Category: abbeynews

January is often a quieter month for monastic guest masters and guest mistresses, and so every two years we take the opportunity to gather together for a time of reflection and prayer. This year, monks and nuns with responsibility for hospitality in monasteries across Ireland and Great Britain met for three days at Kylemore Abbey, in beautiful Connemara.

Benedictine, Cistercian and Bernardine communities were represented, with guest masters and mistresses hailing from Buckfast Abbey, Stanbrook Abbey, Quarr Abbey, Glencairn Abbey, Silverstream Priory, Kylemore Abbey and Hyning Monastery. Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland joined us via Zoom.

Our theme was simple: “Welcoming the guest as Christ today.” We shared experiences of hospitality in our different monasteries and quickly discovered how much we hold in common. Though our settings vary, many of the challenges are the same. We spoke, too, of a striking pastoral reality: how many people arrive at our doors tired and worn down by the pressures of modern life. Again and again we see how deeply guests value the rhythm, prayer, and quiet of the monastic guesthouse.

One important insight was that hospitality does not have to be grand or luxurious to be authentic. It is not great gestures that make a guest feel welcomed as Christ, but the creation of a safe space, and the offering of reverence and respect. A listening ear, a simple meal, a peaceful room – these speak powerfully.

We were also reminded of something even more fundamental. While we are called to welcome Christ in the guest, it is Christ who truly does the welcoming. Our task is to set the table, to open the door, to be present. When we step aside and allow Christ to act, many marvellous things can happen.

The days in Kylemore were filled with prayer, conversation and encouragement. We returned to our monasteries strengthened in our shared vocation: to receive each guest as Christ and to trust that Christ is already at work long before we open the door.

Oscar McDermott OSB

This weekend the monastic community remembers Jean Dupiéreux OSB on the 70^th anniversary of his death.

Maurice François Joseph Ghislain Dupiéreux was born in Florennes, Belgium, on 22nd September 1888. Following matriculation in the natural sciences and the humanities at the Collège Nôtre Dame de La Paix in Namur, he entered the Abbey of Maredsous on 5th October 1908. He received the name of Jean-Baptiste. He was professed on 7th February 1910.

Between 1902 to 1912 he studied philosophy in Maredsous and from 1912 to 1914, theology in Mont-César in Louvain. He was ordained priest on 19th September 1915. Having served as an army chaplain during the First World War, he taught in the Abbey School at Maredsous from early 1919 to October 1925. He then administered the local parish of St Martin until 1929 when he came to Glenstal as bursar.

Father Jean served as bursar until 1945, and was novice master from 1942 to 1948. When the monastery became independent, he changed his stability to the new Conventual Priory. He served as instructor to the lay-brothers from 1949 until his death. Here in Glenstal and in the neighbourhood he was known as Father John.

His abiding interest was in the scouting movement, in particular the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland. It was he who began the series of summer-camps for scouts, which lasted until the 1990s. Although he had received the usual service-medals for his role in the First World War, he was most proud of the Bronze Medal of Merit awarded him by the Court of Honour of the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland on 18 th March 1953. The esteem in which he was held by the scouting movement was reflected in the guards of honour that attended his removal, the overnight vigil and Requiem in the old chapel and the bearer-party of scouts who carried his coffin to the monastic grave-yard.

He died in St John’s Hospital, Limerick, on 29th February 1956.

May he rest in peace.

We are asking for your support.

On Sunday December 19^th 2027, Glenstal Abbey marks 100 years since the official beginning of monastic life in this place; the Barrington estate was entrusted to us in May 1927. Since those early days, successive generations of monks, responding to the signs and needs of their time, have courageously built and developed, planned and visioned into the future.

The life and work of this community has influenced the fields of liturgy, hospitality and education, ecumenism, spirituality, the arts, music, literature, research, agriculture, forestry, renewable energy, and much more. It has and continues to be a place of encounter, enrichment and peace for countless people. It is a place where people connect, a place where many of you find belonging and shared vision.

In this last 100 years, all that has been achieved is due in no small measure to the kindness, generosity and support of so many. For all that has been given and gifted, for the connections and relationships, all these blessings that we have received, the monastic community are profoundly grateful. For you, we give thanks to God.

Now as we turn towards the next 100 years, we ask you, friends and benefactors to continue the journey with us. We ask you to continue to believe in and support us. We live and minister in a changing world where monasteries are more needed than ever. People come here in great numbers, to engage both mind and senses in exploring the mystery of themselves and of God, to find rest, to reflect, and to renew their spirit. Many, unable to be physically present connect with us through the Abbey’s webcam, newsletter and Chronicle.

As we continue responding to the needs of our time, our estate, and the built and natural environment needs investment and upgrading. We need your help, as we cannot do this alone. From the monthly or yearly contribution for the day-to-day running of the Abbey and estate to the large project funding, you can help in many ways according to your means.

Donating

Regular Giving is the simplest and most efficient way to do this. Setting up a monthly transfer takes the hard work out of the process for you and is most beneficial to us. A regular donation according to your means is what we ask of you.

One-off larger donations will go to the Glenstal Development Fund. This fund allows us to budget and plan for capital projects. We have through the generosity of our donor now completed the 4 year restoration of the castle exterior. 2026/2027 will see strategic planning with regard to other elements of the Abbey campus. We will be asking your support particularly in the areas of green energy, building upgrade and hospitality facilities, to name but a few.

Tax Efficient Giving benefits us if your individual or company monthly/yearly donation amounts to between €250 and €1m in a calendar year, Glenstal Abbey can claim the tax back through The Charitable Donation Scheme (Revenue.ie). Should you reach this threshold, with your permission, we will contact you to help us make this claim.

A Bequest in your Will or Trust is the most common, and simplest, way to support the monastery by naming Glenstal Abbey Trust as a beneficiary in your will or other estate planning documents. Bequests can be specified amounts, or part of or all of your estate after settlement of any obligations. Consultation with family members is important in this regard. Bequests to Glenstal Abbey generally are deductible for estate and gift tax purposes.

All and any support is most welcome. If you have questions, or would like to discuss anything in more detail, please do contact our Bursar, Br Pádraig McIntyre OSB, on 061-621000 or email bursar@glenstal.com. You can also make a donation directly:

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Glenstal Abbey Trust (Charity Name)

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Glenstal Abbey Murroe, County Limerick, V94 TK61 Ireland

Saint Benedict took Lent seriously. He dedicates Chapter 49 of his Rule for monks to the ‘Observance of Lent.’  He doesn’t mince his words – ‘the lives of monks should be Lenten in character at all times.’ But he quickly acknowledges that most of us are not able for that and urges us at least to make an extra effort ‘in these holy days to atone for what was neglected at other seasons.’ And he says this will be done worthily if we abstain from vice, if we work at prayer with tears, at reading with compunction of heart and abstain from some food, drink and or sleep.

Benedict’s categories of reading, prayer, compunction of heart and abstinence seem like things we easily neglect at other seasons. But they are necessary if we are to live well, to live wisely, in this distracted, restless world. Living within our ‘culture of comfort,’ it is good and even necessary to take a ‘pull’ on ourselves and do something by way of stretching our lives; take aim at areas we have neglected in our daily round.

Benedict ends his chapter warning his monks that they must set off on their own project of reform but submit what they intend doing for Lent to the Abbot to avoid ‘vainglory and presumption.’

When I joined the monastery over fifty years ago, we had a practice that reflected Benedict’s advice. Each monk drew up a list of things he would do for Lent. The list had to include: a book to read, a virtue to practice and some food to abstain from. This list had to be presented to the Abbot before Ash Wednesday for approval.

Of these three spiritual disciplines, the practice of virtue is not something we hear much about these days. A virtue has become the trait of the ‘goody good’ rather than a useful spiritual practice. Unless it comes in just ‘one click’ we are not interested. This is to our detriment. Virtues opted for and practiced are our allies and fortify us to live well as we wade out into the mainstream of life’s many challenges.

