About seeking and finding what we're looking for

When we have looked into all the nooks and crannies,
the crevices and hollows that this life holds for us,
and still haven't found what we are looking for,
then maybe it is time to delve into the mystery which is God.

Therein is an everlasting source of wonder, awe and delight.

About being made redundant from 'the hymns'

Yes, it's finally happened the axe has fallen; I've had the push!!

To come to the end of the story at the beginning, these were the events of my last week as the parish volunteer for hymn singing at the weekly school Mass.

On Monday afternoon, I had the last practice with years 3 to 6. As the hall door was opened, there were all the children - and the staff - all sitting ready to go; as the lovely deputy said, "A first"!! They clapped and cheered till I had to cover my ears. They presented me with the most beautiful bunch of flowers and a card with lovely messages from the staff. We had a great practice and last sing in the hall.

On Tuesday morning, I arranged to have a 'last sing' with the little ones, reception to year 2, so I could practice "Love is something if you give it away" and "If I were a butterfly", their 'fave raves', as I like to call them, and they gave me a nice clap at the end.

On Thursday afternoon, we had the end of school (and the end of Mrs Convey's role) Mass.
We sang some of mine and their 'fave raves'.

1. Lord the light of your life
2. You will go out with joy (especially for Y6)
3. My Jesus, my Saviour
4. One more step along the road (also for Y6)

To give Father his due, he actually joined in with the first hymn, definitely not one of his favourites, which I appreciated a lot. Then, as he left the altar (and escaped into the sacristy), having given me a very nice 'thank you' on behalf of the parish, we sang the little ones' hymns (again certainly not on his 'fave raves list'!) and, of course, all the older children joined in because they love them too.

I felt such a sense of joy, privilege and delight at having had the marvellous opportunity to share my love of God, music and hymns with hundreds of children over the last nearly 21 years and no sense of sadness whatsoever as I was definitely coming towards my 'past my sell-by date and, best of all, the children are to have a 'proper' music teacher who is also a practising Catholic so will know the hymns we know. plus many more, I'm sure.

My prayer is that the children will remember the hymns and the faith and love which lie behind them.
God bless them always, and the lovely staff of course.

A prayer of gratitude to God the Holy Trinity

Thank you, God, my dearest Father

for making me and holding me in existence,

for giving me Jesus as my brother to come and live with and for me

and for giving me your Holy Spirit to live in me and give me life and love.

Thank you also for giving me my Guardian Angel to guide and guard me, 

and my Patron Saint to pray for me.

About trying to understand one aspect of evil

 My beliefs

• Nothing created 1) directly by God, ie the universe, or 2) by us, indirectly by God, is of itself, evil. It is intrinsically good.
• All created things can be 1) used correctly, 2) misused by mistake or 3) abused, ie deliberately misused.

Some examples are a mobile phone, nuclear fuel, food, recreation. The possible list is endless.

A mobile phone is a miracle of modern invention when used for all its correct purposes. It is highly complex, thus very easy to use mistakenly.

To use it to send any kind of illicit, harmful or unkind messages is abuse and can and does have evil effects as we know all too well.

Any created thing can be used in any of these ways. Maybe even it could be said that the greater the possible benefits, the greater the capacity for abuse.

My belief is that evil occurs when good things are used for evil purposes. This is, of course, only applicable to things and goes no way towards the evil caused between peoples, hurt, cruelty, war, violence of any kind. 

About Isaac and Jesus - and Abraham, Abel and God

Isaac and Jesus carried the wood for the sacrifice of their own lives, albeit Isaac unwittingly and Jesus, knowingly and willingly.

Abraham offered his only son as a sacrifice, as did God.

Like Abel before him, who offered the first and best of his fruits to God, God our Father offered his first and best fruit, his only begotten Son, who gave his life to us and for us.

About what God is to me

For as long as I can remember, God has always been at the centre of my life. From my earliest school days at St Vincent's Catholic Primary school in Mill Hill, Northwest London, being told that God made everything that exists by creating the whole universe, I have seen God everywhere, in everything beautiful and also in everything that is ordinary or even not beautiful, holding everything in existence through the power of love.

For this, I am thankful.

