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

EYES OF THE BLIND - Memories of Blessing

God does not see as we see. We look at appearances but God looks at the heart, the interior. (1 Samuel 16:6-7). In the healing of the blind man God seeks to lead us to the opening of the eyes of our mind, heart and soul so that we learn to see as God sees, that we come to see the presence of God in every circumstance of life, to recognize the blessings that flow from the presence of God, “that the works of God might be displayed” (John 9).

A central purpose of the miracles of Jesus is to lead us to faith, a deepening of faith which in turn leads us to worship God. That was the purpose of the Exodus from slavery in Egypt – that the people of Israel could be free to worship God. The man cured of his blindness arrived at a point faith, “The man said, ‘Lord, I believe’, and worshipped him” (John 9:38). The miracles are also of course expressions of the compassionate love that God has for us all, especially anyone in distress.

Blessings come to us in many ways – the formal blessing of the Church given through a priest; the blessing given by parents and godparents in the liturgy of baptism; the general blessing we give to each other when we say, “God bless!” There is also the blessing of a dying parent such as in the case of Isaac blessing Jacob, a blessing that is permanent and cannot be revoked. I was blessed by my mother before she died. I have also been blessed by children.

A couple of days ago, I went to anoint a man who is soon to die. We celebrated the sacraments of absolution, anointing and Eucharist and it was a very peace filled encounter. As I was leaving I asked him to bless me and he held my face in his hands, a gesture that sent a tingling sensation through me and brought tears to my eyes. And it feels to me like a blessing that cannot be revoked, a blessing that is true because it is given at that moment in life when pretending has ceased.

That same gesture happened to me many years ago, in Tanzania where I encountered a woman who had been blind for many years. She lived in a remote village and never went anywhere. She was an extremely happy woman who found the blessings of God in her blindness.

After Mass, she would welcome us into her home where she fed us. I wondered if something could be done for her at the Medical Missionaries of Mary hospital 60km away, so I asked her if she would be interested in exploring the possibilities.

An appointment was made and we managed to get the pick-up truck through a rocky track in and out of the village. There was no road. I was driving, with woman and her brother in the front seat beside. It was a slow laborious journey with the truck bouncing up and down and from side to side.

For the woman who could not see, it was hilarious and she shouted out, “there must be a God! Who else would send a priest on such a bad road to take me to hospital?”

In hospital, they discovered she simply had cataracts which the doctor removed. For us in Ireland cataracts are not a big deal but in Tanzania it usually meant a life of blindness for anyone living in a remote place.

I was there the day the day the bandages came were taken off her eyes. The nurse put glasses on her. I was the first person she saw. She held my face in her hands laughing, thanking God and everyone. It was such a feeling of honour to witness the opening of eyes that were blind, a feeling that can’t be described, a joy that can’t be expressed in words. But I was blessed by that joy.

Pope Francis Meeting Deaf And Blind People

The experience strengthened the faith she already had; for her community, it awakened a faith they had lost. It wasn’t a miracle but for all of us it was a sign of God’s compassionate presence in our lives, a sign of how he uses us as instruments of healing.

What I pray for is the inner vision to see people and life with the eyes of God so that every experience – good or bad – will lead us to see Him, to enter into a deeper relationship with Him, a life in which I worship Him in spirit and truth.

Fr. Eamonn Monson SAC

ADORATION (O Sacred Silence)

O Sacred Silence

O Silent Sacrament 

Jesus Silent in my Heart
Jesus Hidden in the Host

Behind the Tabernacle door
Totally Present Within

Completely Still

Leading me on
Taking me in

I come that I may be
Silent like You

And Present

My Heart wholly
Like Yours

Amen

MERCY TURNS ALIKE TO FRIEND OR FOE

HOLY THURSDAY MASS OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

In the Gospel of yesterday's Mass Jesus says, "It is at your house that I am keeping Passover" and when I hear these words it strikes me that there is a very personal dimension to it, like Jesus is saying it directly to you and to me, that my soul is the house and my heart the table of His Passover; that He speaks directly to you saying, "this is my Body broken for you...this is my Blood poured out for you. In this we are invited inward to share this mystery in a profoundly personal way and it means that He does not want us to remain outside or that the mystery of the Eucharist should be something external to us.

