Alleluia! new life has begun

'Resurrection' from icon in the Chapel of Christ the Healer,
Cork University Hospital

Alleluia! is the clarion call in Easter.

It shouts out the joy and thrill of new life. As a word it is bursting with hope, victory and newness. When sung it reverberates deep within us as we literally embody the word.

In a hospital environment it is a feeling experienced when we receive good news, when we receive results that an illness or a disease has been cured; that a treatment or surgery has been successful. It is a feeling that many survivors of cancer long to feel when the dreaded 5 year check-up looms.

For Christians, Easter Day is the day that brings hope that pain, suffering -even death- is transformed by God in Christ.
Now, there is nothing that cannot be transformed and healed even when physical cure is not possible. This is good news indeed.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen.

Paschal Moon: Cosmic Significance

The date of Easter moves each year. Many say that it would make more sense for the date to be fixed in the same way that Christmas is. However, the fact that the date is set on the cycles of the moon and nature speaks in an overwhelming way of the cosmic significance of what we celebrate tonight.

Every time I attend the Easter Vigil, I take a few moments to savour the full circled 'Paschal Moon' and marvel. As we lit the paschal fire outside our hospital tonight to bring the light into the chapels the long night of waiting and darkness brightened by the unassuming light that simply is.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen

The Paschal Candle at the
Chapel of Christ the Healer tonight

Visiting the grave: reality sets in

Today in our Holy Week journey we find ourselves in that strange zone that grieving families experience when everyone has gone home after a funeral and somehow while their lives go on, we are left trying to make sense of what has just happened. It is a numbed place where the reality of the death of a loved one begins to set in. The pain that was somehow numbed by the funeral, the presence of loved ones, the cards, the sympathy now begins to wear off and the reality of the rest of our lives without the person we love begins. They are gone. We miss them.

A visit to a grave the day after a funeral is a sobering experience. Seeing the mound of clay clung like a mounded and body-shaped blanket over the place that yesterday was a hole into which our loved one was laid makes it so real that this is indeed reality. 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes...'

This photograph is of my father's grave the day after his funeral: his birthday is today...

Today, Easter Eve, there is a strange 'nothingness' as we reflect on the enormity of what God has given to us by sharing the most painful experience of death to give us hope...

And so until tomorrow... we wait...

Almighty God,
your son through his death and burial
hallowed the grave.
Be with us as now we journey on in the hope of resurrection.
Be our companion and our guide.

May we live by faith, walk in hope and be renewed in love,
until the world reflects your glory
and you are all in all.Amen 
(adapted from the Book of Common Prayer,  ©RCB 2004)

Good Friday: Join us for prayer by Twitter and SMS from 19:30 GMT

Join us this evening for our live tweet Taizé Prayer around the Cross as we pray for all who carry the cross of illness.

Please send a tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use hashtag #goodfridaycuh 

or send a SMS text to +353873939142 

before or during the service to be included in the prayers.

Many names have been sent to us already and we will include them all. If you are in the hospital you can also use the small cards provided to write the first name of someone for prayer and place in the basket in the chapel.

Eternal God,
in the cross of Jesus
we see the cost of our sin
and the depth of your love:
in humble hope and fear
may we place at his feet
all that we have and all that we are,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen 

 -from Times and Seasons

We adore you O Christ and we bless you for by your cross you have redeemed the world.

Maundy Thursday: loving the dirty, smelly parts of me too.

Food is essential to human life and wellbeing. When our insides, our guts, let us down, food can become be hard to stomach -often literally. The pain associated with a diseased gut can have us writhing. A very powerful and external manifestation of when our gut lets us down is when things get so bad that a colostomy is the treatment. 

We don't find it easy to talk about such things which adds to the stigma of now having to handle in a new way what we rarely have to face head-on -our faeces. It takes a lot of getting to used to. Our faeces now leaves our body through our abdomen and is collected in a bag. 

It can have an enormous impact on our sense of being, our sexuality, our desirability, our body image, our confidence. Today as we hear again the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet let us give thanks for all our bodily functions. As Christ washed dirty, dusty feet so too today if you feel undesirable and self-conscious, feel the embrace and love of the God who adores you: all of you.

Heavenly Father,

your Son washed the feet of his friends,

help me to feel your warm and tender embrace today.

Help me to love my body even when it lets me down.
Even in illness your image shines from deep within me. Awesome! Amen


This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Taizé Service of Prayer around the Cross, tomorrow,  Good Friday at 7:30pm please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use hash tag #goodfridaycuh or send a SMS to +353 87 3939142If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM

Wednesday in Holy Week: betrayed by our own cells

In our Bible reading today we hear of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, one of his close group, 'one of his own'. You can read the story from John's Gospel by clicking here.

When our cells mutate to become cancerous it can feel like a huge betrayal. A betrayal of something that should by its very nature work with us and for us.

Why would or should one of our own cells turn from working with and for us to be so virulently against us and try to take us over?

There is something very frightening about cells that turn cancerous. These are cells that cannot even be seen by the naked eye and yet they can topple our bodies from health to despair. All can seem well on the outside and yet deep within destruction can be at work.

Going for a biopsy to test for cancer brings us into a place where we realise that there are many things we cannot control in life. The picture above shows a slide of cancerous cells on the left as seen through a microscope.

Dear Lord,
every cell in my body needs to work together in harmony to keep me well.
Help me to appreciate every cell of my body.
When cells let me down and I feel betrayed
help me to lean on your love where you care for every part of my wellbeing. Amen

This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Taizé Service of Prayer around the Cross on Good Friday at 7:30pm please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use hash tag #goodfridaycuh or send a SMS to +353 87 3939142
If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM

Tuesday in Holy Week: Save me from this suffering

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed that the cup of suffering might be taken from him. A very human response to an overwhelming pain that he was enduring. And yet deep down he knew that there was no way around what was a path of suffering but only a way through.

The diagnosis of illness can bring us to a 'Garden of Gethsemane' experience where we want to bargain with God to find an easier way. Yet, we know deep down, like jesus did, that there is usually no way around but only a way through. A way through that we somehow find the strength to accomplish despite the odds and our human fears.  While we may hold our hands up to our face to block the view ahead we know that it also opens our eyes to see that there is no other way but to journey on.

Dear Lord,

like you I want this cup of suffering to pass from me

yet I know that I must journey through.

be my companion, my strength and my guide

and walk beside me all the way. Amen.

This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Service of Prayer around the Cross on Good Friday at 7:30pm please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or a tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use #goodfridaycuh or a SMS to +353 87 3939142
If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM