Jim Cogley – Reflections Tues 31st Dec – Mon 6th Jan 2025: The Power of Words
Weekday transmissions of services take place at 10am (this week Monday Thursday & Friday).
A Pray in Vigil Mass for the New Year will be at 11.30pm on Tuesday and on Wednesday at 3pm there will be a Healing Mass and blessing with oils.
Each service is recorded and available on ourladysisland.ie or Church Services.
Note: Some who have their emails on the list for postings have not been receiving them. If you know any such person, please ask them to let me know on frjimcogley@gmail.com
Wishing you all a Safe, Peaceful and Happy New Year.
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 numbers are limited there may be a waiting list. 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
Tuesday January 31st – The Creative Word
The Genesis story of creation tells how the world began through the Word of God. God said, ‘Let there be’, and so there was. All God has to do is speak and things come into being. Each time He speaks something happens. It’s like He speaks the world into existence. For God, to say is to do, to speak is to accomplish, to promise is to fulfil. You could say that God is as good as his word and all his words spoken in the OT take flesh in the coming of Jesus. He is God’s word made flesh, a human being born like all of us and destined to die also like us. This is the great mystery that invites us to reflect on the power of words and just as God’s Word created this world so do our words create ours. It’s a simple but profound truth that the words we use on an everyday basis are continually creating our reality. Back in the early days of Covid for two years I said to myself, ‘I will not get Covid’. Then with the coming of a particular variant, I said, ‘I will not be surprised if I do,’ and three days later I had it. It should have come as no surprise; I needed to learn the importance of being careful with my words.
Wednesday January 1st – As Good as our Word
It’s a great tribute to be able to say of someone that he or she is as good as their word and it’s painful to deal with someone who is not. They say they will ring back, you keep waiting and they never do. They say they will turn up at a particular time to do a job and you take time off but they never arrive. When you meet them it’s not reasons you get but excuses and basically excuses are only for non-achievers and non-deliverers. Those who are as good as their word never use excuses and only seldom have reasons. Every business that operates on the basis of being as good as its word has such a huge advantage over those who don’t, so much so that it’s a wonder more don’t practice that basic principle. Being as good as your word is a basic formula for having a successful life and not just in business. As a follower of Christ, who is the Word, I must be prepared to be found hanging from a tree rather than break my word, no matter how inconvenient. It should be that sacrosanct.
Thursday January 2nd – The Power of the Positive Word
Every parent and teacher can see so clearly that when you give praise and affirmation to a little child they just beam back happiness and contentment and what is given out comes back on the double. Classrooms that are positive and affirming create an atmosphere that is conducive to learning. Homes that are positive and affirming create an atmosphere of well-being. The words create the environment. When we give out words of encouragement we literally pour courage into someone who otherwise might be filled with fear and not very confident. The effect is to see someone grow in self-esteem and achieve more than they ever thought that they could achieve. The word of encouragement liberates the potential of the other. The role of an encourager is to empower someone to do what they least want to do and to achieve what they always wanted to achieve.
Friday January 3rd – The Destructive Word
An old saying that we all grew up with is that, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me’. That’s just not true. Harsh and belittling words can and do break our spirit. A word from a parent teacher or friend can be like a poisoned arrow that got lodged into us as a child and as we carry it through life, it continues to release its poisonous venom. At the time it may have been a throwaway remark spoken in a moment of annoyance like, ‘You clumsy oaf’, ‘You stupid idiot,’ ‘You fat, whatever.’ Long forgotten by the person who expressed their opinion in that moment, they can be remembered for a lifetime by the recipient and form the basis of how he or she sees themselves. The word that was spoken becomes what that person believes about themselves and forms the basis of their self-esteem.
Saturday January 4th – Words in Relationships
In all relationships a certain amount of conflict is inevitable. Working through disagreements rather than cutting or distancing is generally the way relationships grow and develop. At the same time, our tongues need to be disciplined, words spoken in annoyance can be like a bullet fired from a gun that can never be taken back and they usually come back to haunt us. To love to speak the truth is one thing while to speak the truth in love is quite another. The angry word carries a judgement and doesn’t solve anything except to make matters worse since it forces the other person to rush to their own defence and so the rift only deepens. A prayer from one of the psalms says, ‘Set a guard over my mouth O Lord.’ To guard what we say, especially when we are annoyed, is really important because sooner or later we have to eat our words.
Sunday January 5th – How Adult am I?
Adulthood is something that can be defined in so many different ways. Society grants us legal status at eighteen and this becoming legal leads many young people to believe that they have arrived. Adulthood is a watershed moment in our lives when we believe we have grown up. We measure it in terms of our ability to think more for ourselves, with being more independent and with being legally responsible for our actions. It’s also supposed to be the time when our lives are more stable, when we have greater control of our emotions and when we can be more objective about seeing things as they really are. To truly be an adult is to have given up childish ways. Or at least that’s the theory.
On a few occasions Christ spoke of the need to become childlike in order to enter into Kingdom living and he was not talking about the afterlife. There’s a world of a difference between being childish and becoming childlike.
The assumption that when we reach a particular age we put away childish ways should not be made too quickly. The legal age is no determinant of adulthood. Many never grow up and hold on to childish ways for a lifetime. One woman said to her friend that when she got married she was duped. She thought she was getting married to her husband while in fact she was only fostering him; she had taken over where his mother had left off. After just six months he began to call her Mam and then she knew she was in trouble! Sometimes it’s as if the child just puts on adult clothes and then as the old saying goes ‘the main difference between men and boys is the price of their toys’.
For so many, infant whining just gives way to a more sophisticated form of complaining. Some even become serial complainers who even if there is nothing to complain about, they will find something. A stubborn child can so easily become an adult who is set in his ways. A needy little child often becomes a needy adult who wants to be taken care of and then spends her time wondering why others keep their distance. Even the wild impulses of youth may not dissipate but take the form of addictions later in life. If being reasonable and logical is part of being an adult the people of Nazareth were very childish when they wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff just because they had issue with what he said in a sermon.
One of the things St Paul does in his letter to the Corinthians is to make a close connection between love and being an adult. Perhaps the very best ways we can examine how adult we have become, and to what extent we have given up childish ways, is to reflect on the quality of our love.
Possibly the finest statement on adult love ever written was by St Paul when he wrote:
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
What he says in just a few lines is more than a mouthful and a great way to measure just how adult we really are.
So, to conclude with a few thoughts:
It is childish to blame others for how we feel. It is adult to take responsibility. It is childish to be jealous and possessive. Adult love always gives freedom.
It is childish to be bitter and resentful. It is adult to practice forgiveness.
It is childish not to talk to someone. It is adult to want to sort things out.
It is childish to want to be right. It is adult to want to be in relationship.
It is childish to complain about what you don’t have. It is adult to be grateful.
It is childish to focus on getting. It is adult to focus on what I can give.
So how adult am I really?
Monday 6th January – The Reconciliatory Word
When difficulties arise in relationships the word sorry gets bandied about and usually means very little. Many use the word over and over and yet can never admit to being wrong. All it might mean is that I’m sorry you found out or I’m sorry you don’t see the situation my way. To admit to being wrong goes much deeper and forms the basis for sorting things out and being reconciled. It’s when we reflect on the fact that it is we who, by the words we use, create our own world that the real challenge begins to strike home. That’s why the Bible teaches us that each of us is responsible for our words and every word that we speak we are accountable for. Our world, our reality and our words are part and parcel of the same package that is our life. As we look at our lives just now, they are a product of the words we have been speaking, both consciously and unconsciously, for the entirety of our lives. As I reflect on my life it is I who have created my life, for good or for bad by my words.