About Mary, the mother of Jesus

Why is Mary so honoured? What did she do?

She had a child, she raised him to manhood. She followed him throughout his life, stood by him in his death and received and buried his lifeless body. Carrying unimaginable grief, she yet remained silent, dignified.

Given by her son to John, the beloved disciple, she stayed with and supported his followers as they sought to establish the way of life, of love and of truth that her son had shown and taught them. 

She lived an entirely unobtrusive life, left us with very few words to remember her by and no great monuments and yet she has been and is revered by countless millions. She is held to be the "most blessed of all women"  throughout time. She is the "highest order of our race", the epitome of womanhood.

She is a mother, the 'Mother of God,' 'Madre Dio', who loves and prays for us and holds us in her arms for all eternity. Hail Mary, obscure yet exalted, our reference, our comfort, our consolation always; given through John, the beloved disciple, to all of us.

Help me, dear God, to do all I can to emulate her loving and gracious ways and to call for her prayers when I fail yet again so that I may never give up trying.

Dearest mother, thank you for loving and praying for us always.

Amen.

The Memorare prayer in the words of today

Remember, oh most loving Mother Mary that never was it known

That anyone who fled to your protection, 

Implored your help or sought your intercession, 

Was left forsaken. 

Filled therefore with confidence in your goodness, 

I fly to you, oh Mother. 

To you I come, before you, I stand, 

Your sorrowful child. 

Receive my poor words, oh Mother of the Word of God 

and graciously hear and grant my prayer. 

Amen.

Why Jesus?

If Jesus came to find temporal power on earth, then he died a complete failure, suffering an ignominious death on a cross. Eleven of the twelve men he had chosen to carry on his mission ran away from him in his hour of need, the twelfth, having already betrayed him to his enemies. Only one returned to stand beneath his cross, to support his mother.

Why then, is his name revered by millions throughout the world, two thousand years later? Now there's the question. Those who follow him say it is because he is the Son of God, whose message can still bring liberation, hope, truth and love into our lives today. Otherwise, what explanation can there be for this seeming improbability. 

These followers have included the greatest minds and the simplest souls on earth throughout the history of the Church which Jesus founded on the shoulders of a small group of ordinary people. So perhaps the answer to the question is because Jesus really is who he said he was. If so, he's worth following. I certainly think so.

When death comes around the corner

Sometimes, when death comes knocking on the door of our lives, it can cause us to look around and view what is there and shouldn't be and what is not there and should be. 

Hopefully, for most of us, it can result in our taking stock of what we need to do to rectify our omissions and commissions. Let's hope that we can all manage to do so, in good time before that door is opened and we take our step through it. 

About justice and when and where we receive it

There has to be a life beyond this one! Otherwise, the deep desire to seek justice for the wrongs which are perpetrated against us and against others, which is frequently unattainable in this world, would never be realised.

Countless numbers die without ever having received that justice, There has to be comfort, consolation and redress for those sufferings beyond death.

That's what I have to believe anyway, otherwise life would be pretty unbearable.

About security and God's safety net

No matter how many security blankets we try to wrap around ourselves, life can always catch us out.

We may have security lights and cameras, insurance and assurance policies.

We may ferry our children to and from their activities, 

we may live in 'nice' areas and take every precaution  we can to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe

but the unexpected can and often does happen.

God's safety net doesn't stop bad things from happening but assures us that, no matter what trials and tribulations come our way, if we can learn to trust in God's everlasting and infinite love, that love will always see us through.

About being imperfect, yet loved

We are not 'sinners'! We are imperfect but eternally beloved children of God.

God knows and understands everything about us,

the circumstances of our lives,

our choices, both good and bad,

and loves us anyway, even when we don't love ourselves.

I believe that anyone who has children and knows what it is to love them, no matter what should understand and trust this belief.

About mercy and forgiveness and generosity of spirit

''The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven....''

The trouble is we keep putting our umbrellas up.

What are those umbrellas; our pride, our vanity; 

our self-denial and self-deception. The list goes on.

We need to turn our faces to the gentle rain of the love and mercy of God and allow it to wash away our guilt as we put right what is wrong and turn to follow God's path.

