SisterDaughter

Into Christmas, and the turning of the year..

2011-12-25T02:27:00.000-08:00

Always interesting that the year turns soon before Christmas...Gone is the shortest day and the birds and singing loud now.

Wild and wet this Christmas Day. Thankful for this, after the hard snow and ice of the last two winters.

Markets over for a while; the last one was yesterday, Christmas Eve. Novel to be out on that day. Time afterwards to sit on a friendly bale of straw in the crib of a busy church. Flowers being brought in; folk queuing quietly for confession.. a pair of wee girls at the crib and the candle stands full. Warm and dry...

In Canada, hampers are all out, and in India our wee ones will feast on chicken with their rice and vegetables, and a treat of oranges!

Hard indeed that any baby does not have the simple peace of a full belly, a clean body and a loving mother. Yesterday, watching a stallholder with a tiny baby and knowing how simple the needs of a four month old are.

An honour and a privilege to be able to help; for if we truly know and love Jesus, then at this time above all others, it is He Who starves and wails with hunger and cold and destitution. A huge lack and sorrow that we cannot do more, save more, feed more.

Here, we have all. A gift of coal means the house here is warm. And there is food and more than enough. Brussels sprouts from the garden and baby carrots too, and sage. A healing and a gentling to have these this year.
Small gifts of food that are not small.
Simple, wholesome.

So now a pause from markets. Not from work, as stock has to be made always. But from outgoing a quietude. Time to gather Prayer; time also to work the garden ready for the growing this year.

So many new ideas for knitting and beading and making, that there has not been time to work out.

There were eight markets in 2o days, most of then new to us. An intense time indeed, So many new friends and so many old acquaintances.

Scattered now to their homes.

So we turn to the Nine Lessons and Carols, grace a the internet. Candle lit here, in the Christmas quiet.

Blessings and peace

Please pray this for us?

2011-11-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

Novenas do not usually appeal here, but this one has a special place in my own heart.

http://www.catholictradition.org/Advent/advent18.htm

It is simple enough; I make 15 knots in a piece of string.

Please, kind folk, would you pray this for our urgent needs as we strive to save and nurture in a world where love grows cold.. Please, pray for the miracles we need. Thank you and bless you.

This year we have managed to click onto the Christmas Fairs and markets we somehow largely missed out on in our newness here last year. And it is the knitting that is feeding our babies. We have worked a lot of smaller items eg knitted hairbands and elastic hairbands adorned with crochet. And it is lovely to see so many wee girls in the markets wearing them. Small. pretty things. As they say in Scotland, many a mickel maks a muckle...

And this week a large, large box arrived from Springwools in Dublin. They save oddments for us and they have thus supported our work for many years. Opening the box, this time so large I could barely carry it, is like unveiling a treasure chest. It really is awesome. The kindness begin it warms the heart and encourages.

So while the winter gales howl and rage. snug here with work for hands to create. Knitting food and medicine and life and hope with each bright hat...

In our ten years of trading in Ireland, we have developed a style and grace that in unique and attractive.

Blessings and peace this wild day!

Ireland, death... and of birth or death in other lands.

2011-10-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Often we are asked to assist in genealogy enquiries and it is work we grow skilled in.

Often it emerges that folk who live in other lands and are seeking their in other lands do not realise the way things were here in times past, and thus they seek what can no longer be found.

This recent photograph of one of Ireland's old Burial Grounds will elucidate.

Each stone, looking like broken teeth, and each mound, is a grave. Maybe of many generations of a family. For graves were reused over and over again, in times of hardship and when folk were not as squeamish about death as we are today. For in a poor country and a poor family ...

The dead are greatly treasured and loved here. If you look at a graveyard, you will see great adornments there. The ruins of old abbeys and churches are the most valued of burial places; the holiest places nearest where the altar was.

Families would do anything to avoid a pauper's grave... And families would often dig the graves themselves, a practice only outlawed this year.

The utter desolation of the famine years was that thousands were never buried but simply lay and rotted where they died. And as this was often entire families, all the sacred rites and custome were perforce abandoned. The last living family member, surrounded by his dead, would pull the house down around him, an easy feat in hovels, before he died. Burying his precious kin.

And when emigration hit epidemic proportions, entire families left, so there was no one left to care for graves, and the rough stone markers eroded and were broken.

Tracing folk is made impossible as so many areas kept no burial records.

Often folk cannot take in that there was simply no one left to preserve graves. Let the dead bury their dead... Needs must.

The way the Irish treasure burial traditions and family burial places is seen in these old paces, where rich modern graves appear among the snags of stone.

The distinction between birth and death blurs in many lands. As life is held less than sacred and as the great gods money and sex prevail for so many.

A baby is lucky to avoid being murdered before birth; a few years ago the figure of a million abortions in Israel saddened and horrified.

When men desire perfect boy babies and refuse to allow their wives to use birth control, girl babies become dross.

To be born in these lands is to face death with only suffering in between these events. As to be born in lands where man-made famine exists. As it was in Ireland in those years.

In China, a healthy baby risks being stolen from a loving family and sold to foreigners who think they are doing good.

In Vietnam, street children are rounded up and euthanised; unless they can be adopted. A lady called Christina Noble here in Ireland is doing wonderful work among them; if you see her book, read it! She has a website.

The ones who are doing most are the so called little people; caring strong in their hearts and their lives given in passion.

Often they are those who have suffered in their own lives; Christina is one such as she and her siblings were "guests" of religious orders here and had appalling childhoods.

In India, babies born to prostitutes face terrible lives; we are among those working in that land.

When a society shuns and breaks the laws of God, evil creeps in in many forms and life as He made it and loves in endangered.

When anything becomes more important than His love and His laws, when men twist and pervert the Word of God for gratification of any kind.

Holland was among the first to legalise abortion, drugs, prositution, to welcome homosexuality; now it kills off its old in vast numbers because life has become less than precious.

Expediency is all to them.

The weak, the sick,... useless they say.

Let us treasure and support life in the vulnerable and needy. Let us protect the frail and vulnberable in the Name of Jesus. Let us not walk past on the other side and pretend that all is well, Itis not well and we can each and all help and support. Not roll our eyes heavenwards and say sanctimoniously that God will provide.

Through our compassion, our hands, our hearts, He will indeed provide.

Blessings this night.... calm day and sun...

The parcel saga....

2011-10-22T09:54:00.001-07:00

On Friday shopping etc was needed and a lovely day in between weeks of storms and fog. And the thought of a third day waiting and waching palled.

So an auto - message was left; put the parcels over the gate or post them. We made sure the gate sign, very large and clear was in place...

A day filled with blessings and when home was reached, no parcels and the weekend was here. So a philosphical shrug...