Any number of virtues suggest themselves, such as reverence, gratitude, patience. Maybe patience is the one we need to practice more than any other these days. Carlo Carretto, who spent over 20 years in the Sahara desert as a monk, was asked when he emerged if God had asked anything of him during his long silence. His answer was clear and unambiguous: ‘God is asking us to be patient.’

We are no longer used to being patient. We expect things to happen immediately and with ‘one click’ and become irritated or even angry at any delay. It wasn’t always so – throughout most of human history, patience was not a choice – our ancestors waited for light, waited for the harvest, for rain, for news.

The dictionary definition of patience may surprise you: ‘the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.’  I was surprised by the tenor of this definition particularly by the inclusion of suffering.

‘The greatest temptation of our time,’  says Eugene Rosenstock Hussey, ‘is impatience in its full original meaning – a refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellow people in creative and profound relationships.’

We are in a hurry and want, even demand, the quickest, the fastest, and are contemptuous of slowness. But human life, especially spiritual life, does not do speed. ‘There are no shortcuts’ says Eugene Peterson, ‘to becoming the person we are created to be.’  Human life is complex and deeply mysterious and requires a ‘deep passion for patience.’

Why not take Benedict’s advice? Select a book that will move you closer to the Lord; abstain from some food (fasting has been shown to be beneficial in so many ways, and not just spiritually!) and practice a virtue… maybe even patience.

Simon Sleeman OSB

Fr. Lino Moreira: When Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan, the Spirit of God descended upon him (cf. Mt 3:16), and a voice from heaven declared, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ (Mt 3:17). This event marked the public anointing of Jesus as the Messiah. One might expect him to begin his ministry immediately, but Matthew reports that he was first led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil (cf. Mt 4:1). Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness fasting, and when he was hungry, the tempter came, seeking to divert him from his mission. 

“If you are the Son of God,” says the devil, “turn these stones into loaves” (Mt 4:3). The suggestion seems reasonable, even compassionate. Surely, the Messiah’s first and most urgent task would be to feed the hungry, starting with himself, by changing the stones of the desert into bread. Yet human experience shows that even if the world’s scarcity of food and necessities were suddenly overcome, a far deeper hunger would remain: the hunger of the soul. Therefore, Jesus replies, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy: “It is written, ‘One does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Mt 4:4). It is only by turning to God that the human soul is satisfied, and it is only by listening to God’s word and living it out that a fair distribution of this world’s riches can be achieved. The role of the Messiah is not to act as a deus ex machina by miraculously providing for everyone’s material needs, but to purify our hearts from selfishness and greed.

Then the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘they will bear you up on their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” (Mt 4:5-6). This time the tempter urges Jesus to test whether God will protect him during his mission. Quoting Psalm 90 (91), the devil reminds Jesus that God has promised to watch over his own, particularly within the precincts of his sacred dwelling. Therefore, if the Son of God were to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, his Father would surely keep him from harm. Jesus replies with another quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy: “It is also written, ‘Do not put your God to the test’” (Mt 4:7). Indeed, to seek a demonstration that God is true to his word would be an attempt to reduce him to an object of experimentation, and such pride, which makes genuine trust impossible, undermines the love that alone can sustain a real relationship with God. 

Next, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, saying: “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me” (Mt 4:8). Now Jesus is invited to establish a worldly kingdom, ushering in a golden age of peace and prosperity for all. However, to fulfil what the Law and the prophets say about him (cf. Lk 24:27), the Messiah must remain in the course of human history the seemingly powerless one. He is the suffering servant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, and only through his obedience and self-giving – through his passion, death and resurrection – can he bring about salvation in accordance with God’s plan. Therefore, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy for the third time, Jesus replies: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘The Lord your God shall you worship, and him alone shall you serve’” (Mt 4:10).

When we reflect on Jesus’ temptations, we begin to recognise our own temptations. Our preoccupation with solving immediate problems can make us forget that true life – and indeed peace and justice for our world – comes from listening to God’s word and putting it into practice. Bitter disappointment or fear of what lies ahead can lead us to seek certainty on our own terms rather than trusting in God’s unfailing love. And finally, we can be tempted to worship power and wealth instead of the Lord God, the only one we are called to serve. 

