Our Nesting Season?

Nesting Season


There is always
a choice.
Perhaps in these
strange moments
it is a simple one;
to dwell on
what has been taken away
or to dwell
in what we have been given;
to build our nests anew
weaving safe and soft
a chance to breathe,
with all the terrible
possibility that brings;
to reflect,
to wonder,
to sit anew
in the secret depths
of those actions
of holy ordinariness;
eating,
drinking,
walking,
sleeping,
cleaning,
being with,
being alone,
simply being.
Taking the time
to watch the earth
reset and heal,
to allow our inner
sky to clear of
all our worry weather,
often as grey
and insubstantial
as clouds,
until the
one thing necessary
shines through
at last,
and we see
the present moment,
sky blue,
and fragile
as a blackbird’s egg,
nesting secure
in the heart,
deep within
the brambled hedge
of our thorn tangled
thoughts,
awaiting the stillness
of a spring morning
when we grant ourselves
new greening,
awaiting the sunbeam
of divine attention
to warm it to life,
awaiting our
sitting breath,
faith feathered
and yielding,
to hatch within us
a new way.

Brother Richard

Mar 30th 2020

St. Patrick, Pandemic, and the Divine Presence of God: Brooke Taylor wit...

An interview with Brooke Taylor for the Feast of St. Patrick covering all things Pandemic too.

May it bring you and yours blessings for the feast and let us all pray that St. Patrick may intercede for a quick cessation to the current viral pandemic.

You can access the interview at this link:

interview on St. Patrick, the pandemic and the Divine Presence

Lockdown - Brother Richard Hendrick

With thanks to Fr. Michael Surufka OFM: A sharing of my poem Lockdown that took place in the US yesterday... How wonderful that we can share our community even in the midst of the difficulties of this time: The text of the poem follows:



Lockdown

Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.

March 13th 2020

"Brother Thanks-be-to-God": St. Felix of Cantalice, the first saint of the Capuchins

Today, the eighteenth of May, is the feast of the first canonised saint of the Capuchin friars!

So I would like to share a little of his story with you...

(the following is a collation from various sources)

Felix was born to a family of farmers and so knew hard work from a very early age. He was known for his great physical strength, always an advantage on a farm in those days, and he was even a very good wrestler! From childhood he was known for his piety listening avidly to the stories his parents would tell him of the Desert Fathers, the first Christian Monks, and their deep ascetic mysticism. Wanting to dedicate himself to God he wasnt sure where to go until an Angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to go to the local Capuchin Friary and become a friar! Twice he journeyed to the friary and twice he couldn't find the Guardian and so came home again! The Angels must have been patient as he was told a third time to go and on this occasion he did meet one of the Superiors. He brought him before the Crucifix in the Church and told him to pray while he would go and fetch the Guardian to speak to him. The friar left and promplty forgot all about him until returning to the Church that evening he found Felix lost in prayer in the same position that he had left him in hours before. That was enough for the friars and they accepted him immediately.

Felix had hoped that in the Capuchins he would be sent to one of the mountain hermitages to pursue a life of prayer and contemplation but this was not to be! Instead he was sent to Rome where he became the chief Questor (official beggar) for the friars. He would begin his day at the crack of Dawn in prayer, and meditation and by assisting at Mass and then make his alms route around the city begging for the needs of the poor and the friary. He often laughed at the sense of Hunour that God must have, when asked why he thought this was so he would tell people that on becoming a friar he had renounced even touching bread and wine ever again as a penance, but the first job he was given as a Questor was to beg for bread and wine!

As he travelled around the streets of Rome he became a familiar and much loved figure to two generations of Romans. He was soon nicknamed Fra Deo Gratias, "Brother Thanks be to God" because this was his customary greeting and response to all circumstances. When asked once by a Roman society lady what his philosophy of life was he responded, "Eyes on the Ground, Hand on the Rosary, Heart on God".

