Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 16 Sept – Mon 22nd Sept 2025
HEALING AND AWARENESS – A SPIRITUALITY OF INTEGRATION AND WHOLENESS. This will be the theme for the Resurrexit retreat in Ballyvalloo Conference Centre, Co. Wexford, which will be led by Fr. Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk. Beginning 6pm Tue 30th Sept to Friday Oct 3rd. This is open to all who wish to do some serious inner work and there may be a few places still available.
Contact Breda Costello, 34 Melitta Park, Kildare Town, R51YV48 , or email her at – bredacostello04@gmail.com or ring her on 087- 6128253.
My website for ordering Wood You Believe books is: jimcogley.com
Tues 16th September – First Chance
Back in 1974 two students met in middle school in Florida. One was Mindy Glaser and the other Arthur Booth. Mindy was white and from a wealthy background while Arthur was black and from a disadvantaged poor family. It was an expensive prestigious school and Arthur was there because of having won a scholarship. Thet both hit it off from the beginning and became inseparable friends who did everything together. They were exceptionally bright and destined for great things. They remained together until final year when just weeks before their finals Arthur mysteriously disappeared. It was the days before mobile phones, and while Mindy was heartbroken, she had no way of finding out what had happened to her best friend. Tragically he had fallen in with bad company and was taking drugs. To feed his habit he stole from houses and had been arrested for petty theft. This became the pattern of his life, in and out of jail.
Wed 17th Sept – Second Chance
30 years later Mindy had become a district judge, and one day a prisoner was brought before her for sentencing. She felt a glimmer of recognition and asked him if he had ever attended a particular school. It was the moment of recognition for them both and while Arthur wept unconsolably, she tried to hold her composure. She spoke glowingly of him as the beautiful soul she once knew from their high school days but was obliged to give him the mandatory sentence for the crime he had committed. Upon his release two years later, she was at the prison door to greet him. It was an emotional reunion, and she reminded him of there being so much goodness still inside him and never to forget that.
Thurs 18th September – Third Chance
From there on he got his life together and turned his back on a life of crime. He went on to get married, had three children and became the MD of a large pharmaceutical company. However, that was not the end of the story. 15 years later he relapsed, his past tripped him up, and again he appeared before her. This time there was a definite conflict of interests, and she had no option but to give the case to another judge so there followed for Arthur another term in prison. Again, upon his release, to his absolute surprise that she could still care, she was the first to meet him at the prison gates and overcome with emotion all he could say was, ‘Please help me to find again what I have lost’.
Fri 19th September – The Art of Gentle Discipline
A young man met his old teacher now retired who asked what he was doing. He replied, “I am now a teacher like you and it’s because of the way you inspired me”. Curious, the teacher asked how that had happened. He said, “One day a classmate brought a lovely pocket watch to school. I liked it, I wanted it, so I nicked it out of his pocket and put it into my own. He later noticed it missing and told you. Then you stopped the class and said that someone had stolen this pupil’s watch and to please give it back. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, so not wanting to be exposed as a thief, I said nothing. Then you told everyone to close their eyes while you would search everyone’s pockets, and no one would be any the wiser as to who was the culprit.”
Sat 20th Sept – Correcting without Shaming
“You came to mine and you found the watch, but you continued searching everyone else’s pockets as well. Then you said to the class, ‘Now you can open your eyes, the watch has been found’. That could have been the most shameful and embarrassing moment of my life, and you showed me how important it is to correct someone with kindness and without shaming them at the same time. That was the moment when I knew that I wanted to become a teacher and be like you. Do you remember that incident?” “Well, said the teacher, “I remember searching the pockets, but I don’t remember you. I had my eyes closed as well.” In the end of the day, as someone has wisely said, it will not be the things we said or what we have done for people that will be remembered, but much more the way we made them feel.