Then a car horn sounded loud and clear.. this is how we ask all to announce themselves as we can hear it wherever we are in the house. Our big gate is firmly locked; our Enclosure limit.

And there was a very embarrassed and agitated stranger. Who started explaining that he grazed cattle in a field up the road. .I wondered what was coming; our dogs are never out... etc etc etc.

He and his wife had gone to feed the cattle and had found.... two large boxes sitting there. One still had our instructions and he said that they were so clear and they knew immediately where... They must have thought at first that someone was dumping rubbish...and anguished what the boxes were doing there and what to do with them.

His wife then got out of the car.... Kind folk who were so distressed and distraught. They live nearly a mile away and were horrified when I told them the story. And off they went to bring the boxes then....

They kept saying that if they had not been to feed the cattle... No oen would ever have thought to search so far away..

They were blessed and thanked; they know of our work and our enclosure and it must have cost them to come like that. He kept saying it was going to rain and they stuff would have been ruined; so anxious. So caring and concerned and it was balm indeed.

When I finally opened the computer, there was a long email from the franchise holder of the sender branch of Fastway... Sent earlier in the day.. That he had just heard from the local manager that the driver had followed my instructions to the letter, found a gate and put the boxes over, sounded his horn and was away.......

Would I please confirm that delivery had been made so that future parcels .... The sender is a very good customer and they are scared of losing that contract..

Knowing the neighbourhood now I know where he went. Instead of the junction, where there is a wall of fluoresescent arrows which make a clear landmark, he had for some reason turned off the road a quarter of a mile sooner. Found a gate and there he dropped the load.... No resemblance to the instructions and he would have found a maze of steep winding lanes up there.

The first courier delivery we had when we came here was a supplier in Dublin. He was a day earlier than expected and an unexpected hospital visit had been needed. Yet he found the house from the same directions, and when we were out, found the folk he needed etc.

Needless to say Fastway have been informed of the situation... And a suggestion has been made that the area man drive that route himself to see how clear the instructions really are.

Short of talking him in on his phone there was nothing we could have done. We wonder if he is a poor reader etc?

So we have the generous and wondrous gifts now, that will help us to feed our babies, and to put food to Dublin for the increasing homeless problems there. All to be given, for we have all we need and more and so many have nothing and less than nothing.

Trading is slow as the weather is so bad; storms today. Time to build stock and prepare for Christmas sales and next summer...

So an indoor day apart from running the dogs between deluges and bringing vegetables in from the large and very fruitful new garden we have here. The last of the runner beans, cabbages, rainbow chard, brussel sprouts and large purple topped turnips still to come.. and still Sweet William to pick next weekend for market. A delight to sell cut flowers and surplus vegetables. And something that will be a stronger feature next year as the perennials come into flower. All the old fragrant favourites...Irresistible...

The gale has calmed and the rain has ceased so the night wil be in quietude now.. God be praised for His peace and safety.

Closing on Clerical Whispers...

2011-10-20T12:51:00.001-07:00

This site has been deteriorating for some while.

More and more the enemy within; damaging the wounded Church in less and less subtle ways. Dissent, supporting ways and teachings that are against the Word of God..disseminating the "spin " that blames anyone but the Church for the massive child abuse.. this week a tirade against the media.... who for once have understated the crimes clerics and religious have committed and covered up.... accusing families of not defending their children and thus blaming them...

All the worst elements within Holy Mother Church....

Sometimes photos that are less than acceptable litter the tirades....

And, wrongly, they have been allowed to pass because the site is useful for news..mea culpa..

Early this morning, eyes and heart and soul were shocked into outrage. A photo of two naked men, one black, one white, sprawled and intertwined on a bed in the shape of a cross..

Pornography indeed.... immorality indeed..

There have been others; two men dressed as priests, kissing.

Some of the team of this site say they are priests...not so for priests do not do such things..

Our response has simply been to request that the link there to this weblog be removed as there is no way we will be associated with this site. And we have stated why.

We have also suggested the site needs to apply for an over 18 certification for such images.

This is not homophobia; it is cleaving to the Word of God, to Jesus, to purity and the moral laws God writes.

And that we be not subjected to these revolting and pornographic images on a public site that professed to represent Holy Mother Church...God help us all!

All part of the mess Ireland is in.

This week we have been trying to get delivery of two large boxes of craft materials, a wondrous donation from an old friend upcountry ie within Ireland.

As we do not accept incoming calls for obvious reasons, and cannot afford a mobile, the sender attached clear and full directions to the House to each box. This has always worked with another courier firm... Never any issues.

Delivery day passed and when I called the firm, they told me that the driver had been unable to find the House. The girl said there were no instructions given but when I called the driver and gave him clear directions, it emerged that he had been almost to the House and simply not bothered to get out of the van and knock at the nearest door.. us... Again I gave him clear instructions and also said please put the boxes over the gate if we are out...

And of course followed that up in writing by email; clear authorisation.

This morning saw the most officious and discourteus and obstructive of emails from the office. No delivery unless.. and a list of conditions that had already been fulfilled, so no point in calling with directions already given and ignored.
Nothing I can add to the clear directions so carefully given...

They had not even bothered to put the parcels on the van today.

Demand after demand, and the man cannot even get the name right.

Customer service?

As we tell them, An Post know where we are!

Post the boxes!

And there is silence now and who knows where the boxes are and where they will be next.

This has happened with this firm before.. I had a call once from their driver once demanding I drive into town and meet him there else no delivery... That time I asked the sender , a regular giver, never to use that firm, that An Post is far better.

The firm is called.... if you can believe it.. FASTWAY... You hear that? FAST WAY.. expensive and totally.. well, words fail.

They have no head office; franchises, but someone must have some power over them?

FASTWAY, please post the boxes as An Post know us....Clearly you are incapable of delivering them so let the experts take over now....And send the kind giver her money back...

And please, never send anything by courier to us! Never, never, never...

And if anyone out there knows who in this benighted land regulates courier services, let us know..

Blessings and peace this chill wintry night....

Autumnal times

2011-09-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

Autumn came early and with "the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks" and mighty gales and deluges.

After a very cool and wet summer and with the word out that the winter ahead will be early and harsh.

Yet our large new garden in warmer climes has delighted with its abundance and variety. And has fed since May. Even now there are runner beans, something we could not have grown before, without shelter, and a rich variety of greens and roots. And potatoes stored.

Our dogs enjoy the vegetables as much as we do.

And already we are selling excess and cut flowers at markets, and perennials are seedlings for next year. Sweet William, sweet peas, and there will be stocks and pyrethrum and all the old cottage garden favourites. Maybe sunflowers if seed allows.

It is sweet and wholesome to pick and gather for market, and the House has flowers in richness.