He aimed to make every moment a living prayer and to recognise in every person, regardless of their station in life a brother or sister in the Lord. He was friends with St. Philip Neri and St. Charles Borromeo, he advised princes and cardinals, dukes and duchesses and never refused any person who was in need. He would bless bread and fruit to be sent to the sick who would eat it and then recover. Felix always attributed these miracles to the intecession of the Blessed Virgin for whom he had a particular love. He would make up songs and rhymes about her which he then taught the children to sing. On one occasion the Pope, who had been a franciscan before his election, asked for a piece of bread from Brother Felix. He immediately sent him a piece of mouldy black bread as a reminder that he was still a friar and should live like one despite his papal election. At a time when the Capuchins were still a young reform of the Franciscan order it was the holiness and fame of Brother Felix that won for them papal approval.




Nights were times of prayer and meditation for Felix when he would spend hours before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer of adoration and petition. During this time he was gifted with many visions and on one occasion one of the other brothers saw the Blessed Virgin appear and place the Child Jesus in his arms, a sign of his incredible purity of heart and devotion. Eventually worn out after so many years of unrelenting service he became sick, collapsing in front of the brothers to whom he wryly announced, "This little donkey has fallen and won't be getting up again!" At his deathbed he suddenly sat up and a light was seen to shine from his face. One of the brothers asked him, "Felix, what do you see?" "I see the Blessed Virgin surrounded by throngs of Angels!", he replied. Holy Communion was quickly brought to him and as the Host was brought into the room he sang the hymn "O Sacrum Convivium" in a loud voice, then received the Body of the Lord and gave up his spirit. As he passed away the bells in some of the nearby churches rang by themselves and some of the children of Rome ran through the streets shouting, "The saint is dead, the saint is dead" All of Rome turned out for the funeral of the little brother who had laboured amongst them for so long. Canonised as St. Felix of Cantalice he became the first of the Capuchin branch of the Franciscan Order to be canonised and remains in his joyful simplicity and deeply contemplative spirit and model for every Capuchin since.

St. Felix pray for us!

The Hunter's Moon

The Hunter’s Moon

Seeking the graced sight

of the Hunter’s Moon,

I left the bright lights

of the house behind me,

and, bundling myself

against the cold,

I took the wooded path

to the place

where I could watch her rise,

fierce and cold against

the purple dark sky.

There I blessed her

for blessing me in turn

with such light:

pure and cold and bright,

gilding the sea golden beneath her

as she rose;

my silver sister of the sky above:

the Lady’s lamp,

a guide for all who wander

and wonder in turn.

Finally, when the cold bit

into my already aching bones

too much,

leaving moon to her meditations,

I left for home.

Trudging darkly along

the wooded path

discerning its grey

pebble skinned presence

barely a step or two ahead

I was gifted

with the sudden

awareness of unaloneness

and paused

in the pitch dark

not sure of what old sense

had been alerted, nor why.

Then, carefully kindling

the little lamp I carried

I sudden saw twelve sets of eyes

gaze glowing from off the path

and realized in front of me,

our holy herd of deer.

Down from the rutting hills

they had come silent as the dusk

that surrounded us, perhaps,

to pay their own homage to the lady

high above us all.

Horse high and seeming huge they were,

I heard now their breathing,

their antlers broad between the branches,

utterly still they stood and stared

as we regarded each other,

“Well met by moonlight”, I thought,

as I, awestruck in stillness also

bowed deeply to these

old ones of the woods,

the first Lords and Ladies

of these sainted lands.

Then, stepping back into the dark

I left them to their silent vigil

and made for home,

my heart elated by that moonlit magic

recalling eden’s evenings

when all were one

before Him.  

Later, making tea,

I wondered how often

on our grey and often seeming

daily darkened path

we have, all about us beings

carrying such, and even

greater blessings,

but never notice, shut in

as we are, behind

our curtained glass,

sitting lost before

our flickering screens,

while they,

keep their ancient vigil too,

waiting for us to touch

stillness long enough,

deep enough, to discern their

moonlit presence

and, at last, know ourselves to be,

with them, one

before the One, from whom

the light and dark

and deer arise.

 

Sat Oct 26^th 2018

Our Lady of Sorrows: A Meditation

Our Lady of Sorrows: A Meditation for the Feast.

Each year we come to this celebration like a full stop.

