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Tuesday |
Aug-31 |
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The following prayer was read to staff on their first day back to school after the summer holidays in Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig yesterday
Lord, we thank you for our summer break giving us all a chance to refocus, relax, unwind and refresh. We thank you for quality time during the summer, particularly our fine weather, allowing us to reconnect with ourselves and with others. As we begin a new school year give each of us the strength to face challenges that may lie ahead. Help us to teach our students to the best of our ability and to offer each of them a sense of belonging and community. Help us to offer guidance in times of uncertainty, to offer hope in times of sadness and to know that one step at a time will always get us through. Help each of us to listen to each other and to our students. When we are in need of an answer, a question, inspiration, a plan or guidance, help us to know that you are there to provide it. Most importantly help us to know that our work is your work. Amen |
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Saturday |
Aug-21 |
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'We need God. Without God who alone is absolute, we soon lose our perspective on life and can no longer distinguish between what is important and what is trivial. Without God, we begin to fashion other little gods, wealth, success, clothes, good looks and they are cruel. They make more and more demands on us, demands we cannot cope with at times.' ~Vincent Twomey
Today is a special day in Knock, Co.Mayo. It was on this day back in 1879 when Our Lady appeared at Knock. The apparition was witnessed by 15 people, young and old. Today Knock Shrine is an international place of pilgrimage and prayer where one and a half million pilgrims come each year. What brings so many people to this place each year? It would be unfair to label these pilgrims as having it all worked out or spiritual freaks. These people are searching and yearning. They have a great sense of the need for God. They are aware that life can be a struggle and how it is often uncertain. They come to Knock to pray, to ask God and Our Lady for spiritual guidance, direction, healing and a place where they can share what is really going on in their own lives. Many of us will not be able to travel to Knock this year but we join the many thousands who will visit the shrine this weekend. We are all united in our different prayers today and in particular asking Mary's many blessings on each of us. |
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Monday |
Aug-09 |
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'We are a people obsessed with appearance, with image, with looking good and with being good looking. For us today, by and large, it is more important to look good than to be good, to look healthy than to be healthy and to say the right thing rather than do the right thing.' ~Ronald Rolheiser
Image today seems to be everything. Huge amounts of money are spent on advertising telling us what to buy, what to wear, how to stay young and healthy. Appearance seems to be what we are really concerned about. There is a fear of growing old and instead an obsession with staying young forever. It is of course good to be concerned with physical appearance, on being healthy and feeling good about ourselves. But there is not enough attention on looking after the soul or spirit of each person and we have all neglected the sacred within. We carry around too many burdens, hurts, worries and scars within us. We don't give ourselves a chance to let some of them go and instead we don't give a fair chance to nurture all the goodness and reservoirs of love within each of us. In our Gospels Jesus sought to bring balance to every person, not just on the outside but also within as well. Today we are experts in what to wear, what to eat, how to exercise but we're not in balance. Unless we go the step further and nurture our soul or spirit we will always be out of balance.  |
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Sunday |
Aug-08 |
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The following reflection is by Tom Cahill
Scientists can be on the ball just as much as footballers. Take Danish physicist Niels Bohr (d. 1962) for example. He watched westerns. As he did, he noted that something strange happened in them: the gunslinger who went for his gun first, often was the one who was shot first, even though he had the advantage. Bohr was fast enough to draw the correct conclusion from what he saw: reacting is faster than acting. It has now been confirmed that we move faster when we react to something that someone else is doing than when we start to do something ourselves, about 21 milliseconds faster.
How fast are we on the draw when responding to God's word? In today's Gospel reading (Luke 12:32-48) God says he gives us the kingdom. How do we react to that? Do we change because of it? God doesn't hesitate to give. We mustn't hesitate to respond.
We can't claim that we don't know what to do because it's spelled out for us: we've to sell our possessions, give alms, make purses that don't wear out because the treasure they contain is in heaven; we've to be dressed for action, have our lamps lit and be ready for the Master's return. In short, we react to the gift of God's kingdom by living like people who belong to it. So we live with thanks for the precious gift of life. We share that gift graciously with others. We react to life with love, generosity, faith and courage.
That's really being on the ball!  |
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