Sun 21st September – Wise Stewardship
The Gospel of today is one that is full of skullduggery. It portrays a number of rogues working on different levels. The steward has squandered his master’s property. Exactly how we are not told. Then like most rogues he wants to cover his tracks and secure his future in the comfort to which he has grown accustomed. He calls in two debtors and connives to slice off a huge amount of debt due to the master. The one hundred measures of olive oil would have been equivalent to two-and-a-half years wages. The hundred containers of wheat would equate to about seven years wages. These were whopping debts! By forgiving the debt the servant is reasonably assured that they in turn will look after him when his day of reckoning comes.
Jesus doesn’t praise or condone what the dishonest servant has done but he does praise his astuteness and says if only God’s children were as a wise.
The way we handle money is perhaps one of the truest indicators of the spiritual condition of our hearts. The Bible contains more than five hundred references to prayer and about the same to faith, but there are more than two thousand references to money and possessions. Then of the thirty-eight parables that Jesus told in the Gospels, sixteen deal with how we handle our money. He actually said more about money and possessions than he did about heaven and hell combined.
The first thing we can say about money is that it has its limitations. It will buy a bed but not sleep, books but not brains, food but not appetite, finery but not beauty, a house but not a home, sex but not love, medicine but not health, luxuries but not culture, amusements but not happiness, a crucifix but not a Saviour, religion but not salvation, a good life but not life eternal, a passport to everywhere with the exception of heaven.
The old song says, ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ and the answer is ‘I do’. We all want to be happy and there is a deep underlying belief that money and happiness go hand in hand. Experience shows otherwise. There’s a very real danger of equating my worth as a person with what I have and consequently of looking up to or down on others depending on what they may or may not have. If I measure worth in terms of wealth then I am creating a bottomless pit that is incapable of being filled no matter how much I pour in.
There is no denying that with money comes opportunity. To have a comfortable home, to get an education, to have health care, to travel, to create employment, to give the next generation a future. Where would we be without it? When we use money wisely we are doing something profoundly religious. Love of God means making life better for his children. Love of neighbour may mean providing him or her with a job.
Jesus continues in the Gospel story by saying that the one who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great while the one who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. And if we cannot be trustworthy with money how can we be trusted with genuine riches?
About 20 years ago a young accountancy student from Clare was working and struggling to pay his way through college. In his final year returning home after working the summer in the States he waited for his flight in JFK Airport. There he noticed a wallet having fallen from someone’s pocket and lodged behind a waste basket. It was bulging with $100 notes so he knew that whoever it belonged to was wealthy and unlikely to miss what he had lost. He was tempted for a few moments but put such thoughts to the back of his mind and phoned a number that he found inside. A man answered from Seattle on the other side and surprisingly invited him to return the wallet in person with all flight expenses paid. He agreed, and landing in Seattle he was met by a limousine and conducted to a mansion the like of which he had never seen before. That evening over dinner the man who was the owner and MD of a huge chain store, with outlets all over the States, explained that he had been looking for an absolutely honest overall financial controller but had been scalded so many times. This young man, having so visibly demonstrated his honesty by returning the wallet, was the ideal candidate and the one to whom he was now offering the position.
With still a year to finish in college this lad at just 21 years old, without even an interview, had just landed one of the most prestigious accountancy jobs in the US. Because having been faithful in small things he showed that he could be trusted with great.
Mon 22nd Sept – ‘I told you so’
What is it about that often used phrase ‘I told you so’ that can be so annoying? Perhaps we react to it in different degrees, but I suspect all of us do to some extent. It can be the first response when another makes a mistake and gives a foothold to gain higher ground from an age-old position of inferiority. Based on inferiority it carries overtones of childishness, immaturity and one-upmanship. For the recipient it compounds his or her sense of anger or even shame at something having not worked out. With so many who carry the baggage of a difficult upbringing, and have experienced lots of shaming, it can trigger regression into earlier beliefs like ‘I can never get anything right.’ The phrase also carries a judgement that, like a two-edged sword, cuts both ways. The one using the phrase will sense it coming back to make them feel uncomfortable while the recipient has to deal not just with his own anger but carrying someone else’s feelings as well.