St. Anne's Parish Portmarnock

28/08/2023

Jesus came to proclaim the presence of the kingdom of God and to invite people to savour the goodness of God’s kingdom, the loving power of God’s presence, here and now, in this present life and, to a fuller extent, in eternity.
Because there will always be those who shut up the kingdom of God in people’s faces. There will always be those who try to block us from coming to know the Lord and all that he offers. Thankfully, there will always be others who do the opposite, who try to open our hearts to faith in the Lord and all that flows from it.
The Lord needs us to be John the Baptists in our day, to live in ways that open people up to the presence of the Lord and the fullness of life that he brings. It is a task that the Lord needs each of us to be engaged in.
There is no more important task in your life.

27/08/2023

Meditation
Is a process and practice that facilitates the presence of God and our being present to him. He is always present to us, but we are not always present to him, we are distracted with things around us. Meditation is the discipline we must practice and learn.
Kavanah or Mindfulness is often seen only in the Buddhist context but there has always been a Christian Mindfulness formulated by the Desert Fathers. In Christian meditation the concept of the bowl is often used. The first stage is referred to as Kenosis, where our mediation surrenders or empties all that is not good from the bowl, which is our soul. The second stage is called Plerosis which is allowing God to fill that bowl with His grace.
In the following letter from St. Paul, we hear how Jesus accomplished this….
‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (Kenosis) taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him (Plerosis) and gave him the name that is above every name...— Philippians 2:5-9 ‘

24/08/2023

TODOS, TODOS,TODOS
Th following reflection is taken from https://coramfratribus.com
In Lisbon, Pope Francis insisted that the Church is ‘para todos, todos, todos’. His words are illuminated by a passage in the breviary from a sermon by St Augustine on the martyrdom of St Lawrence. Having celebrated Lawrence’s path to sanctity, the bishop of Hippo reminds his hearers that it is not the only path. ‘The garden of the Lord, brethren, includes – yes, it truly includes – includes not only the roses of martyrs but also the lilies of virgins, and the ivy of married people, and the violets of widows. There is absolutely no kind of human beings, my dearly beloved, who will need to despair of their vocation; Christ suffered for all. It was truly written about him that he wishes all to be saved, and to come to acknowledge the truth.’ Note the same rhetorical device: the threefold ‘includes’ which renders the threefold ‘habet’. So, no kind of person is excluded; but all are called to transformation in truth. The Lord’s concern is to realise our God-given potential, to make us whole and holy; not to leave us in a state of fragmentation and self-satisfied mediocrity.

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23/08/2023

We all tend, in one way or another, to shut God into an enclosure of our own making. This enclosure may be a notion of what the Church should be like, a liturgical form, a devotion, we make the enclosure ever smaller. God meanwhile is God ‘of all creation’.
For our hearts, wounded by sin, building enclosures is the default movement. Rather, our heart must learn to open like an oyster, to discover and reveal, the pearl within, the pearl of great price.
Christ supremely experienced that ‘broadening of the heart’. By virtue of compassion, love divine He conquered this human limitation, opening and transforming it. Why: a grieving Canaanite mother prostrate at His feet, suffering for her child, oppressed by evil, yet with a faith so great that it caused the sanctuary curtain to tear in the heart of Christ. The glory of his mercy bursts forth, bearing healing in its wings.
At that moment, the world changed, forever.
The reconciliation of the pagan peoples in the region of Tyre and Sidon, was fulfilled in response to the tenacity and faith of a mother in pain.
This gospel challenges us to pray with the persistence of that Canaanite woman. ‘God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim 2.4). Do I desire the same? Is my desire at God’s level? Or do I have a secret preference for selective redemption, leading me to regard certain brothers and sisters in humanity with defiance and contempt? What would my own attitude be faced with the prayer of the Canaanite woman?
We all need to find support and encouragement, to gather round particular wells from which we can draw living water. To be a Catholic is to be seated at a table at which a place is set for everyone, conscious that no merit of my own assures me of a place, rather that I am wanted and invited by God’s free gift and grace. May our hearts grow to attain the dimensions of the Heart of God, the source of eternal, boundless mercy, freedom, and joy. Amen.