We are gathering apples in an old abandoned orchard. So often these are allowed to go to waste. Sweetness to stand under an apple-heavy tree, shake the branches gently and hope that the apple-rain misses the head..

We came in heavy laden to be greeted with a large sack of windfalls from another source, so apple -processing is in full swing. Apple and blackberry jam, as the crops in the hedges are rich this year, apple butter, and tomorrow, apple and lemon chutney. The dehydator we were given is working hard also.

Old skills with thanksgiving for abundance.

To offset the scene here in Ireland as the abuse revelations and their consequences continue to unravel their unsavoury and dark webs.

In the last year, attitudes have changed, crystallised, hardened. Few are in denial any more. How can they be? Especially when clergy continue to display arrogance and lack of penitence.

It is not easy to walk the streets wearing the Holy Habit... And yet the dark looks are more honest than the wrong subservience we saw before. And there is courtesy and openness also when folk hear that we are not Irish and that we own no property or money and the work we do.

At markets, it is the knitting that sells most. And always when things are dark and heavy and hard, there is solace and comfort in working a bright and lovely hat for a child, knowing the money it fetches will heal and save other wee ones. Weaving prayer and love into the work.

So let fingers fly and the colours of the world God gives us spill out as days shorten and darken and the winds of winter whine and whistle.

All and each can bring hope and healing in a world gone crazy ...

Blessings and peace...

"The love of money..."

2011-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Strange how verses come to mind...

The issues the Angry Person ran so deep it was left a while.

Seeing h0w that small episode was the whole homosexual situation in microcosm.

That the campaigners are not Christian and are seeing our faith as what one called "niceanity": that social "Christianity" which has no basis in the love of the Lord Jesus. Being "nice" to everyone.

Reminds me of the time on the island when the leaders of the allegedly voluntary sheep screening scheme blockaded the pier to prevent my sending my two Jacobs sheep to be mated to the next island. This was to spot enzootic abortion which had never been found on the island. It was only a possibility in livestock coming in from the mainland.

I had pointed this out; to test stressed the animals hugely. And the instigators were bullies. One man sold his sheep and gave up the whole idea because of their tactics. It was, they said, a voluntary scheme. And after checking thoroughly with several vets, I said NO.

And was accused of not acting in Christian manner; after all, it was said, Christians don't go round upsetting people.

Excuse me? Jesus "upset" people soo much they crucified Him. If there is asked or demanded that which is not in keeping with His words? There is no choice; He teaches what it means to love Him; and as He tells us, to keep His commandments. Before all else and even when folk who do not know and love Him lambast us and accuse us.

So few who profess to be Christian do that; and so few read His teachings.

The Angry Person was one such as are the "Gay Rights" folk.

They are not of Jesus and they do not read His words. And as the ultimate in manipulatiom they demand and often petulantly a "love" and behaviour that they have no intention of reciprocating. Abusing the Bible as they do so.

All for sex?

Ay me!

Another huge idolatry...

There was no love in the Angry Person; and all she could think of to hurt was throwing that jam we had made back in our faces. Literally!

A petulant, pathetic gesture. She would not let us love her. To her we are some kind of enemy?

Love is to accept and treasure; Jesus loves . Yes He embraces the marginalised; but always He teaches and exhorts to the abiding in His commandments.

If you read His life and His teachings, you will see that His healings, His love, always changes the life style of the person. Without exception. The tax collector returns the money he extorted. And always John 8; He saves the life of the woman caught in the very act of adultery - and bids her to go and sin no more. Her life now is to be pure.

Be wary of the "conversion" that does not mean a new lifestyle. Paul is the greatest example of that. When Jesus calls to follow Him, all else becomes meaningless dross.

As He teaches, where your treasure is, there also is your heart.

So when we read this..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2011/o7/abuse-orders-make-667m-on-property.html

and

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2011/07/sisters-of-mercy-made-165m-from-sales.html

Words are inadequate. This was all happening while the abuse scandals were unfolding, and while Ireland was heading for recession.

These figures are way above what was believed the orders held. Orders whose members are vowed to Holy Poverty.. followers they say of Jesus who had nowhere to lay His head.

What adds to the obscenity and total hypocrisy of this is knowledge such as this...

http://www.cuanmhuire.ie

Always and still the constant demand for money; by a Mercy Sister. Always again and still making the people pay.
Old men in the streets with collecting boxes.... for millionaires.
When we trade, we take great care to explain that we are not an Irish Order and that we own no property or buidings and keep no money back. and live as simply as is possible. And we have to disassociate ourselves from the Irish Orders and indeed the Irish Church

"Where your treasure is there will your heart be also..."

And most do not realise that this money will not stay in Ireland but go to Rome as does all money from dying Orders.

We trade alongside many who are hurting; out in all weathers hoping to sell to live on; as we do also.

Hopefully the new government will manage to access the money and properties now. The Orders should be stripped bare now. Their old ones are entitled to pensions as all are. If they were truly sincere and truly embracing the marginalised then that is a very good place to start.

Not with empty, hollow words that encourage sin.

Let them to use a very old saying put their money where their mouth is..

For the love of the Lord Jesus.

Which is what this should all be about.

And is for us.

Blessings and peace this day from a stormy and wet and impossibly green Ireland.

When the cup is half full?

2011-06-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting how people take just part of a verse of Scripture and make it "fit" an agenda.

A prime example is "Money is the root of all evil.." They even wrote a song on this.

Of course this is a misquotation; half a verse.. Maybe that is what is meant by the devil quoting Scripture for his own ends, as he would never do it else.. and if something is known to be in the Bible? Well, it must be right...

Not so... The whole verse is of course , "The love of money is the root of all evil.."

Money is worth only what it can buy. A channel and a means of grace, of life itself. We seek money always, for it can buy the food and nurturing that is life itself for the babies and the homeless we serve. Without it we can do so little.

But when the acquisition of money becomes an end in itself, becomes an obsession? When gaining money becames the sole aim of life?

That is the motivation behind drug selling, power, etc etc etc.

It is a distortion, an idolatry. Putting the gaining of money before every other concern, before humanity.. See Scrooge and his ilk! Not to use and spend and enjoy even what it can buy,

Another verse part-quoted? "Love one another.."

Interesting how these things come in flurries too. On the same day at our biggest market, two people quoting these words of Jesus, a buzz-phrase.

The first was a stallholder who came in some agitation; she had seen the TV item of leaders watching the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and it had offended her to her soul. Maybe not the killing, but that folk could watch it like that? Not sure as she was too upset to speak much. Simply seeking the reassurance that this was the way of Jesus... When she spoke the words "Love one another.." I added His words.. "Love your enemies.. do good to those who despitefulky use you.." Which reassured her in the way she was thinking, so off she went.
( of course there are much deeper and more complicated issues here, but this was not the time, such was the hurt she was feeling).