It arrests us, holds us, freezes us as we look inwardly at that scene we think we know so well.

The Woman and the Man,

the Mother and the Son…

and the Cross; always the Cross…

Mother of Sorrows we call her and she is the Mother of Sorrow today, for her Son is not just the God who is Love, but the God who is the Sorrow that Love becomes when it is refused, rejected, even hated…

In a universe of hate and betrayal she will be the one point of pure light, the one point of pure love, the one point of pure sorrow over Sorrow’s pain.

Mother of Compassion we call her. “Cum Passio” is the phrase at the root of this word; to be with the suffering. For all she can do is be with Him in His Suffering and long, as so many mothers have longed over countless ages, to end His suffering, to take His place, to stand in the place of her child.

How many war zones, sick beds, hospitals, prisons have been hallowed by such prayers over the ages?

In a universe of pain and suffering she does not look away, she stands, strong for Him who has become weakness itself in this moment, that the wound at the heart of it all may be healed. She chooses yet again, as surely as she chose in the light of the Angel all those years ago. She utters a Yes once again, this time not with words but with presence. Words without presence mean nothing… but presence, even when it is silent, is louder than thunder.

Mother of the Seven Sorrows we call her. Her life graced and blessed has been punctuated with pain. The pain of the moment and the pain of knowing, darkly at least, what is coming. Seven great sorrows we name, but they are only the beginning. Every mother knows sorrow… the sorrow of knowing that her child is not her own, not really, not in their essence, and that they must be set free to become all that they were meant to be. For her this natural letting go is revealed as a graced begetting of blessedness anew. She will let Him go, she will let Him go to His death and her faith will be the point of light and love that will call Him home to her when first He rises. The prophecy of Simeon, the Flight to Egypt, the first Loss in the Temple, the Meeting on the Road, they will all lead inevitably to the Cross, to holding her dead Son in her arms, to entombing in the womb of the Earth the One she had carried safely in her own womb. And yet, when all will be death and despair she will stand as Woman, as Mother, as the faithful witness, as the one who walks the path of living martyrdom, as the one who, on our behalf, believes past believing; doing this as only a mother can, as only a woman can, winning the victory by the purest kind of faith, unselfish Love.

Our Lady of Sorrows we call her. Ours! Yes she is ours… for in the moment of her greatest pain she says Yes to another, deeper call within her consecration. His last words will bequeath His greatest gift. Present to Him with all her love, with all her still strength and grace she is now ours too. Behold your Mother. This is the generosity of God, of Grace, of Love itself… holding nothing back for itself it gives its greatest gift away. This is the generosity of Mary that she says Yes and accepts us all in the very moment of our greatest rejection of her Son. At the pinnacle of hate she becomes the very first fruits of love, and compassion, and peace, the place where the fruits of the Cross are first tasted, the one through whom grace is liberated and the one in whose immaculate heart, pierced in the piercing of her Son’s the song of our resurrection will first be sung.

Our Lady of Sorrows, Mother of Compassion be with us and help us to carry our own Cross in faith and hope and love.

Pics above: The First is the famous rendering of Our Lady's face based upon the proportions of the Face of the Holy Shroud. The second is by Angela Yerber.

  

Mother Teresa: Saint for those in Darkness

 Mother Teresa: Saint for those in Darkness

Today we keep the feast of the great saint of the 20th century Mother Teresa of Kolkatta.
While she is known mostly for her extraordinary work for the poor and the destitute in India and throughout the world very few still know of her deep mysticism of "darkness". This darkness has nothing to do with the darkness of evil, rather it is the effect on the soul's inner eye of those who have behld the bright light of the Divine Presence... We are simply blinded by its brightness and only that light can in time restore our inner vision. It is a mystical path walked by only the greatest of those the Lord calls and one of the most difficult to even imagine... simply put after the direct call of the saint to a particular path and mission the Lord seems to withdraw His light so that prayer is an unremitting desert with only very occasional indications that God is present at all... It is a participation in the humanity of Christ crucified upon the Cross and crucified to this day in the suffering of creation while at the same time, to all around them, the saint is a source of Divine Light and grace but the saint is called to ongoing teaching, working, praying all without any form of spiritual consolation in a dark night of the soul that produces extraordinary fruit in those around them while depriving the one who is going through it of anything other than the grace to contintually welcome and fulfil the will of God in the midst of it all.

