Jim Cogley’s Reflections – Tues 18 Nov – Mon 24 Nov 2025
Coming Wood You Believe Healing Seminars with Jim Cogley & Luba Rodzhuk:
An Tobar Retreat Centre, Navan, Fri 28th Nov 7-9.30pm – Recovery from Loss
Saturday 10am-4pm Healing and Integration – Bookings to Spiritans on 086-8416110.
Edmund Rice Centre, Callan – Approaching Christmas – What is Christianity?
This seminar will be an exciting journey of uncovering the riches of the Christian Faith that has become obscured beneath layers of historical accretions.
Sat 13th Dec 10am-4pm. Early booking advised to Jim Maher on 086-1276649.
For ordering Wood You Believe books: jimcogley.com
For daily services usually 10am. Sunday 11am. Webcam: ourladysisland.ie
Books can change Lives and clear Minds
Books have a life of their own. They find their way into the most unlikely places and literally transform lives. After twenty-five years of writing, I know to be true. However, as an author I need help with distribution and marketing. The 13 volumes in the Wood You Believe series, while very popular and meeting a real need, are only available locally, online and at seminar events. I am hoping that there may be some who would be involved in parish groups, organizations like AA, Active Retirement or book clubs/shops where these could be made available and make a real difference. They would go to you in multiples of five at almost cost price and the balance can be used at your own discretion. Particularly coming up to Christmas there is a huge demand for presents that are meaningful. If interested ring 087-7640407 for details.
Tues 18th Nov – The World as we Know it
The world as we know it is almost completely consumer driven. It is one where we are all deeply infected by what might be called ‘affluenza.’ This is that toxic and blinding disease with the basic assumption that more is always better and the more we can accumulate for ourselves is always good. We are conditioned to think that having more is the way to happiness and fulfilment. We fail to reflect and consider that having a full and busy life does not always guarantee fulfilment, or that if we are not content with what we have, then having more may not make any difference. It is fair to say that such invisible assumptions of any culture are as toxic and as blinding as the so-called ‘hot sins’ of drunkards, thieves, adulteress and prostitutes. While these are obvious the others are much harder to recognize and own as our ‘sin’ because we are all inside the same agreed-upon bubble. In the words of a reformed ‘escort’ who had entered the world of business: ‘I discovered that there are much more serious sins being committed in boardrooms than bedrooms!’
Wed 19th Nov – In but not Of
John’s Gospel speaks of ‘being in the world but not of it.’ Obviously, he is not talking about the world of nature and creation that is inescapable so long as we live. However, he is talking about the system or social order that is humanly constructed. This is all about security, status, pleasure, wealth, possessions and power. These are part and parcel of life and not bad in themselves. Yet they are but limited goods with no lasting value except in the way we choose to use them while we live. Whatever we have we cannot keep but we can put it to good use and act like wise stewards of what is entrusted to us. The problem arises when we make what is limited into an absolute commodity. This is where we make the fatal mistake of becoming identified and defining ourselves in terms of what is temporary and passing, and in so doing lose sight of what is permanent. It is our overidentification with the material world that blinds our spiritual awareness and so while in the ‘world’ we are also ‘of’ it.
Thurs 20th Nov – Our ‘Normal’ Idols
Whatever we overidentify with as giving us security, status or importance is classed in scriptural terms as an idol which is a false god that will invariably let us down. This is why spiritual writers and teachers from all faiths, in different ways, speak about ‘leaving the world’ which means casting aside the normal systems of illusions. This really amounts to having a spiritual awakening that literally shatters our former illusions and enables us to see that what we thought to be so important wasn’t what it appeared to be. A few minutes in a doctor’s surgery can shatter the illusion that having wealth is everything. Having sacrificed everything on the altar of success may only ring hollow when the marriage fails, because of neglect. We finally have to learn, usually the hard way, ‘to be in the world but not of the world.’ That is, we must compassionately accept the strange way we humans choose to operate and be willing to work inside the system, but never really buy into it. We must see things for what they are and also for what they aren’t. Unless we in some way ‘leave the world’, we can safely assume we are utterly beholding to it.
Fri 21st Nov – Trapped in the Status Quo
There is a form of immature religion that is widespread. It is where people know that they are against ‘sin’ as they see it in others, but utterly blind to the sin that comes from being trapped in the system. The status quo has been so adopted as the norm that it is unquestioned. However, upon spiritual awakening comes an all-important insight that this world too is pervaded with Spirit and, with the eyes of enlightenment, can be seen as sacred.
This is the essence of the Gospel teaching. The world is good in its wholeness, but our little portion of separated parts is never the whole, so we must leave our addiction to the system to discover the kingdom of God. We must always let go of full control over the parts to love, be part of, and accept the whole.