At the Chrism Mass this morning in the Pro-Cathedral Archbishop Diarmuid Martin asked us to bring home his good wishes to all the people in our parishes and in his homily he spoke a lot about the theme of Mercy which is so prominent in the life, teaching and action of Pope Francis - Mercy that crosses all boundaries, Mercy that is expressed in a Church described by the Pope as being a field hospital in war.

I never knew what a field hospital looked like until I saw the movie ‘Testament of Youth’ which tells the story of the English feminist and pacifist Vera Brittain who lived during the First World War. The field hospital is an incredibly awful reality, a place of unspeakable human suffering and misery.

Vera gave up her hard won education at Oxford and trained as a nurse so that she could share the suffering of the men who were fighting at the front. To her dismay she was sent to work in the German Ward of a field hospital in France and was challenged by the fact that she had to nurse those who were killing the English men she loved. But she had to do it. And maybe one of the reasons why she was sent to that ward was because she spoke German.

There’s a scene in which a young German soldier is near death and the ward sister tells Vera to go and look after him. He is young and blinded and bloodied. And when Vera goes to him he thinks she’s his girlfriend - so she lets go of her resistance, holds him and speaks tenderly to him in German and he dies comforted. Vera had a vision of Divine Love working in that awful place.

In a poem called ‘The German Ward’, Vera later wrote - “I learnt that human mercy turns alike to friend or foe”. Mercy turns alike to friend and foe!

This is what we witness in perfect form in Jesus at the Last Supper. He who is Divine Love and Mercy gets down on his knees to wash their feet - feet that are dirty and tired from the journey of their life. It is not a liturgical act - it is love on his knees tending to the reality of their lives.

The astonishing thing about this is that Jesus does not only get down on his knees in front of the nice, good apostles; he gets down on his knees in love before Judas and before Peter; he kneels to the betrayer and the denyer. Mercy turns alike to friend or foe!

But this does not mean that Jesus supports or agrees with what they are about to do. Divine Love is able to love and to disagree in the same moment; Divine Love is both merciful and truthful in the same moment, to serve and to oppose in the same moment. And this is the love that we are called to become when we celebrate the Eucharist in Holy Mass.

However, the liberal, progressive society in which we live does not understand such love and will not allow it to be expressed. In the major changes that are taking place one of the ideas being promoted is that if you love me then you must agree with me, if you really love me you must support what I am doing no matter how wrong or harmful it may be and if you do not agree with me, if you do not support me then you do not love me. Jesus would say to much of what is happening - I disagree with you and I love you; I oppose what you are doing and I get down on my knees to minister to your needs.

It happens all the time in marriage relationships, in the relationships of parents with their children, in our relationship with someone we love who is living a self-destructive life, or a life destructive of others. In our ordinary relationships love and opposition live side by side as do conflict and mercy, hurt and healing. In our perseverance against the odds the perfect Love of Jesus is at work.

The first thing tonight is that each of us needs to allow Jesus to wash us in whatever way we need, to let him be the lover that we need in our moment of greatest weakness, to be light in the darkness of my depression, to bind up what is broken in my body, mind, soul and heart, the liberator of my addictions. We need to allow him to do it and not resist him as Peter did.

And then every single one of us, without exception, is to become Living Love and Mercy to friend and enemy alike. 

“When he had washed their feet and put on his clothes again he went back to the table. ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.’”

IF YOU ASPIRE TO SERVE THE LORD - Story Of My Vocation

VOCATION TESTIMONY PENTECOST VIGIL KNOCK JUNE 7, 2014

God often speaks to me through music. I’m at home watching the Late Late show in the mid-1990’s. There’s just Mam and me with the couch pulled up near the fire. I’m going through a bit of inner turmoil, feeling that I’m not living up to my calling as well as I should. Then on comes Charlie Lansborough. I’m not into country music but, when he sings “My Forever Friend”, tears well up in my eyes - not out of guilt or sadness but they were tears of recognition. I felt the inner conviction that Jesus is my forever friend.

