Jim Cogley’s Daily Reflections: Tues 19th Aug – Mon 25th Aug 2025

HEALING  AND  AWARENESS,  A  SPIRITUALITY  OF  INTEGRATION  and  WHOLENESS. This  will be the theme for the Resurrexit  retreat in Ballyvalloo Retreat Centre, Co. Wexford, which will be led by Fr. Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk. Beginning 6pm Tues 30th Sept to Friday Oct 3rd. This is open to all and there are still some places available.                              Contact Breda Costello, 34 Melitta Park, Kildare Town, R51YV48 , or email her at – breda.costello@icloud.com or ring her on  087- 6128253.   Pilgrimage News: Daily Masses are at 3.00pm and 7.30pm. Next Sunday Aug 24th Celine Byrne, Soprano, will speak about her own journey of faith and healing and sing during the service at 3.00pm. She will also launch the latest two books in the Wood You Believe series, Vol 13 A World of Symbols and Vol 12 When I Befriended my Anger.

Tues Aug 19^th – Childhood Memories

While this week’s postings are the story of my own childhood it is not meant to be about me. They are offered as a backdrop and an opportunity to explore your own memories and to reflect on how childhood experiences can still play a big part in our lives. Please be aware that having a big gap in memories from that time is not normal and is an indication of something seriously traumatic that has been closed off because it was too painful to deal with at the time.

My life as a Child

Bursting with Life

As an only child I had the enormous privilege of always knowing that I was wanted, loved and cherished. In my darkest moments, when life seemed to be crumbling, this was the foundation that I could fall back on and has remained rock solid. However, there were several happenings in those early years that had a profound impact on my life. My father had lost his mother when he was five on the birth of his sister. His family circle consisted of his aunt who had reared him, and his brother and sister. When I had just turned three, all of them died suddenly within months of each other. It was compounded grief; a series of devastating blows from which he never recovered. From that time on he became a different man, and I never got to know him as the fun-loving person he had been before becoming grief stricken. This would express itself in angry outbursts and a tendency to not just discipline, when necessary, but to go overboard with punishment. Although I have little clear memory of that time, I lived in a home ravaged by grief and absorbed something of it into my bones. It seems to be a truth that children absorb the atmosphere of the home and what is unspoken, much more than what is expressed.

Wed 20^th Aug – Trauma of Separation

Towards the middle of year three my conscious memory begins with having to spend several weeks in hospital and undergoing an operation. This was my first real separation from parents and the world I was familiar with, and it was like being transposed to another planet where I knew nobody, nothing made sense and horrible people in white clothes were sticking needles into me and forcing me to eat when I felt sick. A month for an adult is not a long period of time but for a child it can seem an eternity. This was made far worse by an inhumane policy in Irish hospitals that was widespread at the time: no visiting by parents was allowed on the pretext that it would upset the child! Such were the devastating consequences of this practice that many parents found that the child they took home from hospital was very different from the one they brought in. The child in effect had suffered the trauma of being orphaned and often carried the effects of this abandonment throughout his or her life.

Thurs 21^st Aug – Trauma of Abandonment

During my hospitalization, while midway through recovery, I spotted my parents car driving up to the hospital entrance. My broken heart, that was hurting so deeply, began to come alive again with excitement. Minutes later I heard their voices in the corridor, and I waited and waited for their arrival, and for my mother to hold me in her arms, but they never came. Seeing the car reverse minutes later and drive away was the most devastating moment of my life. It plunged me into sheer and utter desolation and abandonment. A child feels everything but understands very little, so the message I took from that left me feeling very low about myself and my own worth. If my parents could drive away without even saying hello, they really didn’t love me, and so I must be quite worthless. This takes different forms in different lives; if my parents are fighting it’s because of me or if a parent is drinking somehow I might be responsible. We internalize shame and guilt.

Fri 22^nd Aug – The Effects of Trauma

Comparing photos of myself before and after that time in hospital, I went from looking happy and contented to being sad and morose. It was this child that began school shortly afterwards and was carrying a burden that he could not understand. At home I was often angry and usually got punished for it, without any recognition of the underlying hurt. In school, while I made friends, I found it difficult to fit in, felt very inferior and was far from being comfortable with myself. Having a teacher who bordered on being a sadist, and who inflicted dreadful beatings on his pupils, made those early school years very difficult. The depiction of the way we were before something happened is very useful because it provides a visual representation of the part that can still be recovered.

Sat 23^rd Aug – Compounded Trauma

As primary school years were coming to an end, my father died suddenly and so my world changed dramatically overnight. Just as entry into primary school was overshadowed by loss and trauma, so now the start of my secondary years was overshadowed by grief. It took me many years to realize how emotional trauma can cause learning problems and create vulnerability. Many years later, while coming to understand the grief process at a deeper level, I also realized that natural transition times, as from a toddler to being a child and a child to becoming a teenager, or a teenager entering into adulthood are themselves a form of bereavement. When coupled with some other serious loss they can be very difficult to navigate because we are now dealing with compounded grief.