During the forty days of Lent, we are invited to spend time with Jesus in the desert, learning from him how to identify and resist the devil’s deceptions. In this way, our hearts are purified for the joyful celebration of Easter.

Fr. John O’Callaghan: ‘If you choose you will keep the commandments and so be faithful to his will’. This statement, which we heard from the Old Testament, was followed by the words of Jesus in the gospel ‘if your righteousness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.’ It was the Ten commandments, and a multitude of other precepts, that the scribes and Pharisees were teaching. So there is a difference between the teaching of the Pharisees and what Christ calls for, one surpasses the other. That is what we should consider today, with reference to the examples Christ himself used: murder, adultery and breaking an oath.

Christians know well that the sixth commandment, against adultery, is concerned with the special respect due to, the inviolability of, the relationship between husband and wife: that that relationship is not to be intruded upon by a third party, it is not to be a transitory connection, but a permanent and profound one, where spouses share with each other their true worth and stature. The attraction of the sexes, which in the first instance is a biological law, one of nature’s tricks (one might say), receives a human and spiritual dimension within which fidelity and ties of love can develop.  It is a relationship in which what is sensual becomes spiritual and what is spirit become sensually tangible. A relationship of married love is a way in which a human being can open him or herself up for another.  And that love is not all giving, but it is not all taking either. Anyone who gives love must also receive it as a gift. As Christ said (Jn 7:37) one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow. Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source. 

And this, we may add, gives us some insight into God. God’s love for us, by  contrast, is totally giving. We know, by simply reflecting, that by his very nature, by definition, God does not need us. He has choosen freely to enter into relationship with us. And his love is more than creative generosity for God is one who forgives, as we see in sacred history. Israel betrayed him, in the language of the Old Testament, committed adultery against him, broke the covenant made at Sinai and worshipped other gods. It would have been entirely fair and right for the people of Israel to be judged, condemned and repudiated. For the relationship to end. But his excess of love was revealed when, in the words of the prophet Hosea, he said: ‘How can I abandon you, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! My heart recoils within me my compassion grows warm and tender… I will not destroy… for I am God, not man, the Holy One in your midst’. God turned against Himself, God’s love is greater than his justice’. It is a prefiguring of the mystery of the Cross: God’s love for humankind goes beyond all reason, beyond justice, by becoming human in Christ, by sharing in our life, our death and gifting us with the resurrection. 

When we encounter this love, as an event, perhaps as a personal experience, we are inspired to a more mature discipleship than straightforward obedience to Ten Commandments and precepts. This is all the difference between the teaching of the Old and New Testaments. The Old is at best a preparation for the New, an education for a better way of living.

The same logic of love applies to the other demands made on us in today’s gospel. ‘You shall not murder’. Within ourselves we may find it obvious that we should not kill someone else. However at the two extremes of life, its beginning and its end, Christian love inspires us to go beyond evaluating life in terms of practical utility and therefore possibly eliminating it; rather we are inspired to  preserve life from conception through to death. We are called to help people to live rather than help them to die. 

And, thirdly, ‘you must not break your oath’. Tell no lie! Do not bear false witness! Truth is a fundamental gift for humanity. All the commandments are commandments of love or are developments of the command to love.  In that sense they all have to do quite explicitly with the precious gift of truth. One recalls the dictum of Edith Stein: ‘Accept nothing  as love if it lacks truth,  accept nothing as truth if it lacks love.’

To conclude, the Christian faith has retained the core of Israel’s faith, while at the same time giving it new breadth and depth. We are not simply called to obey commands for good behaviour; we are called to a personal response to the gift of love received from the God in Christ and which flows over to love of neighbour. The first line of the First Letter of St John articulates the heart of Christian faith and our calling: ‘God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in that person’. (1 Jn 4:16)

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Salt and Light are two images suggesting the amazing reality of who we are if we only choose to realise this fact. Salt is a rock, perhaps the only one we eat to keep ourselves alive. It is also a mineral, a stable chemical compound, which never rots or decays. That is why it has been used for millennia as a way of preserving food, and as a way of embalming dead bodies, such as Egyptian mummies: Tutankhamun, or King Tut, for instance, who reigned as pharaoh in Egypt a thousand three hundred and thirty years before Jesus Christ came on earth.  

