Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 6 Jan – Mon 12 Jan 2026

Note: The monthly Healing Mass in Lady’s Island will be held this coming Wed at 3pm.

You can tune in to live broadcasts daily at 10am or recordings by going to Our Ladys Island Webcam

For ordering books at lowest prices go to jimcogley.com (Some volumes have been hijacked by other websites at crazy costs and without permission).

Tues 6^th Jan – Adoption – The Primal Wound

It is a well-established fact that while most adopted children grow up to live happy and contented lives, many are troubled and have a difficult passage through teenage years and later into adult life. First there are the obvious facts; the mother, who for whatever reason was unable to rear her child decided, or was forced, to hand her baby up for adoption. For the child who is unable to understand the reasons this can only be experienced emotionally as rejection, abandonment and separation. These are the deep psychic wounds that while lying quietly dormant for years can be awakened at any time by events in life that carries a similar feeling tone. A relationship separation or a bereavement can trigger an emotional reaction that is utterly pre-rational and way out of proportion to the actual event. Once this sleeping component is awakened it will insist on finding its rightful place or continue to create havoc in that person’s life from there onwards. This will act like a bold child that seeks attention because of not feeling loved but once hugged will run off happy and contented.

Wed 7^th Jan – Adoption and Expectations

The adopted child most often arrives in a family where the long expected biological child never materialized, or where there have been a series of miscarriages. The disappointments and frustrations have served to create a level of expectations as to what the child would have been like, had it been born. This acts like a strong unconscious force field for the adopted child to fit into the mold of the parents’ expectations. This hidden pressure is to become someone other than who you really are and so it complicates the evolution of the genuine self. It is as if not being allowed to be who you really are, you become someone else. One possibility is for the child to forego their own identity and fit in with the desired image, or to spend their time and energy fighting against such unconscious pressures. Either way is not good and in the latter scenario many adoptive parents are left wondering why their child is so rebellious.

Thurs 8^th Jan – Adoption and Anger

Many adoptive parents speak of their child having a problem with anger and thus creating problems in the household. Taking a wider perspective, it may not be entirely the child’s anger that is the real problem. Such parents may well have their own issues with anger from childhood, and this is then compounded with years of frustration at remaining childless. The adopted child will almost by definition carry anger issues caused by the hurt of abandonment and will need to give vent to this emotion as a matter of course. With many adoptive parents this cannot be contained, and the child is reprimanded each time they get angry and so is forced to suppress this very valid emotion. In other words, parents who are uncomfortable with their own anger will have it mirrored back to them from their child. This in turn can then give rise to behavioural issues that are veiled expressions of anger, like being destructive, taking drugs, being dishonest, underperforming or refusing to go to school.

Fri 9^th Jan – Adoption and Womb Experience

For so long we believed that what we don’t know can’t hurt us. In effect this meant that anything that happened before we could remember had no effect on our lives. Now we realize that it is precisely what we don’t know that affects us the most and even how our experiences in the womb can even be carried into the womb of life. While most who are adopted tend to blame almost everything on their initial separation there is usually a much bigger picture. If in the womb there was the trauma of being a mistake, not being wanted, a father’s rejection of the mother, or her being disowned by her parents. All of these mother experiences are just as much embryo and embryonic emotions. Any form of violence or shouting experienced by the mother can be felt by the child to such an extent that in later life the child may experience a strong adverse reaction to such behaviours.

Sat 10^th Jan – Adoption and Reconnection

A lady spoke of her conviction that nobody loved her. This was in spite of the fact that she had a lovely caring daughter and been married to a very kind husband. Her earliest experience, of which she had no visual memories, was of being placed in an orphanage after birth and around three being fostered by two quite good foster parents. Later she got married and they had one child. Unfortunately, he died young, so she became a widow in her forties. Soon after she began a search for her birth mother and unlike so many, was successful in discovering that she was still alive but in a care home. When she tried to make contact, this lady did not want to know her daughter who naturally was devastated. From her perspective this was the ultimate rejection while from another she represented a part of her mother’s life that she had never been able to face. Hence the encounter would have been considered too painful by the mother. What the daughter thought was rejection was the result of a lifetime of suppression.