This conviction is better expressed for me in the song by Delirious? - “What A Friend I’ve Found”. It’s the song I want to die to because it expresses what I live. My life, my vocation is based in my friendship with Jesus.

The story of my vocation is not a dramatic one in that I didn’t go through a big conversion experience. When God says to the Prophets “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.” I know what this means. I feel it! Because of it I know that I have been destined for priesthood from my mother’s womb and even before that.

Sometime after I became a priest, my mother told me that back in 1953-54 she had been afraid of becoming pregnant. She already had a one year old girl, Maura, and she was afraid of pregnancy. So she had a dream one night that Our Lady came to her and told her not to be afraid and soon after she became pregnant with me. At some stage during the nine months Mam had two other dreams. One was that Our Lady came again to bless her and the child in her womb and the other was that Pope Pius came to bless her and the child. This doesn’t mean that I’m any great shakes but it has helped me stand firm in the life for which I am chosen. And I believe that what happens when we are in the womb has a significant bearing on our future.

Mam was not overly religious. Just an ordinary faithful Catholic who didn’t go in for excess. My father too was a man of simple faith.

I’ve always had an instinct for God, an attraction for Him and I’ve always wanted to be a priest at the altar for as long as I can remember. 

It’s odd - but of course providential - that I became a Pallottine considering I prayed and served Mass with the Augustinians in Galway and I lived near the Redemptorists, was quite close to them but I never considered becoming either an Augustinian or a Redemptorist and they never considered asking me either.

During the Easter holidays of my leaving cert year there was a general vocations workshop on in the Redemptorists down the road. I had planned to go but when the time came I didn’t feel like missing out on the holidays. My mother said “maybe you should go all the same”. 

So I went in obedience to Mam and I met Fr. Vincent Kelly the Pallottine Vocations director who made a deep and joyful impression on me and he invited me to visit the community in Thurles. I fell in love immediately with the place, the community and I knew that I had found my home. Vocation is about finding one’s home, our place and state of belonging in this world.

I was on a high after my visit to Thurles and determined that it was there I would live. My parents were a bit frightened because no one had ever of the Pallottines and Mam was sure they might be a sect or at least a "strange crowd". 

But God is good! Mam told one of the neighbours of her concern about the Pallottines. The woman told her she need not worry because two of her own neighbours from near Tuam were Pallottines and that they were lovely.

I have heard others talk about the austerity and coldness of seminary life but for me there was nothing austere in the Pallottines and there was great warmth. 

That’s how my vocation began and it was a very innocent, uncomplicated beginning. Within a few years I was to go through a strong sense of self doubt, a sense of being totally unworthy of being a priest. 

Over the next 42 years I was to learn how God shapes us and forms us through struggle, suffering and sin. As the Book of Sirach says “If you aspire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an ordeal” (Sirach 2) - not a great way of trying to attract people to a way of life. But it is true that we cannot become anything worthwhile in life without the cross.

What has held me together in all of it is the Eucharist and the Word of God; I have learned the meaning and power of obedience from Mary at the Annunciation;I have found meaning in ministering to other people, finding Christ in them time and time again. Family, community and friends are also essential in helping us stay on the road that God has marked out for us.

A vocation is like climbing a mountain, doing the Camino to Santiago - demanding, difficult, involving risk and it is thrilling. On this day 34 years ago I was ordained a priest. I am now 59 years old, serving as curate in Shankill and I am truthfully having the best time of my life. Thanks be to God.

I have been chosen and I have decided to follow Jesus - no turning back. This is the song we sing.

