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8)

The echo
Of a seagull's cry
On a winter's dawn

Crystal clear
Carrying a call

From another coast

It comes to me

At the altar

Sacrifice
Separation

From all who hold me
Dear

To leave familiar loves

I am reluctant

Resisting

Surrender

But still I will go

If You lead

And need me

To take Your People

To heart

In a different land

Gratefully and

In Love

As Eucharist
In Your hands

(Shankill, a November Sunday 2016)

AS EVENING FALLS: An Emmaus Reflection - Fr. Eamonn Monson sac

“…they pressed him to stay with them. ‘It is nearly evening’ they said, ‘and the day is almost over.’ So, he went in to stay with them. Now while he was with them at table, he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; but he had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?’”

This is one of the loveliest and most tender moments in the Bible, a moment that inspired this prayer that we say in the Divine Office:

‘Stay with us, Lord Jesus, as evening falls;
Be our companion on our way.
In your mercy inflame our hearts and raise our hope,
So that, in union with our brothers and sisters
We may recognize you in the Scriptures
And in the breaking of Bread
Who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.’

It is the desire of us all that the Lord Jesus would stay with us, that we would experience the warmth of His presence and of course He is with us but we don’t always recognize Him or feel His presence. We are often at the early stage of this journey to Emmaus – the time of sadness, darkness, blindness and confusion; we find ourselves running away from the painful realities that might in fact be our salvation.

I think that we as an Irish nation are at this early stage of the journey even as we long for the warmth of its conclusion.

My young companion Fr. Jaimie and I often have a kind of spontaneous Emmaus evening when we sit together and chat about the things that matter to us; we have conversations about some of the hard realities of our lives, conversations that eventually warm our hearts because they have Jesus as their centre. Jaimie has a purity and keenness of spirit that I have come to trust.

Recently, after his return from pilgrimage in Medjugorje he spoke about the strange coldness he found in Ireland, a coldness that contrasted with the warmth of Medjugorje – and he wasn’t talking about the weather! He was talking about a coldness of the spirit and it resonated with me because I have been feeling it myself of late.

It’s a feeling I usually experience with death and grief. When someone close to me dies, I am already cold inside even before I hear the news of their death. And I feel cold in relation to Ireland – as if we are dead or dying.

When I reflect on what transpired at the Citizen’s Assembly last weekend then I understand why there is such coldness in the spiritual air of the country. We have become a people like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus – a people walking away from salvation, our eyes, hearts and minds closed to the presence of Jesus and to the Way He has marked out for us. We go on as if Jesus does not exist at all.

It seems to me that the Assembly has accelerated our descent into the cold dark night of the soul. But unlike todays Gospel there can be no warm conclusion – not yet and maybe not for a long time to come. These decisions separate us as a people from Christ in a most profound and radical way.

There’s a Scripture from the Bible that has struck me very forcibly. The Lord spoke to His people through Moses, “I put before you fire and water – stretch out your hand and touch which one you choose. I put before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Choose life then so that you and your children may live in the love of the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 32 and parallel texts) Choose life! Choose life! The words of God Himself.

The choices we make, the choices we allow to be made on our behalf have their own consequences. These dark realities are the things that we as Christians need to talk about as we journey through life and our conversations must have Jesus at their centre, leave space for Jesus to reveal Himself, leave space for Him to instruct us, to open our minds and set our hearts on fire with the love that He has for everyone and especially for the least of all.

St. John of the Cross says that the life of faith, hope and love means aligning our will perfectly with the will of God and making sure that we do not align ourselves with anything else. It is the prayer of Mary and the prayer of Jesus Himself - these two prayers - that made salvation possible in the first place – “let it be done according to Your Word…not my will but yours be done!”

Emmaus - Cleopas and his wife Mary with Jesus

Without this alignment with the will of God we remain in the dark but if we pray this prayer in union with Jesus and Mary, if we mean it and do our best to live by it then we will reach that lovely evening in which Jesus comes in to the reality of our home, to our table, to His table and to the warming of our hearts with that Love that overcomes every difficulty, every obstacle, every darkness that we encounter. And then we can pray with integrity:

‘Stay with us, Lord Jesus, as evening falls;
Be our companion on our way.
In your mercy inflame our hearts and raise our hope,
So that, in union with our brothers and sisters
We may recognize you in the Scriptures
And in the breaking of Bread

RESURRECTION 2017: An Intense Desire - Fr. Eamonn Monson SAC

The Resurrection of Jesus is a fact in itself, but for the disciples the experiences of the Resurrection are different and varied. Each of them experienced it in his or her own way and at their own pace. And the running of Peter and John to the empty tomb is very symbolic of that. John ran faster than Peter and got there ahead of him but each of them came to the experience of Jesus in their own time and at their own pace.

Resurrection can be a very difficult reality to comprehend or to make a connection with. I find myself when I’m going through Holy Week that I have a very strong connection with Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the early part of Holy Saturday – these touch something very deep inside the heart. Resurrection is a very different thing because we haven’t yet experienced it ourselves.

But what I do believe is important is the intensity of desire that is in our hearts to have the experience of Jesus risen from the dead and that we go on and persist in our intensity.

For me, the best parable or experience of it in my own life comes from when my sister Maura died suddenly 18 years ago at the age of 46. Maura and I were very, very close; we were always together and there was a very strong physical connection between us as well as emotional. So, when she died I felt intensely lonely – we all did – and I used to say to God in prayer how much I missed her and how intense was my desire to touch her again, to feel the touch of her presence in my life. A prayer that went on and on relentlessly for maybe a year or two, a prayer filled with sincerity, desire and sorrow.