The second was... unexpected indeed.. to find a jar of our jam being abruptly returned by a very angry person. That is a first, as was the entire incident..

An explosion of ire and rage...

The first thought, horrors, there is something wrong with the jam! A sinking feeling indeed..

But no, thankfully... The person had managed to get to this weblog from the email address we put on our distinctive labels, along with a thank you for supporting our work and a promise of prayer.. all with a purple ribbon bow on each jar..

And what she had read - namely the entry below this one, was what had set fire to her fuse. Shouting anger at the lack of love etc etc etc.... at the terrible article against homosexuality.. I will not , gentle readers, quote the exact words here...

As she got ready to storm off, I said quietly - when I could get a word in, which was far from easy, let me assure you - that the article was straightforward Church teaching.
And that she needed to read the article again in calmer mood.

But there was no "Let us reason together" to be had; simply a torrent of anger and abuse.

POW! " I AM CATHOLIC AND THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH IS.. LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!!!!!"

Exit market right.....

This kind of thing is used time and again by the gay rights folk. As is the spin that total approval of homosexuality eg marriage is consonant with the Christian ethos - whatever that is. It reminds of the man who said he tries to live his life on Christian principles but has no belief.. like running your car on water.

To see how this half verse is misused here, you need to go to John 13...

The entire chapter...to see the context, the setting, the reason and the meaning of these teachings of Jesus.

And within that, the half-quoted verse itself... "Love one another, as I have loved you.."

The utter self-giving that is Jesus.

Not sexual love or lust.... not demanding self-fulfilment or "rights"... the utter giving selflessly that is the heart of God in Christ..."God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that we might not perish but have everlasting life.."

Not either the "tough love" spiel that some hardliners speak of... ie that it is not loving to allow folk to go to hell!

Simply the love from Jesus flowing through us. Aligning with Him, with His teachings, living within the Word as He bids us. Obeying Him; subjecting all we do and are in the love we have for Him.

Never flinching from giving; always within His teachings. Loving Him, loving others...

And thus the "gold standard" where key issues are at issue.

So the previous post...

Blessings and peace this night

Flawed logic...

2011-04-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, the smooth talking of those who ignore the word of God...Who put the love of others before the love of God and replace the striving of all people to keep the commandments of God pure and entire with some diluted humanitarian ideology that leads others to think that wrong is right. http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2011/04/mexican-bishop-tells-gays-lesbians.html To teach the ways of God is not to look down on others; it is to lift them to the Light. That is the work of the Church; to teach in love. Not to approve a way of life that is against the Laws of God. And note here that that is simply evaded. It is not the work of a church to approve and actively encourage a lifestyle that is against the Laws of God. Which is what is happening and being acted out here. It makes a mockery of the sacraments also.... teaching is that sexual activity outside marriage, which is between a man and a woman, is mortal sin. And that it is also serious sin to take Communion in a state of sin. And how can there be any true reconciliation here? A parody and a defilement thus. Someone asked me re this here.... Someone who was struggling with this whole area, of how we "treat" gays. The reply then used a specific person we both knew. As I said, I worked alongside the man; laughed and chatted and ate with him as I would with anyone. As I do with everyone.. who allows it. Yet had he raised this issue? Simply tell what God says time and again so clearly. No criticism or judgement. How could there be? We all fall short in so many ways. And we who wear the Habit in Ireland know full well what it is to be persecuted and scorned. We do not inflict that on others. To teach the ways and word of God is an honour and a blessing; to those who teach and to those who are open. A problem is that many are so sensitive that you cannot say anything without it being taken as homophobic; nasty word is that and so..... judgemental. Closed minds, narrow hearts... As opposed to us who are open and free and in the love and light, and who long for others to know this peace. This mind of 'acceptance" will bring no spiritual life or peace. It is entirely your choice how you live your life; that is your freedom. but, please, do not expect or demand that I approve or encourage active homosexuality. Because that is impossible for any true Christian. What happens with any church that does this is that it becomes a ghetto, for they are... discriminating actively against others. As for adopting children.. words fail...From a wet and windy Ireland where the first "gay" civil partnership has taken place. Sad indeed... But the clerical abuse has many forms of fall out.

A cat with cystitis; a cautionary tail

2011-03-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

As some know, we rescue animals as well as people, and here we have two dogs and two cats. The cats are siblings and a more loving and lovely pair could not be found anywhere. Black with white and fluffy and huge.

Last winter, the girl started demanding to use a tray rather than going outside, and it was alarming then to see pink on the paper we use. But it passed and she stopped needing a tray at all.

A while ago, once more the demand for a tray and once more pink on the paper. As it did not stop even with cranberry joice, we needed to get antibiotics for her. The vets here are of course an unknown quantity.. And there was no way we could afford a consultation fee.

The first vet we tried ... she emerged in green scrubs and gave a hectic lecture re these not being available OTC etc etc etc.. so we politely thanked her and went on our way.

And just on a chance dropped in at another vet clinic we pass frequently..... No problem; the girl called the young man vet; I told him what the problem was and he sold me antibiotics for cystitis at a fair price. As they say, no name, no pack drill.
( Guess which vet we shall be using!)

Easy to crush them and mix with tuna.. treat, treat, treat!

Yet as soon as they stopped, back came the pink and red. No sign of real pain and this is a very vocal cat who would yell.

By this time we were reading online... Our cats eat mostly raw chicken but some kibble.

Back to the vet; who explained that the anti-biotics would deal with infection but not with inflammation, so he sold me a bag of very expensive prescription urinary diet food. VERY expensive indeed.. could have bought 28 kilos of raw chicken for a couple of weeks supply.... ouch!

By then we had read some long and well researched articles, and the message coming across was, feed wet/raw food.

So out went the usual kibble and back to the raw chicken and tuna etc, to the disgust of the cat who loves her kibble. Oh such wails of "hunger"!

But no more red or pink in the tray.

So, as we are conditioned to believe the vets, we tried just a little of his costly kibble, and there appeared a large red spot in the tray. Tried that twice with the same result. Back to raw and she is clear since then.

The message is clear and simple. Whatever good ingredients kibble contains, it also has grain products which are alien to cats. And it also has no water.

So now cat gets treats of tuna "diluted" with water, so that she is well-hydrated, and raw chicken and kibble is OFF the menu permanently in this house.

It teaches that we need to read labels and watch and make our own decisions. We did not and do not want our cats permanently on medication as many are for this condition if there is another way. With this cat it seems to be the grain that was irritating and causing this, along with not enough fluids.

When we checked that online, there was trustworthy evidence.

The one article to read is this one..

http://www.catinfo.org/

Vets are skilled folk; but often they know less about nutrition etc than a careful owner. What makes sense "scientifically" may not work for every cat.

