Thought for the Day 06/05/2020
Thought for the Day 05/05/2020
Thought for the Day 04/05/2020
Thought for the Day 03/05/2020
Thought for the Day 02/05/2020
Thought for the Day 01/05/2020
Thought for the Day 29/4/2020
One of the things I have noticed since the pandemic took hold and social and commercial life has come to an abrupt halt is how few my outgoings have become. I am using the car less, having coffees or lunches out less frequently, so am really only spending money at the supermarket. It brings home to me how simply and yet contentedly I can live. But, as Lorna Gold, in her book Climate Generation, Awakening to Our Children’s Future, points out, our present economic system driven by continued growth likes to give us a very different message. She writes: ‘All states rely on economic growth to generate tax returns to enable them to pay for public services...This economic system is built around generating more and more unnecessary wants,’ with, as she warns, considerable damage to our environment. ‘Dealing with this systemic issue involves asking ourselves some pretty fundamental questions about our economies and our lifestyles, especially in Western societies...we need to rapidly relearn the idea of enough.’ Perhaps the current situation is inviting us to do just that.
Thought for the Day 28/4/2020
Thought for the Day 27/04/2020
The biggest challenge at the moment is that we cannot make any definite plans for the future. Hence life seems to be on hold. We can spend our time waiting for the day when the government lift restrictions, and we can return to work, school, daily Mass or whatever ‘normal life’ means for us, or we can welcome the possibilities that the new situation opens up for us. Yesterday morning people in Australia, Singapore, USA, Slovakia, Italy, and the UK participated in our Sunday Mass streamed from Iona Road, while last night my family met up online for a zoom quiz. We had not been together since my brother and family visited from Seattle three years ago! It’s hard to believe that the Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade coined over 300 years ago the phrase: ‘the sacrament of the present moment’.
‘They are happy, who dwell in your house,
forever singing your praise.
They are happy, whose strength is in you,
in whose hearts are the roads to Sion.’
(From Psalm 84, Morning Prayer for Monday 27th April, Psalter Week 3.
Thought for the Day 24/4/2020
Faced with the threat to global public health and economic activity caused by the outbreak of the corona virus, we have witnessed a remarkable spirit of cooperation with government imposed restrictions over the past six weeks, with people staying at home, observing social distancing and organising food deliveries for their neighbours. I believe this cooperation is the fruit of a sense of solidarity with those who are ill with Covid-19 and those who are looking after them, often at risk to themselves and to their families. On this UN World Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, it would be good to see this spirit of solidarity replicated among the EU member states in sharing the burden of the cost in the fight against Covid 19, and similarly from the rich developed countries towards the countries of Africa and other underdeveloped nations.
‘Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave them out to all who were sitting ready.....giving out as much as was wanted’. (John 6:11, from the Gospel at Mass for Second Friday of Easter)
Thought for the Day 23/4/2020
No matter what the external circumstances of our lives: whether we are anxious about the health of someone we love, or about when we will be able to return to work or school will reopen; whether we are restless and frustrated from cocooning at home; or whether we are stretched from trying to balance the demands of work with trying to provide care for loved ones at home; there is nevertheless always reason to give thanks each day for the many blessings in our lives. It helps to name them.
‘I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise always on my lips.’
(Psalm 34:2 from Mass Readings for Thursday of the Second Week of Easter)
Thought for the Day 22/04/2020
In this Easter season, Luke’s Acts of the Apostles presents striking images of the unity of purpose and sense of solidarity which characterises the early Christian community. One of the striking responses to the current pandemic has been an increased sense of awareness of the sacrifices being made by those working on the frontline and a spontaneous consideration for others, especially older people living alone. If this sense of solidarity with the vulnerable could be replicated at national and international level, it would transform the world.
‘The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul.... The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power....None of them was ever in want, as all this who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any members who might be in need.’ Acts 4: 32-35.(From the Second Reading at Mass for Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter)
Thought for the Day 21/04/2020
Particularly in these difficult days, we get a lift from receiving an unexpected word of encouragement, where we discover something we have said or done has brought joy, hope, comfort or meaning to someone. How often have we intended to validate or acknowledge something of value someone else did but never quite got round to it?Perhaps today we might make a particular effort by way of text, email, card or phone call to show our appreciation for something which someone else has done or said.
‘There was a Levite of Cypriot origin called Joseph, whom the apostles surnamed Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’)’
From the First Reading at Mass for Tuesday, Second Week of Easter, (Acts 4:36.)