You are the salt of the earth means that you are potentially everlasting. So valuable was salt in ancient Rome that soldiers were paid with it as others might be paid with silver or gold. The word salary comes from the Latin word sal, meaning salt.    If you get a cut in your salary it probably means that you’re not ‘worth your salt.’ 

The light of the world, is another attempt to explain how powerful we really are, if we only reach down and turn on the switch. As of this weekend,  the majority of the 30,000 households  left without power by Storm Chandra will have had their power restored. They had been cut off from the energy supply normally available to us all. The Gospel this morning is telling us that we might all be in the same situation: the power available to us is being left dormant. We haven’t switched on the light.

About a hundred years ago, in 1923 in fact, a young engineer from Drogheda called Thomas McLaughlin returned to Ireland after a period working with Siemens in Berlin and studying hydroelectric schemes throughout Europe. He proposed damming the River Shannon and building an electric power station at Ardnacrusha. We owe a debt to such visionaries and to those who raised the million utility poles that brought power to the homes and farms of rural Ireland.

The electrification of Ireland was always on a voluntary basis. You could freely choose to participate in this new kind of energy and many refused the offer because they did not believe in it or because they could not afford it. What better way to explain the huge gift on offer in terms of Divine energy: The choice is yours, it is up to you. There is a secret subway that provides access to an alternative energy. It introduces you to a co-pilot who takes all the worry out of navigation, who is as canny as a sherpa, and who never intervenes unless invited to do so. This person is polite, imaginative, personable, sympathetic, patient, self-effacing, practical, and will disappear at the slightest hint of disapproval. 

There is a great deal of discussion today about the surest, cleanest, cheapest, least toxic, most reliable energy in our world. Harnessing power is a major preoccupation for a world that wants to spin. The human race has used its ingenuity to a maximum in this regard. From the first discovery of fire through flint, to the hectic story of the Twentieth Century plundering expensive energy from an ever diminishing supply of fossil fuels, we have come to the more recently discovered uranium fuel. One pellet creates as much energy as a ton of coal or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. None of these sources of energy is as potent as the power of the Holy Spirit blowing everywhere in our world. But we, as human beings, have to harness this power; otherwise it blows where it will. You can become a generator if ‘you fan into flame the gift of God which is in you’[2 Timothy, 1:6]. “If you have faith even as small as a mustard seed, as one uranium pellet, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” [Matthew 17:20]. Ardnacrusha in Irish árd na croise means the height of the cross, that 2,000 year old utility pole, raised up in Jesus Christ to hold us aloft in the Holy Spirit.

The times in which we live are among the most challenging, both for the world and for the Church. As Christians, we experience time as marked by the cycle of feasts. In last month’s newsletter, we were introduced to the beautiful tradition of announcing the movable feasts of the newly begun year, which traditionally takes place on 6 January. This month, it may be a good opportunity for us to pay closer attention to the feasts of the saints whom we commemorate throughout the year.

We have just celebrated one of them: a great saint of Ireland, Saint Brigid of Kildare. Brigid, with her distinctive voice and her ways that challenged established patterns of thinking, was part of a period of great religious fervour on this island. This was soon followed by the remarkable missionary zeal of the Irish, who tirelessly carried their enlightened faith to Scotland and Britain, and further onto the European continent. These were turbulent times, yet the contribution of the Irish monks helped to establish a new and lasting identity for the peoples of Europe, particularly in France, Germany, and Italy.