And it makes sense that the first line of approach should be dietary; what we put in our bodies matters.

And that diet may be at fault rather than thinking first of medication.

So now all our animals are almost totally on raw or home cooked food. It works out cheaper by the way too.

A local "chicken factory" sells packs of necks ; E3 per 9 kilos, and legs. E6 for 9 kilos. That feeds all of us a good while.

The slow cooker makes an excellent chicken stew/soup with pulses and carrots that the dogs share, with brown bread mixed in.

Yes we know; these are not free range birds. But this needs balance. Intensive farming will not stop until legislation forbids it. If the prices were not so outrageously beyond our slender means? The suffering of hens cannot be compared with the suffering of our babies, of the people of Japan.. if we insisted on buying only organic etc then we would have so much less to send to feed others who have nothing. And we would eat less safely ourselves.
A mother with a family to feed cannot choose six eggs rather than 18 at the same price.

Now we have a cat who thinks she is getting so many treats and who adores us even more than she did before.

So we learn as we live. Listening, thinking, reading.

For this care of our cats is a part of our life as we strive to raise funds and support our Sisters in Japan. Whose lives were saved by an utter miracle of grace.

Nothing is outside that grace, that love, that provision..

An odd anomaly then. Talking to someone at a car boot sale... she is deep into "food reading"; asking if there was sugar in our jams.."Sugar is poison..." she declares. Not so , say we; it is a question of balance always.. And chocolate is good, we said. Oh yes, chocolate, she agreed, is fine. Hmmm.. of course we said nothing about the sugar content of chocolate..She feeds her dog kibble.

Ah well.. as an old Yorkshire lady used to say, "Nowt so queer as folks..."

A poisoned earth...

2011-03-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Crumbling the sweet, friable earth in the hand, and knowing that each minute more and more of that pure soil is being corrupted and poisoned by radiation in Japan. Again, the greed and hubris and now the evasions and half truths as after Chernobyl.

Poison that will never die or fade and for which there is no cure, no healing, no antidote. An uncontrollable hell let loose once more.

Earth, growth, crops tainted with this now.

And the children; affected from the start. And a "generation yet unborn" maimed before birth. Not born to learn of the love and ways of God but of sickness and deformity, caused by man.

Yes we have Sisters there; deep in the thick of trying to get food and water to the thousands lost now. Such a polite people. Orderly and courteous. Remembering the bus full who stopped by our stall last year and the tiny origami box they left. We still have that .

And we are not helpless; not any of us who live in this world. Each can act and give and work to feed and clothe and comfort and help. if you want to help us to do that, please email on anchoress cj at yahoo dot com.

Here, always the markets, the making and trading. Hoping in this new place for a good summer of selling our fair wares.

One child, one baby, one person at a time..

Blessings and peace

Entrusted with a new year

2011-01-07T00:17:00.001-08:00

Time passes swiftly and here we are at the start of another year.

Entrusted to us.

Is that not a thought to engage the mind? To focus the heart? To be a searching of our daily life?

There is nothing anyone of us singly can do about the abominations and atrocities that are a constant in this world.

What each can do is to ensure that those near to us, those we know about, are tended and nurtured.

The old chorus, "You in your small corner and I in mine.."

Not from anything but the love of the Lord Jesus and the seeking to "obey His commandments" as He bids us.

Not for worldly fame or acclaim...so easy to fall into that trap. Simply to live for Jesus thoughtfuly and softly.

Not proseletysing.. knowing that it is how we live that will draw others to Him, in quietude.

Always setting time aside for that quiet listening, that guidance from Him. Not following slavishly any save Him.

And that will mean growth; and growth means change. Which many hate; a rut can be soooo comfortable..... But unless we constantly are alert and watchful? Remember how many Bible verses echo and teach that.

For us, that means always aware of the needs of the world around us, where we are and where our Sisters work.

So we evaluate how we send our time, and having now seen the needs and the overall siutation?

So less and less time now for the internet... and it grows ever more demanding and cluttered and noisy.

The thought that Facebook acts like a virus... We tried it and immediately 30 names arrived as "friends": some we had had one email contact with many years ago.. some were clearly contacts of contacts..

Friends? I don't think so. There is no relationship. no accountability. No involvement. no real identity. "Social networking"? Not. And a great invasion of privacy.

Many think that unless they are busy, involved etc etc, they are not ??? But these things are addictive also.. Try leaving off for a few days and see how much you miss it all; and find other pastimes that help others?

So we binned it... Fast..... And have cut way down on internet time.. freeing time and energy for so many worthier things,, like our work for the needy.

So we will not be posting here much it at all this year..

Our xanga is still up and always we need money for our babies.. and always here on email..anchoresscj at yahoo dot com

www.xanga.sistersofgraceofchrist

Else this beehive is industry personified, doing the work of Jesus.

Blessings and peace...

Sometimes Ireland.....

2010-11-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

Words are hard to find.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/protestors-throw-eggs-and-cheese-at-harney-481576.html

This vandalism and shocking waste are presumably because we, the poorer ones of Ireland, have been offered free cheese this winter.

A strange reaction indeed.

This is "intervention" produce; good Irish cheddar. Such things have been available often. A few years ago it was large tins of excellent corned beef which was very welcome indeed to us and to many.

If you google free cheese Ireland.....

People seemingly are used to "better" fare?

Yes, times are hard for many; but in many cases it is that a very high standard of living has been adopted and folk have massive debts now. As one man said, because there are five cars in the drive of a house, it does not mean that five cars have been paid for.

Presumably the protest is because we are not being given????

But to waste good food like this? It impresses no one.

And this household are glad of any free food that comes our way.. along with the other help we can gain; a weekly solid fuel allowance is available to pensioners, and help with electricity and phone costs.

Maybe we see things differently because we work with the truly destitute? Not a roof over their heads in this bitter weather.. inadequate clothes.

So we are deeply aware of how much we do have.

And recycle constantly to be able to give more.

But of course these are very unpopular views in Ireland and best kept to ourselves.
A lesson learned from hard experience.

****************************************************************

And a second headline catches the eye....

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/priest-gets-suspended-sentence-for-sexual-offences-with-teenager-481582.html

The sentence is derisory and will add to the suffering. A pity-party for a "priest" who did this to a small boy?

And does this help?

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/archbishop-apologises-to-child-abuse-victim-481596.html

Many say to us.. oh all that was forty years ago.. why cannot they just walk on now?

The Jesuits have a saying, or, rather a policy.

"Give me a child for seven years and I will give you the man."

Because they knew rightly that the early years of the life of a child form that person.

Many of the abused know that in a terrible way.

Their early years were shaped by appalling abuse from men and women in long black robes who wore the Cross of Jesus and claimed to be of Him. Who were the elite and held power over body and, they said, soul.