Eamonn Monson sac

Grotto

Place of beauty
Moment of bliss
Birds singing

Sound of the Grotto
In May

I am fifteen
Nearly innocent again
Almost recovered

From breaking down
Still bruised
But breathing

Passing through the gap
From the rocky fields
Of play to churchyard prayer

Entering the gateway
To paradise beneath
A canopy of fresh green

Oasis in the desert
Deep pool where raging
Rapid waters cease

Five stone steps
To ascend
Five mysteries

Joy
Sorrow
Glory

I am on my knees
In unhurried prayer
Making this refuge last

Fending off  the future
As long as I can

"Will you mind me?"
I wonder

On the sixth step
I am Bernadette silently
Looking up to Mary
Looking higher still

The ultimate ascent
That I have yearned for
Since first I left it

But now I must descend again
To the old priest's grave

And run for a further
Wordless glance to Jesus
In the sanctuary

The sound of the ticking
Pendulum clock
Reminding me of an old
Kitchen telling me its time

RETREAT (A Homecoming)

Draw back the curtains
Roll up the blinds
Unveil the day

Intense red sky
Fading to grey-pink clouds
Patches of blue

Before the breaking through

Moon gives way to sun
Mary gives way to Jesus
Mother to son

"Do whatever He tells you!"

There will be wine today
A miracle Transfiguration

His Word is Light
In stained glass flooding
My face, a child's painting

Colouring my soul awake
My senses, my thoughts, my heart.

MOVED WITH COMPASSION - The Good Samaritan

St. Catherine of Siena had a mystical experience in which she was taken up to Heaven where she experienced the fullness of life and joy in the presence of God. After a while Jesus told her "It's time for you to go back." And when she protested He said, "I need you to go back to bring love to the world!" "I am not able to love" she said. Then Jesus took her heart from her, placed His own Heart within her and said, "now you are able to love!"

A lot of the time we are good Samaritans to the people we meet in life; like the man in the gospel our hearts are moved with compassion for the sufferings of others, moved to the extent that we actually do something to help them. But there are times when we feel unable to love as we should and there are times when we are like the priest and the Levite - when confronted with the wounds of another we pass by on the other side and do nothing; sometimes our eyes are shut, our ears and hearts are closed and we don't even notice what's there in front of us. It might simply be too inconvenient for us to notice. We are called to do something about this and Jesus offers us the Heart that will enable us to do it.

In breaking through our deafness, blindness and inactivity we might also need to deal with the fact that we ourselves have been attacked, wounded, left helpless and ignored on the journey of our life. We need to be anointed, lifted up and brought to a place of healing. Jesus himself is the Good Samaritan who brings us the relief and healing that enable us to be wounded healers for each other.

The call to be Good Samaritans also extends to society. We have a duty to be attentive to what is happening to society and to respond with compassionate hearts where the good of society is threatened, as is the case with the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

It's an issue that affects not only mothers and babies in the womb but also the fathers and every citizen; it affects the soul of our country.

During the past week Good Samaritans of the Pro-Life Movement were moved with compassion to gather outside the Dail from Tuesday night until Friday morning praying silently for the protection of mothers and babies during pregnancy, praying for the defeat of the the Bill in the Dail. They were subjected to insult and mockery by demonstrators from the other camp. These deserve great credit as do the TD's who voted against the Bill.

It is quite understandable that the Pro-Choice demonstrators celebrated the passing of the Bill but it is chilling that they chanted "one step closer", reminding us of what we were warned about - that this Bill is a stepping stone to more liberal abortion legislation. And we have to accept that in some way our indifference has helped this come about. It is also sad that the passing of such a law was greeted with applause in the Dail.

Corpus Christi - A Time Of Innocence

June 10, 2012 

The feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi) brings back memories from a distant past of processions and first Holy Communions and innocence.

When Sister Frances was preparing us for our first Communion she said that our souls would be shining bright when we received Jesus and when the day arrived it was this brightness that I was looking out for. I watched the children ahead of me kneeling at the altar rails and I looked at the soles of their shoes to see the brightness shine there, not knowing the difference between soul and sole! 

