Jim Cogley Reflections: Tues 10 – Mon 16 June 2025

A retreat will be given by Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk in An Tobar, Ardbraccan Retreat Centre in Navan. This will begin on the evening of Monday 30^th June and conclude on the following Friday. Please make bookings to An Tobar ASAP as numbers are limited; 046-9078973; Postal Code C15T884. This is filling up fast and there may be a waiting list.

Tues June 10^th – The Edge of Nowhere

Sometimes we have to lose our way in order to discover where we need to go. The experience of failure can be a prelude to success and an experience of intense suffering can be necessary to wake us up. Recently I took some light reading for a plane journey. It was a little book by John Strelecky called The Café on the Edge of the World. It’s one of those simple little books that you can read very quickly but not forget in a hurry. The fact that it has sold over five million copies and been translated into dozens of languages is testimony that it touches a nerve in the society of our time. Even in a life that is apparently quite full there can be an alarming sense of unfulfillment. A life that appears on the outside to be like a doughnut can be felt like the hole. Appearances can be very deceptive as the human heart remains restless until it finds its home.

Wed June 11^th – A Dawning Realisation

The story behind the man in The Cafe on the Edge of the World was of someone who was well educated, successful and fast climbing his way up the corporate ladder. Yet he found himself in an uncertain state of mind and wondering if he was beginning to trade his life for money and realising that it was no longer feeling like a good deal. Like so many young successful people today he was wondering if there was more to life than working ten hours a day looking at a computer screen in a cubicle with the potential of getting a promotion that would involve needing to work even extra hours. He had followed the advice of an earlier generation who believed that education was the way out of poverty and that being successful and having plenty of money was the key to happiness and fulfilment. Slowly it had dawned on him that at the heart of success lay a hole that he was fast falling into.

Thurs June 12^th – As Within so Without

It’s amazing how if we have eyes to see our outer life will begin to mirror our inner reality. Our café friend decided to take time out instinctively knowing that he could be heading for burnout. He finds himself on a highway with traffic first reduced to a crawl and then to a stop. It was as if his inner life was slowing down and coming to a standstill. Rather than blame and complain about the delay like his fellow travellers he took ‘a road less travelled’ even though he had no idea where it might lead. This was like a journey of faith that seemed to go on forever with little that seemed familiar and a sense that he was no longer in charge of his destiny. Even the needle of his fuel gauge dropping so rapidly reflected his ego strength that was fast declining and paving the way for something new and wonderful to begin.

Fri June 13^th – Café of Questions

Eventually after what seemed an eternity travelling on old desolate roads and his fuel supply almost depleted our character in the novel comes across a café called The Café of Questions situated in the middle of the middle of nowhere. This is like coming home to his heart where nowhere is now-here and he is finally present to himself. At this point he is well and truly lost but is also in the best possible place for his heart to be open to the questions it most needs to ask. These questions he finds written on the back of the menu while he is deciding what to order: Why are you here? Do you fear death and are you fulfilled? It is these questions that begin to stir something very deep, and he realises that he wasn’t there just to have his physical hunger satisfied. Particularly the first question was one that he would spend the rest of his life answering. It would become part of his being, one that he would wake up with in the morning, have it with him during the day and even think about it in his sleep. This was the question that once opened it would be like a gateway and would beckon him for the rest of his life.

Sat June 14^th – Fulfilling our Purpose

Slowly our friend in the novel comes to realise that once a person comes to know why they are here; the reason for their existence, then it will follow that they will spend the rest of their life wanting to fulfil that reason. Here he also sees that without having an understanding of why we’re here, and what we want to do, we just end up doing what most people are doing and expect of us. So, we become prisoners of external norms and agendas. This is our innate vulnerability that makes us fall prey to the advertising agenda. Advertisers know that by focusing on peoples’ fears and their desire to be fulfilled they can motivate them to buy specific goods and use specific services. The overt message is that it you have this product you will be fulfilled and there is also a more subtle covert message, that not having this product will keep you from being fulfilled.

Sunday June 15^th – Pentecost (Relating to last Sunday with coming Sunday being Father’s Day)

The Feast of Pentecost is really the birthday of the Church and at a personal level it has very special significance. It was the day that Christ after his Resurrection had told his disciples to wait for in order to be clothed with power from on high and only then could they go out into the world as his witnesses and truly be his disciples. This was literally what happened, after the Holy Spirit came upon them, that tiny little band of fearful disciples came on fire with God’s love and in the matter of a few short years turned the then known world upside down. So much so that secular historians are still baffled as to how that happened so fast, especially with a bunch of ‘nobodies’ from the edge of nowhere, with little talent, influence or education.