Taken from the Word on Word of Bishop Erik Varden

22/08/2023

Today, we honour Mary as Queen of heaven. It is celebrated on this date, 22 August, exactly a week after the feast of the Assumption, to stress the connection of Mary’s Queenship with the Assumption. The gospel reading today depicts her as saying ‘Yes’ to God’s request for her to be the mother of his Son. Out of all women, she was chosen to give birth to the Son of God. As a Church we need to remember how significant Mary’s ‘yes’ to God’s purpose for her life was for all of humanity. It is only because Mary surrendered to God’s purpose then, that God’s purpose for all of us was fulfilled through the birth of his Son. It is Mary’s faithful response to God’s word spoken by Gabriel that makes it possible for us all to become people of faith. Her ‘yes’ created the opening for God’s Son to be given to everyone and for us to respond in faith to this wonderful gift. Mary has a special place in heaven, alongside her Son. We are also reminded that we must make our own ‘yes’ to the Lord’s call, just like Mary, so this can have important consequences for good in the lives of others. Even if in a lesser way than was the case with Mary, the faith of each one of us is instrumental in helping others come to faith and in nurturing that faith.

20/08/2023

In Genesis, Cain asks the Lord, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The question is full of irony, even contempt, because Cain had just killed Abel.
Cain’s attitude stands for the way of thinking of the atheist man, because being an atheist does not simply mean not believing in God. Rather, an atheist is someone who lives as if God does not exist. Atheism is also possible among believers: a terrible, destructive possibility. So, Cain in fact is saying to God: ‘I do not need to reckon with you and what I do does not concern you.’
This attitude lurks in all of us and as Elie Wiesel put it when he spoke this profound phrase: "The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference." Indifference is spreading epidemically in our society, because it is easier to close our eyes and say to ourselves, as the Israelites did in the time of the Isaiah, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will be dead!"
We need to hear the evangelical challenge, "Become messengers of love!" Christian love is ultimately practical and unsentimental. We are not to be discouraged by an infinite demand; simply surrender ourselves to the everyday and concrete, trusting that what we realize in Christ is immortal. Let us fight against indifference and for love, first on the battlefield of our own hearts, then on the land entrusted to us and in the relationships that take place there.

18/08/2023

God our Father does not merely offer comfort. He makes demands. He wishes us to realise what our task is, and to show ourselves worthy of the task. He calls us to grow, to set out, to give of ourselves so that others may live. He constantly bids us go beyond what we think of as our natural limit. He does not let us relax. His measure is eternal. He will not, then, leave us stuck in what is temporal and limited. His Fatherly expectation is high, but expresses itself gently, for he is a Father who loves his children.
It can at times by tempestuous and terrifying to acknowledge God as our Father. That is why he has given us the Church as our tender, consoling Mother. Thank God for that.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
quem, docente Spiritu Sancto,
paterno nomine invocare præsumimus,
perfice in cordibus nostris spiritum adoptionis filiorum,
ut promissam hereditatem ingredi mereamur.
Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Filium tuum,
qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus,
per omnia sæcula sæculorum.

17/08/2023

Today in Ireland we celebrate Our Lady of Knock

"Although not a word was spoken by Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. John during the silent apparition at Knock, the vision spoke louder than words with an eloquent message uniting earth and heaven."

On the rainy evening of Aug. 21, 1879, 15 persons saw a two-hour vision on the gable of St. John the Baptist church in the village of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland.

The figures, all robed in white, were raised a couple of feet above the perfectly dry ground. In the centre of the gable was a simple altar with a young lamb standing in front of a cross. Angels encircled this area.

To the left were three figures. In the centre was Mary, robed and mantled in white with a crown on her unveiled head. There was a rose where the crown touched her forehead. Her eyes were looking upward while her arms were outstretched in the orans position, similar to that of the priest at Mass.

To her right was a side view of St. Joseph, slight bowing toward her. To her left was St. John the Apostle, robed as a bishop, holding an open book in one hand and pointing heavenward with the other.