Of course there was no brightness to be seen but I adjusted to this by saying to myself that there must be something else, another soul. And when my turn to kneel came I closed my eyes, put out my tongue, received Jesus and saw the brightness at the back of my eyelids. It's been normal ever since for me to experience the brightness that comes with Holy Communion.

Sally Read expresses it well for me "The effects of Communion may be well known by those who have received it. But is there really a way to describe the ordering of the heart, the internal embrace that occurs when we actually eat Christ's flesh and blood?...There is no way I know of being closer to God. And there is no more powerful prayer." (Poet Sally Read, Real Presence in THE TABLET 2 JUNE 2012)

Over the past week the Irish Times has run a series on the healing and renewal of the Catholic Church. Two pieces caught my attention. One was the testimony of an 11 year old Lorcan who made his Confirmation this year. He says, "On Sundays I go to Mass with my family. I like going up to Communion. The priest says we all have to look out for each other. I don’t find it hard to understand how the wine becomes blood, because Jesus did that at the Last Supper."

The second piece was an opinion poll which revealed that only 24 percent of Catholics believe in Transubstantiation. If I were asked as a child, if Lorcan were asked, if many believing Catholics were asked, it is doubtful if many would know what Transubstantiation is but we understand at some level of our being that we receive Jesus in Holy Communion.

It takes a child to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus himself said "I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and of earth for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children..." and "unless you repent and become like a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

The uncluttered, simple soul of the child has a way of knowing that transcends the ordinary intellectual way of knowing that we tend to develop as adults and if we are to connect with the mystery of Jesus in the eucharist then we need to connect with the child within us who does understand. If there is to be renewal in the Church then we have to make this connection with our own child and with Jesus.

Trust is central to this experience of faith. Lorcan trusts what Jesus did at the Last Supper, so he has no problem accepting that the wine becomes blood. I believe in the Eucharist because I trust Jesus completely. I accept that, as God, he can do all things and when he says "this is my body" I accept. This is what I receive.

There is something else in Lorcan's testimony that is simply expressed, a sentence in the middle of what he says about Mass and Communion - "...we all have to look out for each other." And that too is central to the mystery of the Eucharist, the reality of Christ Jesus living in us.

We can receive out of habit, not knowing what is really taking place. It would be good for us to come to communion deliberately and afterwards close our eyes and experience the brightness of Jesus within, a brightness to be taken with us as we go on our way and in all our relationships.

Mary Magdalene's Easter

She stayed by the tomb weeping

faithful to the emptiness she found there

longing for her absent Lord

While we are not inclined

to stay with weeping or emptiness

We run away ahead instead

But it is in her weeping and her waiting

that Mary met Jesus

becoming the first apostle

of Resurrection

The Crowning

No longer

Will I

Bear it

On my own

I will no longer

Wear it all alone

I will let you

Take a thorn

From my crown

The crown upon

My head

The thorn

Of my mistake

The crown

Of my disgrace

And shame

The veil that covers

My face

No longer need I

Hide from You

For ours the crown

And ours the thorn

One the blood

We share

We die one death

We live one life

And one the heart

That carries

Every other

UNTIL LOVE IS PERFECTED

It's part of my responsibility to meet with the seminarians one-to-one and together as a community - a formal "business" meeting and an evening of recreation. We're in Nairobi at the formal gathering. I have given a positive, encouraging talk and feel quite satisfied with myself until, one by one, without exception the students begin a tirade of complaint and criticism - not against me directly but against our way of life.

By the time they finish I'm feeling fairly depressed and in my desperation I ask, "if it's that bad, then why are you still here; what's keeping you here?"

They ponder in silence for a while and then, one by one without exception they tell me why. The response that has stayed with me is that of Jackson from Rwanda.

Jackson was at school when a Pallottine came to talk about vocations, looking for new recruits. He read the call of Jeremiah - "before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you came to birth I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1) - and it made a deep impression on the young man. It stirred his soul, drew him to its reality and when the priest asked who was interested in becoming a Pallottine, Jackson said yes because he wanted what he had just heard.