A parallel work was undertaken later by Bulgarian monks in the eastern parts of Europe. On 14 February, we will celebrate the founders of that missionary movement, Saints Cyril and Methodius. Not only did these brothers, together with their companions, evangelise a vast area of the continent, but they also established a new language for that purpose, known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Church Slavonic. They recognised that, in order to reshape the mindset of the peoples they encountered, a new tool of communication was necessary. Through the spread of this language, their mission reached as far north as Great Moravia.

Centuries later, Leoš Janáček, a composer from the land reached by those Bulgarian saints—now known as the Czech Republic—made a remarkable connection with the history of his homeland. Although he described himself as a non-believer, Janáček composed the Glagolitic Mass, a deeply moving work of liturgical music that pointed to the alphabet devised by Cyril and Methodius for the construction of their language. That alphabet would go on to shape the identity of many countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Less than twenty years ago, Janáček’s compatriot and devoted admirer, the writer Milan Kundera—who had lived in exile in Paris since 1975—attempted to make sense of the composer’s mindset. “Who was he?” Kundera asked in one of the essays in his Encounter. He went on to question Janáček’s stature: “A provincial character under the spell of folk music, as he was persistently described by the arrogant musicologists of Prague? Or one of the great figures of modern music? And in that case, of which modern music? He belonged to no recognised trend, no group, no school. He was different, and alone.”

One of the brothers who established the mysterious Glagolitic alphabet, Saint Cyril—after whom the better-known Cyrillic alphabet is named—went to Rome toward the end of his life. His relics now rest in the church of San Clemente. Remarkably, in our present context, this church has long been cared for by Irish Dominican priests.

The question, then—for Rome and for the Church, for Europe and for the whole world—is this: where are we to look for the new identity so urgently needed today? Is it to be found in established patterns of thinking, in what is already recognised? Or must renewal come from what has so far remained isolated, different, and alone?

For anyone who truly cares about the future of the Church and of the world, the task is to apply themselves to a re-reading of the sources of our cultures. In Greek—the primary language of Cyril and Methodius—this act of re-reading is anagnosis, which literally means “re-cognition.” It is imperative that we re-cognise our own identity, our values and traditions, and ultimately the depths of who we are as Christians, as Europeans, or simply as inhabitants of this world. This may be the only way forward in these most challenging of times.

Jarek Kurek OSB

Fr. William Fennelly: Contemporary spirituality tends to identify holiness with wholeness. Given that theology has always affirmed that grace builds on nature, that equation is, if taken correctly, good algebra. What is less emphasised in contemporary spirituality is how difficult it is to attain any kind of wholeness.

Why is this? I think it’s partly because we are all so incredibly complex. We spend much of our lives sorting through various rooms within our hearts trying to find out where we’re really at home and trying on various personalities the way we try on clothes. It’s hard to come to wholeness when we aren’t always sure who we are or what’s ultimately truest within us.

I recently saw an interesting interview in youtube with Catherine de Hueck Doherty, the foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate, an originally lay spiritual movement in the US in the 1940’s. Like St Brigid whom we celebrate today who also founded a monastery that had such an impact on her native Kildare so Doherty had an important impact in Canada. She was already 80 years old in the clip and was reflecting upon her own spiritual struggles. “Inside of me,” she said, “there are three persons:

There is someone I call the Baroness. This person is very spiritual, efficient, and given to asceticism and prayer. The baroness is the religious person. She has founded a religious community and writes spiritual books challenging others and herself to dedicate their lives to God and the poor. The Baroness reads the Gospel and is impatient with the things of this world. For her, this life must be sacrificed for the next one.

Then there is Catherine. Catherine is, first of all and always, the woman who likes fine things, sensual things. She enjoys idleness, long baths, fine clothes. Catherine enjoys this life and doesn’t like renunciation and poverty. She is nowhere as religious or efficient as the Baroness and they don’t get along at all.

And finally, inside of me too there is another person, a little girl, who is lying on a hillside in Finland, watching the clouds and daydreaming. This little girl is quite distant from both the Baroness and from Catherine.

… And as I get older I feel more like the Baroness, long more for Catherine, but think that maybe the little girl daydreaming on a hillside in Finland is the true me.”

