Re:link

08/05/2024

Blessed John Sullivan, one of our best known Blesseds of Ireland, grew up in the Church of Ireland and joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1896. Having joined the Jesuits in 1900, he spent most of his life in Clongowes College as a teacher and spiritual guide to the pupils, and was best known for his healing work among the poor of the area. Blessed Edmund Rice,
Blessed John’s life highlights our concern for those on the periphery, so dear to Pope Francis – the forgotten boy in the school, and the sick poor. He highlights also that the path to spirituality and to sanctity takes time, and may be a patron too for the spiritual searchers of our age.
God, who called him to sanctity by a strange path, was for his priestly life the centre of life and motivation. His life was simple: simpler than those he ministered to.
Donal Neary SJ.
Blessed John Sullivan challenges us to explicitly choose the path of loving as against the path of greed. It is remarkable to know of someone actually lived out a life of radical simplicity: bread, porridge, water, poor clothes, an old bike…. Gandhi and John perhaps have much in common. Both were men of God sent into the deepest needs of people to bring the love and care of God among them.
Brian Grogan SJ.
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Margaret Ball

08/05/2024

Bl John Sullivan, feast day May 8

Blessed John Sullivan, one of our best known Blesseds of Ireland, grew up in the Church of Ireland and joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1896. Having joined the Jesuits in 1900, he spent most of his life in Clongowes College as a teacher and spiritual guide to the pupils, and was best known for his healing work among the poor of the area. Blessed Edmund Rice,
Blessed John’s life highlights our concern for those on the periphery, so dear to Pope Francis – the forgotten boy in the school, and the sick poor. He highlights also that the path to spirituality and to sanctity takes time, and may be a patron too for the spiritual searchers of our age.
God, who called him to sanctity by a strange path, was for his priestly life the centre of life and motivation. His life was simple: simpler than those he ministered to.
Donal Neary SJ.

Blessed John Sullivan challenges us to explicitly choose the path of loving as against the path of greed. It is remarkable to know of someone actually lived out a life of radical simplicity: bread, porridge, water, poor clothes, an old bike…. Gandhi and John perhaps have much in common. Both were men of God sent into the deepest needs of people to bring the love and care of God among them.
Brian Grogan SJ.

27/04/2024

Sometimes we have a good conversation; after it, and during it, we feel uplifted, alive, sometimes a good laugh, or a good cry. Different groups we meet with can give us this lift of the spirit also. Jesus today in the gospel speaks about branches that don't remain part of the vine. They wither and they're thrown away . He's referring to himself and our relationship with him. Our relationship with Jesus can bring us to life, because he's that sort of person. He appeals to the best in us and the real Jesus brings out the best in us.
When we come into relationship with Jesus, we're coming into new life. if We see Jesus as one who disapproves of us, keeps us down in ourselves, contributes to poor self esteem, then this is not the real Jesus. A boy once said. I could believe in religion if it didn't make my mother so unhappy. And I know what he meant. It's someone taking the all the tough sayings of Jesus, but not seeing them as one who brought life to people. People wanted to be with them. Crowds came to hear him because he brought life and they went away feeling better about themselves. How do we know about our relationship with Jesus if it's any good?
Someone once asked, ‘how do I know I'm praying right’? The answer is not to get new methods of prayer, though these can help, but ask what is your life like. Are you growing in compassion, justice, faith, good humour , and all the things that go to make up holiness. Branches and vine naturally make grapes…a happy Relationship with Jesus will bear fruit in our lives and help to others. So to follow Jesus well, we need to be in touch with him. With an eye to the world around us. As the prophet put it….. act justly, love tenderly , and walk humbly with your God. This is the following of Jesus.

11/04/2024

Donal Neary SJ
Gospel Reflections
www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

The Sacred in the Ordinary

Interesting that it is hard to find a painting of their late-night meal of fish. Others are crowded on Google images. The garden, the breakfast on the beach, the road to Emmaus – old and new pictures. Is the fish meal too ordinary for the resurrection? We can’t believe that the Lord of all creation who died for us will be recognised so simply or can we?

Jesus is in a bit of a fix. Faith is still weak in his followers – how can he get to them? Thought the doors are closed, he comes among them in their fear. He said Peace again. This doesn’t seem to get through. Finally tried a meal of ordinary fish with them. Somehow it is getting through. They have remembered other meals of fish and the way he ate it. Faith is growing in them in the simple act of sharing a meal together.

There is always another way for Jesus. We resist that he is so ordinary. The resurrection happens now and in the ordinary. How this week did I find the resurrection? where I took a jump outside of the self in love, care, work for justice? In any way we raise each other up to a better human life and faith, then the resurrection is being shared.