So this boy?

One man we spoke with was put in such an institution when he was a year old; the only thing he is grateful for is that it was the "nomercies" and not the "christian buggers" running it as he knew that they were even worse.

He is brittle and tense in his later years; there is no recovery for these damaged ones.

These men and women cannot just "forgive and forget." That quality and ability has to be taught and learned and lived by those who have the care of the child. Love and gentelness, kindness and the simplest of material needs are taught in the giving of them.

And this was not done; their most basic needs were opposed and downtrodden. All they knew as tiny children was abuse. All they experienced at the hands of the Church was terror and shame.

So when people say, oh there is time when you have to close the door on the past, we try to explain. Often this is after an attack on us because we wear the habit, so we are in an optimum position to say these things.

And there are so many damaged and wounded ones, whole families who have inherited the wrongs and appalling sins inflicted by the representatives of Holy Mother Church.

And it is rare that we can help, such is the damage and such is the anger. Some battles we are meant to fight and some we walk away from because our visible presence exacerbates the problems.

And we will not be made scapegoats and whipping posts. For we have tiny lives to protect.

So we move from market to market now; and thankfully our craft work is being welcomed at different venues now as we become known. God is good to us.

Pray for all the damaged and abused, as we do.. wanderers in a darkness created by those who profess to have Light. Prayer has power where nothing else does.

And be patient.

Blessings and peace this winter day...

"Christmas is coming..."

2010-11-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

I know; barely November, but we will be at our first pre-Christmas fair on Sunday. Thankful for the booking as the only alternative venue that day was a car boot sale on a sports field and in the present wild , wet and windy weather.. We would have done it; make no mistake on that score. With hundreds of babies and children whose only hope of life is from us? What is rain and wind against such need?

And we long to give these wee ones a taste of Christmas, as we do for our homeless ones. So now we are gathering in and seeking to work to that.

"Christmas is coming.. the geese are getting fat... Please to put a penny in the old man's hat.. If you haven't got a penny, halfpenny will do...If you haven't got a halfpenny, God bless you!"

It is a good carol is that! Understands real poverty....

So a reminder that we have our own beautiful Christmas Keepsake book.. Well over 300 pages and sweet and wholesome and reassuring as Jesus Himself.

On sale from us, signed and with a bookmark, at E15

And we have angels and snowflakes; hand crocheted and silver and gold trimmed, at E2.50 each or five for E10.

We always tell people at our markets that that small cost of E2.50 will feed a baby in India for three days..

It is easy to order and our mail service is fast and efficient.. email us at anchoresscj at yahoo dot com saying what you wish to order. We will let you know what the cost is in $$$ or sterling, add the shiping cost and mail you back.. and as soon as your cheque.. in your currency of course , arrives here, we will post your order.

This is a well tried system and works perfectly.

Please, help us to help these fragile ones who have done no harm and whose need is so total; as the needs of Jesus in the manger.

Blessings and peace from sodden Ireland, where rain has not stopped for many days now. Visible weather sweeping in across the fields..

The shame of the nations.

2010-10-08T11:36:00.001-07:00

Empty promises; when lives are in danger..Shame on these nations.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/world/haiti-quake-victims-still-in-state-of-emergency-476936.html

Loud boasts that are not fulfilled.

And money given that does not reach these terrible needs. Inhumanity.

Which is what deters many from giving.

Issues of trust.

A lady last week told us how her now aged mother knitted dozens, hundreds of the tiny vests that Mother Teresa's order appealed for. It would break her heart to know that these piled up in warehouses. And never reached the wee ones. The daughter knows that now; and that eg the shoe boxes that are such a popular thing are raided at customs.

As we said, the only goods that reach their destination safely are those taken to eg Europe by Irish lorry drivers who give their time and lorries to take loads out; they would protect the goods with their lives.. The lady had seen these men , big lads, preparing for their journeys. Few would argue with them...

And as we explain so often, this is why we do not send goods out.... and that this is why we sell at markets.. And that money given to us, for goods or for love, is safe and will reach the most needy speedily.. we take no wages.

We do not simply hold out a begging bowl ; folk buy something beautiful and hand made and that purchase delights and feeds our wee ones.

So we work on now in the darkening autumn days when rain threatens and wind can topple awnings and large umbrellas.
Leaving in the early darkness now.

Our newest "line' is luxurious mohair scaves, rich and long and fringed, in glowing colours.. walking round the market with a couple draped over the arm soon sells them. Warm and soft as clouds. Utter luxury...

Please, give, but carefully and thoughtfully. It is the small groups like us who give all that is given to us. We keep that promise faithfully and fully..... All we sell is hand made in prayer and in the love of Jesus.

Blessings this grey autumn day....

Words and images...

2010-09-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

As the world turns, more and more emerges of the innate lack of any truth.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/09/nuns-speak-out-on-vatican.html

The salient paragraph here is..

'What I hear from a lot of lately with regard to this investigation," said Fiedler, "is, let me get this straight: It's priests that abuse children. Some priests, of course. It's bishops that covered it up. So they're investigating nuns?'

Are we truly expected to believe that the person thinks that there was no abuse by Sisters?

Is her memory or her grasp of reality so deficient that she is ignorant of the massive abuse by women religious in as many lands as there was clergy abuse? Often indeed in cahoots with priests?

The Ryan Report here in Ireland tells the truth; has she not read it? Or is she alleging that there was no such abuse in the US?

There have been similar hints of this before; and from Irish folk; the loud "women priest" movement has averred that had there been female power within the church, the abuse would have been less.

This is one case where the female is deadlier than the male.

Ask google for child abuse sisters australia.

Read Ryan.

Or walk with us, Nuns wearing the habit, in Canada, and here in Ireland. Where survivors blench at the sight of the veil. And tell of their own abuse at the hands of Sisters.... stories that would make your eyes and heart weep.

Or watch "The Magdalenes" film, or "Sex in a Cold Climate"

We get flak still in many forms from abused.

One over-bright, brittle survivor, told of how he tore the veil off a nomercy who was beating him.. A much older man was bewildered.... surely you must have done something to deserve that? What did you do to be in there anyway?

The man explained quietly that his mother had died when he was a year old and he had been in "care" for 16 years.

"They were better than the Christian Brothers," he said, rolling his eyes.

"In Australia they are called the Christian Buggers," we told him..

He had already asked it we knew what PRIEST stood for..

Paedophile Resident In Every Small Town..

That such an acronym be circulating in Catholic Ireland..

The older man was safe, you see; he was well educated as a day pupil, in total ignorance of the cruelty and abuse within the residential facilities.

Last weekend, one of the many mentally handicapped folk here yelled abuse at us..."F****g nun!"

