"My mind is racing"

I’m naturally a sleepy person myself but if I spend too long at this computer or stay up late working on some plan or project, the mind begins to run away with me. John Main in his teaching on meditation writes about the tree full of chattering monkeys in the background. We’ve got to find a way of silencing these unruly fellows.

Modern living with its over stimulation of background noise from Ipods and mobile phones and TV and radio makes its own contribution to the endless invasion of personal space. It reminds me of a country overrun by military occupational forces. Bad as these foreign agents may prove in a physical or geopraphical territory, still more damage can they do to the inner land of our own being. We need to establish our indepence and maintain our own peace.

The Jewish people of old were offered a land -- but it was not just a matter a territory. They were called to find first the kingdom of God that was within. Psalm 95 says it so well:

O that today, you would listen to his voice...
I was wearied of these people
and made a solemn promise:
You will nver enter the land
where I would have given you rest.

Dealing with recession and depression

Dealing with recession and depression

As the New Year, 2009 breaks, the TV and radio are beating out a continuous story about the financial crisis that is upon us. The more we listen to the torrent of depressive words that are rolling over us, like a sunami the more we need to find a way of rising above the waves of doom and gloom.

This is where the daily dose of meditation can come to our aid. The half-hour of stillness each morning and evening, seems to roll back the waters of darkness and depression. One ceases to let the tide of distress take over.

I am reminded of the miracle that the Lord worked for the Israelites as the might forces of Pharo and the Egyptians was bearing down on them. With the burning sands of the desert behind them and the terror of the Red Sea ahead, the Lord opened a way through for them. Moses lifted up his rod, and with the might of the Lord on his side, made the waters pile up to provide a solid dry ground, so that the people could pass safely through on to the Land that flowed with wine and milk and honey.

That journey to the the physical land is a symbol of the pilgrim soul moving in meditation to the inner land of the heart. There does indeed exist an inner space where amid the desert of desolation one may find security and serenity. The morning half-hour and the evening half-hour devoted to meditation may seem a little thing, but the peace and the stability generated in those sacred times, radiate to the rest of the day.

The fragrance of those precious moments permeates our being, and brings all our ways to a creativity, and a consummation beyond our dreaming. We learn to live, no longer out of our own meagre resource, but out of the infinite supply of the heavenly Father. We rest in those words of Jesus, that the Father who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field is constantly looking after us.

I am so grateful to have found a group here in the Priory, Tallaght that brings us together each Wednesday night to spend an hour in silence and stillness before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed before us. The hour begins with a short instruction in meditation, according to the teaching of the late Benedictine monk, John Main. One of the leaders has given me one of his books which has proved a blessing: --The Heart of Creation.

A Celibate way of loving

Lust can easily masquerade behind the face of love. This is no way for the celibate, who must have first walked the ways of discipline and unselfishness. The Christian celibate must have come to know Jesus and given him/herself into his hands before ever ever he may enter fully the heart of another human being.

A certain person who spoke to some of us about the way of The Way of the Divine Humanity as it had been revealed to her by the Lord, wrote as follows: “Love before my face and my face shall not be turned away from you. In loving, do not turn away from me. I am the source of love. Enjoy me.”

The full text of this message has been in private circulation for over twenty years. In 2005 it was published by The Columba Press, 55A Spruce Avenue, Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. ISBN 1 85607 504 4 , under the title: A Celibate Way of Loving--Letters to the Beloved by Gabriel Harty, OP.

Like a stick or stone

The usual run of official religious life, means that we live in common and look after each other. We pray in a group and work together as a team. We talk about collaborative ministry.

But do we love each other? Would we dare look into another brother's eye or search his heart and say: “I love you?” I doubt it.

What do we know of relating in love to anyone? How real then, is our expression of our love for God? There is no human ground where one can stand and from there look into the face of Jesus, or raise the heart to heaven and say “My God, love you.”

The run-of-the-mill existence of official organized religious life, left me unconcerned about others in any real meaningful way. I never wept over a brother's troubles. I never cried at his death. Religious life did not encourage one to express feelings or emotions. The rite of Profession in my time, used the expression: “From now on, brothers, you are to be like a stick or a stone…”-- and that is indeed, what many of us became,-- and thought it was God's will for us. Those terrible words have been removed from the text as now used.

Only when I found another human being to relate to in deep and intimate celibate love, did I even begin to comprehend the whole notion of loving anyone or much less loving the God who is Love.

Only then, did the Covenant words of Sacred Scripture come alive for me. I came to understand that the Lord had leaned down from heaven and made a marriage with his human creature. Hitherto that text held rather light significance for me. But now when I realize that even as a celibate priest, I can have a marriage of mind and heart and spirit with another human being, does the fire of Divine Love begin to kindle in my soul. I find that all of God's creation is enfolded in this love that holds all things in being. The photo of the sea and the foliage, by Fr. Donagh O'Shea OP is a witness to this creative life-giving granduer of the Lord.

God’s will no threat to mine

For many years, I had thought of the Divine will as some kind of threat to my own will and I was fearful that it might be in conflict with my own personal drive. How foolish!

For the will of God is the driving force that keeps all things in being. At the dawn of creation, when there was nothing but darkness and chaos, the Lord said: Fiat—Let there be… light and life and right order. The Divine command was the laser beam than shone from heaven to bring about the wonder of all creation. Outside that beam of light and love, there is nothing.

God’s will then, is the creative power that drives and energizes and gives meaning to all existence. It is the very element that I need so that my own inspiration and energy may fulfill its own plan and purpose. This realisation has set me free to rejoice in life as it enfolds. The prayer that rises to my lips and heart each morning is that of Mary: Be it done unto me according to your word.

The rhythm of love

There is a rhythm of Divine Love that pulsates through all creation and holds it in being. We are called to enter into and dance to that rhythm.

Only when we give up our self-grasping, self-seeking ideals and forget our small selves, do we become empty enough to allow God enter our hearts and dance to the Divine rhythm that lives within us so that we may become instruments of his Love. This is His will and purpose for us. It is good to recall the words of Jesus: "Whoever does the will of my Father, is my mother and brother and sister..." Being in the flow of the Divine will, then means being a many-splendoured relationship with the Lord. Picture is by courtesy of Fr. Donagh O'Shea, OP

Enterprise Train

I would like you to know where I am, when not at the Dominican Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24.
I take the train across the splendid Newry Viaduct to Lurgan, Co. Armagh. (See picture). Having spent many years while on the Rosary Apostolate, moving between the Irish Republic which is my base, over the Border to Northern Ireland and acrosss the water to Great Britain, I needed a kind of watering hole half-way.

Lurgan became that place and for more than thirty years, Lurgan has been a second home.