The garden, the chat on the road, and now the ordinary meal. Imagine if we said he took fish, said the blessing…! All of life is sacred, and shot through with the love and grace of the risen Lord.

In your breathing in and out, echo the word ‘Peace’
Lord, make me a means of your peace.

09/04/2024

‘Facing The Future Together – Synodality Explored’ is a two-day conference, in association with Notre Dame University, Australia.

Keynote speaker on both days is Cardinal Mario Grech, General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops. The conference will take place at St John’s Centre, Knock Shrine on Friday, April 19th and Saturday, April 20th from 10am to 4.15pm. All are welcome. No booking is required.

See www.knockshrine.ie for more details.

13/02/2024

DAILY LENTEN REFLECTIONS

From Fr Martin Hogan, , The Word is Near You- On Your Lips and in Your Heart. Order from www.messenger.ie/bookshop, €19.95 plus postage.

14th February, Ash Wednesday Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
The word ‘Lent’ comes from an old English word meaning ‘Season of Spring’. Lent always coincides with the season of Spring. Spring is a season of renewal, when nature is renewed. The trees, shrubs and plants that look rather dead during winter start coming to life again in a wonderful way. Lent is a season of spiritual renewal in our own lives. It is a time when we try to renew our friendship, our relationship, with Jesus. Jesus’ friendship with us never dies; it never withers. His love for us never changes, regardless of what we do or fail to do. He is completely faithful to us. However, our friendship with him, our response to his friendship, can die back; it can wither. Lent in our lives can be like the season of Spring in nature. It is a time when our friendship with the Lord can come more fully to life. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus puts before us three ways of renewing our friendship with him, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. In prayer we become aware that the Lord is present to us and we become present to him. We need to be present to our friends if our friendship is to grow, and the same is true of our friendship with the Lord. Lent is a season when we give a little more time to prayer. When we hear the word ‘fasting’ we think mostly of giving up some food or drink. However, it could be understood as giving up and letting go of whatever is holding back our friendship with Jesus. What is it that is causing us to turn away from the Lord, to take a different path to the one he shows us in the gospels? In Lent we look at what may be damaging our spirit, weakening our faith, and we try to fast and step back from it. Almsgiving can be understood as any form of loving service of others. During Lent we look at ways we can give ourselves more generously to those in need, after the example and in the Spirit of Jesus. These are three paths we can take that will help to renew our friendship with Jesus. Lent is seven weeks long, so we are given plenty of time to take these paths. If we turn aside from any one of them during that time, we needn’t get discouraged. We just start again. Lent finishes with Easter and on Easter Sunday we are invited to renew our baptismal promises. As we work to renew our friendship with Jesus during the seven weeks of Lent, we are preparing ourselves to say a renewed ‘yes’ at Easter to our baptism and its calling.

Note: page refreshed for each following day by 5 p.m.

New Releases by Messenger Publications include Sacred Space – The Prayerbook 2024, Lift Up Their Hearts: Visiting Older People and more uplifting titles

12/02/2024

Fr Bruce Bradley SJ gave the homily at the funeral Mass of former Taoiseach John Bruton. It took place in the chapel of Sts Peter and Paul in Dunboyne.

05/01/2024

Baptism of our Lord January 7 2023.

A parent often says to a child. ‘Of course I love you’. The baptism of the Lord was the time when he heard from the Father that he was loved: ‘you are my beloved son’. In looking at Jesus, God was delighted, and the favour of God rested on Jesus. This is one of the meanings of our baptism also.
The baptism experience was a guiding experience for Jesus. Maybe he would remember it at times when he was tempted off course, when life was really rough, or when he was strengthening others in their hard times. It was what we might call ‘a peak experience’. The effects would remain, like an afterglow.
The feast today invites us to soak in this love also. As God looks on us he sees that we are the image of Jesus, our brother, and loves us through and through. Our baptism as a child was a time both of God promising himself to us always, but also of the love of our parents and extended family. Baptism unites us with our own natural family, but also with the new family of Jesus when he calls us all ‘his mother, sisters and brothers’.
This is a big part of our identity. Asked who we are, we have many answers. One answer is that we are baptised into the family of God and are children of the same father. The words, ‘You are my beloved son or daughter’ are spoken to all of us.
Picture the day of your baptism, pray for those who were there then, and give thanks!
May I know always Lord that I am the beloved of you.
Donal Neary SJ
Editor, Sacred Heart Messenger.
www.messenger.ie

We publish a wide range of spirituality titles, concentrating on Jesuit books and Ignatian spirituality. See our latest releases here

