Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 12 Aug – Mon 18 Aug 2025
Note: A Personal & Ancestral Healing retreat will be given by Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk in Mt St Annes Retreat Centre, Portarlington from Monday evening 15th Sept to Thurs 18th. Early booking is recommended.
Bookings and enquiries to Mount St Annes only on 057-8626153.
My email is: frjimcogley@gmail.com
Books in Wood You Believe series can be ordered online at jimcogley.com
Tues Aug 12th – Place of Pilgrimage
Friday next is the 15th August and the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady. It is the day when people gather in their thousands for the opening ceremony of the Pilgrimage Season on Our Lady’s Island. They later traverse the ancient pilgrimage path, praying the traditional prayer of the Rosary. This is one of the oldest if not the oldest Marian Pilgrimage site in the world stretching back to the 6th Century when Marian Devotion was in its infancy. From early times it was associated with Lough Derg, when the opening here would coincide with the closing of the season up there, and many pilgrims would walk that long distance along poor roads to take part in the ceremonies here. Such was the level of faith and devotion in the country during that time when Ireland was the land of saints and scholars. During the season a heightening of the spiritual energy becomes evident as pilgrims gather for this annual season of prayer. Like all places of genuine prayer, the veil between two worlds becomes lighter and that mysterious reality we call Grace is something that becomes palpable and real.
Wed Aug 13th
Lady’s Island is truly a most picturesque and beautiful place. It is steeped in history and is a visual treat. It even has its very own leaning tower. People who visit Lady’s Island for the first time often remark on the energy of the place and the sense of peace that is evident. It is often compared with the Grotto in Lourdes and Medjugorje. That very real and palpable energy may well go back to the early Christians from around 300AD. They were fleeing the last great persecution in Rome under Emperor Diocletian and so were the Christians of the catacombs and not of the great basilicas. They carried a purity of faith that could and did change the world. This was soon to be lost once Christianity became the recognized religion under Constantine. It was at this point that Christianity moved away from being a direct experience of God to adherence to a strict set of rules and beliefs. I would like to think that ancient places of devotion like Lady’s Island still carry seeds of hope and renewal for the future.
Thurs Aug 14th – Hospitality
In the community of Lady’s Island, we have a wonderful tradition of hospitality built up for the past 50 years that is largely based in the local community centre. There had been nothing for many years when a local woman brought her own electric kettle and a large tea pot to what was then the old school and began making tea for pilgrims. Soon she was joined by other wonderful women, and today that tradition continues and a multitude are fed. Pilgrims and tourists alike are amazed and impressed that such a large operation can be carried out on a voluntary basis, with a similar degree of commitment and participation taking place across the road in a Gift Shop close to the Church. While volunteers willingly and generously give of their time and energy, they always claim that they receive even more than they give. New members in the community have an ideal opportunity to make connections with the local people and for the regulars there is a real sense of belonging, of doing something useful and giving back to society, as well as enjoying the daily banter of those who just enjoy being together. This gift of hospitality is our living miracle of the loaves and fish and all thanks to one lady who gave her all of what she could.
Fri Aug 15th – The Path to Adult Faith
The pilgrimage path that is less than a mile is traditionally walked clockwise. This makes sense on two scores. It maximises the shelter from the prevailing SW wind, and for the more discerning pilgrim it accurately reflects the journey towards adult faith. The first stage of faith is ‘unquestioning acceptance’ where we accept everything we are taught, and it acts like a comfort blanket against the harsher realities of life. Stage one of the pilgrimage is where the wind may be blowing, but the path is sheltered. Stage two is questioning non-acceptance where the full force of life’s unanswerable questions assails us and we may even doubt that there is a God. At the Head of the Island the wind hits us with full force and reflects this very uncomfortable stage characterised by suffering, pain and questioning. The third phase is awakening or enlightenment. This phase follows a letting go and surrender where we have a sense of new life and being carried. This is the experience of Grace. The return pilgrimage journey is similar, as we go around the Head everything changes; we feel the wind on our backs and now seem to be carried homeward.
Sat Aug 16th – Faith of our Ancestors
Photo Circe 1900AD
Sometimes I just marvel at the faith of the people that helped make Lady’s Island what it is today. Central to the place is a magnificent church that is an architectural masterpiece and as aesthetically pleasing as much on the inside as the outside. It is known as the Church of the Assumption. Some time ago I read an ancient document that contained the minutes of the Parish Council meeting held before the church was built. It read, ‘With a famine just behind us and an uncertain future ahead, we have decided to go ahead with the building of a new church in Our lady’s Island’. The year was 1861 and it was opened just two years later in 1863, an astonishing feat of workmanship at the time. The cost interestingly was £1863 pounds. If the building were being built today it would definitely cost in excess of €10 million. What faith propelled and inspired those people to make such an extraordinary leap of faith?
