Fr. Michael Murtagh

Fr. Michael Murtagh My full name is Gabriel Michael Murtagh. I was born in Banbridge in County Down in 1958 and reared in the area of Crossmaglen in South Armagh. Louth.

Following my secondary school education in Newry, I worked as an apprentice auctioneer with a local company and joined my family in running the family farm and pub. In 1980 I began to study for the priesthood at Maynooth and was ordained in 1986. I have served in Dundalk, Ardee and from 2006 until 2023 as Parish Priest of Dunleer, all in Co. I have since returned to Dundalk where I serve now in t

he Holy Family Parish. The purpose of the page is to act as a ‘spiritual gymnasium’. I plan to post each weekday and the posts will primarily be of the Gospel of that day with an accompanying reflection from great literature that mirrors the sentiment of the Sacred Scripture. There will also be place for community news and events from the North and Mid-Louth areas. The hope is that it will provide inspiration for spiritual growth and human maturity and that it will succeed in sowing seeds of faith.

I have Jewish friends who await impatiently the advent of the Davidic Messiah the hero the humanitarian, the historic on...
05/06/2026

I have Jewish friends who await impatiently the advent of the Davidic Messiah the hero the humanitarian, the historic one He will rejuvenate the Creation. Everything will be all right suddenly and Semitically.

I have radical friends who await impatiently the advent of a political Utopia, of an Ology or an Ism that will galvanise the planet. Everything will be all right and all revolutionary.

I have secular friends who await impatiently the advent of the universal enlightenment when scientific rationality will finally overwhelm religious superstition and everything will be all right and all reasonable in horizontal humanistic light. We Christians stand instead by the side of a man impaled on a stake in a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. It is that simple

I have friends in the arts and in the arts councils who await impatiently the advent of universal literacy and third level education, an era when everybody will have a large paperback library of the best European poetry- be able to play the upright piano at least to Level Eight, and parade in the priestly Tridentine credentials of the creative artist. Everything will be all right and all rewarding.

I have professional friends in hospitals and consulting rooms who await impatiently the advent of the reign of sexual joy as the only antidote to neurotic violence. In this historical climax, everything will be, I suppose, ‘astronomically orgasmic’.

I have friends in the courts who are convinced that the criminal justice system only victimises victimisers and only violates the violent that there will be peace and plenitude on earth. They forget the deep prudence of all jurisprudence, We Christians stand instead by the side of a man impaled on a stake in a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. It is that complicated.

I have friends who are free-marketeers, liberals and libertarians who await impatiently the advent of economic globalisation and the festive obesity of the goods that gods. Everything will be all right and enriching.

I have militant feminist friends who await impatiently the advent of a social Eden in which the good forces of oestrogen defeat forever the malign energies of testosterone, and everything will be all right and obstetrically sterile.

I have Roman Catholic friends who await impatiently triumph of their particular doctrinal tradition, because they confuse Western Latin Christianity with the Kingdom of Heaven. Everything will be all right eschatologically. They want the world to be all Christmas and no Calvary all Easter day and no catastrophe, all star and no disaster. They are in thrall these friends of mine to one policy, to one programme to one project. They are enthralled by the one and only answer to absolutely everything.

A Mathews

The first reading has Saint Paul in typically robust fashion. He speaks of Sacred Scripture and its uses for teaching, r...
05/06/2026

The first reading has Saint Paul in typically robust fashion. He speaks of Sacred Scripture and its uses for teaching, refuting error and guiding. He also draws attention to the ever presence of tropubles and suffering, the danger of imposters and false doctrine and again, the value of Sacred Scripture.

Mark's short extract has Jesus note that the tradition of descent from David is not just one of blood ties. The Messiah is much more than a mere descndant of an earthly King, no matter how famous or decorated he may have been.

Gospel Mark 12:35-37

At that time while teaching in the Temple, Jesus said, ‘How can the scribes maintain that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, moved by the Holy Spirit, said:
The Lord said to my Lord:
Sit at my right hand
and I will put your enemies
under your feet.
David himself calls him Lord, in what way then can he be his son?’ And the great majority of the people heard this with delight.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build com...
04/06/2026

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion. Help us to remove the venom from our judgments. Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters. You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world: where there is shouting, let us practise listening; where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony; where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity; where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity; where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety; where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions; where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust; where there is hostility, let us bring respect; where there is falsehood, let us bring truth.
Amen.

The first reading speaks of the reality of suffering as part of discipleship and the necessity of steering a straight co...
04/06/2026

The first reading speaks of the reality of suffering as part of discipleship and the necessity of steering a straight course. The primacy of truth is upheld and the impossibility of chaining up the Good News is noted. The saying that If we do not abandon the divine we will in turn will not be abandoned is catchy and direct.

