Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 24 Dec to Mon 30 Dec 2024
WOOD YOU BELIEVE
LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
Moonlight over Our Ladys Island
emails to – frjimcogley@gmail.com
Weekday transmissions of services take place at 10am (this week Monday and Thursday)
Christmas Eve Mass is at 7pm with focus on children’s participation
Christmas Day Mass is at 11am
Each service is recorded and available on ourladysisland.ie or Church Services
Wishing you all a Safe, Peaceful and Happy Christmas
A seminar entitled: Getting the Past out of the Present – Healing our Damaged Emotions facilitated by Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk will be held in the Edmund Rice Centre in Westcourt, Callan, Co Kilkenny on Saturday the 18th January from 10 – 4pm. The cost will be €50 with refreshments included. This is the first such event in the area and in a venue that is ideal as a healing centre. Bookings may be made by phone or text to Jim Maher on 086-1276649 from 10am – 12noon most mornings. As there are only a few places left you are advised to apply as early as possible. The postal code is R95RX83.
There is also another Wood You Believe seminar entitled A Journey into Wholeness scheduled for Saturday 25th January in Our Lady’s Island Community Centre. Cost €40 with light refreshments included. Bookings by phone or text to 087-7640407.
Christmas Eve – Retail Therapy
The Rush that goes Nowhere!
It’s Christmas Eve – The piece of sculpture shows a lady laden down with shopping parcels. She appears to be in a rush but because of the vase being like a cage her busyness is an illusion and she can go nowhere. Shakespeare once said, ‘All things are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.’ While we enjoy the adrenaline kick that comes with buying and acquiring, experience teaches us that the ‘rush’ is short-lived. It can be like any other drug that we use to dull our pain and avoid our emptiness. The emptiness we feel is existential; it is on the inside and can’t be filled by anything external. It’s an emptiness of spirit that Spirit alone can fill. Jesus said in the first Beatitude ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom’. To acknowledge our need of God at that deepest level rather than live a life seeking continuous distraction is crucial. Otherwise, no matter how full our lived may be, or how laden we are with parcels, we will still remain, unfulfilled.
Christmas Day
A small boy was writing a letter to God about the Christmas presents he badly wanted. “I’ve been good for six months now”, he wrote. But after a moment’s reflection he crossed out “six months” and wrote “three months.” After a pause that was crossed out and he put “two weeks.” There was another pause while he thought and that was crossed out too. He got up from the table and went over to the crib that had the figures of Mary and Joseph. He picked up the figure of Mary, wrapped it gently in a cloth, and put it in a drawer in his room. He then went back to his writing and started again: “Dear God, if ever you want to see your mother again…!”
Each year around this time I find myself asking the same question: What is Christmas all about? We all know the answer, the birth of Jesus of course, but while that sounds simple, it’s a challenge to preach on it every season for 45 years! This year I take my cue from an elderly man who has been seriously ill for months and has just come home. When I called to see him he was snuggled up in bed and I asked him how he was. He replied, ‘It’s just so great to be home but it’s even better to be wanted back home’. I wondered for a moment if the long months of recovery and the readjustment to his home and for his family in having him home had made him doubt if they could really want him back now especially now that he needed more care than he used to.
The need to feel wanted stands at the core of our human experience and those who know it are blessed beyond measure with a gift that should never be taken for granted. It’s also one that so many are deprived of. With 40m refugees living mostly in tents throughout the world, that’s nearly nine times the population of Ireland, I wonder how many have any real sense of being wanted. Of the millions of migrants forced to flee their homes what an uphill battle they face in order to feel wanted in whatever country they end up in. When Angela Merkel said she wanted 1m in Germany she may have made the greatest mistake of her political career because everyone got the message of being wanted and became easy prey for the migrant smugglers.
Of the thousands in our own country who are homeless or forced into temporary accommodation I would doubt if many have any sense of being wanted but more likely feeling resented as a burden on society. That includes 1000 children who are also getting a bad start in terms of not being wanted.
Christmas is about the birth of Jesus but isn’t it interesting that the very one who came with the Good News of God wanting us all was himself an unwanted child and to a large extent later an unwanted adult. He came unto his own but his own people didn’t want him to the point of hanging him on a tree.
As a baby he was definitely wanted by Mary but given the circumstances of his conception I wonder how long it would have taken Joseph to really want him. In Bethlehem at the time of his birth it would appear that nobody wanted him either, since there was no room at the inn. Herod, the ruler of the time, feared his arrival as a rival, and ordered him to be killed so he definitely didn’t want him. Later, it would be the establishment figures and the religious leaders who would be most antagonistic towards him.
Yet, in spite of all the rejection of being unwanted he persisted in preaching his message of love and by his actions showed people how much they were wanted. It was to those who felt most excluded, the crippled, the lame the blind, the sinners, the outcasts, that he reached out to the most. Into his net of belonging, of feeling wanted they came, all who had previously felt excluded and marginalized.
