Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 17 March Mon 23rd March 2026
Seminar entitled Fighting with God will be held in the Ignatius Rice Healing and heritage Centre in Callan on Sat 11th April. This is a ‘not to be missed’ event facilitated by Michael Flood, an opera singer, a victim of child abuse and once a member of the Special Forces. It will be a truly inspirational day from 10am-4pm and early booking is highly recommended to Jim Maher on 086-1276649. Cost is €50 and includes full lunch and refreshments.
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17th March ’26 – God is Love
This is Patrick’s Day and its clear from his writings that every morning Patrick woke up to give thanks for just knowing that God is Love. This knowledge colours everything; just knowing that this great God who created the universe is also my God and He/She loves me totally and unconditionally. Even if I never pray, do a good deed or even do something which is wrong that love can and never will change. It just blows my mind to think that this supreme being is absolutely besotted with me and that this love permeates every cell of my being. It is literally my DNA. The more I open my heart to this wondrous realization I can experience that He withholds nothing. Like any good and generous father, He delights in His children enjoying the best. All our needs and all good gifts come from the Father of Light.
Wed 18th March ’26 – The Abba Relationship
As we reflect on the life of Christ, he revealed the essence of what it meant to live in an intimate relationship of having God as ‘Abba’ Father. Abba was a Jewish term of endearment – a felt bond of union. He expressed that closeness in phrases such as ‘I get my satisfaction from doing the will of the one who sent me’, in other words the ultimate satisfaction for us humanoids is to be found in doing the will of God. He also said that ‘No one can lay hold of anything that doesn’t come from the hand of God’. Herein lies a profound teaching: Our natural tendency is to grasp and pursue what we want and when we do get it there is also the fear that it could go from us and we might lose it. Only that which comes from the generosity of God is safe, it enjoys divine protection, as long as we don’t make it into an idol where we make the gift more important than the giver.
Thursday 19th March ’26 – Misplaced Expectations
Particularly in the world of close relationships, we tend to make and see someone else the source of our love. It is true that God manifests His love through those closest to us both humans and animals. Yet each is but a channel of Divine love and are never the source. The temptation is always to make the other into a god and then to expect from that second love what only a first love can give. No one can give unconditional love all the time. We all have bad hair days when we get crunchy! Dogs do it so well and come as close as we can get. At the human level we fall far short and end up being disappointed. Not only do we get disappointed, but we also disappoint – it is in the nature of being human. St Catherine of Sienna once said, ‘In life we need to experience that all people and things will ultimately disappoint us and this is necessary to bring us into relationship with the God who cannot disappoint’.
Fri 20th March ’26 – Missing our Appointment with Life
Why is it that if God is Love, and desires so much more for us than we could wish for ourselves, that we don’t just throw ourselves joyfully into the arms of our all-loving creator? Probably because it means letting go of what we hold most dear; our need to be in control of our own lives. This is our EGO which can be understood in terms of some useful acronyms like ‘Edging God Out’ or ‘Even God Outside’. The ego is that part of us that only can only live in the past or the future but never in the present. It causes us to live in our heads and tortures us with mistakes and regrets from our past and fills us with anxiety, fear and worry for the future. It excludes us from that central place of the present where in the words of the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich, ‘All things are well and all manner of things will be well’. The present is also the place of heart connection where we experience Divine Presence. This is the sacred ‘Now’ of life that we miss so easily even if it is our ultimate appointment with identity, meaning, purpose and destiny.
Sat 21st March ’26 – Our Hard Shell
It is our ego that can create a hard shell of defence around us. In early life it may have been necessary to protect us from some harsh realities. Things could have been happening in the home, school or even in the womb that we were unable to process. It served a useful purpose then but carried forward into adult life it leaves us without an inner life and totally identified with outer realities. So, our work or profession becomes our defence, and we can even seem to be helping others while running on empty. Wealth and material things we need more and more of because they are a substitute for inner security. Relationships come under strain because our sincere profession of love is based on our inner need. This is why at some point in the life’s journey a major crisis or failure is necessary for awakening us to our deeper reality.
Sun 22nd March ’26 – The Raising of Lazarus
The story of the Raising of Lazarus opens up some very real questions like:
How we deal with what appears to be unanswered prayer.
How bereavement can affect our faith life.
How loss can shatter out trust and self-esteem.
How we lock away what we deem to be unpleasant.
How we are reluctant to face up to unpleasant realities.
How what appears to be dead and buried can be brought back to life.