The Gospel seeks to identify the 'parent commandment.' Jesus quotes from the Jewish Shema prayer and allies this with love of neighbour making a single moral principle. The primacy of love is stressed.

Gospel Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came up to Jesus and put a question to him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’ The scribe said to him, ‘Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true: that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.’ Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And after that no one dared to question him any more.

Duff Cooper Love poemFear not, sweet love what time will doThough silver dims the goldOf your soft hair, believe that yo...
03/06/2026

Duff Cooper
Love poem

Fear not, sweet love what time will do
Though silver dims the gold
Of your soft hair, believe that you
Can change not grow old.

Though since we married, thirty years
And four have passed away,
As bright your beauty still appears
As on our wedding day.

We will not weep that Spring has passed
And Autumn shaddows fall;
These years shall be, although the last,
The loveliest of all.

to wife Diana

In our first reading we have what are called the pastoral letters of Saint Paul to Timothy and to Titus. They contain re...
03/06/2026

In our first reading we have what are called the pastoral letters of Saint Paul to Timothy and to Titus. They contain recommendations to one who was his faithful companion and co-worker. Timothy was a legate and much trusted follower and convert of Paul. He may have been timid and Paul exhorts him to be more assertive.

In the Gospel Jesus is again faced with a trap. He is given an unanswerable question about marriage and resurrection. The Saduccees did not believe in resurrection and they seek to ridicule the idea. Jesus once again speaks of a living and life-giving God with whom we have communion and with whom we may enter into fuller communion when all is made new.

Gospel Mark 12:18-27

Some Sadducees – who deny that there is a resurrection – came to him and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died leaving no children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?’
Jesus said to them, ‘Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.’

Spoken by Marc Antony, Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 2Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;I come to bury Caesar,...
02/06/2026

Spoken by Marc Antony, Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 2

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

The Epistle tells of the waiting for the end times that marked the early Christian period. The patience of God is stress...
02/06/2026

The Epistle tells of the waiting for the end times that marked the early Christian period. The patience of God is stressed and the new creation is awaited. The constant danger of errors and falsehood in teaching is again mentioned.

The teaching of Jesus about tax paying gives us an important pastoral principle. The Roman tax was a very sensitive subject as it represented Rome's subjugation and the image on coinage of the Emperor presented problems to a pious Jew.The power of Rome is contrasted with the power of the divine and of the kingdom of God. The teaching of Jesus may have been very useful to his followers in times of persecution.

Gospel Mark 12:13-17

The chief priests and the scribes and the elders sent to Jesus some Pharisees and some Herodians to catch him out in what he said. These came and said to him, ‘Master, we know you are an honest man, that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you, and that you teach the way of God in all honesty. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay, yes or no?’ Seeing through their hypocrisy he said to them, ‘Why do you set this trap for me? Hand me a denarius and let me see it.’ They handed him one and he said, ‘Whose head is this? Whose name?’ ‘Caesar’s’ they told him. Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.’ This reply took them completely by surprise.

It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek at...
01/06/2026

It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or not. But they saw that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the runner.

They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the forest for its silence at noon. The vineyard-dresser wreathed his hair with ivy that he might keep off the rays of the sun as he stooped over the young shoots, and for the artist and the athlete, the two types that Greece gave us, they plaited with garlands the leaves of the bitter laurel and of the wild parsley, which else had been of no service to men.

We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence our art is of the moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals directly with things. I feel sure that in elemental forces there is purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence.

Wilde

The Epistle from 2 Peter is a pastoral call to remind all of us of our Christian vocation. It is an exhortation to live ...
01/06/2026

The Epistle from 2 Peter is a pastoral call to remind all of us of our Christian vocation. It is an exhortation to live up to the demands of the Gospel so as to be found worthy of its promises. There is the common warning against false teachers in what is thought to one of the latest epistles to have been composed. The divine guarantee of a share in God's life and nature is contrasted with the promises of a world that is sunk in vice. The gifts of the Spirit are echoed here and the prospect of sharing God's life is held out.

The Gospel is a devasting critique of Israel's rejection of Jesus and an allegory of the story of the divine and Israel in relationship. The vineyard was a common allegory for Israel or the chosen people.

Gospel Mark 12:1-12

Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes and the elders in parables: ‘A man planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug out a trough for the winepress and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce from the vineyard. But they seized the man, thrashed him and sent him away empty-handed. Next he sent another servant to them; him they beat about the head and treated shamefully. And he sent another and him they killed; then a number of others, and they thrashed some and killed the rest. He had still someone left: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all. “They will respect my son” he said. But those tenants said to each other, “This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and make an end of the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this text of scripture:
It was the stone rejected by the builders
that became the keystone.
This was the Lord’s doing
and it is wonderful to see?
And they would have liked to arrest him, because they realised that the parable was aimed at them, but they were afraid of the crowds. So they left him alone and went away.

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