Weekly Advent Reflection: Wednesdays 13:30 -13:45 in Advent

Advent Online Calendar

Thanks to the mission and ministry of Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York I have embedded an online advent calendar to stimulate thought each day in Advent...

Advent: We hate waiting

Advent is about waiting.
Waiting is not something which we are particularly good at; or at least I am not good at at any rate! When I decide on something i want it now and waiting can be very tedious.
We live in an instant culture where we like to have everything now. We want strawberries on Christmas Day, we want potatoes flown in from the Middle East to Ireland, we buy in sugar from Germany when we have sugar beet rotting in the ground? Needless to say there is nothing wrong with the products from an of these places. However, we loose something when we break the connection between the product and its source. We grew our own potatoes and peas this year and it was a sheer delight to watch them grow and to harvest them each day for dinner. Our children excitedly dug the potatoes and presented them with great pride. We had to wait, and watch and expect.
Maybe in the midst of our economic crisis there is something to be rediscovered about the value and virtue of waiting. Of having to invest in the lead-up to something rather than being able to pick it from the shelf literally or metaphorically? Can we live in the now with a sense of hope and excitement for the future rather than simply surviving on the shallow -albeit pleasurable- feeling of the quick fix of instant gratification? Advent is about waiting. It is about expectation. It is about that sense of nervous excitement about the future which we hope will be better than the present.

What are we waiting for today? And more importantly, what is there in life that is worth waiting for?

All Saints: Remembering the ordinary foot-slogging Christians

Icon for All Saints'.
Christ is enthroned in the centre surrounded by the angels and saints,
Paradise is at the bottom, with the Bosom of Abraham (left) and the Good Thief (right) holding his cross.

Today, 1 November is All Saints' Day and tomorrow is All Souls' Day. I have always had a special place in my heart for these two days. There is something about them which touches me in a personal way. For me, All Saints and All Souls is about the countless ordinary folk who have 'done their bit' so to speak in their day. People, like you and me, about whom a book will never be written or who will not be remembered for anything in particular. It is easy to remember those who have become famous or indeed infamous. However, that is not the whole story. Today and tomorrow we remember those who are well known to the world and those who were known and continue to be loved by us.

St Etchen's Church, Killucan

I was thinking of this yesterday as I sat with my family in St Etchen's Church, Killucan, Co. Westmeath. This is a very special church for us. It was where we were married and it holds the memories of many special times and some sad ones too. Four years ago the funeral of a close friend of mine took place there. I say close friend because Rob Whiteside, who was also my Father-in-law was to me someone who was first and foremost a friend. I thought of him a lot yesterday when I was back in St Etchen's and consider him amongst the great cloud of witnesses. Rob was very human and had his faults -we all do- but he was someone who incarnated for me extraordinary goodness. He had the great gift of being able to see the best in people without being naieve about reality. He was an eternal optimist, a fantastic father to my wife Heather and her siblings and an inspirational grandfather -albeit for too short a time- to his grandchildren. I think I missed him most of all for them yesterday. The stories he loved to tell them, the games he loved to play with them and so on.  Rob was someone who inspired hope and he lived it. Although he was very honest about his dying when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 60, he radiated hope. During a trip to the Taizé Community in France a few months before he died, he crawled on his arms and knees to the front of the chapel during one of the prayer services to have a prayer said -not for himself- but for someone special to him. I will never forget this image: true pilgrimage. 

As we celebrate All Saints and All Souls we can feel particularly close to those whom we love but see no longer. We can more easily at this time of year dare to step outside the confining bounds of time and space to taste and experience something much bigger than ourselves.

Who are the important ones who have inspired you, encouraged you, nurtured you, loved you? Remember them today. I am remembering Rob today and indeed all those I have been privileged to care for in ministry.
They may never be remembered in history: that doesn't matter.
They are precious to God, to me and to you. 

Back to the farm: remembering the stories

Today I journeyed to my parents' farm where I grew up in Co Wicklow. It has been seven months since I was home and driving down the lane today brought so many memories flooding back. That lane holds the memories of so many journeys beginning and ending for me. As a schoolboy I regularly walked the lane with my siblings to catch the bus to school and then the journey downhill from the road at the end if the school day when a lovely warm dinner awaited. Today we were due at dinnertime - which is religiously 1pm- but thanks to roadworks, traffic and loo stops with children we eventually arrived at 3pm. The children were so excited as we turned into the lane and they caught sight of some cows in a field. And a digger in the distance. When we got inside it was just like a school day from 30 years ago when the 'dinner' was produced for us. 'I love granny dinners' our second eldest proclaimed!

So here we are and I hope to have the opportunity to walk the farm with the children to share with them my stories and memories of growing up here. They regularly ask 'tell me a story from when you were a little boy...'

Over the next few days I hope to share some more with them and 'walk them'.

All of this invites us to ponder and reflect on how we communicate and keep memory alive? How do we tell our important and personal stories to our children so that they have a sense of who they are and where they come from? Remembering is at the heart if the Jewish & Christian traditions. We tell the story of salvation and who we are as God's people. This is a powerful source of formation, tradition and personal and communal identity.

Which stories will I tell to my children over the next few days and what are the stories they will be weave for themselves so that they can pass them on in due course? Stories are important parts of who we are.

