Jim Cogley Reflections – Tues 15 April – Mon 21 April 2025

Note: A seminar entitled Personal and Ancestral Healing will be held in Lady’s Island Community Centre on SaturdayMay 31^st from 10am to 4pm. Cost €40 with refreshments included. Facilitators – Jim Cogley & Luba Rodzhuk. Bookings by phone or text to 087-7640407. Please book early to ensure a place.

Note: A seminar entitled Healing the Inner Childby psychologist Donal Spring is scheduled to be held in the Edmund Rice Healing Centre in Callan, Co Kilkenny on Saturday May 10^th from 10am to 4pm. The cost will be €50 with refreshments and lunch included. Bookings by phone or text to Jim Maher on 086-1276649. This is a beautiful venue that is quickly becoming established as a centre of Healing. The speaker is highly recommended and will provide an ideal follow up for those who have attended the Wood You Believe seminars. Early booking is advised.

To tune into services and recordings go to ourladysisland.ie or churchservices.ie

Weekdays 10am Good Friday 3pm and Holy Saturday 7pm

For ordering books and info go to jimcogley.com

Tues 15^th April – The Basis of Healing

What do you think forms the basis for all healing whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual? The answer has to be self-acceptance as the key that unlocks the enormous potential for healing that lies within us. If our bodies are capable of getting sick because of not being right with ourselves then they also have the capacity to become well again through coming to a new place of being at peace with ourselves. At its most basic level sin is not about breaking certain rules but since it causes division it has to be self-rejection. At the very core of many of us lies a deep-seated belief that we are not good enough and are somewhat inadequate; that my life is not all that important and that I don’t have all that much to offer to the world. Perhaps a sense that my life will come and go without making even a ripple on the great ocean of eternity. Beneath these beliefs lies a fundamental rejection of my own magnificence as a child of God and an identification with outer things that are fleeting like age, appearance, my place in society, the talents I have or my need for the approval of others.

Wed 16^th April – The Diamond Within

Each one of us comes into the world as a precious diamond. Made in the image and likeness of God we are really a chip off the block that is God. There is the essence of the divine in us. Before we are even born that priceless diamond has begun to pick up all sorts of influences from our mother’s womb. It is possible for a child to be born sad or angry because the mother was sad or angry resulting from the earlier loss of a child. Or she may have been grieving for a parent during our pregnancy. As we go through life we get covered in the mud of our own individual history. A troubled childhood, alcoholism in the home, getting a hard time in school with bullying or punishment all form part of the mud of life. Things get done to us that are not nice, and we do things that we are not proud of either.

Thurs 17^th April – Our False Identification

The Bible says you must love yourself. However, to someone who has never glimpsed the diamond that they are but has only seen the mud for most of a lifetime that must sound very strange and even impossible. If what I see is mud, then mud must be what I am. Such is the logical conclusion. But appearances can be deceptive. What we see on the outside is not what is on the inside. Deep within a surprise awaits us. The precious diamond that we are is always waiting to be discovered and ultimately that is what dying to ourselves means, the stripping away of the mud and the uncovering of who we really are as that precious diamond. This is where we discover that the Kingdom of God is within.

Fri 18^th April – Sin as Self-rejection

The problem is that if I reject what I see on the outside I will never discover the riches that are within. The outside may not be much to look at, but it does contain the diamond and that is the essence of who we are, nothing less and nothing more.

The implications of rejecting what we see on the outside of our lives are quite staggering because to reject what is without is also to reject what is within. To disrespect this is to disrespect that. So, any rejection of myself is a rejection of God. Any deeming of myself as unworthy is to deny that God has made me worthy. Any unforgiveness towards myself is to deny God’s mercy and cut myself off from it. So, how am I in relation to myself? Am I comfortable with who I am and with my own worth, even my own magnificence, because if not I have a divine right to be?

Sat 19^th April – What I see within is what I see without

The dignity that we hold for ourselves has huge implications for the dignity we place on all human life. If I see divinity within myself, I will see divinity in you. This is where other people are always acting as giant mirrors for us reflecting back aspects of ourselves that cry out for self-acceptance. The problem is that it’s much easier to shut out that person from my life with a hasty judgement rather than allowing the Lord to speak to me through them. For example, if there is someone who drives me crazy rather than dismiss him or her as a nutcase why not ask the more challenging question, what is it in me that finds it so difficult to be respectful and loving towards that person? Once I can recognize that aspect in myself then the challenge is to accept it and allow it to come out into the open for healing.