Sun Aug 17th – Thoughts on Healing
The Sunday after the Opening of the Pilgrimage has traditionally become associated with healing. It’s unfortunate that there is so little emphasis on healing in our church when the majority of Christ’s ministry was focused on healing.
I heard a phrase recently that really resonated with me. It was just four words, ‘all behaviour is communication’. It’s easy to wonder why some people can be so impossible to live with. Why they can be so cantankerous and contrary, so rude and so ungrateful, so selfish and so inconsiderate. Forget about people, have you even wondered why we can be much the same way ourselves, crunchy, irritable, complaining and judgmental? We are pretty good at condemning certain forms of behaviour as being unacceptable but not so good at asking the reason where does it come from? All behaviour is a form of communication that is trying to tell us something. As a society we have been very good at condemning behaviour and very poor at looking at the underlying message.
Not so long ago a funeral took place of a man who was a terrible alcoholic. When drunk he made a nuisance of himself and generally was regarded as the village idiot and the butt of so many jokes. Nobody ever looked beneath his addiction as to why he drank so much, he lived on his own and few seemed to know anything about his background. Many sat up straight at his funeral when it was mentioned that he had been such a fine upright man in his early years. Then tragedy struck when his wife and two children were killed in a road accident. He was left a broken man who never came to terms with his loss and took to the bottle to try and block out his terrible pain. It’s no different for any of us. When we find ourselves struggling with any form of addiction it’s important to ask what is it that I am trying to block out? Or when we behave in a manner that is unacceptable and causes hurt, why do we do so, and where is it coming from?
An analogy that I find useful is to imagine yourself taking a walk through a wood and you hear a dog barking in some long grass close to a tree. You go nearer and he growls and snarls and bares his teeth. Then you back away thinking, ‘what a horrible little creature, I certainly wouldn’t want him next or near me’. Then you notice something. His foot is caught in a wire and immediately your perception of the animal changes from judgement to compassion. Now you understand his aggression, it’s because the poor creature is trapped and in pain. Then you take off your coat and place it around him and gently release his foot. Suddenly, he’s all over you, jumping up and trying to lick the hand that released him. Next you are wondering if he’s a stray and perhaps you could bring him with you. He’s such a delightful little creature and he deserves a good home. You might even have found a friend for life.
Notice how the perception changes when we know what is really happening, the judgements disappear and we suddenly feel compassion. That is how it is when we get understanding as to where a certain behaviour is coming from. We cause hurt because we have been hurt, it’s hurting people that hurt others. It’s when we feel trapped and in pain, and don’t even know that we are, that we growl and bare our teeth.
Becoming more aware of where and how we are trapped and releasing those snares is what healing is all about. We are all products of both our personal past and our family story and we can be trapped in either.
In our society when something unpleasant happens we are conditioned to suppress it. We pretend it hasn’t happened and if we don’t talk about it or how we feel we hope it might go away. Out of sight out of mind. Our religious teaching has been equally unhelpful. Something unpleasant comes our way and rather than feel our pain we offer it up. That’s religious suppression because we can’t offer something up until we have faced up to an issue and owned it for ourselves. Unless we are prepared to feel we can never heal.
It would be great if we could just put the past behind us, just close a door and forget and pretend certain things never happened, but it doesn’t work that way. Our past is always with us until we deal with it. Like the little dog it will be there to bite us, until it gets our attention. It’s all too easy to say, ‘I don’t want to go there, it’s too painful to talk about it’. Unfortunately, not to go there is to still be there and the issues that we don’t transform we just transfer to others in the ways we behave. We may even develop an addiction in order to block out our pain. Then what we don’t face and transform in our lifetime we transfer to another generation, and it becomes their legacy. And so, what one generation tries to forget, another will be forced to remember.
Only in recent years are we coming to realize 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 we need to come to terms with in ourselves. 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.
How important it is that each of us be prepared to take responsibility for both our personal and ancestral story because in the end if we don’t own our own story then our story will own us, and if we try to push it under the carpet another generation will be left wondering what’s causing the bump.
Mon Aug 18th – The Druidic Connection
Much of the druidic connection with Our Lady’s Island has been lost in the mists of time. It is believed that they originated in Brittany where a row erupted between some who wanted to explore occult practices and engage in child sacrifice, and others who were content with traditional rituals. Following a division in their clan, the former were expelled and forced to set sail, ending up near Carnsore Point, the place of closest proximity to the Continent and clear from Roman control. It was at Carnsore Point, and on Lady’s Island that they practiced their black arts and are believed to have sacrificed children as part of their rituals. It was this practice that led to their expulsion by the locals around the time of Christ. This was about seventy years after their arrival. The sinister looking photo shows what is known locally as the Druids altar where it is believed some of their sacrifices took place and where many innocent children would have lost their lives.