About Cain and Abel and generosity of spirit

At church this morning, our priest spoke about Jesus's words to the Scribes and Pharisees on 'rule-keeping' and hypocrisy and how we can have a tendency to give the bare minimum. 

Cain's and Abel's gifts to God came into my mind; Cain with ''some of his produce'' and Abel with the best lamb of his flock.

Why God asks for our best must be of importance here. God does not need our best gifts but knows that our giving of them is best for us.

When we give 'second best', it is we ourselves who are short-changed. We circumcise our hearts and close our minds.

To give of our best to God, to others, to life, is to open our minds and hearts to generosity of spirit which, in return, is reflected and radiated backwards to us and is truly life-enhancing.

About Limbo

From a very early age, when I first heard of the now outdated concept of 'Limbo', a place where unborn or unbaptised babies went if they died, a place of happiness but not with God, I absolutely knew that couldn't be true. The God I believed in would never do such a thing.

It never was an article of faith and, thank goodness, that is now recognised and acknowledged.

Recently, I had an image of the souls of the little ones flying up to heaven to be held in the loving arms of Jesus and his mother. As if they wouldn't go straight to God

About circumstances and choices - and not being born wicked

Now let's get this right from the start; no one, but no one, is born 'wicked.'

Well, to be precise, it probably should be 'conceived' rather than 'born' because I've read and heard - and believe - that the circumstances and choices of both parents, even before conception can affect the development of their unborn child during pregnancy.

So how do our circumstances and choices come into play? 

Well, the next thing to get straight is that no one is born into a perfect family. There's no such thing. In fact, I've often been tempted to say that the dysfunctional family is the norm - and that's including my own - the growing-up one, that is.

That is in no way a criticism and is meant to be a consolation to those of us who feel we've made many a mistake in our parental efforts. And maybe 'dysfunctional' is overstating the case or at least exaggerating it.

Those factors plus all the other situations we've found ourselves in over the years make up the 'circumstances' aspect of our lives.

And as to choices, which of us hasn't made one or two - or many more - mistakes in that area in his or her life? I know I have.

So that hotch-potch jigsaw makes up the backdrop of our lives and goes a long to explaining how we navigate the landscape we find ourselves in. 

When we are tempted to call one another 'wicked', aloud - or in our heads, maybe we should remember the famous/infamous words of Pope Francis when questioned by journalists about his views on moral issues. ''Who am I to judge?''

Who indeed am I or are we to judge? Possibly not!!

About being hurt

 Is the measure of the hurt felt

a measure of the hurt caused?

I don't know. It came into my mind so I just share it.

It might be rubbish.

About what God wants

I've just had some thoughts about this. One of the things I think God wants is for all of us to believe in ourselves; not in a big-headed way but just thinking that we're ok.

This started because I spent the morning worrying about some people who have made it evident that I'm not ok. After a good pep-talk with a friend, I happened to have a great conversation with someone who's a lot younger than I am but a good friend who I genuinely feel likes me a lot, followed by some textings with people who I know think I'm ok and I feel so much better.

If like me, you're easily discouraged, self-doubting and hypercritical of yourself, maybe you and I should reason, ''I think they're ok people and if they think I'm ok, then I must be ok-ish at the very least!''

And as for those who don't, what do I really think of them? Are they really ok? Well if they don't think I am, maybe they aren't ok so should I be bothered about what they think of me? Almost certainly not!!

About judging

How can I presume that I have the right to judge others?

Do I know everything about them; their backgrounds, experiences, circumstances? No, impossible.

Do I forget my own frailties? Yes, all the time.

A suggestion for the rewording of the Our Father

Our Father in heaven,

may your holy name be honoured.

May your kingdom come

and your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. 

Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our offences

as we forgive those who offend against us.

Keep us from temptation

and free us from evil.

Amen 

Jesus and Mary

 As the moon is to the sun, so is Mary to Jesus,

the perfect mirror, reflecting the infinite radiance

of the light of God's love, shining from the face of Jesus.

Sunset

 Sunset - God's sketchbook.

Standing at the foot of the cross

There are times in our lives

when we stand at the foot of the cross

with Mary.