Jim Cogley’s Reflections – Tues 7 Oct – Mon 13 Oct 2025

Note: A Seminar on Healing – Finding Freedom from Personal and Ancestral Trauma will be given by Jim Cogley on Sat 18^th Oct from 10am to 4pm in the Edmund Rice Healing Centre in Callan, Co Kilkenny. The cost will be €50 with refreshments and lunch included. Bookings by phone or text to Jim Maher on 086-1276649. This is a beautiful venue that is quickly becoming established as a centre of Healing. Early booking is advised as this event is filling fast.

Also: The monthly healing Mass in Lady’s Island will take place this Wednesday at 3pm.

Tues Oct 7^th – Espousing the Way

A big percentage of people, if asked what the path is to spiritual growth, would suggest that we should learn to resolutely fight against our own inclinations, and that we never slacken in our efforts. Also, that we should be very strict with ourselves and have no toleration for our weaknesses. Many who have tried this approach would have found it to be hard work and demanded constant discipline. While this would represent the traditional approach and is generally believed to be the only way, it does need to be questioned. Whatever victory that is gained through violence leaves us always on guard and in battle mode. That old approach advocated fighting against oneself and the self that felt conquered could always fight back. A counter intuitive approach would be to see that the greatest spiritual accomplishment might be to accept things as they are and therein find peace of mind.

Wed Oct 8^th – Let it Be

We said yesterday that allowing things to be rather than fighting what may be is the most effective approach to spiritual growth. There is a dawning awareness that the way of allowing is the way to maturity and no matter what victories the ego may achieve in overcoming our human impulses they would still be short-lived and amount to an ego boost rather than a genuine transformation brought about by grace. Christ’s teaching about the need to die to oneself has been badly translated and grossly misunderstood as meaning we had to be very strict on ourselves and employ moral surgery whenever we detected a negative impulse, thought or desire. Certainly, the spiritual life demands vigilance in order not to be controlled by the shadow side of our nature, but the more we struggle with it the less we achieve and conversely the more we are controlled by it.

Thurs Oct 9^th – Dying to Self

A closer look at Christ’s teaching about dying to self, points not to the true Self made in God’s image but to the ego or small self that always wants to be in control. Put bluntly if ‘I’ could do it ‘I’ would be delighted and ‘I’ would get the glory. This is just egocentricity in disguise. The spiritual journey is all about the disenthronement of the ego and allowing the true Self that is synonymous with Christ to occupy centre stage. There is a form of religion that is utterly ego-centric and masquerades as the real deal. This is where in the name of God, the ego, instead of diminishing in stature, grows in strength, and is recognized as having achieved so much. Herein lies the essence of pride. Look at me, a truly self-made spiritual person clothed in the integrity of my own making and recognized for my kindness and generosity. I have achieved Nirvana by becoming the architect of my own salvation. Then at my funeral at least three admirers will need be needed to give the eulogy as ‘my’ greatness is extolled!

Fri Oct 10^th – Broken Enough to Be Open

While giving a seminar in the sex offenders unit of Mountjoy Prison recently we were astounded at the level of openness to Spirit and the hunger for Truth that was evident. This was more than I have ever encountered when working with even religious or more spiritual groups. It made me think of Christ saying to the Pharisees, the law abiding ones who were into ‘do it yourself’ salvation, that the tax collectors and prostitutes were closer to the Kingdom than they. This was a truly shocking and radical statement that, at that time, or any time since, and was enough to have him crucified. In that prison were men many of whom would die there and many more who were facing homelessness when released having been rejected by society, family and friends. These labelled individuals had been utterly broken, as they had broken others, to the point where ego as we know it was almost totally non-existent and so there was nothing left but openness to Spirit.

Sat Oct 11^th – Who do we Invite?

In Luke’s Gospel there is a short passage where Christ denounces the pride that, full of its own importance as the way to be brought forward, places itself up front and extols the virtue of humility. He said when you give a dinner don’t just invite the ones you consider important like family friends and neighbours. Instead bring the ones you would least consider to be important, the blind, the lame and the lazy. This can be interpretated at an inner level to mean don’t just invite the parts of yourself that you like and are naturally closest to you. Instead invite the wayward parts, the rejects of your life, the estranged parts of you, those parts that belong to your untold story. Allow them to come to the banquet and when they take the lowest seats, as they will, do the unthinkable, bring them up front. In other words, honour them and make them feel comfortable. This is powerful teaching on the integration of our shadow and recognizing that it contains essential elements that contribute to our wholeness and destiny.