Wherever there was no love he poured love and didn’t always get it back in return.
To all of us his message touches our deepest longing, the need to belong, the need to know that we are wanted. It is a message of overwhelming divine generosity.
Our response to that message defines our lives and shapes our destiny. It often challenges us to the core of our being, especially when we find ourselves in situations of conflict and making that person responsible feel wanted is the last thing on our wish list. We perpetuate loneliness, isolation and the sense of not being wanted when we draw too tight a circle around ourselves, our families and our loved ones. It’s the attitude of ‘We’re ok’ and to heck with everyone else, don’t get involved, that so runs contrary to the expansiveness spirit of Christmas.
Unfortunately, it’s the spirit of the age that we live in but its far removed from the spirit of the season that we celebrate. To extend that wonderful sense of being wanted is the greatest Christmas present we can give to another.
This Christmas may you be blessed with friendship.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you befriend your soul
where there is love warmth and forgiveness.
May this change you, may it thaw the cold neglected parts of you.
May you know how it feels to belong, may you value your friends,
May you be good to them and may they be there for you,
May they bring blessings, challenges truth and light
that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated but may you
always be at home with yourself.
Thurs 26th December – St Stephen’s Day
Just as day and night form a seamless unit so birth and death are closely interwoven. Yesterday we had the birth of Christ and today we remember the death of St Stephen. He was one of the brightest lights in the infant church and a prominent truth speaker. The strength of a reaction to a truth that is spoken is a good indication to it being the truth. In Stephen’s case it evoked a violent reaction that resulted in him being stoned to death. He was also involved in a dispute over what amounted to a soup kitchen where discrimination was taking place. The Jews who had become Christians were being given preferential treatment over the Gentile Christians. Having being appointed by St Peter to sort out the problem, Stephen had been successful and possibly made enemies in the process. These too may well have been looking for an opportunity to throw stones. A priest from Seattle tells a similar story of a charitable food distribution network that provided meals and a drop-in centre for thousands of homeless. A clash of personalities at the head, where neither was prepared to compromise, resulted in the entire organization being closed down. It was a typical situation where the needs of the poor were sacrificed on the altar of two egos that were only concerned with self-preservation.
Fri 27th – Saint John the Evangelist
Today is the Feast of St John who was the youngest of Christ’s band of disciples. In the scriptures he is called the beloved disciple. This could imply that his heart was that bit more open to love than the others. Usually, he is mentioned in relation to his elder brother James, and together they were known as ‘the sons of thunder.’ It was they who wanted the Lord to bring down fire and brimstone on the Samaritan town that refused to welcome him. It is interesting that he is later mentioned as one of those sent to the Samaritans with the message of love. Somewhere in between he must have experienced a profound conversion. He died in his mid-nineties and towards the end of his life, having been exiled for many years on the Island of Patmos, he was accused of ever only preaching one sermon; it was always on the topic of love. When asked why, he replied, ‘Because there really is only one sermon.’ Centuries later, one of the great saints who would bear his name, John of the Cross, would say, ‘In the end of the day we will be judged on love.’ In the end of the day we judge ourselves in the light of love.
Sat 28th – Nurturing the Newborn
Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. When King Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Three Wise Men he initiated a bloodbath where all the male babies up to a certain age should be killed. He was an insecure ruler and typical of such leaders was prepared to destroy anyone who posed a threat to his power, even a newborn infant. It is a feature of the ego that it will go to any extremes in order to hold onto control. History had shown over and over that it doesn’t matter how many have to suffer and die so long as it can hold dominance. Today’s feast also points to the vulnerability of small beginnings. Everything begins as the seed of an idea that needs fertile ground. It’s easy for a newly emerging sapling to be walked on and crushed. So many potentially great ideas become victims of Herod’s massacre. A single word of discouragement, or someone projecting their own fear of failure, or insecurity, onto a proposal can effectively kill it off before it ever sees the light. It’s so important to encourage and never to despise the day of small beginnings.
Sunday 29th December – Holy Family
On this Feast of the Holy Family, shown is a symbol of family that I made some years back. It depicts four members who are holding hands and in doing so they create four hearts and also a circle that forms a candle holder. The symbolism is meant to convey that where there is unity there is love and where there is love there is light. In fact, only where there is love are people capable of holding the light for each other.
I would like to share with you a few thoughts in relation to my own experience of family and having been the only child much of what I will share relates to my mother who departed this life 25 years ago this weekend at the age of 84. She died in one millennium and was buried in another. Her passing spanned the new and the old. It was from her that I had a rather rich and varied experience of family life. She was born in 1916 just after the Rising and was the eldest of 8, 7 girls and 1 boy. Twin girls and the boy died very young leaving 5 girls, only two of whom went on to have children. My mother was engaged 7 times, and each time something would crop up to prevent the marriage. When I reflect on my chances of my being here, they were quite slim. At 38 she met my father and was married within 3 months. Because of age, and nearly having died giving birth to me, she never had any more children.