Thought for the Day 20/04/2020
Pope Francis says our experience today mirrors in many ways that of the disciples of Jesus after his death and burial in the tomb. Like them, “we live surrounded by an atmosphere of pain and uncertainty,” and we ask, “Who will roll away the stone (from the tomb?)”. He likens the stone that sealed the tomb of Jesus to the tombstones of the pandemic that “threatens to bury all hope”: for the elderly living in total isolation, for families who lack food and for those on the front lines who are “exhausted and overwhelmed.”
He recalls, however, that the women who followed Jesus did not allow themselves to be paralyzed by anxiety and suffering. “They found ways to overcome every obstacle, simply by being and accompanying….We are not alone, the Lord goes before us on our journey, and removes the stones that paralyze us… This is the hope that no one can take from us.’’
Pope Francis describes the present moment as a “propitious time” to be open to the Spirit, who can inspire us with a new imagination of what is possible. “Easter calls us and invites us to remember this other discreet and respectful, generous and reconciling presence, so as to start that new life which is given to us. This presence is the breath of the Spirit that opens horizons, sparks creativity and renews brotherhood and makes us say, ‘I’m present’ in the face of the enormous and urgent task that awaits us.” from Un Plan Para Resucitar (A Plan for Rising Up Again).
Easter Sunday Homily 12/4/2020
‘It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark……when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb.’
At the centre of today’s Easter Gospel is the silence of an empty tomb. We are gathered in an empty church this morning. Indeed, right around the world Mass is being celebrated in vast empty churches and cathedrals – not least in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where Pope Francis has cut a lonely yet powerful figure leading the world’s faithful in the Holy Week liturgies.
This is an Easter like no other: not only the churches but the streets, shops, restaurants, businesses and places of leisure are all empty. It is as if the world has come to a complete standstill. We find ourselves this Easter morning in a state of suspended animation – which our government has just extended for another three weeks – wondering if we will ever get back to normal life again.
What we miss most is the normal social interaction that gives life its joy: seeing people we love, being able to embrace grandchildren. A teacher wrote to me this week: ‘I never wanted to be back in school so much before’!
This experience of social and emotional deprivation perhaps helps us identify a little more with the sense of loss of the disciples after the death of Jesus.
‘It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark……’
The disciples are still in the darkness of desolation, fear, self-recrimination and above all sense of abandonment. Mary runs to the other disciples when she discovers the stone guarding the tomb rolled back – not in excitement, but in panic and distress – thinking that somebody has robbed the body of Jesus.
The seemingly trivial detail about one disciple outrunning the other is a hint that people come to resurrection faith in their own time. It cannot be forced.
When they arrive at the tomb, what do they find? Nothing, on the face of things. Unlike other Gospel accounts of the resurrection, there is no appearance of the risen Jesus, no voices from heaven, no angels, no earthquakes….only silence, and a few discarded cloths. Somehow the empty tomb is an image of life pared back to the essentials.
When Peter and the other disciple go into the tomb, it’s not what is there that is important but what they see. The central question for us is how a frightened and disillusioned bunch of disciples come to proclaim faith in the resurrection? Somehow the answer is here, at the empty tomb. Resurrection faith, it seems, dawns gradually. It begins with a flicker of recognition: a memory of something said, a sacred moment shared…
Standing there in the empty tomb, the two disciples experience something of the mystery of a life given in love, which leads to a new sense of peace and joy. Their transformation begins from this moment. They went to the tomb looking for a dead body. They come away knowing he is alive within.
Easter invites us to confront our own empty tomb: the empty tomb of our disappointments, our losses; the pain of not being able to be with a loved one sick in hospital, perhaps close to death; but also the empty tomb of our own fears, anxieties, guilt, of our betrayals and weakness, our willingness to forgive someone, our failure to forgive ourselves for not doing more for another; the empty tomb of our shallowness or self-centred focus. Somehow facing the empty tomb – not running away from it – calls us to move forward in faith, trust, compassion and hope.
This strange moment in the world may feel unnatural to us, but we have to ask ourselves: what is its gift? And what is the shape of the ‘new normal’ we would like to take up when the virus has finally moved away?
I saw Christ risen this week: in the beauty of trees coming to life and the accompanying chorus of birdsong; in the joy and relief in the mother who told me that her adult son has turned his life around; in the nurse who asked me to email her prayers she could say with a patient who was seriously ill and couldn’t access a chaplain; in the NGO volunteer I saw on TV distributing food to refugees at a makeshift camp in Calais and who was appalled at the way his fellow human beings were being treated; in the simple beauty of pictures representing Easter which children in the parish posted to us online; in people reaching out to their neighbour.