Then I had two dreams, one of which I have spoken and written of before. The second one is in my mind today. In the dream, I went to the cemetery to visit her grave and as I was going through the gates the cemetery was transformed into a church where Maura was sitting alone in the back seat.

She held out her hand to me and said, “will we dance?” And I said, “we can’t dance here!” And she replied, “we can!” Throughout our lives from the time we were teenagers we loved to jive and became very good at it.  So, she took me by the hand and led me to an open space at the top of the church. There was no music but there was light, this beautiful light shining down, not a physical electric light but it was like the light of heaven shining down upon the two of us. And there we danced bathed in the light; we danced to, what I call, silent music. Silent but joyful!

When I woke from that dream what struck me was – that I would go to the cemetery looking for my sister and it’s like what the Lord says in the gospel of the resurrection, “why search among the dead for someone who is alive?” Maura was telling me, God was telling me through her that even though she had died and was gone from me that she was in fact alive; telling me that that life is the life of Jesus, a life that is contained within the embrace of the sanctuary of the church where Jesus is present and alive in the Eucharist.

The promise of that dream is also that I myself one day, that all of us will enter into the sacred space of Jesus in the Eucharist in its most perfect sense, that we will enter into the light of that experience and we will dance in whatever way we are able to dance. 

One of the lovely things about the spiritual life is that there is song and there is dance in it but you don’t have to be a singer or a dancer to engage in it. Because every move we make in the presence of the Lord and every song we sing is beautiful to Him, for He loves the voice that is in you, the voice that He given to you – it is music to His ears. The very sight of you, the way you move is a joy to Him.

So, if we are to live Easter today it is to live it with joy and hope; to live it in the embrace of the light that shines upon us, especially from the Eucharist, the light of heaven. And even if grief is present and intense we will know that we are bathed in that light, that we are held in an embrace that is tender and infinitely loving, a light that will lead us all to the fulfilment and the perfection of life that we desire.

https://youtu.be/BqnqtKFipkg7

LEGACY: A Holy Thursday Reflection - Eamonn Monson SAC

Being an ordained priest is a wonderful privilege and some of the most inspiring moments are not those that we plan ourselves but the ones we are led to experience through God’s kind providence.

On Tuesday of last week I was called to anoint a man who was given just a week to live and at first sight he looked like he might not last even a day. But he sat up in the bed, asked me to sit on the edge of it and he leaned against me for support.

We had never met before and he seemed to have lost his connection with God, at least consciously, a connection that was broken because of the hurt he experienced as a father. Both of his sons, his only two children, were dead and the pain of that loss was palpable.

For some reason we started talking about home. He came from Connemara and his great-grandmother was from Inis Mor, the same island that my grandmother came from. They were both Flahertys from different villages but the two families are related. And this thought that he and I might be related gave him a real spurt of life. He was excited by the thought, and was even transformed by it.

And this connection paved the way for him to receive the sacraments that he had become a stranger to – absolution, anointing and Holy Communion. And he joined his hands in prayer like a child with a spirit of utter humility and I could see the face of God in him.

We returned to the loss of his sons. It made him cry and he said, “people don’t understand it but a generation is lost with them.” It was like he had no legacy to leave behind, no worthwhile legacy. He would leave his money and property but they were nothing to him. He needed to leave the legacy of his own children. Children are the best possible legacy that a man or woman can leave behind because they are living flesh and blood and bone and spirit.

At the last Supper Jesus also wanted to leave a legacy – a different kind of legacy. He left us the legacy of His own flesh and blood and spirit in the Eucharist as the perfect expression of His Love; the Eucharist that gives us a permanent, tangible connection with God; the Eucharistic Love by which He gets down on His knees to wash the feet of His disciples. A perfect Love that serves.

The Eucharist is also the legacy, the only legacy of a priest. In it we are flesh and blood with Christ and with the people we serve, our sisters and brothers in the community of the faith.

Tomorrow, Good Friday,  that perfect Love of Christ is expressed on the Cross, a very different kind of experience. At the Last Supper Jesus was utterly free and in control. On the Cross He is vulnerable, helpless, held back.

The English mystic Caryll Houselander writes, “the moment in which His love was consummated…was when the hands that could heal with a touch were nailed back out of reach!” Somehow, in the mystery of redemption, Love is at its most intense when it is not able to do anything.

How often do we as priests feel useless in the face of what we ought to be doing. When I celebrate the liturgy of washing feet in the name of Jesus I feel such an intense overflow of love in my heart, the love of God Himself. And in that moment I realize how much is lacking in my service of God’s people. How often do parents feel useless when they cannot communicate the love they feel for their child, how often do we find ourselves paralyzed by hurt or fear and unable to reach out to forgive. We have to wait, rather that rushing into something that might make things worse. Waiting on God, on God’s grace is a genuine calling.

Sometimes all we have is a desire to Love as we are meant to and all we can do is, like Jesus, to unite that desire with the will of God the Father, to allow ourselves to be like the bread of the Eucharist in the hands of the Father, allow Jesus in the Eucharist to provide what is lacking in our loving and in our service of each other.

NAILED

The Hands that ache to
Reach and sooth and heal
The sore

These Hands are nailed
Held back

The feet obliged to
To bear forgiveness
For the hurt

These feet are nailed
Held back

With Christ I hang
Upon the Cross
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OLYMPIA (Sanctury)

When I was
Addicted
To Eurovision

She would be
The most beautiful
Presenter

I built her a stage
Appropriate for the Graceful
Entrance

She would make

A sanctuary of all
The tender goodness
In the world

She did not come
To this theatre

Yet I find her here
In my soul

In memories of her son
On this stage

And Bohemian Rhapsody
Sung Live

Awakens memories
Of an innocent Winter
A happy Spring

And a Summer filled
With sorrow

A long delayed Autumn
And a recovery
Of sorts