This was seen beautifully in the famous miracle of the light described by Malcolm Muggeridge in his book about her. Coming to film the work of her sisters in the 70's the BBC crew he was with were horrified to discover just how dark the building in the slums where the sisters lived was. It was so dark as to be completely unsuitable for filming. Telling one of the sisters that they would have to abandon the project the news came to Mother who famously said "I will pray." She did so and despite the objections of the crew Malcolm insisted they would film. It was only when they got back to the UK that they discovered that the whole building appeared suffused in a beautiful calm light. The cameramen confessed themselves stumped... what we were seeing, said Muggeridge, was the light of Mother's prayer.

In some of her last words about this spiritual darkness Mother Teresa promised that she would be a "saint of darkness" and like Padre Pio and St. Therese the Little Flower, she promised that she would remain at the doors of Heaven to guide and help all those going through the trial of darkness in their own lives... She is a powerful advocate for those who are suffering and seeking... I pray to her often for light and suggest you might like to also.

Mother Teresa always said her work (and ours too) is simply to be faithful to God in the present moment and not to worry about success... success belongs to God and from the Divine perspective what looks like success to us can be failure to God and vice versa! Just think of the Crucifixion! To live the Christian life is to live one that ever more surely seems to be at odds with the way the world thinks and acts... in our topsy turvy witness we are those who remind the world of what and who are really important... perhaps that is the way that the darkness of our world and the way it treats the powerless, the poor and the hurting may be overcome by the light of the Gospel.

Ordinary Miracles

Ordinary Miracles.


Today I am so tired
I have no space in me for big.
I must return
to the small ordinary miracles;
to the way the cup and the bowl
laid upon this table,
once earth themselves,
now,
after fire's touch,
are something else
entirely,
and give themselves
freely
with the simple symmetry
of their curved line
to the holding of emptiness
or fullness.
Or I will drink tea,
and follow it's warmth and healing touch
within and without,
and mingle my breath
with its vapour and touch
the journey of its essence
from far away lands
to here, to now, to me.
Or spend time simply remembering
that between the covers
of the books upon my shelves
are held
minds, lives, worlds, stories, wisdom
that will all last longer
than this little body of mine.
Or marvel at the striped stones
upon the shore that tell deep time,
layer by layer and recall
wild days of disaster and dancing
in their still sea vigil,
slowly loosing their grains
and building beaches for
children's hands to make sand castles
with until the next tide sets them
swimming again.
Or just knowing that already
I have seen a seed
become a tree
become a log
become a fire
become dust
and
become soil for seed's planting.
Or watch the sky
and know that the blue is
still behind the clouds
and the stars still shine
even in the day.
Or simply sit
with the slow rhythm of breath
knowing its biology as blessing,
its divine anchoring
as presence and prayer.
Today, I am so tired
I have no space in me for big
questions, queries, feelings,
problems, pains, plans,
whether mine or others,
so I will just sit
with the small ordinary miracles of being;
breathing, watching, touching, tasting
the now,
and in the now knowing
the love from which all that is, is.
I will dwell there, today,
in the wonder of it all,
in the wildness of
the small ordinary miracles
of being.

An old one but after a weekend teaching I'm feeling this one today...
May it bless +

BR

Talk for the World Meeting of Families: The Family & Digital Technology: Making Space for Prayer

The Family and Digital Technology: Making Space for Prayer

Talk for the World Meeting of Families 2018: Brother Richard Hendrick

Some years ago I came across a concept which may serve to illustrate beautifully the changed circumstances our families find themselves in as they strive nowadays to be places of love, meaning, communion, prayer and faith. The concept I refer to is that of the “Transparent Home”.

Let me explain.