16/08/2023

Unless you have suffered and wept, you really don't understand what compassion is, nor can you give comfort to someone who is suffering. If you haven't cried, you can't dry another's eyes. Unless you've walked in darkness, you can't help wanderers find the way. Unless you've looked into the eyes of menacing death and felt its hot breath, you can't help another rise from the dead and taste anew the joy of being alive.
Our lives are of great worth if we accept with good grace the situation Providence places us in, and go on living lovingly.
Takashi Nagai

15/08/2023

On August 9th, 1945, 11:02 a.m. the target for the atomic bomb ‘Fat Man’ was Kokura but due to cloud cover at that target when they arrived, this was abandoned, and the second option Nagasaki was used. When they arrived at Nagasaki there were further weather issues, Fat Man detonated at an altitude of 1,650 feet over Nagasaki with a yield of 21 kilotons, about 40 percent more powerful than Little Boy had been.
The impact was devastating, everything within a mile of ground zero was annihilated. Fourteen thousand homes burst into flames. People close to the blast were vaporized; those unlucky enough to be just outside that radius received horrific burns and, there and further out, radiation poisoning that would eventually kill them.
Working in Nagasaki at the university hospital that morning was a leading scientist in radiation and development of X-ray, Takashi Nagai. He had converted to Christianity by virtue of his wife Midori, whose family were catholic. His children had gone to the country for safety, but his wife remained at home looking after Takashi. When Takashi to Midori he had been diagnosed with Leukaemia, she prayed to Our Lady and then said to him: ‘Whether we live or die, it is for the Glory of God.’
Takashi stayed at the hospital for 3 days after the bombing to help the wounded, he began to accept that his wife may have died when she did not come to the hospital. When he went to his home, it was devastated. In the kitchen he found just the bone and ash of his wife Midori and beside her body her rosary beads. He became involved with the church and a peace group, but as he was no bed-ridden with Leukaemia he could only write and sent letters asking for help all over the world. His writings became famous, and he used all the money to help his people and re-build the church. He was asked to speak at the opening of the Cathedral, and this is an extract from that speech:
“On the morning of August 9, an atomic bomb exploded over our neighbourhood. In an instant. 8,000 Christians were called by God to Him… At midnight that night, our cathedral suddenly caught fire and was destroyed.
At the same instant, at the imperial Palace, Hi Majesty the Emperor made his decision known… On August 15, the imperial edict ending the fighting was officially promulgated, and the whole world saw the light of peace. August 15 is also the great feast of the Assumption of Mary. Not by chance was the Urakami Cathedral consecrated to her…
Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of this Christian city and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the spotless lamb, a holocaust offered on the altar of sacrifice, who died for the sins of all nations during the World War II?...
We are grateful that Nagasaki was chosen for such a holocaust! We are grateful because, through this sacrifice, peace was given to the world, and religious freedom to Japan.”
You can read more about his life in the book he wrote: ‘The Bells of Nagasaki’ and there is a website:
https://www.amicinagai.com/?locale=en

07/08/2023

Making a God-directed retreat right where you are.
Some suggestions for helping you experience a God-directed retreat where you become more fully aware of God’s presence here and now, as well as becoming ever more fully aware of how much God loves you.
Be still and silent so you are unable to hear God’s voice if we are busy talking and thinking about other things, that will only distract us from our purpose of being with God. Find a space to sit or walk, totally alone and undisturbed. The space is not important; it can be your room, the courtyard, the church when there are no services, or the many beautiful locations in your vicinity.
When in such a place, close your eyes, calm yourself and imagine that God is sitting next to you, welcoming you into His presence and inviting you to share all the things you find troubling in your life, stresses at work, difficulties in relationships, finances, or for whatever you need God’s help to confront and resolve. Let it all be “told to God”, as you would with the most trusted friend in the world. You will not find anyone more receptive and compassionate than God!
Quiet reflection, discernment or prayer will guide your retreat. You may feel that nothing is happening, but it is. This is the great mystery when you focus on God, feel the peace, listen, and be open and receptive to where God wants to lead you. If things of the world come into your mind, stop them, and focus again. It often seems frustrating that they keep coming back, but that is OK, that is just Satan trying to break you. Simply taking the time to be still and turning fully to God’s compassionate and forgiving love will heal your wounded heart, nourish your soul, and direct you to where you ought to be and what you ought to do.
Guided by God’s light in you, you may be directed to a certain book, or to writing down your thoughts and feelings, or even speaking with a friend or you may go to confession. Do not overlook just walking along the road, or even just taking a much-needed nap. Whatever it is that you feel drawn to, know that it is God who is directing you. Above all remember these words from scripture:
Be still and know that I am God.

05/08/2023

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