Once again we find ourselves with that little footnote in the Church or liturgical calendar reminding us that we have arrived at Church Unity Week. WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY (18-25 JANUARY) In fairness it is not a ‘little footnote’ for everybody. It will be celebrated officially by the diocese as it will be by some groups around the diocese. We should also note with gratitude the work done by the Pontifical Council for Read more…
We have been talking about you in the past few days. I guess it’s important to be clear who the ‘we’ is. By ‘we’ we mean those of us here in the Faith Community of St. Matthew’s in Ballyfermot, I include myself, here in the Bunker, from where I write every week. I think this particular ‘rumbling from the bunker’ brings me to over three hundred. We have also been talking about you in the Read more…
Wise men? The three kings? Astrologers from the East? This can all sound a bit vague. Today, January6th, is the day we remember them. ‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey:’ The Journey of the Magi (1927) T.S. Eliot Actually they have names Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Better than that there is nothing vague about the gifts they brought. They Read more…
(If you could manage it, there’s a lot of winners in it!) NOTE: This is only for girls and boys who are over 15yrs, three months and two days old. Everybody else should be just let get on with munching on reindeer cakes and guzzling drinking chocolate! However this is for the rest of us! It might be entitled: ‘How to avoid your house on Christmas Day becoming like a scene from Albert Square or Read more…
How many shopping days left? How many sleeps? Still time left to get Confession Not sure yet which Mass, maybe Midnight in Matthews! Do you remember last year? To think that all that started over soggy sprouts Trying to remember that it’s about making others happy Going to surprise a few people with a little gift or at least a card So much for the season of good will I think it was nearly St Read more…
Just fifteen shopping days left! Just fourteen sleeps left! We are all familiar with this type of countdown but I have been wondering about a different type of countdown. How about: Just fifteen days left to get the ‘soul weeding’ done? Just fifteen days left to get the ‘cradle of my heart’ ready? Just fifteen days left to have things ready for his arrival? Oftentimes it can be said ‘How did I manage to forget Read more…
‘What is this Roncalli thing that they are talking about?’ ‘It’s a new thing. A fella said to me the other day he thought it was a new take away like Macari’s or Fuscardi’s, or maybe a pizza place, but it’s not, it’s something to do with the Church’. The Archbishop was asked could Roncalli be the beginning of a schism? ( a division or a split in the Church). I myself received a message during Read more…
NOTE : In this month of November when we pray for our beloved dead sometimes hard questions come up. Yes, big questions like, where are they now? Are they in Purgatory? What is Heaven like? And so on. However sometimes these hard questions are more personal: Did he know how much I loved him? Did she really forgive me? Sometimes it is after people have gone we realise how we can waste time on silly Read more…
‘Tell us this Father, do you believe in ghosts?’ It was an interesting question and drew me back years ago to two encounters I had with ghosts, one very real, the other not so much. The first of these happened about forty years ago on a small back road outside Ballycastle in North Antrim. My brother and I were walking from the town out to the bungalow we and the rest of our family were staying in. It Read more…
Do you remember that movie? The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. One of the great ‘spaghetti westerns’. I love it. I love it for the shooting. The silence. Of course I love Clint Eastwood, and no, I am not forgetting the music. Unforgettable, thanks to Ennio Morricone. I guess we are so used to the title we could easily gloss over it, but it’s a great title for a movie, or a book. The Good. The Bad. Read more…