A tribute to the large nomercy convent there had been in that town. Empty now and disused.

And in our new surroundings, one market has banned us from trading there; because we dress as nuns and sell rosaries. The leader there is clearly a very damaged person.

The abuse has long tails, forked and venemous; and the blame and responsibility is not to this day being accepted by those in authority.

Until and unless that happens, there will be no renewal, no healing.

That any Sister could issue this statement proves this.

And she is of course trying to discredit the Church authorities; yet more damage, yet more division.

And why? To abscure the real reasons for this investigation... as many dying orders are indeed straying from church teachings.

Always denial; always evasion. Never that sweet and holy truth. Of Jesus; of His love, of His searching eyes on all and each of us.

Blessings and peace this calm day as autumn starts to paint the trees and freshen the air with that distinctive nip.

Busy times for us as we work new markets and always work to strive to feed and nurture the many tiny ones who have nothing except the God-given spark of life; they will not keep that unless we give them the means.

Knitting flies here thankfully, so fingers are busy...Ireland is expecting a baby boom at the end of this month; legacy of the long harsh winter. That is by the way official..

Today's "story"

2010-08-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/angry-pensioner-urges-women-to-boycott-mass-on-september-26-468836.html

Would you not think that a person of this age might have more.... spiritual awareness and maturity than this?

To use/abuse mass like this?

If you go to mass, or miss mass, for a political reason? That is not of Jesus, holy, of the Christ.

The Church as a political entity has nothing to do with true faith. To dishonour Jesus by abusing mass?

If you go to mass, go for the love of the Lord Jesus and for no other reason; what other reason is there after all?

The premise that if women were ??? priests??? then the abuse would not have happened is a false one. The campaigners seem to forget conveniently the massive role played by Sisters in abuse of children, sexual as well as in other ways. Including acting as procuresses for the priests.

Per capita, more childen were abused by sisters than by priests.

All these protests are of the world; to do not with faith, but with power; the seeking for power that is the root cause of the evils within the Church.

These women campaigners seek not to be holy, to win souls for Jesus, but to gain status, power..

Same old story .. they never learn...

Sad that people fall for this kind of thing. Sad indeed.

Are we angry? Not at all.

We have the love and peace of the Lord Jesus in our hearts; His work is ours to do in joy and utter devotion.

Do we feel like second class citizens? Not at all. Not in earthly terms, nor in heavenly terms.

Solet us each shine in our small corners, bloom where Jesus has planted us. And leave the politicians to their politicking.

While we feed Jesus in our wee babies and the homeless who have nothing, and clothe the tiny fragile naked infants dumped on rubbish heaps.

Blessings this night...

Not as it was and is ...

2010-08-10T09:08:00.001-07:00

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-day-with-eccentric-nuns-at-convent.html

Enclosure does not exist at this House.

It no longer has meaning when articles like this appear.

And thankfully this is not how we live... or how Nuns live.

Another death knell?

2010-08-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

This makes hard reading, but at least now it is out in the open, rather than the insistent rumbles of "reasoned" rebellion that have been heard of late.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-priests-reform-movement-launched.html

"brainchild" is an interesting description indeed as this has no spiritual or holy source or content. It is rather the kind of bland, empty hot air secular... junk.... that floats around . "god" in the image of the writers; no scriptural backing.

And of course, nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ,....

This is what the majority of the dying orders express on their websites also.

It is secular, worldly... and hubris.

"A re-evaluation of Catholic sexual teaching and practice that recognises the profound mystery of human sexuality and the experience and wisdom of God's people."

A shoddy self-serving "wisdom" ? Human and thus not of God. Setting itself against the Word of God and against Jesus.

These men are not of God; nor are they Christian by any definition.

Many do not realise that a priest includes in his ordination vows a Vow of Holy Obedience to his bishop.. So to set up a group that both asserts ideas that are at base diametically opposed to any Christian teachings, because they claim the bishops will not listen to them?

These men are supposed to be holy; with the care of souls in their keeping. Raising spiritual life in their parishes...

A basic problem is that when the Church here realised that they were going to be short of priests in a few years, they started admitting candidates who would previously not have been allowed to be priests.

Who have no humility; no obedience.. no respect.

A local priest who cause da huge amount of suffering to his parishioners ( ask google for Laghey Barr Chapel) shouted at them when they contacted the bishop.."The bishop should mind his own beeswax.."

The bishop expressed fear; that the priest was a difficult man who he was scared would leave. He promised that he would be moved; then reneged, saying that priests have rights too.

If any of us even thought like that about our Abbess? We would be dismissed immediately. And rightly so.

We vow Holy Obedience, in humility, knowing that our wisdom and experience are limited and fragile.

Not abandoning our own minds; simply knowing that others know better than we do.

These men have... lost the plot...

Please God that now they will be known and that few will follow them.. including many of the priests here also.

The knock on effect of the abuse scandals here takes many forms. Some not thought of as they affect seemingly less directly.

We were trading last weekend in a small town where there was a festival, in the shelter of our old friends, the French Market.

In the almost abandoned purpose-built shopping centre, an elderly man sits every morning in the cafe. He is in a motorised wheelchair. And he said, " There are very few nuns here now.." in such tones that we saw suddenly the loss and bereavement of this failure to those who have grown up with the sight of the habit and with nuns and priests always there.

And we see also the "lost generation"; teenagers and younger hanging round bored to tears, making trouble wherever they can and with no respect for anyone.. especially not Nuns and priests. Only for those who can physically threaten and restrain them..

Ireland needs not hot air and trade unions for priests who now think of the priesthood as a nine to five job, not a vocation.

It needs those who care for and about others, regardless of who and where they are...

Their approach is more intolerant than the ones they criticise of course; narrower an dmor bigoted and without the seal of holy living and purity.

We care for and about all; we judge not, but we do not condone or approve what is ungodly, unnatural, sin.

Because we know the Word.

Blessings and peace this rainy night..Ireland is green again but we need sun..

This sums it up..

2010-07-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

"This decree by an all-male hierarchy reflects Vatican misogyny and hostility to women priests who are ministering effectively in inclusive, vibrant grassroots communities," said self-styled bishop Bridget Mary Meehan.
She claims the number of women priests has grown from seven to more than 100 in the last eight years.
"Shame on the Vatican for linking the ordination of women priests with grave crimes like paedophilia," she added

Do they think that to minister you "have " to be ordained?

Where does Jesus say that?

News for these women; YOU DON'T.. period.... In fact, we do far more for all where we are, without all this hot air re status, pride, anger etc, Far, far more and as Jesus.

"inclusive" is the buzzword meaning approving of gay sex, by the way.Which is a far cry from the true teachings of Jesus.

SO?

2010-07-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

What DID the vatican actually say?