Sun 11^th Jan – Born Catholics

The term ‘born again’ Christian is one that we are all familiar with. It refers to someone who has had a deep conversion experience and accepted Christ into their lives as Lord and Saviour. Jesus said that we all must be born again in order to enter into the Kingdom. It’s that experience that kick starts the inner life of grace but it is really only a beginning and anyone who thinks that they have it made are far from the truth and have a long way to go in terms of personal growth and soul maturity. A valid criticism of most born again churches is that they focus far too much on the initial experience and continue in a worship mode while sadly lacking when it comes to healing and personal development. It’s unfortunate that some of the most self-righteous and judgmental people belong to the ’born again’ camp.  I say ‘some’ because thankfully the vast majority are deeply grateful that God has touched their lives and shown himself to be very real perhaps in a moment of deep crisis and their only response was to give their lives to him.

Many Catholics are born again while a lot more are just born Catholics. Many of us who are born Catholics or perhaps we could say Cradle Catholics one day wake up to the realization that when it comes to our religion, we are more conscripts than volunteers. There comes a point when we are forced to take a serious look at ourselves and are forced to admit that everything relating to our faith has been passed down to us much like second-hand clothes from an older sibling.

We were baptized as infants then we went through the school system and took the sacraments of Confession, Communion and Confirmation. All the time faith was something that was imposed on us, we probably don’t resist or resent it to any great degree but neither did we have to think about it too deeply nor did we have to make any serious decisions in regard to what we believed for ourselves. While the system was and is not all that bad what is seriously lacking is the opportunity to make a personal choice about our faith.

The reality is that we inherit so much more than our faith in a similar manner. Our name, our identity, our family and our nationality all fit into that category. There comes a time where it’s not these things that bother us but the fact that our faith is so impoverished simply because it is second-hand. It may well be in a time of crisis that we realize the truth of what Gandhi meant when he said, ‘A knowledge of religion as distinguished from experience, seems but chaff in moments of trial.’

For so many the day dawns where we really begin to question what we really believe and if we have any serious convictions. What does it mean to practice my faith and would I be any worse off if I didn’t?

These are serious and disturbing questions that many manage to keep to the back of their minds all their lives but at some stage they do tend to break through. Not so long ago I tended someone close to death who had been a good practicing, but non-questioning Catholic all her life. For the first time the doubts that she had kept at arms- length all through the years began to assail her and she was even questioning if there was a God at all. Such a scenario is sad but not in any way unusual. The best time to confront the real questions that life throws at us is not when the Sun is going down.

Every day can bring a new challenge that calls into question the quality of our faith. One day we have no problem believing in God’s love for us and in his plan for our lives and the next we find ourselves doubting his very existence. Our life circumstances make such a difference to our experience of faith. We may well remember saying or thinking that it was so much easier to believe before my marriage broke up or before I lost my sister or before I lost my job. Or it was so much easier to believe before I lost my mother or before I was diagnosed with cancer. Then we have the daily atrocities that we happen in our world where we ask where God is in the refugee crisis and where is He in the midst of conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza.

In the challenges of daily life, we often find ourselves doubting God’s very existence so the big question is where do we go? Do we stay or do we walk away like many in the Gospels.

We could so easily say, ‘Lord I could go, but to be honest to whom shall I go, for you alone have the message of eternal life’. The choice Christ offered to his disciples was will you also walk away or be my follower? The same choice he offers to us. As we look into our hearts what is our response?

Mon 12^th – The Search for Identity

It is generally understood that the earlier a child is told the truth about being adopted the better and that there is no age that is too young. They then grow into and with that knowledge, and so it is seldom an issue in later years. It is tragic when someone only finds out about their background at a social event in later life and this is a serious reflection on those who had a responsibility to speak much earlier. The majority of those who are adopted tend to look for their natural parents and often it is the insecurity of the adoptive parents that makes this difficult. Even when not obvious, this can be experienced energetically as a sense of betraying the adopted parents who were ‘so good’ to him or her. For adopted children to be given the freedom to love everyone differently is hugely important. Also, to realize that one’s mammy may not be one’s mother and one’s daddy may not be one’s father and that each role needs to be given due recognition by all concerned.