I am a child of Ireland of the 1970’s and 80’s…

However, in those far off distant days there were two primary arbitrators between me and the world. They were called Mum and Dad. If they didn’t like the behaviour I was engaged in, or the people I was hanging around with they would appear at the door and I would be told, “Richard! In!” and in I went… mumbling and grumbling along the way, but often somewhat relieved as well. Once in the house they continued to be the guardians of reality.

What do I mean by this?

Well, there was one TV in the Living Room. We gathered as a family to watch it. If something unsuitable appeared it was switched off or we were sent out of the room or up to bed. I always found my Father required a cup of tea just as things were really getting interesting on Dallas. There was no remote control. We were the remote control. There was one phone in the house, it was in the hall and later in the kitchen and if we were on it, it was amazing how often Mum would need to drift through the kitchen asking on her way, who it was we were speaking to? There were a few radios of course scattered around but that was it. Reading was actively encouraged and trips to the library and bookshops were common.

You see, the house was opaque to the world, and so it was, thankfully, a safe refuge from which to slowly venture into it, or to return to when things out there were overwhelming or even dangerous. We were gradually introduced to the outside world via Parents, Teachers, Clergy and Elders at a pace that was slow, allowed for self reflection and began locally before stretching out to the world at large.

Now what about today… 

Today, our homes, and indeed our families are transparent. You can call the young person in from the street but now the street, indeed the whole world comes in too via the ubiquitous smart phone, tablet and laptop. The Young Person exists in an always on, always available network of media that demands the same level of availability from them. It allows no time for reflection and encourages the externalisation of self-esteem, which often invites the young person into the living of a reactive rather than a proactive/reflective life that leads in turn to heightened emotionalism and the need to always be on the crest of a wave, seeking the next high, the next “like”.

It is a way of life that is exhausting, anxiety inducing and doomed to futility as we seek the perfect life that others seem to be having out there somewhere. Not for nothing do all of the great spiritual traditions teach that “comparison is the thief of joy”. In this new model the arbitrators of reality are no longer the adults and elders that bestow a wider, deeper, wisdom based narrative based on love, faith, prayer and communion, but are instead the often anonymous forced of so called social media that as we have seen on both a national and international scale are open to manipulation from market forces and perhaps even more decidedly negative ones too.

So what can we do, we who gather here at the call of our Holy Father and the World Meeting of Families to help young people and families in the midst of these sudden and sometimes dangerous changes?

Well, we first need to admit where we are and be present to reality as it is. We cannot go back, nor would we want to. We are well aware that the bucolic force of nostalgia only serves to isolate us further from the world. God is in the Now and so we must be too. We must praise and promote the positive changes that have occurred! Greater social connectivity and the possibilities for evangelisation and outreach inherent in new forms of media must be strengthened and become a ripe field for the harvest of the Gospel. But skills so as to manage these new ways of being must be taught and I propose that like the Scribes of the Kingdom, who bring forth things both new and old, our own Christian Contemplative Tradition has wonderful tools that can assist the young person and the family in their navigation of this changed world. The practices of Stillness, Silence, Reflection, Meditative forms of prayer that are at the heart of our tradition must be taught and above all lived again in the home and in the heart of the family. 

Thankfully such programmes that teach these practices exist and are part of our Church life today. Groups such as the World Community of Christian Meditation, Contemplative Outreach and the Sanctuary Centre in Dublin all offer courses aimed at introducing these ancient skills in new ways to the people of today. We need to recognise the importance of these practices as life-saving, indeed soul-saving tools that will allow us to negotiate the transparent homes and lives we are all living today so that at our centre we are still enough to hear the quiet breeze of the Spirit inviting us into this world as sons and daughters of the Kingdom, so as to create in the digital desert spaces of today oases of the spirit where the real presence of God may be found by those lost in the often overloading storms of life, both real and virtual today.

To finish I’d like to offer you three simple practices that can revolutionise our way of interacting with each other online:

The first is what has become known as the “3P method”. The three P’s are Pause, Pray and only then Post! They offer us a way of being present online in a reflective rather than reactive way. Something catches us online and we immediately feel we need to comment, to make our opinion known, to teach the other a lesson! All of these responses may simply be our ego igniting and may not be spiritually healthy for us or to those we are responding to. So take the fingers off the keys, pause and breathe; pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to be present in your words and then see if you need to post. It is amazing how often when one has practiced the first two P’s the need to carry through to Post disappears. The three P’s: Pause, Pray, and only then Post!