I never heard a cross word between my parents in those early years and I was privileged to see them being close and affectionate with plenty of kissing and cuddling in a way that so many children never get to witness. On my bedroom wall was a picture of the Holy Family, Jesus, walking between Mary and Joseph, holding the hand of each. That was very real to me, because it was my experience of family life just then. I grew up feeling secure on the strength of their relationship and the fact that there was hardship and poverty didn’t seem to matter all that much. Their relationship was the foundation for my sense of security and belonging to this very day. I am still very much aware of it, especially when I hit a difficult patch and it’s like a strength that I can draw on to help get me to the other side.
That security was shattered when, at 11, my father had a heart attack and died suddenly. The family dynamic had changed dramatically to being an only child with a single, mother who had a broken heart. That was a difficult time where we tried to avoid upsetting each other by talking about my dad and that created a certain barrier between us. Looking back, it was quite unwise and we were both simply afraid of our own emotions. During those years she gave me great freedom and responsibility and I think I had much more than if my dad had been alive. I am eternally grateful that she never tried to make me a substitute for my father and neither did she try to control or influence what I was going to do with my life in any way. Not only did she give me roots but she also gave me wings, that to this day I have used to the full.
After 9 years as a widow she remarried, probably out of a sense of loneliness, and it was also the time when I was entering the seminary at Maynooth. She met her partner through the Knock Marriage Bureau and he was from Tipperary. Again, the family dynamic changed to now having a stepfather who was widowed with 3 children. I thought first they were getting on fine until my mother’s health began to break down with stress related illnesses. First it was her eyesight where she lost one eye and then the other went and for a time she was completely blind before having a miraculous recovery. A few years later she suffered a stroke, a heart attack and Meningitis. This was when she finally admitted that she had been enduring domestic violence and that he had been beating her up ever since they got married. He was a very insecure individual, and, for reasons I could never figure, was so jealous towards me that on two occasions he tried to murder me, and I was lucky to escape with my life.
It was her final bout of illness, and close shave with death, that made my mother wake up and realize she had had enough. She got the courage to talk about what had been happening and that she needed to get out of the marriage. That was far from being an easy time for her when he left and went to live close by. He was a street angel and a house devil so to others he could come across as sweet as pie and sell a sob story about how badly he had been wronged. Unfortunately, people buy into those kind of stories and act out of prejudice with the result many neighbours stopped talking and gave my mum the cold shoulder.
So, the family dynamic for me had changed yet again to now dealing with a separated mother and an estranged stepfather with 3 siblings in the background. Strange to say during those final 20 years of my mother’s life I never once heard her mention feeling lonely. I think the overwhelming relief of being free of an abusive, controlling relationship was what sustained her. Sometime later I was ordained and after 10 years in Kilmore Quay my mother came to live there where in her last three years her health began to fail and I needed to take on a caring role. Unfortunately, being on my own, I had no one to share the workload with. I never wanted to put her into a nursing home but eventually she realized she needed to be there herself. Remarkably her months in the home were as happy as I have ever seen her where she finished more or less as she had started. After so many romances in early life she fell madly in love with one of the residents who was from her own street in Wexford and was just like her father that she adored. The love was quite mutual and while visiting I often felt I was playing gooseberry. I remember one time going to visit when the two of them were alone in the TV room, holding hands and watching Ireland playing England in a rugby match. It was tough and tumble and she turned to her companion and said, ‘Larry, why does the referee not give them a ball each so they wouldn’t have to fight so much over the one.’
They say that it only takes a moment to be loved a whole life through and it was during those months of feeling loved that my mother became light and witty where it was obvious that she had shed so many layers of sadness and suffering that had been weighing her down. She died literally with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye, which just goes to show that it’s never too late to start living, and there’s no excuse to not have some fun.
Monday 30th December – Rebirth
Spring already lies in the womb of winter when all feels lost, and everything appears empty and lifeless. The challenge is to calmly wait the appointed hour of change knowing that it will come and that it cannot be forced. The caterpillar has its own unique timing to emerge as a butterfly. Grief too has its season. Discipleship demands patience knowing that nothing in the universe stands still, all is in movement, constantly changing and assuming new forms. It would be vanity to expect the present to persist and so it is foolish to resist change. In the words of the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, ‘It’s the lust for comfort that murders the passion of the soul and then walks grinning at the funeral.’ Life is only found at the edge of our comfort zone. The awareness that change is inevitable and flowing with it rather than having it forced upon us is something that engenders freedom. This in turn gives rise to joy that is our natural state of being it is the invincible summer that still exists even in the darkest winter. Joy is awakened through suffering and underlies both happiness and sorrow alike.