Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 30th Jan – Mon 5th Feb

 Invitation to All

Celebrating St Brigid

Welcoming the Spring

A Liturgical Celebration in Music and Drama

With Children’s Choir

Young performers

and older musicians

with unique sound instruments

Monday 5^thFeb Bank Holiday

3pm Our Lady’s Island Church

Tue 30^th Jan ’24 – Adoption

Having heard multiple horror stories from women who had given birth in mother and baby homes in Ireland, I was interested to hear some from the UK and if the treatment differed from what was meted out here. One lady was a nurse who at nineteen became pregnant. She had heard her mother say to her elder sister that ‘on no condition was she allowed to bring her bundle back home’, so she knew that going home was not an option. In an area close to London she found a mother and baby home that were happy to look after her. Surprisingly she recalled it as one of the most enjoyable times of her life. It was run by the Sisters of Divine Motherhood and the kindness, respect and support they gave made all the difference. After the babies were born the mothers suckled them for the first six weeks during which they were psychologically prepared to give them up for adoption. This meant that when the time came the babies were not taken from them but given freely. When the day arrived for her, she was told that by doing what she had done, and in doing what she was doing she was bringing the greatest joy imaginable to someone else and also doing the most loving thing possible for her child. The enormous sacrifice was acknowledged but was underpinned with great joy. As her life progressed she had no legacy of hurt to heal, and in more recent years has enjoyed ongoing contact with her daughter.

Wed 31^st Jan ’24 – Sean Ross – Experience

Not so long ago I had the opportunity to visit Sean Ross Abbey, one of the more notorious mother and baby homes in Roscrea where in a time period of forty years 6000 babies were born and over a 1000 died. The place featured in the film Dear Daughter in 2002 with activist Christina Buckley. I was accompanied by a woman who had spent time in there herself. Her story was of a young woman who on becoming pregnant was not allowed back home by her very ‘Catholic’ mother and very quickly was dispatched to this institution run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. From day one her experience was horrific. Her name was changed, her hair was cut off and she was given two well-worn uniforms. It was much like entering into penal servitude where your identity was taken and you were condemned to being a number. Family visits were not allowed and in the early months she worked like a slave on the farm, usually doing backbreaking work like picking potatoes.

Thurs 1^st Feb ’24 – Sean Ross – Experience (Contd)

Later on in the pregnancy the lady referred to earlier was moved to working in the laundry and there she remembers the harsh conditions, where inmates were not allowed to have any conversations except what was strictly work related. Many were older women who had been disowned by their families and forced to live out the remainder of their life in Sean Ross. It was deemed a just punishment for their sexual deviancy! The maternity wing had been demolished but walking the site she remembered giving birth to her son, having been forced to work up until that very day. The baby was large, her labour pains unbearable and when she screamed out she was slapped in the face and told to be quiet. There was no kindness or compassion and the sacred act of giving birth was degraded with shame and punishment. Later there was a big question as to the long-term future of the child over which she had no say. She later learned that days before the baby was due to be taken to the US for adoption, her father had overruled his wife and insisted that the child would be taken home and reared as one of the family. She, and he were among the few who had a very lucky escape.

Fri 2^nd Feb ’24 – Projection at Work

A remarkable similarity between the first and second stories, even though their experiences stood in stark contrast, was the fact that neither mother of the girls who became pregnant was prepared to accept their daughters or their grandchildren. In both cases, as it transpired much later, both women had their own secrets and unresolved story. On had herself become pregnant as a teenager and had her child adopted but this became a closely guarded secret. The second was four months pregnant when she got married but this too was never acknowledged. The harsh way she treated her husband had probably sent him to an early grave carrying a burden of guilt. Both stories were classic cases of projection at work where the anger, shame and guilt that both carried became projected onto their offspring. In trying to cut off that part of their own story they were effectively cutting off their daughters who were now mirroring their reality and reawakening their own story.

Sat 3^rd Feb – The Fall Out

How a crisis is handled will make all the difference in the long run. In the case from the UK that woman felt that she carried absolutely no trauma from her experience. She later got married and went on to live a normal and happy life and seemed to have no hang-ups around sex or sexuality. Her family grew up knowing that they had a sister whom they might one day meet. In contrast the lady from Sean Ross carried deep scars and was seriously traumatised. Even though her child had been included in her family as the youngest ‘sister’ she could never speak to that child as his mother. It was still the family secret. This had a detrimental effect on her health and she had multiple serious operations. Her issues had found their way into her tissues. Her son, on the other hand, grew up believing his granny to be his mother and only at his 21^st birthday party accidentally found out the truth. He now realised that his family had a secret and he was the secret. Carrying that secret also deeply affected him and it was years later that he found the courage to go to his real mother and in so doing risk the displeasure of his siblings.