From small acorns grow mighty oaks...Three years ago today

This inscription written by a midwife
gave us much hope during an
uncertain few days for Rory

Three years ago today our youngest two children, identical twin boys, were born at Cork University Maternity Hospital at 32 weeks gestation. The weeks leading up to their birth were a time of anxiety as week by week it became clearer that they would need to be delivered for their own safety. And so at 14:53 & 14:54 on Tuesday 23 October they were delivered by C- Section.

I was thinking of them a lot last night as I was back amongst former parishioners at Holy Trinity Church, Crosshaven for the dedication of their new Pipe Organ. Heather and I will never forget the extraordinary love and kindness shown to us at that time of great uncertainty for us as we spent time with our two little men in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit. (Little did I know that I would be working in this area in pastoral care a few years later!) The picture opposite shows a very thoughtful drawing on the cover of a bag of TPN (liquid intravenous food) which we were greeted with one day in the neonatal unit. It was a difficult few days where one of the boys had been very ill with septicaemia. This thoughtful gesture by Ann, one of the midwives meant so much to us and gave us an inkling that things might just be OK.


EVERY day for 6 and a half months the parishioners of Templebreedy fed us and our family. This came without asking. Every day a main meal arrived at the rectory for us.
No words can begin to describe what this meant during what was an incredibly stressful time for us as a family. We had three other children, the youngest at the time was only 13 months and they too had needs. Our families were four hours away. When the boys eventually came home I was trying to continue my work which mercifully was from home and Heather literally spent the whole time breastfeeding the boys. It was a full time occupation! Breastfeeding sick, premature twins is a vocation. Our family, friends and in this case our parish family gave us so much love and support and literally held us through the first six months as we got these little men on the path to growth and development. We also always felt that they shared in our joy. We had many dinner parties for up to 50 people (madness when we think back!) where the twins simply slept in the corner of the room or were cuddled by various people. At the end of one such gathering one of the boys had an apnoeic attack and needed to be resuscitated and brought back to hospital and ended back in the neonatal unit for another sojourn. Scary stuff!

The boys will of course never remember this part of their life and will probably never remember this role I had in the community and in the parish. I miss being around them as I work and being able to see the children at various stages during the day whether it was fleetingly as I was in school, or assembly, teaching in school or simply working from the parish office which was attached to our home. Now I go to work in the morning and return in the evening.
So last night being back in Holy Trinity Church, Crosshaven on the eve of their birthdays this all came back to me and what a testament to a hardworking, caring, faithful and inspiring parish community who gave us so much and who this weekend celebrate the completion of the restoration and conservation of their parish church and the dedication of their new pipe organ.

So to our youngest, today is a milestone we are so proud to have reached with you. You are a handful and a heartful and you have brought out the best in so many people: keep it up! To all who have given us so much: Thank you!

Making music: making history

It was a strangely emotional experience to be back in the parish this evening where I was priest from 2002-2009. During my time as rector of Holy Trinity, Crosshaven, Co. Cork the parish embarked on a very ambitious restoration and conservation programme of their beautiful church which was designed and built between 1866-1868 by the word renowned architect William Burges. This church is a gem. As part of the overall restoration of the church the parish replaced a former Pipe Organ which had reached the end of its days by commissioning a brand new mechanical action pipe organ which was built by the Dutch organ builder Henk van Eeken and installed a few weeks ago. Mark Duley, Organ Consultant for the project gave inspirational leadership to the parish throughout this project. The Bishop blessed the new organ tonight, something which I guess is a rare thing these days.
It took a long time to get to tonight and it was a sense of real sadness for me that this project was not finished by the time I felt called to pastures new in healthcare ministry in 2009. It was something that I felt I left unfinished and if i'm honest left me with a level of guilt -until tonight.

I was graciously invited to preach at the service of dedication this evening by my successor to whom great credit is due for bringing the project to its completion. I loved my time in that parish and it will forever hold special memories for me as a priest. I had profound moments in my ministry there with the most wonderful people. In the words of the Bishop "...[they] have done a beautiful thing for God..." in seeing this project through to completion. I don't think however that the locals realise yet the immense significance of this project in terms of its contribution to the musical world not just in Cork but in Ireland.  It looks stunning and is faithful to the sheer brilliance and genius of William Burges. I was immensely proud of the parishioners for having the courage to see this project through to completion and it was a real joy to be there this evening.

In my sermon I reflected on primary role of the Pipe Organ in shaping and allowing God's Spirit to infuse the beauty of worship and how it has the capacity to bring us to that deep place and experience of God. I had many such experiences in this parish and indeed in Nohoval Parish Church which is the second of the two churches which makes up the parish grouping of Templebreedy. I described the Pipe Organ as holding the breadth of the human condition within it. It brings out the very best in terms of what is possible when we work together  creating the most beautiful and rich harmony but strangely -as in life- the same processes can bring about dischord and the pain of shrill when we do not work together. Both are held together and are in many ways inseparable parts of the reality of being human.

I wish the parish of Templebreedy every blessing as they continue to make music and offer the very best of it in their worship to God week by week. They are fortunate to have such dedication in their Director of Music and their beautiful Templebreedy Children's Choir and of course their Priest Isobel Jackson. Ad multos annos.