Sun 24^th Aug – The Narrow Gate

Some years ago, while at the wedding of a friend of mine down in Dingle, the hotel reception was a classic display of Faulty Towers where anything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. One of the guests only vaguely concealing his annoyance asked the hotelier if he did many weddings. In classic Kerry style he replied, ‘Well I only got married once.’ I often think that Jesus had a similar style of sidestepping some questions and giving the unexpected answers: Someone asks him, ‘Will only a few be saved?’ to which he replies, ‘Try to enter by the narrow gate, for many will try to enter and not succeed.’ It may not have been the answer the person wanted but it was broadly in line with so much of his earlier teachings where he said things like, ‘It will be as hard for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom.’ Or again where he said, ‘Enter by the narrow gate for the way that leads to destruction is wide and many find it.’

When we hear words in Scripture like ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Heaven’ we automatically tend to think of when we die, the next world. For that reason, Christianity has been criticized, quite wrongly, as an ‘other worldly’ religion. Yet there was no one more grounded with his feet more firmly on this earth than Jesus Christ and his teachings are much more about this world than the next. When he makes references to Heaven and the Kingdom he is talking first and foremost about a quality of life in the here and now and a way of being in the world that he embodied in himself.

So what is this narrow gate or this eye of the needle that he talks about? It obviously is very important because he refers to it so often. A really narrow gate demands a squeeze in order to get through. The narrower it is the more we have to drop everything we might be carrying and just ease our way through. Similarly, the eye of the needle was not an actual needle but rather a narrow gateway through the wall of Jerusalem that his listeners would have been very familiar with. When he spoke of this eye of the needle they knew exactly what he was talking about. The image that would have been in their minds was of someone arriving late at night and needing to get into the safety of the city. For security reasons the main gates were closed but for latecomers a narrow opening provided a limited means of access. It meant that anyone coming back from his travels would have to leave his camel and goods outside and ease his way through the opening in order to be home safe for the night.

One of the foremost spiritual writers of our age is Echart Tolle. In one of his books, he gives a powerful example of someone going through that narrow door. A woman was coming to him for therapy who was had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She was a wealthy well-to-do lady who all her life had been very attached to material things to the point that her possessions and status were her identity. One day she arrived very troubled and upset. She explained that a diamond ring given by her husband had been stolen. The only person who could have taken it was the lady who cleaned the house. Should she call the police or would it be better to directly confront the woman she wanted to know. Echart wisely replied that he was not going to answer that question but instead ask a couple of others. He said, ‘Given your medical condition you may soon have to face the reality of having to let go of a lot more than your diamond ring so allow me to ask: ‘Has your relationship with your husband in any way been diminished by the loss of this ring?’ To which she replied, ‘No of course not.’ Next he asked: ‘Have you as a person been in any way been diminished by the loss of this ring?’ After considering that deeper question for a few moments she had to say, ‘I guess not.’ Now he said go and reflect on your answer and do what you need to do, allow that wisdom to direct your course.

Over the following months she began to do what she had never done, give away things that were precious to her, she even gave some of her jewellery to the woman whom she suspected of stealing her ring. In doing so something amazing began to happen. She said that with each item she let go of she felt lighter, as if an inner light had been ignited and the more she gave away the brighter it became. By the time of her death, she was very much at peace and glowing from within. A few days after her burial the diamond ring was found in a medicine cabinet. Perhaps it had been there all along? Or, it could have been put there by the woman she believed to have taken it. Neither made any difference. What was important lay in the fact that the lady before she finally passed over, had literally gone through the eye of the needle. Previous to that her identity had been so caught up in what she had that she herself didn’t even realize how empty she was on the inside. It was only as she learned the lesson of letting go of all of that she wasn’t that she came into the wonderful realization of who she really was.

It’s a story that poses searching questions for all of us:

If I am not what I have then who am I?

If I am not what I do then what am I?

If I am not what others think of me then who am I?

Mon 25^th Aug – Trauma as a Prelude to Awakening

Phrases I would use to describe my early teenage years would be, crippling shyness; an inability to express myself verbally; a deep inferiority complex and an overall lack of self-belief. While that time was very difficult, and I often felt trapped in a bubble of isolation, I now look back with a deep sense of gratitude for the spiritual awakening that took place during those years. My inner struggle forced me to pray, and prayer opened my heart to God. I experienced the blessedness of emptiness, being poor in Spirit and this was my qualification to claim divine assistance. It was as if my soul began to grow and blossom, and it was the struggle of those teenage years that provided the necessary fertilizer to embark on a spiritual path from a young age. At fifteen I knew that surrender was the way forward and that it would be in God’s will alone that I would find my true life.