The second is all about our use of time and intention. How do you wake up? Most people, and especially most young people will tell you that the first thing they do when they awake is to reach for the phone. Barely awake they are catapaulted into the virtual world and all the bad news present there. They are taken away from the present moment and taken away from the presence of those who are with them, and even from the awareness of the presence of God. So practice 2 is a simple consecration of the first moments of the day to being present to God, to those you live with and to yourself. It is the ancient practice of the Morning Offering made new for today.

Try it! You’ll be amazed at the positive difference it makes to you and to others around you. As one old friar used to say its going from your first thought being, “Good God it’s morning!” to “Good morning God!”

The third practice and the final one I will leave you with today is the practice of the bells! All monastic traditions have used bells to mark the passing of the day and as a call to awareness, mindfulness and attentiveness to the Divine Presence. Well you have a device that summons you with multiple bells throughout the day always with you; your phone! Why not set and hourly, (or more), reminder to take a moment to breathe, pray and become present to the real world around you, to the needs of your brothers and sisters, to the beauty of creation, to God. No one else need know what’s going on… they’ll just think you’re very popular with all the texts you’re getting!

So there we are, three small, gentle practices that have deep roots in our own Contemplative Tradition that can really help us negotiate the opportunities and challenges of new technology and ways of communicating that we enjoy today so that we do not lose ourselves in the process. Our homes and even our monasteries may have transparent walls these days but with the wisdom of the ancient practices we can grow in reflective discernment and begin to truly choose just who and what we want to be transparent to.

Thank you for your attention today!

Assumption Eve Medicine

 

 

Assumption Eve Medicine

 

For two months turning

the old women,

they who have the knowing,

have watched their charges carefully.

Picked at the height of their power

on the short night, after the long day;

the feast of fire,

that vigils the Baptist’s coming,

when lads and ladies leap

like hares over flames

and look with longing for love,

as children sing the old songs

filled with mystic meaning;

that night they were gathered

as grace and gift

beneath the light of sister Moon,

the Lady’s lamp and plucked

from garden and from forest glade,

by woman’s hands alone.

Now, they, the herbs for healing,

hang in blessed bunches

over the hearth of home,

or kept in kitchens

above the range,

or bound in byres

where the warming breath

of the queen kine keeps them

charmed and waiting

to release their medicine,

the healing pulse

of sister Mother Earth

and Brother Sun’s distilled light

mixed, and married, and greened,

in root, and shoot,

and leaf, and flower.

So they, the healing herbs,

have rested until tonight

when as dusk comes on

and begins to breathe her

autumnal quickening,

these wise ones take them down

and bring them now

to the old places of prayer

to the abbeys and chapels,

to the candled shrines

of the sainted ones,

who themselves bore

the fruit of blessing

and were heaven’s healing,

the salve of souls,

upon the earth.

There they find

the Lady’s chapel,

and lay their leafy burdens

beneath the linen cloths

upon the Altar, there to await

Assumption’s dawn,

and as the Mass bells ring

to have the holy words

said over them that render

them thrice blessed again,

and ready to release their

gentle healing gifts,

blessed once in very being

from first beginning’s breathing,

blessed twice in the burning

touch of Love’s own resurrection light

when all was made anew,

blessed thrice by the Lady’s prayers,

she who is the stock from which

all healing blooms,

and in her gathering home raised all

that grows green upon this good earth

to become heaven’s healing help again;

Eden’s elixir restored in her

and birthed anew as grace,

just as these sainted herbs

ground upon the mortar’s stone

will give their essence up,

and become the holy way

by which their medicine

blesses bodies and anoints

our souls to ready us

in our own time,

for Heaven’s

homing.

Vigil of the Assumption 14th August 2018.

