Posts from April 2022

According to those who know about these things it is one of the most stressful things you can do. Moving house. There’s no doubt there is something about it. It’s not just the physical effort of packing and lugging stuff downstairs and off to the new place and then when you get there up more stairs. Undoubtedly some of it is about the emotion of it. There is the sadness of endings. There is the challenge of letting go of…

After a period of confusion or uncertainty the disciples reached a point of clarity. It is at the moment when he breaks the bread that they know for sure it is Jesus. They recognise the Lord in the profound and sacred moment in which they have become accustomed to meeting him. This, for me, is one of the most moving stories in the Gospels. The disciples are so low, so disappointed, so downhearted. It is into this darkness that the…

TO: PARISHIONERS OF ST PATRICK’S & ST BRIGID’S, CELBRIDGE & STRAFFAN FROM: BART, ( A LESSER KNOWN!! ) it is so hard to find words for this the two greatest extremes in my life the cruellest and most crushing of disappointments and within a few days a boundless joy that really defies words these few years have been exciting, frightening and beautiful and so much more long periods away from home out on the road watching him in action and…

What a fall!  That was a real fall from grace.  He used to be flavour of the month.  She could do no wrong.  Everything she touched turned to gold. Local boy makes good. These, and many more we could add,  are all examples of statements we use to describe or evaluate each other. However,  more than this,  far be it a harmless neutral summing up of the other, such statements tend to be somewhat dismissive of the other. Worse still, …

The notion of prayer and fasting is far from new. In fact, even though I am very interested in the role of both, prayer and fasting, in the life of Jesus, the reality is that both were being practiced by others for many years before that. My initial idea of the ‘desert day’ was for myself and a few priests that I shared it with. It then expanded to something that might be beneficial to anyone in ministry. I am…