Amazingly, he was some time in the junior seminary when they noticed that he wasn't receiving Holy Communion and, when asked why, he announced that he was not a Christian. Nobody had thought to ask this before he joined; he never thought to tell.

So he had to leave in order prepare for Baptism before he can come back into the seminary. He's now an ordained priest.

It tells us of the positive power of the Word of God to reach into the heart of one who does  not formally belong to the People of God. It tells how openess to the Word is to be found in one who has not yet come to the faith.

This is what Jesus is suggesting in Luke 4 when he tells his listeners how God in the past reached out to those who were not of the Jewish faith, that those on the "outside" are often better able to accept and receive what God is offering. so, those who, a while earlier, were full of admiration for Jesus, suddenly turned against him to the point that they wanted to kill him. The ficklenss of  the human person! The disgruntled who complain when things do not go their way, when Jesus doesn't give them what they want, when he challenges them.

The students in Nairobi were disgruntled and they had allowed themselves to sink down into a life-draining dissatisfaction, a distructive complaining. Fortunately, the question I asked them prompted them to look again at their life and to recognise that all was not as bad as they realized. In looking again they discovered the positive word that lifted them up and in sharing it they touched each other's lives in a very positive way. Jackson had us rolling round the place laughing.

Complaining can become a habit, a soul destroying habit.

It is vital to remain connected to who we are in God, drawing life from the mystery - "before I formed you in the womb I knew you"  - that our life  goes much further back than our conception and it's interesting that when we are discussing when human life begins we seem to forget this essential aspect of our existence. Somehow, we exist for God & in God before ever we are conceived.

I've just turned 58 and I love my age. But I love more the idea that I go back much further than 58 or even 59 years. It's taught by one of the Fathers of the Church that long before the world was ever made God was alreday loving me, loving each one of us. And if the world came into existence in some fashion 14.5 billion years ago, then I go back even further than that, back into the eternity of God.

What's more is that the eternity in which I have always lived, from which I have come into this world - that eternity is an experience of the infinite, incomprehensible Love Who Is God; that Love which is always patient and kind, always ready to excuse and to trust, that Love that is the highest of all aspirations. Love that I know imperfectly now but which I will know as perfectly as I am known by God. It's God's infinite desire that we abide in Love, draw life from Love.

The consequence and the challenge of this eternal experience is that we allow this Love to overflow through and out of us into every place, into every person that we encounter. We have in us the capacity for infinite loving and we will not rest until loving is perfected in us.

This is the positive Word, the Good News in which our lives find fulfillment and meaning.

MORE THAN THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT

A couple of years ago Vicka, one of the Medjugorje visionaries came to Dublin to speak at an event in the RDS. I went along because she is one of the reasons why I believe in what is taking place Medjugorje. I trust her sincerity, the radiance of her face.

Her talk was followed by Mass and during the distribution of Holy Communion people surged forward towards where she was sitting on the stage, hundreds of hands stretching forward to touch her. To my surprise she herself came forward to touch the outstretched hands. My surprise was not that she responded to the need of the crowd but that all this was taking place immediately after receiving Jesus himself, while Communion was still being distributed.

It showed that people didn't really understand what they had just received, who they had just received. I know, understand the need to touch, to be touched in order to be healed but in that moment I thought 'however gifted, impressive Vicka is, she is not Jesus. In him we have more than we have in her.' We have the more but we do not know it.

The same thought strikes me in relation to the woman with the haemorrhage in the gospel and I think in my own need for healing 'if only I could touch the hem of His garment...' And it dawns on me that in the Eucharist we have more than the hem of his garment. We have Jesus himself to touch, to be touched by him. To be healed by the source of all healing.

The lament of Jesus over Jerusalem, his word to the woman at the well...his appeal to us "if you only understood who it is...if only you understood the message..." It is sad that we don't get it; sad that we suffer a spiritual and emotional haemorrhaging and we either don't realize it is happening or we look in the wrong places for healing. Sad that maybe we sometimes don't actually want to be healed because our suffering is a familiar companion and we don't know how to live without it.