Christ isn’t risen out there. He is risen in us! Our task today as people of faith is not simply to come looking for signs of resurrection and a message of hope. It is to proclaim with our lives that Christ is risen, so that we can offer the people of this generation hope in a God who is faithful, true and caring. As St. Teresa of Avila once said: ‘Christ has no body now but yours’.
Jesus Christ is risen. Alleluia, Alleluia!
Fr. Richard Sheehy
The Mass readings for this Easter week are full of life and hope. The Gospel each day presents a different resurrection account, while the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles reveals the disciples transformed by their Easter faith and proclaiming it with courage and joy in the face of scepticism and hardship. A common thread running through the different resurrection stories is the slowness of the disciples to realise that Jesus is risen. It is through familiar signs, such as the unexpected catch of fish or the sharing of bread and fish around a charcoal fire, that the disciples come to recognise the presence in their midst of the risen Christ. In this time, where normal life is on hold and we know people are very sick or dying and health care workers are stretched to their limit, we too are called to recognise the signs of Christ’s risen life in our daily experience, whether in the unfolding beauty of nature, the thoughtfulness and dedication of other people or simply in the gratefulness in our hearts for what we have.
And although the nearest we can get to receiving Communion is attending Mass online or on TV, we can still break daily the bread of compassion, forgiveness, and care for one another.
‘None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, « Who are you? »...Jesus then stepped forward, took the bread and gave it to them, and the same with the fish.’
(From the Gospel for Easter Friday, 17th April, John 21: 12-13)
'Peace be with you! Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts?' (Luke: 24:36 from the Gospel for Easter Thursday, 16th April)
Thought for the Day 15/04/2020
Our conversation, whether with loved ones or on the national media is dominated by Covid-19 and the way it has impacted totally on our way of living. For many of us, it’s mostly about inconvenience, not being able to do everyday things we previously took for granted. For those who are sick, in hospital or in nursing homes, particularly if they have compromised immune systems, it is much more serious. Health care workers, while totally dedicated to the care of their patients, are scared for themselves and their families. Some families in our community have already experienced the trauma and distress of losing a loved one, whom they were unable to visit for several weeks before they died. Last week, as a Christian community, we journeyed through Holy Week, and the Passion of Christ felt more real. This week, the Church proclaims Christ risen, walking with us in our trials and leading us towards hope and new beginnings. We all witness or hear daily stories of courage, recovery, resilience, generosity, compassion or thoughtfulness. Our churches may be temporarily closed, but Christ continues to break bread among us. In this extraordinary moment it is important that we share our stories of resurrection.
‘Two of the disciples....and they were talking together about all that had happened.....
Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.’
(From the Gospel for Easter Wednesday, Luke 24: 13-35)
Thought for the Day 14/04/2020
The Church honours the apostles as the companions of Jesus and witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. However, as we hear in today’s Gospel, Mary of Magdala receives particular honour as the ‘apostle of the apostles’, since as St. John Paul points out, she is the first witness to the Risen Christ and the first messenger who announces to the apostles the resurrection of the Lord. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments recognises St.Mary Magdalene as ‘an example of authentic evangelisation in proclaiming the joyful central message of Easter’.
‘Mary of Magdala went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her. ‘ (from the Gospel of Tuesday of Easter Week, John 20:18)
Thought for the Day 13/04/2020
At the heart of the story on Easter Sunday is the empty tomb. Somewhere in the pale dawn of Easter Sunday, each of us must confront the empty tomb and discover for ourselves the Risen Christ. Pope Francis reminds us that our joy in the Risen Christ calls us to quiet love and service. We have a peace in our hearts that is stronger than death itself. All our hope lies in that promise.
—from the book The Hope of Lent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis by Diane M. Houdek
EASTER 2020 REFLECTION
Almost as never before, nature seems in perfect harmony with Easter this year. The sun is shining, the weather is unexpectedly warm after the cold of the past few weeks, the birds are singing gaily and have rarely been so audible, the daffodils and tulips are showing their magnificence, and the trees are about to burst into an explosion of colour and life. The timing couldn’t be better. Surrounded by such glory, it is hard to imagine that the country, indeed the world, is in turmoil, brought to its knees by a virus, against which the best of medical treatment seems powerless. And since we humans are the only means by which the virus is transmitted to others, the most loving thing we can do for one another is to avoid physical contact, to practise social distancing, to stay at home. It is so counter intuitive.