Had these words been written by someone with a lesser within the spiritual life, they would not be as meaningful. Human personality is so complex and the struggle for wholeness is so difficult. Like St Brigid who today has to carry the 5th century Brigid, modern Brigid of Brigid’s day festival also has to carry also the Celtic goddess Brigid who was celebrated at Imbolc.

Like Catherine Doherty, all of us have a number of persons inside of us. Inside of each of us there’s someone who hears the Gospel call, that’s drawn to the religious, to the beatitudes, to self-sacrifice, to a life beyond this one. But inside of us there is also the hedonist, the person who wants to luxuriate in this world and its pleasures. Beyond that, inside of each of us there is too a little boy or little girl, daydreaming still on some hillside somewhere.

John XXIII once said that to be a saint is to will one thing, “to desire holiness above all”. However, given all of these people inside of me, what can I really will?

Moreover, given that grace is not meant to demolish nature it is too simple to say that the spiritual life is merely a question of having the “spiritual person” win out over the “lover of this world,” and the “daydreaming child.” Wholeness must somehow mean precisely a making of one whole out of all of these parts. To ignore, demolish, invalidate, or bypass one part for another is unlikely to achieve real wholeness.

The truly spiritual person is a whole person and a whole person is, as Christ was, the ascetic and the lover of this life and the lover of the next life, the dreamer and the realist, and many more things, all at the same time. What must be rejected in our spiritual quest is not our own nature, with its endless paradoxes and seeming schizophrenia, but all spiritualities, ideologies, and conventional wisdom, which tell us that it’s simple, and would have us believe that holiness can be achieved quickly, without confusion and without great patience and perseverance. Doing holiness, wholeness is lived in time and over time.

All of us are pathologically complicated. Each of us could write our own book on our multiple personalities. But that points to the richness, not the poverty, of our personalities. It doesn’t suggest that there are parts of us that aren’t spiritual, but that the attainment of wholeness is a lot more complex than any one part of us would have us believe. Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote that “the spirit wants to wrestle with flesh that is strong and full of resistance … because … the deeper the struggle, the richer the final harmony.” This becoming is as St Paul wrote  God choosing the foolish of the world to shame the wise. To be as Zephaniah says one of the humble of the earth seeking the Lord. One of Matthew’s “poor in spirit” who are promised the kingdom of God.

Fr. Luke Macnamara: “Ground zero” once referred simply to the centre point of a nuclear explosion. Since 9/11, it evokes the World Trade Centre and the memorial to the 2,977 lives lost that day. New York’s city centre will forever be remembered as Ground Zero.

Something similar happens in today’s readings. Zebulun and Naphtali were tribal place names, long unused by Jesus’ time. His contemporaries would have called the region Galilee. Yet the Gospel deliberately uses these older names, which carry a history of suffering: oppression, exploitation, conquest, and displacement. Zebulun and Naphtali recall some of Israel’s lowest points.

By beginning his ministry here, Jesus shows that he comes to people at their lowest, where need is greatest. These struggles are not only caused by external forces but also by internal sin and division. Still, he comes: “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

We all have our own “Zebulun and Naphtali”—places in our lives where things have gone wrong, often because of our own choices. The good news is that Jesus comes even to our darkest places. He brings the power of God’s kingdom to transform our lives: “The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

How do we receive this light? One way is through the Word of God. The psalmist reminds us: “The Word is a lamp for my steps and a light for my path” and “The Lord is my light and my help.” Even when darkness comes, God’s Word can reach the deepest parts of our hearts and shine a transforming light there. As Hebrews says: “Indeed, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit… it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

God’s Word not only brings light but transforms us: fear becomes trust, despair becomes hope, hatred becomes love, and division becomes unity. It reshapes how we think, speak, and relate to God, to one another and to ourselves.

Let us honour the victims of 9/11—and all who suffer from violence and war—by walking in the light of God’s Word. May we nurture the gifts that flow from it: trust, hope, love, and peace. Just as Zebulun and Naphtali became “Galilee of the nations,” may we too become a land of freedom and courage—a home where God’s light shines, even in the darkest places.