If we briefly look at a few of those issues:
Christ as a human being did not live his life in splendid isolation. He recognised his need for supportive and close friendship which he got in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. As their closest friend you would think that he would immediately have brought all his divine powers to bear when the crisis came and Lazarus took seriously ill. Instead of cancelling his prior ministry engagements he continued until it appeared to be too late – Lazarus had died, it was the point of no return. It would look as if he had made the biggest mistake of his life where he had let his friends down when they needed them most.
That is precisely where we can easily find ourselves. We have prayed to this Jesus whom we believe to be our friend and he seems to have turned his back. Our loved one has died or the situation has only got worse instead of better.
From the story it becomes clear that both Mary and Martha are hurting deeply and that their faith has been shattered by their friend’s absence and apparent indifference. While they seem to meet him at slightly different times what they say is similar. ‘If only you had been here our brother would not have died.’ A lot more is being said there than meets the eye. ‘If only’ carries the strongest possible emotions. The feeling of regret and disappointment, the sentiment of veiled anger, betrayed trust and even friendship broken beyond repair.
‘Where have you laid him?’ Jesus asks. They had taken the only option open to them at the time, Lazarus was buried and a stone had been placed over the tomb. That action is just so symbolic in relation to what we tend to do with the more painful and shameful realities of life, we chose not to talk about them, we opt not to give them an airing. We bury them in our unconscious in the mistaken belief that out of sight then out of mind. We place a stone over the entrance as a statement that we don’t want to go there and neither do we want anyone else to go there. It’s just something unpleasant that has happened that we think we can put behind us and then struggle to get on with our lives.
The problem with burying emotional issues is that we can only bury them alive and they can and do come back to haunt us. The past is never where we think we have left it rather it is more likely to be right where we are, only we fail to recognize that it is very much alive and well in the present and in all sorts of ways like:
We find we can’t cope with silence for too long, we need background noise so the TV or radio doesn’t have an off button.
We find ourselves irritable and biting the noses off the ones we love.
We are doing more reacting from the past than relating in the present.
Our sleep gets affected, our head feels as if it’s bursting and our swirling thoughts go round and round in circles.
We begin to wonder why we are always so tired and drained of energy.
Gradually our day-to-day reality becomes more an existence than a life as we struggle to stay afloat and just keep up appearances.
The dark cloud of depression becomes ever more familiar.
A sense of hopelessness and emptiness begins to take over.
Fear and anxiety start to rule our lives.
Eventually not just our emotional well-being is affected but our physical health may begin to deteriorate.
All of that can sound far too familiar, and even too close for comfort, but it is the truth of how our past may be affecting our present. Many don’t want to admit it and so anti-depressants become the alternative where we no longer have to ask the big question, ‘What am I actually depressing in my life? What am I not prepared to talk about? What am I trying to block out?’
The command of Jesus is as clear today as it was 2000 years ago. Roll back the stone. If you want life face the issue. Of course, there will be a stench initially but that will clear. We don’t like facing up to things that we or our families may have buried for a lifetime or even much longer but in terms of the Gospel path it is the only way. Being born again means bringing what was in darkness out into the light.
Everything that is buried is more than a painful issue, it is a bundle of energy that we need in order to live fully, so when our energy has gone low where has it gone? It even takes great energy to keep energy buried. By not talking about the very things that make us human and are part of our human condition we become more and more isolated so that eventually it’s not Lazarus that is buried rather it’s us who have locked ourselves away.
I would like to conclude with a few words from the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu who worked as part of the Justice and Peace Commission dealing with the painful past of South Africa. Before I do let me say that until recent times our only way of dealing with the more painful and shameful realities of life was to bury, deny and not give them voice; to keep them firmly locked in the tomb. Such an approach is now understood to create far more problems than it ever tries to hide. This is what Desmond Tutu says about dealing with the past:
None of us have the power to say ‘Let bygones be bygones and hey presto they become bygones. Our common experience is just the opposite, that the past, far from disappearing or lying down and being quiet, is embarrassingly persistent and will return to haunt us unless it has been dealt with adequately. Unless we are prepared to look the beast in the eye, we will find it returns to hold us hostage.
Mon 23rd March ’26 – The Joyful Reunion
There are so many good and religious people who approach the end of their days as the time they have always dreaded as it signifies the day of Judgement. This is a harsh commentary on the kind of religion he or she was brought up with. It presented a God of fear who was harsh and judgemental and while He did forgive, He never forgot and all our misdeeds were recorded in His little red book. It should be the hallmark of a healthy spirituality to be able to look forward to one’s final passing over as a totally joyful reunion. If I know my God it should not involve fear but a return home to someone who has loved me from the beginning, someone I have always loved, and someone who longs and waits for my return. The entry into eternal life has to be the ultimate new lease of life, into that realm where ‘no eye has seen and no ear has heard what good things God has in store for those who love Him’.