In many places it was the ancient custom for women to gather herbs around the feast of St. John the Baptist (Midsummer) and then bring them to the Churches for blessing on the feast of the Assumption before they were made into medicine for the Winter ahead. The herbs were placed beneath the Altar Cloths and around the Sanctuary before the dawn Mass there to be offered to the Lord, through Mary’s hands, she who is the “first fruits” of His saving love, so as to receive her special prayers of healing and be blessed in their medicinal use in the year ahead.

The Ritual of the Church still provides for such blessings should they be requested.

 

(Pics in this post found as random uncredited images on the web)

 

 

Donegal Dance

Donegal Dance

After what had seemed a very long day

of talking, and visiting, and listening

to the secret woes of, oh, so many,

we had arrived at the last,

to the old farm on an ancient hill,

above a half forgotten valley,

that seemed to dwell in its own time,

to travel its own long seasoned path.

A few thorn trees broke the wind

before the whitewashed walls.

A cow watched us deliberately

conferring with the few scraggly chickens

about these strange visitors; a welcome distraction,

perhaps.

They greeted us at the door then, the old couple.

Dressed in Sunday best, they stood as much to attention

as their work bent spines allowed.

Smiling with heavy, creased, but still bright eyes.

We knew then the far away neighbours had warned them

we were near; two friars travelling from house to house.

the annual days of the parish mission come again.

They beckoned us in to two soft chairs

drawn up beside the fire, there we settled into cushions

shaped by long quiet night’s sitting for them, not us,

as they sat on hard, straight, kitchen chairs

pulled from dark corners.

Then we talked, as you do, always

observing the ancient Irish liturgy of visiting:

The Weather?

“All right for now, but sure it will change.”

Health?

“Good days and bad days, neither of us as young as we were.”

The Children?

“Well, they are busy, they can’t make it here as often as they would like.”

The land?

“Enough for us, but we will be the last to farm it,

there’s no love for it in the young ones.

It’s a hard life, but a good one.”

We listened while scanning all the while this

place caught out of time, yet redolent of deeper, quieter life.

 “You’ll stay for the tea Fathers?”

The old farmer said suddenly

It was, on reflection,

more statement than question.

For his wife was already on her feet

and heading for the kitchen.

To this day I am glad we said yes

for the miracle that came of it then

and was ours alone to witness in the holiness of home.

Though at the time the glance between us brothers

told of a different mutual desire for return and rest.

“It was ever such”, the Brother reminded me, later when we left,

speaking only after we had passed a while of silent awe at what we had witnessed there,

“God’s revelations are never expected,

Moses was not looking for a burning bush that desert day.

The Shepherds did not expect Angels overhead that night.”

“He is the God of surprises after all.”

Perhaps the Farmer did not want or need to continue chatting then,

the old man rose and joined his wife in the small scrubbed kitchen,

while we stretched our sandaled feet before the fire

and stared across the hearth to where

the door half open let us watch the dance begin,

as these two souls, long made one,

in daily sacrament of living, prepared the liturgy of tea.

Without a word and each always aware of their partner’s presence

revolved around each other as stars and planets do

in orbits long settled since the foundation of being,

so they spun and weaved, the one always in right relation to the other,

passing by at just the right moment to receive from outstretched hand

the bread, the butter, the jam, the cheese,

each always, and without asking, just where the other needed them to be,

as their silent waltz produced a table set and ready for us all

to gather, seen and unseen, together.

We sat breathless and blessed just watching,

knowing we were witnesses of a secret communion

made all the more sacred for its being born of ordinary duty.

Danced daily for long years in that place,

Danced in a Spring surrounded by chattering Children

Danced in a Winter filled with worries and woes,

Danced in love and long and lazy Summer nights

Danced now in the Autumn of long burnished gold,

Danced under the stars of Heaven

Danced with the powers of Heaven

Danced with the Divine Dancer

who is the space and music both,

between all souls who dance the daily dance of love.

Once, at the end of a long day,

through a half open door, in an old cottage,

on a half-remembered hilltop in Donegal.

I sat in silence and witnessed the cosmic dance

of love incarnate take place

in an old but well scrubbed kitchen

where brown bread was broken

and we ate beneath

the glowing lamp

of the Sacred Heart.

(Pic not mine, found on Pinterest)