Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 25 Aug – Mon 31 Aug 2026
Note: There is a delay with book orders being delivered as the person responsible is currently out of the country and will be back beginning of September.
Our annual Pilgrimage season is currently in full swing with beautiful weather. You might like to pay a visit or to bring a group for an afternoon or evening. If so just book with Helen on the number given. Some of the remaining events are as follows:
Sunday August 30 Mass 3pm – Outdoor on Island
The Acceptance of What Is
Tuesday 1 Sept 7.30pm Ecumenical Service
Wednesday 2 September – A Time to Heal – 7.30pm
Sunday 6 September
Remembering our Loved Ones – Mass 3pm
Tuesday 8 September – 3pm Mass in Church
Closing of Pilgrimage Mass at 7pm with Torchlight Procession
Daily Mass during season will be at 3pm & 7.30pm in Church
Prayer around the Cross on Fridays after 7.30pm Mass
Blessing of the Sick each Wednesday & Friday after 3pm Mass
Musicians will be taking part in daily Masses
along with invited speakers.
Parishes and Organisations are invited to come for individual pilgrimages
(Prior Booking) – 087-7569638.
Coffee Shop and Gift Shop staffed by voluntary workers
open daily during Pilgrimage
Web-Cam will be available from Island Altar – ourladysisland.ie
Enquiries: Helen on 087-7569638
Director of Pilgrimage: Fr Jim Cogley PP Lady’s Island, Phone 086-2471063.
Tues Aug 25 – A Complaining Spirit
A letter appeared in the London Times many years ago and it contained just s single question, Dear Sir, What is wrong with the world? A few days later an equally short answer was received and it simply said: Dear Sir, In response to your question what’s wrong with the world, I wish to reply that ‘I am’. Yours truly, GK Chesterton. The real question is never about the world out there but more about what is happening in my world. Those for whom their inner world is in turmoil are often serial complainers. These unfortunates are only capable of seeing the world in chaos while being totally blind the inner turmoil of their own world. It’s as if what cannot be recognized on the inside can only be externalised and seen out there.
Wed Aug 26 – The burdens we place of others
Whatever we are incapable of seeing on the inside we can only see on the outside. We project our inner reality onto outer things or people and become convinced that this is what is wrong and is the cause of my unhappiness. So, we complain about the weather, the community, the job or the supervisor and blame them for our disquiet. A partner is forced to carry a burden of unrealistic expectations. He or she always feels judged and can never get it right. There are always impossible standards to live up to, and he or she is always falling short. Our outer complaining is also there towards ourselves where we live with compulsive tidiness, cleanliness or neatness. This is where everything has to be perfect in terms of what I see because what I don’t want to look at or can’t see may well be in turmoil.
Thurs Aug 27 – Critical Love
What we least need in life is unloving criticism while what we most need is critical love. The serial complainer is usually completely unaware of how unloving they are in their criticism. It is criticism based on judgements rather than genuine love and is not the best way to get results. The energy of harshness and judgement is transmitted, and this tends to block a positive response. Critical love on the other hand is positive feedback and a gift for the recipient. It is given out of concern for the good of the other and not from personal annoyance. We all carry blind spots that are only visible to others and without critical love from someone who tells it as it is we can never improve in business or better relate in personal life.
Fri Aug 28 – The Unrecognized Sin
The sin of being a whiner and complainer is seldom recognized for what it is. It is a disposition that is foreign to the human spirit and complainers who always have an eye for what is wrong seldom have a smile on their face. There is strong teaching particularly from the Old Testament that complaining is a serious enough matter as to impede one’s progress on the journey of life. If we take the Israelite journey out of Egypt to represent our own journey out of ego enslavement towards coming home to our true selves, we can learn many lessons about what might prevent us from making progress. One of these is to be found in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 21, and referenced by Jesus in John 3. This is where the people complain against God and against Moses because of conditions in the wilderness.
Sat Aug 29 – Complaining Spirit – Wandering Heart
It’s an amazing fact that the Exodus journey of the Israelites out of Egypt that took all of forty years could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks. For all those years they wandered without direction and not going anywhere. Had they listened and obeyed the voice of their God as spoken through Moses the journey would have been so much easier and direct. In the Book of Numbers Chapter 10 there is a telling incident that contributed to their delay. This is where the people begin to complain against God for causing the so much suffering and against Moses their leader for bringing them out of Egypt, where they could eat to their hearts content and now, they were sick of the unsatisfying food called manna. Apparently, they were suffering from the ‘good old days syndrome’, forgetting that they had been miserable, impoverished slaves forced to work under cruel masters.
Sun Aug 30 – The Way We Think
Reading today’s Gospel earlier it was one that really got me thinking. Christ forewarns his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and there he will suffer and be put to death. This causes Peter to take him aside and remonstrate saying heavens above this must not happen to you. At this Jesus rebukes him in the strongest possible terms saying, ‘Get behind me Satan, you are an obstacle in my path for the way you think is not God’s way’.
So, I began to reflect what are just a few of the ways we think that are not God’s ways and there is no shortage. One of them is that God changes his mind depending on us and whether we deem our behaviour to be good or bad. If we do something wrong, we tend to think of God as wearing a frown and out to punish us. This is merely a reflection of how we are relating to ourselves at that time; God still loves me just as much after a misdeed as before so it’s up to me to have the humility to admit my mistake and forgive myself.
Another way we think, that is just our way and not God’s, is believing that He is like a miserly father whose arm has to be twisted before he gives us what we need and after we have said multiple prayers to make sure He hears us. If we relate to God in that manner that will be our experience. But what an injustice that is, surely any good human father would simply delight in giving his children the good things of life. To the extent that this is our view of God then such will be our experience. Hearing people rattling off multiples of prayers might not be about true devotion but more about a very faulty image of God as Him or Her just being the almighty miser.
A really erroneous way of thinking is that in order to really experience God’s love that there is something that we must do. The question asked in the scriptures ‘What must I do to have eternal life?’ is always close to our minds. The reality is that the more we try to earn or deserve God’s love the more unloved we feel. It’s our very efforts that seem to get in the way and the idea of meriting love is totally a wrong way of thinking that is contrary to the Gospel teachings.
There’s a religious way of thinking also that has been around for longer than we can imagine that an external show of religious duty is what the Christian message is all about. In other words, if we attend church, say our prayers, be seen to live a good life and keep the commandments. That God will one day judge us on the basis of this external behaviour. We forget that the Lord is primarily interested in the state of our hearts and to what extent they are open to receiving and giving of his love.
When we pass over, I’m not sure if the number of Masses we attended in life will be the criterion for judgement but more how often we prayed, ‘Lord open my heart to your love so that I in turn can love those around me’. I suspect that love rather than performance will be what matters. As St John of the Cross said, ‘In the end of the day we will be judged on love’.
Mon Aug 31 – Facing our Sin
Life in the desert was tough with the unrelenting heat of the sun, constantly on the move and with little variety in diet. It would appear that the Israelites had every right and ample reason to complain. Yet God was not pleased and He sent ‘fiery serpents that brought death to many’. This caused them to repent and so they turned to Moses to ask for guidance from God. At his request God told Moses to fashion a bronze serpent that would replicate the ones that were causing them grief. He was then instructed to hold it aloft and all who looked at the bronze serpent lived. This was a symbolic request for them to face up to their sin, take responsibility and repent. The deeper implication of their disobedience was to delay progress to the extent that all that generation would die out, and it would be their offspring who would enter the Promised Land. From a spiritual perspective this illustrates just how serious is the sin of being a serial complainer.