Sun Oct 12^th – Leprosy – Your Faith has Saved you

When a piece of scripture is read that is as well-known as the cure of the 10 lepers we tend to suffer from a certain hearing fatigue. We have heard it so many times that we think there can be nothing new. I am not exempt from this and need to be aware that Scripture always has something new to offer. So, with the piece today I decided to look at it with some prayer, fresh eyes and when I did, a teaching of real significance came clear that I had never noticed before.

First, I read it at a superficial level and saw what we usually see. 10 unfortunate people who suffer from the dreaded disease of leprosy come to Christ and ask for help. ‘Jesus take pity on us’, they plead and he does, and they go away cured. When they realize they have been healed only one returns to pour out his heart in gratitude for having been cured. This makes Jesus say, ‘Were not all ten made clean, so where are the other nine?’ Here we see the importance of being grateful and this being an essential part of our lives. When we lose this attitude, we usually slip into complaining mode and focus more on what we don’t have than being thankful for what we do.

Then I read it a second time and I saw something completely different that I have never noticed before. The border area where the incident took place was where there was a divide between two very different communities, the Jews and the Samaritans and there was an enmity between them going back hundreds of years. Sickness knows no frontiers so in the grouping of ten lepers there were nine Jews and just one Samaritan and noticeably it was only he who came back to give thanks.

The Jews of Christs’ time, and it would appear some Jews of today, carried a huge sense of entitlement. They were probably angry with God for allowing them to be afflicted in the first place. However, they would also have regarded themselves as being perfectly entitled to be healed. So, when it happened, they kept going and never looked back.

The Samaritan carried no such sense of entitlement. The fact that Jesus the Jew had shown any regard for him would have come with utter surprise. While he cried out with the others ‘Jesus have pity’ he didn’t expect any because in his eyes he was totally undeserving. That he was cured by that same Jewish rabbi would have been mind- blowing. Here he was totally undeserving and receiving the greatest gift of his life, the freedom to live and love again. So, all he can do is come and kneel at Christ’s feet and say a humble thank you for being shown a love that is totally beyond his comprehension. This prompts Jesus to say ‘stand up and be on your way, your faith has saved you’.

It was those last five words that really struck me as if I had never heard them before. ‘Your faith has saved you’, and this is where it gets really interesting for us, and really important that we hear its message. What was it that saved him?

Just suppose that as you came into church you had been met by someone who put this question to you; ‘If you were to die in the morning why should God accept you into heaven?’, what would your answer have been?

I suspect that most answers would be variations of the following:

Because I am a good person and have tried to live a good life.

I have always done my best for everyone and have never done anyone any harm.

I have kept the rules and always gone to Church.

I have always been sincere and steadfast in my faith.

All the above answers are expressions not of faith but of hoping to earn our way into heaven by being good enough on our own merits. No matter how much we thought that leading a good moral path was the way to heaven we have still given the wrong answers. All the above responses serve to make Christ irrelevant and are based on being good enough ourselves by our own righteousness.

While most of us would present our good deeds in the hope of being accepted by God the Bible reminds us that keeping the rules ‘do not make us justified’, and elsewhere it even says that ‘our good deeds are like filthy rags in His sight’.

At this time when Christianity is so much on the decline in the western world I wonder is it partly because we have lost sight of this essential truth. Is it because we have lost sight of the centrality of Christ as the source of all our righteousness and tried to substitute our own instead?

Remember what Christ said to the leper who returned; ‘Your faith has saved you.’ Let me expand that all important statement without taking from its meaning. Your faith in me has saved you, not your good works, not your religious fervour, not your sincerity, not your good life and it’s all a gift that is yours for the taking.

All the above ways of living are important but ultimately, we trust  not in ourselves to be good enough but only in Christ who alone is the way to the Father and the only source of true righteousness.

So, the final and only question: Is it your faith that saves you and if so in what?

Mon Oct 13^th – Our Rottweiler Shadow

There is and certainly has been a huge fear as to the shadow side of human nature and so it had to be controlled and subdued by whatever means and at whatever cost. Modern psychology and indeed the Scriptures offer an entirely different approach; not one of demonizing our shadow but of making friends with it. An illustration might bear out this approach. One of my favourite breeds of dog is the Rottweiler. It has a fearsome reputation but is also a delightful and playful companion. Recently while chatting to a friend on an outdoor seat a rottweiler came towards us and I called him over and proceeded to play with the animal. Initially my companion recoiled in shock having heard only the bad press but then began to join in the fun and games. Soon the owner appeared, anxious and looking for his dog; very apologetic and thinking that we might be fearful. My friend said afterwards that he could never believe such animals to be so kind and loving and that the approach of welcoming the creature had given him a completely different perspective.