For the miracle to take place, for the daughter of Jairus to be restored to life, Jesus has to clear the house of all the commotion, confusion, unrestrained wailing, the doubt, the cynicism. Only people of faith can be present - the girls' parents and the three apostles Peter, James and John.

For the miracle to take place we need somehow to arrive at a level of desperation in which we have no options left. Jairus, the synagogue official, would not have gone to Jesus except he was desperate for his daughter; the woman with the haemorrhage had gone through all the doctors and treatments and had nowhere else to turn. This desperation is like the rock-bottom place which is the beginning of recovery for the addict. This desperation is the birthplace of pure faith, the faith in which we are ready for healing. It is here that grace meets with our willingness, our readiness, our faith.

In the awareness of my need for healing, in my place of desperation I reach out for Jesus himself and I clear my inner house of all those things that are obstacles to faith. I surrender my pain, my doubt, my cynicism and allow Him to do what he has come to do through His presence in the Eucharist. 

My Lord and My God

My God and my all

My Lord My Life and My Love

I adore you profoundly.

Heal me Lord and I shall be healed

Save me and I shall be saved

For you are my praise!

BAPTISING THE BELOVED

I went to see the movie ‘The Life Of Pi’ the other night. A powerful story that is layered with many meanings – physical, emotional, mental & spiritual.

Following a shipwreck the only survivors are Pi Patel, a 16-year old boy, and a tiger. They end up - just the two of them - in a lifeboat drifting across the Pacific Ocean and in the course of the journey the boy trains the tiger to give him his space on the boat. They even develop a connection with each other and when they are on the verge of death the tiger’s head is resting on Pi’s lap.

They survive. The boat drifts onto a beach where the boy collapses and the tiger simply walks away straight ahead into the jungle - out of the boy’s life forever. What hurt Pi was that the tiger left him without even looking back and in his desolation the boy is expressing something that is essential in every human life – that we be noticed, acknowledged by another, that we matter. Not so much for the things we do but simply for being who we are in all our stages of life – an maybe especially in times of transition, uncertainty.

The parting moment in the movie stirred all sorts of memories in me. The one I loved died suddenly without a word, without a glance in my direction; I came to the end of a job I had been doing for years and those with whom I had worked most closely let me leave without a word of acknowledgement. These are hard silences, even if useful for our development.

Young people emerging into their own new identity need that identity to be recognized; people entering into retirement or old age also need their new identity to be acknowledged.

Human beings need to be recognized, noticed, acknowledged for who they are and what their lives mean, that the experiences we have gone through have a meaning. This is not just a nicety of life – it is essential for our complete development.

It’s one of the basic principles at work in the Baptism of Jesus. God the Father might have said that Jesus knows who & what he is, that he doesn’t need to be told. But that’s not how God works. To Him every human person, every human life is worthy of notice and acknowledgement and so he looks at Jesus and tells him “you are my Son the Beloved, my favour rests on you.”

This is at the heart of the Christian life – that each one of us in Baptism is seen by God, approached by God, spoken to by God – “you are my Beloved”. And part of our Baptism also is that we become the eyes and the mouth of God; that we represent Him and that we notice and acknowledge every human life. The Church, each baptized person cannot ignore one single life, cannot be indifferent to one single life, must cherish every single life from the moment of its conception up to the moment of its natural death.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin reminds us the “The Christian message is a message of life. It is about how every human life is a reflection of the very life of God. Every human life has the right, from its very beginnings, to flourish and develop as God wants it to.”

But there’s a feeling that we have become indifferent, lazy about life in many ways. Even when you look at how we have not reacted strongly to the austerity imposed by government on so many people.

If we were Greeks or Spaniards we would passionately demonstrate but we have surrendered to what we are told is inevitable – the austerity and the unnecessary killing of the child in the womb. And ultimately we will allow our government to take the place of God, giving it control over life and death in a way that should not be given to any human power.