In these days Christians would normally be celebrating the liturgies of the Easter Triduum, beginning with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, and the solemn Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. Because of the current restrictions these ceremonies can only be celebrated behind closed doors and accessible via webcam or on TV. The purpose of these liturgies is to connect us with God’s great love for all humanity, and for the whole of creation, revealed in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This year in a particular way the passion and death of Our Lord are being lived out in our midst. Most of us can only imagine the situation in most of our hospitals: people very sick, many of them in intensive care, unable to see their loved ones; health care staff doing their utmost in extraordinary conditions to care for their patients, conscious of the risk to themselves and to their families. It is particularly difficult for families who lose a loved one in a hospital or nursing home setting at this time: unable to be with their loved one in their last moments, and with only the immediate family being allowed to attend the funeral. Nor can we forget the economic hardship and accompanying insecurity for so many people.
If Easter is about anything, it is about the presence of death in the midst of life, but it is also about witnessing to new life in the sadness and tragedy of death. The suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday was real, and his followers were left desolated and abandoned. Somehow out of that experience of utter darkness they came to experience and proclaim resurrection faith. Generations of Christians, saints and sinners, have witnessed to Easter faith through times of war, persecution, hunger and sickness. This is our moment.
Christian faith above all proclaims that we are not alone, whatever we might be facing. God in Jesus Christ is with us, always giving us courage and hope and leading us towards new life. We live that hope by showing solidarity with one another, whatever sacrifice that might ask of ourselves. So many people are doing that right now, accepting in good spirit the restrictions on our movements and normal way of life, and reaching out in creative ways to those who are isolated, anxious or suffering. In doing this we are proclaiming our faith in and helping to create a better future for everyone. Jesus Christ is risen! Alleluia, alleluia!
Fr. Richard Sheehy
Thought for the Day 09/04/2020
'This is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you:
that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread,
and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, 'This is my body, which is for you;
do this as a memorial of me.' in the same way he took the cup after supper, and said,
'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me'.
Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.'
1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 from the Mass for Holy Thursday
'O precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful.
A thanksgiving sacrifice I make;
I will call on the Lord's name.'
Psalm 116 from the Mass for Holy Thursday
Thought for the Day 08/04/2020
‘That is the ultimate goal: to become love....to be love in the world. Love is who you truly are, and who I am too. It is our deepest truth. The only sin is the absence of love in us.
Our personal love of God is the same as our love and forgiveness for the least of those in our lives.’ (Daniel O’ Leary)
‘Each morning the Lord wakes me to hear ,
To listen like a disciple.
The Lord has opened my ear.’
(Isaiah 50:5; from the First Reading at Mass for Wednesday of Holy Week)
Thought for the Day - 07/04/2020
‘It seems that God’s love does not protect me from anything, but somehow enables me, strengthens and supports me in the midst of the dying I’m enduring....It somehow manages to touch with courage, patience, even tenderness those hurting places, cauterising everything that is not love. Until only love is left.’ (Daniel O’ Leary)
‘It is you, O Lord, who are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, since my youth.
On you I have leaned from my birth,
from my mother’s womb you have been my help.’
Psalm 70 (from Mass of Tuesday of Holy Week 2020)
A Message from Pope Francis
“Tonight before falling asleep think about when we will return to the street. When we hug again, when all the shopping together will seem like a party. Let's think about when the coffees will return to the bar, the small talk, the photos close to each other. We think about when it will be all a memory but normality will seem an unexpected and beautiful gift. We will love everything that has so far seemed futile to us. Every second will be precious. Swims at the sea, the sun until late, sunsets, toasts, laughter. We will go back to laughing together. Strength and courage.”
Prayer for a Pandemic by Cameron Bellm
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close
Remember those who have no options.
May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those that have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country,
let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors. Amen.
And People Stayed Home
And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,
dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to heal
and when the danger ended
and people found each other
grieved for the dead people
and they made new choices
and dreamed of new visions
and created new ways of life
and healed the earth completely
just as they were healed themselves.
(Kathleen O'Meara's poem, 'And People Stayed Home,' written in 1869, after the famine)
From Psalm 42
‘With cries that pierce me to the heart,
my enemies revile me,
saying to me all day long:
‘’Where is your God?’’
Why are you cast down, my soul,
why groan within me?
Hope in God; I will praise him still,
my saviour and my God.’
‘Suffering itself is a fact; how I see it is a choice.
I can change my destiny and how I prepare for it by changing my attitude to it.‘
(Daniel O’ Leary)
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