Easter Sunday ‘25

Easter comes at this lovely time of year when everything speaks of new life. The light is coming towards us, the days are longer, and nature is bursting forth in all its splendour. We even feel new energy in our bones.

Easter is meant to be the highlight of the Churches year. It’s the great event that all the scriptures were leading up to, it’s the culmination of the great story of Salvation. However, is it something that we get excited about, a feast that revs us up, and if not why not? Could it be because of the way Easter has been presented as an historical event relating to the physical body of Christ being brought back from the dead and not relating directly to our lives? We have done the Bible and ourselves such a disservice by hearing it as history and not good news for the here and now.

The message of Easter is not primarily a message about Jesus’ body, and it’s unfortunate that we’ve been trained to limit it to this one-time ‘miracle.’ We’ve been educated to expect a lone, risen Jesus saying, ‘I rose from the dead; look at me!’ Could that be why so many people, even Christians, don’t really seem to get too excited about Easter? If the message doesn’t somehow include us, we humans don’t tend to be that interested in theology.

What might the real message of Easter be: Every message about Jesus is a message about all of us, about humanity. Sadly, the Western church that most of us were raised in, emphasized the individual resurrection of Jesus. It was a miracle that we could neither prove nor experience, but that we were expected to boldly believe.

But there’s a great secret, at least for Western Christians, hidden in the other half of the universal church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church—in places like Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt—Easter is not usually painted with a solitary Jesus rising from the dead. He’s always surrounded by crowds of people—both saints and sinners. In fact, in traditional icons, he’s pulling people out of Hades. This Hades is not the same as hell, although we put the two words together, and so we grew up reciting in the creed that ‘Jesus descended into hell’ and wondered how that could be and what was that all about.

Instead, Hades is simply the place of the dead. There’s no punishment or judgement involved. It’s just where a soul waits for God. But we neglected that interpretation. So the Eastern Church was probably much closer to the truth that the resurrection is a message about humanity. It’s a message about history. It’s a corporate message, and it includes you and me and everyone else. If that isn’t true, it’s no wonder that we basically lost interest.

The Christian story is all about from death to resurrection, getting through suffering in order to experience new life. Ten years ago, I was in the middle of a serious burnout. It was mental anguish to a level I never thought possible and it felt as if even hope seemed hopeless. I could see no possibility of surviving the ordeal and all seemed lost; my life was over. Suddenly, when I least expected it, I felt Gods hand lifting me out of that dark place and it was like being brought from death to life. That was my resurrection experience and I’m sure many of you will have had your own. Here is an Easter poem by Daniel O Leary called In Your Heart that captures resurrection moments.

Christ Rises in your heart when:
You wake in the morning with new hope;
You go to bed with a forgiving heart;
You truly grieve at another’s loss;
Your heart rejoices at another’s joy;
You keep your temper with a trying friend;
You refuse to nurse a niggling hurt;
You try again to beat your fears;
You face the routine of another day;
You try again to say, ‘I’m sorry’;
Your broken heart begins to mend;
You notice beauty you missed before;
You weep at the greed that causes war;
You delight when love comes round again;
You put together the broken pieces
And make with God a work of art;
You dare to love despite the grief;
You discover, within your winter,
A summer-time that never ends;
You hold the earth and all people
As you hold the hearts of those you love;
You trust in dawn at the darkest hour;
You accept your weakness and it makes you strong;
When you try to live in the present moment:
You know your freedom is truly won
And you dance on your grave like the Easter Son.

Mon 21^st April – Our Pet Projections

If I find that anger is something I detest in someone I tend to give them a wide berth because they make me feel uncomfortable. However, it’s my own unrecognized anger that is staring me in the face and seeking my acceptance. I use that as an example from my own experience because for years when anyone would get angry with me, I would feel devastated. I wondered why and eventually came to recognize that I had a mountain of anger in myself. It was as I came to accept that anger that my creativity that had been blocked for years suddenly came alive. Should I find myself reacting to someone who is needy, and they drive me bananas it’s still my own neediness that ultimately I need to own and accept. In the same way if I feel uncomfortable around someone who is sad the one who is really sad and carrying unshed tears is myself. It’s all too easy to judge and blame what we see in someone else, the real challenge is to recognize and accept it in ourselves, for therein alone lies healing.