Are we indifferent because maybe we don’t actually believe or hear God’s word that we are Beloved? Perhaps we don’t actually value our own lives so that it’s difficult for us to truly value the life of another.

Diarmuid Martin says again, “any society which attempts to define certain lives as being of lesser worth and of lesser protection betrays the common good. All should be equal in the face of the law. This is a fundamental principle of our Constitution – and indeed of democracy – to be maintained and protected.”

In the time of economic recession the lives of the poor have been defined in practise as being of lesser value and in the recession of the soul the life of the child in the womb is also being defined as being of lesser value. This is not of God.

Holding Jesus

Most Lovely Innocent God

Beautiful Child

Jesus Christ

I hold your tender Body

In my caring hands

And you offer no resistance

Orphaned as you are now

And looking for a father in me

But I have abused you

My early love distorted

Show your Justice

And your Mercy too

For I have been abused.

Most Holy Gracious God

Beautiful Lord

Jesus Christ

I hold your bloody Body

In my guilty hands

And you offer no resistance

Wounded as you are now

And looking for a mother in me

But I have betrayed you

My early love deserted

Show your Justice

And your Mercy too

For I have been betrayed.

Most Loving Generous God

Beautiful Bread

Jesus Christ

I hold your sacred Body

In my hungry hands

And you offer no resistance

Given as you are to self-giving.

MORE THAN THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT

A couple of years ago Vicka, one of the Medjugorje visionaries came to Dublin to speak at an event in the RDS. I went along because she is one of the reasons why I believe in what is taking place Medjugorje. I trust her sincerity, the radiance of her face.

Her talk was followed by Mass and during the distribution of Holy Communion people surged forward towards where she was sitting on the stage, hundreds of hands stretching forward to touch her. To my surprise she herself came forward to touch the outstretched hands. My surprise was not that she responded to the need of the crowd but that all this was taking place immediately after receiving Jesus himself, while Communion was still being distributed.

It showed that people didn't really understand what they had just received, who they had just received. I know, understand the need to touch, to be touched in order to be healed but in that moment I thought 'however gifted, impressive Vicka is, she is not Jesus. In him we have more than we have in her.' We have the more but we do not know it.

The same thought strikes me in relation to the woman with the haemorrhage in the gospel and I think in my own need for healing 'if only I could touch the hem of His garment...' And it dawns on me that in the Eucharist we have more than the hem of his garment. We have Jesus himself to touch, to be touched by him. To be healed by the source of all healing.

The lament of Jesus over Jerusalem, his word to the woman at the well...his appeal to us "if you only understood who it is...if only you understood the message..." It is sad that we don't get it; sad that we suffer a spiritual and emotional haemorrhaging and we either don't realize it is happening or we look in the wrong places for healing. Sad that maybe we sometimes don't actually want to be healed because our suffering is a familiar companion and we don't know how to live without it.

For the miracle to take place, for the daughter of Jairus to be restored to life, Jesus has to clear the house of all the commotion, confusion, unrestrained wailing, the doubt, the cynicism. Only people of faith can be present - the girls' parents and the three apostles Peter, James and John.

For the miracle to take place we need somehow to arrive at a level of desperation in which we have no options left. Jairus, the synagogue official, would not have gone to Jesus except he was desperate for his daughter; the woman with the haemorrhage had gone through all the doctors and treatments and had nowhere else to turn. This desperation is like the rock-bottom place which is the beginning of recovery for the addict. This desperation is the birthplace of pure faith, the faith in which we are ready for healing. It is here that grace meets with our willingness, our readiness, our faith.

In the awareness of my need for healing, in my place of desperation I reach out for Jesus himself and I clear my inner house of all those things that are obstacles to faith. I surrender my pain, my doubt, my cynicism and allow Him to do what he has come to do through His presence in the Eucharist. 

My Lord and My God

My God and my all

My Lord My Life and My Love

I adore you profoundly.

Heal me Lord and I shall be healed

Save me and I shall be saved

For you are my praise!