02/12/2023

I missed a lot I think at a homily one day in Knock. It was a warm day and a warm church. 3 pm. I fell asleep. Or on a bus I fell asleep and ended up three stops further on than I wanted! Staying awake is a usual sort of challenge sometimes .If you sleep on, you may miss something worthwhile
Gospel today is a big word of Advent, about being awake. We can be awake to the different aspects and mysteries of this time of the year, or sleep through some of them. The point of this season – about Jesus coming. Watch how we can be reminded of this. Be awake to the coming of the Lord.
I always didn’t like the ‘put Christ back into Christmas’, generally delivered in a mournful tone about how we neglect him. I prefer – notice Christ in everything of Christmas. Let everything of these weeks remind us of Christ. I read through some Christmas supplements and not a mention of Christ. But I saw it is in the very word and every picture of a robin, of the snow, of the sleigh and Rudolph can be a reminder of what we are about. Let everything of these weeks remind us of Christmas. The excitement of the children, the memories of the elderly, the shop visits for gifts, the music on the radio, and eve later the last minute rush. I enjoy the many images of Christmas I see in town. They all remind me of the feast.
There is the strictly religious side. To find time for prayer each day…look up a website for daily prayer – pray as you go, sacred space. An extra Mass or daily Mass for Advent. A rosary or a decade every day. The noon and 6 pm Angelus is a reminded on RTE and from some churches of the mystery of the coming of the Lord. We find ways that the true meaning doesn’t pass us by.
Then --- Awake to surprise. The Lord comes in many ways to us. in the lift of the heart about the joy and the meaning of Christmas. In the ways suggested earlier. In love, of care and the need of the poor and prayer. A prayer of Come Lord Jesus each time we see the crib. How will my Christmas make another’s Christmas a happy one?
Someone said to me…. ‘Sure one is the same as the othe’. Not true…Each of them is different….a new surprise.
Be aware of past surprises and awake for this year’s.
Donal Neary SJ.

29/11/2023

29/11/2023

For a handful of minutes on a highway in North Carolina, we thought we might start putting up Christmas decorations the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then we hit traffic — and then we hit traffic again — and that dream vanished. It was all we could do to simply unload the car when we finally reached our driveway. I shook my fist at those neighbors whose homes already glistened with sparkly, colorful lights.

The very next morning, I woke up early thinking about Christmas cards. Specifically, sending them. What photos would we use? How many did we need? How did people manage to get their cards mailed before Thanksgiving?

My mind wandered to the Christmas gifts we still need to buy (read: all of them) and the two dozen or so traditions we need to cram into a meager four weeks. And, well, I never did fall back asleep.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed during this most wonderful time of the year. It’s tempting, too, to rush through these Advent days, checking items off our lists while telling ourselves that the main event is Christmas. Once we bake the cookies and wrap the presents and figure out which light on the strand is out, then we’ll focus on welcoming the baby Jesus and our in-laws and whomever else decides to show up on December 24th.

Here's the thing: Jesus is coming anew at Christmas. We know this. But Christ is also already here in our midst.

Christ is there in the mall Santa and the Christmas carolers and that hopelessly tangled pile of Christmas lights. Christ is there when you bake your cookies and select your gifts and grumble about having to visit that one specific relative. Christ is in the faces on Christmas cards you receive (and send!), and Christ is there when you watch your favorite holiday movie.

But do we see Christ? Do we take the time to allow Christ to see us in these traditions? Or, are we moving too fast — too focused on checking items off of our lists, on getting it all in? Do we shrug and say, “Those are secular traditions. Christ has no time for them!”

Or, do we ask Christ to really help us manifest the joy that we so earnestly sing about sharing with the world, recognizing that God’s delight can touch us in the most surprising of places? That God can speak to us both through the Nativity scene and a handful of gingerbread crumbs?

I invite you to pray with this notion during these Advent days. I invite you to seek out Christ in surprising places, to allow God to speak to you in all your holiday prep. To help you along the way, our community of writers will be sharing reflections on their own holiday traditions, on how they encounter God present in even the silliest of Christmas activities.

If you haven’t yet signed up to receive these reflections, click here to do so. They’ll hit your inbox on the First Sunday of Advent and run through Christmas Eve day.

And if a daily reflection is too much, not to worry. For the Advent season, in place of “Now Discern This,” you’ll receive one of these Christmas tradition-inspired reflections each Wednesday.

06/06/2023

The Novena to the Sacred heart will begin on Thursday next. More later.

06/06/2023

the Novena to the Sacred Heart begins on Thursday of this week.

05/06/2023

Jesuit theologian Fr Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, looking at its history, offers new ways of practising the Sacred Heart devotion.

05/06/2023

Our good wishes and prayers for all Relink readers, teachers, students and parents at exam time.