Sun 4^th Feb – Healing 4^th Sunday ‘24

When we look at the ministry of Christ, we find that he was nearly always engaged in healing of one kind or another. Sometimes it was of the miraculous kind like we find in the Gospel today, but more often it was about helping people come to terms with their lives and how their past was affecting their present. So he helped them to tell their story; he reassured them of God’s mercy and taught the importance of forgiveness, both towards themselves and others. He encouraged people to let go of judgements, to be less critical, always to look for the good and to love their neighbour as they loved themselves.

In more recent years we are coming to realise that we don’t bury issues dead, rather we bury them alive and that in doing so we deny a part of ourselves. For so long we operated on the principle that what we don’t know can’t hurt us whereas now we are being forced to acknowledge that it is precisely what we don’t talk about that can affect us the most. In other words, it is our past that continues to influence our present and in all sorts of ways. So, we end up taking pills for depression but never ask the question what am I depressing. We might be irritable and difficult to live with but never look at what I need to forgive myself for. We may go to a doctor to have our symptoms cured while failing to look at the underlying cause of what is creating the problem in the first place.

Everyone has a story and every story is sacred and deserves to be heard and treated with the utmost respect. The first time we open up part of our story to another it takes a lot of courage because we might just be admitting something to ourselves for the very first time. After doing that we feel a lot lighter and soon it becomes easier to share it with others in a manner that could be helpful for them.

Life by its very nature tends to throw up circumstances and situations that deeply challenge us to take a closer look at ourselves and invite us to come to terms with the reality of what we see. Memories that we thought we had firmly locked away can come flooding back. An issue that we thought we had buried for many years can suddenly resurrect itself with the realisation that what we thought was well and truly dead is very much alive.

I once knew a woman in her early forties who had a catch phrase that would nearly always find its way into conversations. She would say, ‘No one ever listens to me.’ Those who knew her had heard it so often they hardly noticed when she used it and certainly never thought of asking why she might be saying it so often.

One time I met her and she was in a very distressed and emotional state. She hadn’t slept for days, was suffering panic attacks and thought she was heading for a nervous breakdown. Ironically it should have been a very happy time, because her daughter was due to get married in a few weeks. It was a good match and she really liked her future son-in-law but something about the wedding threw her to the point where she felt she wouldn’t be able to be present.

Why was she so full of stress and anxiety instead of excitement? It was obvious except to her. It was all to do with her own wedding. At eighteen she got pregnant and was forced to get married. When she expressed reservations no one listened and she was told that having made her bed she would now have to lie on it. From day one the marriage was a disaster where her husband, feeling trapped, became abusive and violent. She endured two years of hell before both went their separate ways. Now with her daughter getting married all the memories had come flooding back and her emotions associated with them were literally screaming for attention.

The fact that she had been molested by a family member when she was ten and not believed by her mother was also a big factor in why she had gone through life always saying, ‘No one ever listens to me’.

Such a story may not be a miraculous healing but it is the kind of healing that can make a huge difference in someone’s life and that we can all engage in. Having had someone to listen to her story, and help her make sense of it, that woman went on to really enjoy her daughter’s wedding, feeling that a burden she had carried for over thirty years had finally been lifted. Surely that is nothing less than Gospel healing.

Mon 5^th Feb – Sin equated with Sex

In our Catholic story, for well over a hundred years, it is an absolute tragedy that sin came to be equated with sex. In confessions of the past whenever bad thoughts were mentioned, it was always sexual thoughts. The fact that one could be filled with bitter vengeful or any other kind of evil thoughts never entered the picture. Almost all moral evil became overshadowed by sexual sin, and it came to the point where having a child outside of wedlock (or padlock in some cases) was worse than having committed murder. So many unfortunates were forced to serve a life sentence, some abandoned in institutions, and others locked in the prisons of shame and remorse. It is highly likely that those religious who were responsible for inflicting such punishments went to confession regularly. However, it is equally unlikely that their real sins were ever recognised, let alone confessed. To be ‘distracted at their prayers’ would have taken precedence over damaging another human being for life. So great was the depth of unawareness at that time, especially of the true nature of sin.