The Pope of my childhood was John XXIII who was recently canonized, and he was really the Pope of the Holy Spirit. He was in charge for just 5 years, and he died in 1963. He had been elected as a caretaker pope because the cardinals couldn’t decide who they wanted, and he was seen as someone who with just a few years left was unlikely to rock the boat. They didn’t take John XXII openness to the Holy Spirit into account. First, he was a very humble man. When a child sent him a letter asking should he become a fireman or the pope John replied to consider being a fireman, ‘anyone can become Pope, just look at me.’ During his time in office, he was acutely aware of the staleness, stagnation and bureaucratic stupidity that had become so much part of the Catholic Church, and he could see how badly it stood in need of reform. He went around the Vatican asking that windows closed for centuries would be re-opened in order for fresh air to come into its hallowed halls. His big prayer was, ‘Lord, renew your Church in this our day as by a new Pentecost’. He then went on to convene the Second Vatican Council that brought in the reforms we take for granted today like the use of our own language instead of Latin and the priest facing the people and so much more.

It was generally believed that a few years later in direct answer to his prayer for a new Pentecost that the Charismatic Renewal began. This was a movement that seemed to spring up almost everywhere at once with hundreds of thousands of prayer meetings mushrooming all over the globe. It was like a stirring of dead bones that hadn’t moved for centuries. There was even one in the old parochial house of Lady’s Island begun by my predecessor Fr Bob Staples.

Back in 1972 I was a fledgling seminarian in Maynooth, quite shy, unsure of myself and lacking confidence. I was also struggling big time with my faith and seriously questioning the brand of Catholicism that I had grown up with. I may not have been an atheist, but I was certainly an agnostic who could not see myself able to settle into the clerical groove that Maynooth training was offering.

At the point where I was at my lowest and ready to leave, having cast aside everything to do with what I deemed to be a religion that was not life-giving and even anti-human, I had a life-changing encounter. On the way to a concert where the group Planxty were playing I met a man, now a priest in the diocese, who told me about a charismatic prayer meeting being held that evening in a nearby missionary college. My soul was hungry, I was ready to hear, and I was going. I never got to Planxty. Without knowing it, my life from there on would be focused on the Holy Spirit. The Charismatic Renewal became my main source of formation during those seminary years. Over seven years, apart from holidays, I never missed a single meeting.

What was happening at those prayer gatherings? People were having an experience of belonging in a group that was like the early church in the Acts of the Apostles. There all sorts of manifestations of the Holy Spirit were taking place and regarded as normal. Lives were being changed, there was healing and there was teaching, miracles were commonplace, people had prophetic gifts and most of all there was life. One evening sitting beside a lady whose hands were crippled and twisted with arthritis I saw them straighten out in front of my eyes. My own mother went completely blind on one occasion and regained her sight.

All of this was based on individuals opening their hearts to the Holy Spirit and coming into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. No longer was he a historical figure who left teachings as to how to live, but through the Holy Spirit he was alive in our hearts and his ongoing work was real in our experience.

I now look back with sadness that the Charismatic Renewal may have been a huge lost opportunity. What was God’s gift at the time, to bring renewal to the Church, was viewed with suspicion and fear by many clergy, bishops and many lay people. Had it been embraced for what it was, an opportunity for people to experience the Holy Spirit, our church would be in a very different place to where we find ourselves today. Declining numbers point to one reality, believers who never experienced their own Pentecost of faith awakening. I certainly know beyond a shadow of doubt that without the Charismatic Renewal and awakening to the power of the Holy Spirit back then I certainly would be in a different place and not be a priest today.

Mon June 16^th – Fear of Dying

The second question on the menu was Do you fear death? This is the most common fear experienced but as the character in the novel discovers it is intrinsically related to the first, why am I here? If I have the courage to face the first and am spending my life in giving the answer I am automatically answering the second question with a negative. Only those who are not fulfilling their life’s purpose and spend each day not doing what they are meant to be doing will fear death. Why should we fear death if we have done what we were meant to be doing while still alive? The final question is equally related to the first. Am I fulfilled? Life can be full and yet experienced as empty. True fulfilment comes only from doing what I am meant to be doing. This involves a certain trust that if I am totally committed to fulfilling my purpose in life then I will become the kind of person who is most attractive and one who will attract the very best that life can offer. All of life flows in the direction of the one who knows who they are, why they are here, is single minded in its pursuit and thereby enjoys ultimate fulfilment.