Darkness and Light
Lord, awareness of your love can slip away from my heart so easily, whenever there’s a disaster I begin to doubt it. My small mind starts whirling, and I ask, ‘How could you do this to me?’ or ‘How could you let that happen to someone else?’ The dark side of things can so quickly eclipse the light. I say – excuse me for this! – ‘Where the hell are you gone?’ My demons then have a field day. Let me instead watch out for your way of going about things. At the beginning, you tell us, darkness lay over the face of the earth then, first of all your works, you created light. Why did you let darkness have its place; why not obliterate it? But light and darkness both have their place in your scheme of things. This helps me! It makes me less surprised at the darkness that is around and focuses me on the fact that the light will come back. I should not expect a world without some darkness. Because you come into the world as divine light, darkness is pushed back and can’t eclipse it. I should focus on you as light, holding the darkness at bay, dealing resourcefully with suffering and evil. In another world perpetual light will shine on us all, but for now help me to live in the light myself and to battle the darkness as you do. After all I am infinitely loved and you need me to be ‘the light of the world’. May I believe that patient endurance illuminates what is dark from the inside. So it was on Calvary and can be in my life too.
Excerpted from I Am Infinitely Loved by Brian Grogan SJ
Read more
Responding to the Cry of the Earth
Our screens are filled with frightening images of climate change, which is increasingly called the climate crisis, or even the climate catastrophe. This crisis is not something that is happening in other parts of the world; it is something that happens in the world, and there is only one world. The planet we share is not just our ‘common home’; it is our only home. There is no Planet B.
Our future – and the future of the planet – depends on facing up to our responsibility both globally and locally. Conversion and faith, responding to the cry of the earth and the allied cry of the poor, demands significant changes in how we live, in our lifestyle. Changing our way of living merits being called a conversion, as real conversion is not only a change of practice, but requires a change of heart, a transformation from within. Change from within can only happen in a sustained way when it is nourished by the One who lives within every person. Meeting the Lord in the Word of God, in the life of the Church, and in each other is the food that transforms our lives. It is there that we discover the roots of ecological conversion.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, March 2022, Archbishop Dermot Farrell
Read more
A Good Time to Pray
When is a good time to pray? In the Gospels, we learn that Jesus prayed in the morning and at night. He rose early in the morning to pray (Mark 1:35). Before choosing the apostles, he spent the whole night in
prayer (Luke 6:12). But as well as praying at the opening of the day and during the night, Jesus was in communion with the Father throughout the day. In other words, although he chose certain moments for formal prayer, his prayer was in fact continuous. He was bathed in a continual awareness of the Father. He was totally in tune with the Father; so much so that the Father was always speaking through him. Jesus put it this way, ‘I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak’ ( John 12:49).
It would be great if you could make it your ultimate goal to imitate Jesus and ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17). You can start by imitating Jesus’ rhythm of formal prayer and making sure to pray both morning and evening.
Excerpted from The Mindful Our Father by Thomas Casey SJ
Read more
I Am Loved
Dear Lord, recently I read of someone who felt that other people’s profiles were drawn in strong black, or in colour with magic markers, but hers was sketched only in light pencil. I sometimes feel like that woman, almost invisible, unimportant. Maybe it goes with seniority! Psychologists tell us that to be truly alive, someone else’s loving gaze is needed: otherwise we can never blossom to our full potential. I know you do your best to provide everyone with good parents, they’re a great blessing to a child, but of course this doesn’t always happen. You also send us good grandparents, relatives, friends who help us to believe we are worthwhile. They are escorts of your loving care. You want us to receive your great gift, the conviction that we are OK, that we are loved and that we matter.
May your word today convince me that I am good, worthwhile, lovable and wonderful; that I am your beloved, your unique creation, the apple of your eye. May I believe that, no matter what, you love me
infinitely, that you embrace me tenderly and live within me and that you have dreams for me that go way beyond my own. For you, I will always be important! My core identity is that I am your beloved! You are, so to speak, part of my DNA.
Excerpted from I Am Infinitely Loved by Brian Grogan SJ
Read more
Relational Love
We live in an age that is fascinated by identity. There is ongoing debate on gender identity.
To understand who we are is a deep and healthy human need. So many people are not at home in their own skins and the application of labels can be deeply unhelpful. All of this sounds like serious inner
work – and it is! But the Christian believes we need to turn outwards, not gaze inwards at the self. In the age of the selfie, this is quite a challenge.
We start from a basic belief that every human being is made in the image of God; in this case, a relational God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinity). At the very heart of God are mutual relations between the three. From what I gather, neuroscience also holds that the brain is deeply social. Babies’ brains take shape when they sense and experience loving interaction. They are intensely social little people. Their journey to self-discovery is always made in the company of others. Often we hear people talking about ‘my other half’, or somebody who is or was ‘a part of me’. The way we speak about love is always relational. Unconsciously we use the language of the Trinity; we sense that somebody else makes us complete. Two people together are exclusive, but add a third, equal love and what do we have? A
community, a communion of love that is inclusive. You will have many glimpses of the Trinity in your life … just be open to them.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, December 2021, Tom Cox
Read more
The Comfort of Knowing that God is Near
I knew a man who fought cancer to the end. He took to every type of possible healing. We had all been told it wouldn’t work. I know another who just opened himself to it all and wouldn’t even take chemo. These are different approaches to suffering. One fought it and the other accepted. I admired the both of them.
Many people go into hospital wondering about their illness, and worry that death might be close. That’s part of life. As for Jesus: it’s a fearful time, confusing, and sometimes draws us into more faith. We can transform our pain into suffering, and find some great graces in it. There is the challenge to find new life in it. Pain becomes suffering. Jesus doesn’t want the chalice of the garden, but he allows it become fully part of him so that his inner strength is big! It doesn’t mean a simplistic approach, rather it means an acceptance of darkness in life.
Jesus found in his passion that God the Father is near. This can be our way and we can find that through helping each other. We can help people at times of suffering – listening, being present. We find this in
our hearts, not in books – we find that we can grow through suffering and we realise on a bad day that peace invades the soul, or that there is a bright light in the darkness.
Excerpted from Gospel Reflections for Sundays of Year B by Donal Neary SJ
Read more
A ‘Flavour’ of the Gospel
During the month of October, we are invited to examine how we can be missionary disciples, sending out a message of faith, hope and love. In other words, what does it mean for our lives to have the ‘flavour of the Gospel’? The Gospels offer a blueprint for all those who consider themselves followers of Christ. Do we have a ‘taste’ for God, an ability to savour God’s presence in the world and God’s goodness in all those we meet? To love as Jesus loved, to have a ‘flavour of the Gospel’, means to see everyone through the eyes of our loving God and to treat them as Jesus did with immediate and generous welcome. We will notice in particular that Jesus is always on the side of those who are marginalised, those whom society wants to condemn.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, October 2021, Jane Mellett and Tríona Doherty
Read more
The Importance of Saying Yes
Good often comes from a ‘Yes’ approach to life, a can-do approach. Part of the growth in wisdom we are invited to develop is knowing how to discern between what should be said ‘Yes’ to and what should be said ‘No’ to.
In our Christian tradition we recognise and magnify Mary’s ‘Yes’. She said ‘Yes’ to God and her only question was ‘How will this be done?’ No preconditions, no worries, no bargaining, no self-indulgence. She took a ‘Yes’ approach to life, and what a life that was!
Excerpted from Emerging from the Mess by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p. 64)
Read more
Life as a Gift
Why do we so often fail to see everything and everyone we are given as gifts? Why do we so easily mistreat others as though their love, loyalty and usefulness are somehow owed to us? I believe this failure of sight is our way of avoiding the vulnerability of love: Whether we are falling in love with a person, a community of people, a job, or a way of life, love makes us vulnerable. It is scary to fall in love and even scarier when I recognise that another person is not mine but God’s. Even the most faithful spouse is not mine forever, because it is possible that he may die before I do. My sweet toddler will grow up to have an independent life. My best friend could move away. When we let go of what we believe we are owed and focus instead on ourselves as recipients of unearned gifts, we become freer to forgive. Relationships stop being about what we are owed. Rather, they become interactions freely offered and freely given. This frees us to forgive.
Excerpted from The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness by Marina Berzins McCoy (p.60)
Read more
Heart, Intelligence and Will
In the search for what is really important, heart and reason are not incompatible. Will also has its place. Discernment presupposes a whole balance between these three human facilities.
Experience shows us that not every pleasant feeling is a reliable signpost. Conversely, it turns out that unpleasant feelings can sometimes point the way to greater happiness. What do you do when you are in crisis and you yo-yo from one feeling to another and back again? Is discernment something that is practised only at major stages of life? Or is it something you can also do in everyday life? What do you do when you disagree with your loved ones about a particular problem and yet you have to come to a decision? As a parent, how can you help your child to discern? Can you discern when in doubt?
Excerpted from Trust Your Feelings by Nikolaas Sintobin SJ (p.11)
Read more