Sat 22nd Nov – Wilful or Willing?
Mature spirituality creates willing people instead of wilful people who rely on will-power rather than grace. Christianity is essentially a response to love and grace and freedom, rather than a ginormous effort to become something that we are not. Without this insight, religion largely creates rigid, unhappy, intolerant and judgemental people. When we try to take charge of our own enlightenment, when we try to be fully in control of our own goodness and superiority, our attitude becomes pushing and demanding—ego assertion, even if it looks like religious ego assertion. This is what so many people rightly dislike and mistrust about religious people. There is a deep seated hypocrisy for in the name of the good, will-creates a well-disguised bad. Jesus was a master and genius at recognizing this problem that he found personified in the Pharisees of his time.
Sun 23rd Nov – Christ the King
‘There is something about the Feast of Christ the King that makes us think that it has been around since the early church. Yet it was only instituted by Pope Pius X1 100 years ago in 1925. This was when Europe was still reeling after the Great War that must have shaken people’s faith to its foundations. I suspect that the feast was meant to be a reminder that irrespective of what happens either in our personal or world history, God is still on his throne and one day all of history is going to be redeemed and revealed as His-story. That message is good news and something we all need to hear, again and again.
What comes to mind when we think of a king or queen?
Probably a medieval image of someone seated on a throne with a royal sceptre. Clothed in splendour, with majesty enrobed.
Invested with power and authority, someone with a kingdom under his rule.
Living in a palace.
With a royal retinue and servants at his beck and call.
The image presented by St Luke of Christ the King is utterly at variance with all of those images.
The throne of Jesus is a Cross.
His hands a are nailed out in a gesture of perpetual welcome.
His palace is the barren hill of Calvary.
His crown is made not of gold but of thorns.
He is naked and stripped of all glory.
He dies as he lived offering forgiveness.
He was degraded and humiliated as a human being.
He was crucified as a common criminal.
He was flanked on either side by two thieves.
The only sign of kingship was a scrawl above the cross, saying, ‘This is the king of the Jews.’
As some spiritual writer has said, Jesus Christ took the lowest place in the world so successfully that no other human being has ever been able to take it from him. Because he allowed himself to sink to the lowest depths of forsakenness where he felt utterly abandoned even by God himself the Father raised him up to the heights and so we proclaim him as King.
The two thieves and their different responses are very intriguing. One turns his back and curses, the other rebukes him, turns towards Jesus and says, ‘Remember me when you enter into your kingdom’. This request elicits the immortal words, ‘This very day you will be with me in Paradise’.
Undoubtedly, they never thought that they could end up that way. No one wants to end up as a failure with their life in an utter mess. Like all young men they would have had dreams and hopes for their future. Somewhere along the line those dreams were dashed and life became very cruel as it does for so many. We don’t know why they got into a life of crime. Was it their home situation, was it bad company or was it poverty? We don’t know. What we do know is that they had a story and if we knew that story in full it would probably elicit compassion from us rather than contempt. The more we seek to understand where another person is coming from the less inclined we are to be judgemental.
As I read the account, I don’t see Jesus judging either of the two criminals. What’s happening is that one, in his mockery, is blaming everything and everyone for where he has ended up, whereas the other is taking responsibility for his actions. He is the one who defends Jesus as having done nothing wrong and says, ‘In our case we are getting what we deserve.’
This is like Genesis revisited. Both Adam and Eve refused to take responsibility for their actions and so were expelled from Paradise. When God confronted Adam for what he had done, he blamed Eve………
With the good thief we have a man accepting responsibility for what he has done and so being promised entry into Paradise.
Those who always find someone or something to blame make themselves victims. They give away their own power and hold someone else responsible for their pitiable state. It is always someone else’s fault that they are not happy.
Paradise is still only found by those who stop the blaming game and take responsibility for their own lives, actions and happiness. That is kingdom living.
Those who blame others for their happiness, how they feel and what they do will always find themselves shut out from the garden.
Mon 24th Nov – Point of Entry
On so many occasions in the Gospels Christ teaches about the importance of entering the kingdom via the narrow gate. The eye of the needle is a similar metaphor where he teaches the importance of letting go in order to have, and how identification with externals like roles, wealth or public opinion can prevent our entry to the inner world. The letting go of what we are not in order to discover who we really are stands at the heart of the Gospel. The first beatitude stresses the importance of stripping down and having poverty of spirit as a precondition for experiencing the inner life of the kingdom. Being not of the world while still in it would be another way of formulating this all-important truth. Religion tends to identify with externals while genuine spirituality is a kingdom reality expressed in the richness of an inner life.