A clue here..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/parishioners-furious-at-orange-priests.html

Why is the Vatican correct here?

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/bishop-rubbishes-claim-that-edict.html

So the women leap on anything they can misinterpret?

Whether or not we agree with these rules is a different matter entirely; these are the rules and most people will simply walk away from an organisation if they disagree with or feel they cannot live with the rules.

This kind of behaviour is disedifying and counter-productive.

We should all be more concerned with statements like this, that nullify the reality and truth of the Christ.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/civil-partnership-bill-christian-ahern.html

That have no connection in any way with the truth and purity of Jesus.

Hence the attacks?

All in the name of the great idol SEX?

Of the world, worldly.. Anti-Christ among us .

******************************************

A summer Sunday in Ireland... and a marching and piping festival in a small town, blessed by sunshine..

From our roadside stall, we watch.. The Gardai redirecting traffic is like something off an Irish soap opera....

Then the faint, growing sound of pipes and drums! And they come, the children first, bright in smart uniforms, pompoms waving.. Pipes and drums...

Strong, healthy young ones - and always one wee girl who is behind the others, brow furrowed in concentration....

Then a men's pipe band, stirring the blood and silencing the crowds..

And more; band after band of children and young people, marching, playing, out in the sweet air.

Safe from the depredations of the past , from the Church that did not nurture.

Safe and strong..

May it ever be so. Amen

News Flash!

2010-07-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Vatican did NOT equate women's ordination with sexual child abuse - period.

This kind of... hissy rant ... displays the spiritual, emotional and intellectual immaturity of so many.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/vatican-and-women-casting-first-stone.html

And has nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ...

Have they really no idea that there are many, many ways for women to serve within the Church without seeking status that is of pride and without demanding "rights" where there are only graces to be sought when we face the utter and pure love of the Lord Jesus?

When we kneel in adoration and seek only to serve?

We are different, men from women. Jesus knew this and Jesus honoured both men and women in different ways, respecting their varying gifts.

As He teaches the reality of marriage and sexuality in its triviality. One tiny aspect of our lives, in moderation and in sanctity.

A world gone astray and indulging in puerile ranting....

Inishowen tragedy

2010-07-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

The worst car crash in the history of Ireland on a narrow road north of Buncrana.

Eight deaths; eight young men, aged 19 to 23, in one car with a designated driver.... Only the driver lives, and an old man on his way home from Bingo, killed.

http://jp-ireland.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7D84D8D85790AC27!14938.entry

Small car, and that bodies were thrown clear speaks of the speed they were going at,

We were in Buncrana yesterday, visiting our friends there; it is a close knit, inbred community where everyone knows; is related.

They sat at the table with the newspapers, the front page full of the dead men's photos, telling who they were, who they were related to .. each family known.

There is a thread on boards ie; one local person speaks of hearing the sirens start, to go on for fifteen minutes.

Heart aches for all there; for the rescue services also, with that terrible work that night; the young men will have been known to them also.

Pray for them all, please.

Blessings and peace

Let Jesus teach....

2010-07-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

... because He does, on all these issues in the previous post... on all matters needful to live our lives in Him.

People say, oh he says nothing about homosexuality... and the "gay lobby" are fast to bamboozle with false eruditon re pederasty and wrong tranlations.. while ignoring Jesus.

He does, clearly and without equivocation. Strong and simple. No gainsaying it.

Search the gospels yourself.

Read what the Word Who IS God teaches clearly and with authority.

Jesus tells us that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it...Not one iota shall pass away..

That is the Mosaic Law; Deuteronomy.

In which are enshrined all the moral laws on which a healthy, strong, God-centred society is based, because that is how God created it. Man, woman, faithful in marriage.

Family; that bulwark into which Jesus grew up... Man and woman sheltering child.

Yet Jesus is the New Covenant; the new Bond between God and man. And with that total authority, He gainsays and rewrites great sections of the Mosaic Law. Quoting directly then replacing the Law on that subject.

So, no more vengeance... No more eye for eye, tooth for tooth as it was in Mosaic law.

Instead, love your enemy, do good to those who hate you.

So, no more dietary laws; and this is stressed later in the vision of Peter.

So, no more Sabbath laws.

So no more strict hygiene laws.

Had Jesus meant that sexuality laws should be changed, He would have taught that directly as he did other laws.

All the law that He does not change, stands, as He says clearly.

John 8; he tells the woman caught in the very act of adultery, to go and sin no more.

No condemnation, no punishment as there was in Mosaic law, but it is sin.

Sexual activity outside marriage clearly sin; see Deuteronomy for those clear rules.

With same sex, with close relatives .... with animals... outlawed.

He affirms marriage in the wedding at Cana.. And He does refer also to eunuchs, whether born thus or choosing thus.

Because Mosaic Law is so clear and full, this is total and clear and full, to anyone who truly seeks to follow and obey Him.

Is that not reassuring? No arguments or debates and uncertainties. Always Jesus.

***************************************

Town in July is Babel. A summer Sunday... A loud, loud, loudspeaker van advertising a Comedy Hypnotism show that evening.... thinking if he shouts it often enough....Bizarre voice.. He parks near the stall, then plans to leave the van there.. WITH LOUDSPEAKER full on...

Sister soon puts an end to that plan... lol!

The Waterbus van is advertising an evening jazz cruise, and they pass and repass before us... and in the Diamond, a preacher is ..... preaching.. to no one listening.... As 150 Italian teenagers and many staff wander past..

Fascinating and beautiful encounters.. On Saturday a coachload of Japanese... mostly women, tiny and all wearing trousers and cotton sunhats.

They gather with their soft voices exclaiming at the swift-knitting hands.... then they go.

On Sunday they pass the stall again, and one stops. In her hands a tiny paper box; less than two inches. She shows me inside; another box then another, of coloured papers, intricately woven. she says there are ten in all, each inside the other.

"Origami," she explains...

A delicate and skilled work of art. Incredible in the tininess...

When I make to give it back to her, she insists it is a gift and will not take a gift in return.

And they all put coins in the bucket. Irish tradition!

Sometime the day before, these tiny women have asked and learned and found a way to to speak to us that needs no language.

A giving of skill and a sharing. A gentling of the barriers of cultures.

Another man remembers us from two years ago and we talk long. And he asks if we are allowed to accept gifts.. a small painting he has done himself, given freely .. to sell if we want.

Neither gift will be sold. Each will speak of kindness. And remind us of that when times are hard.

We have been here so many years now and people remember and come back to us. A lady from four years ago.,.. "Still knitting, Sister!!!"

Let us be constant and faithful in our quiet work for Jesus and His needy ones.. so many tiny babies each week we find. Let us not seek fame or applause.. simply let us serve in perseverance and love.

A world of sickness.. and beauty.

2010-07-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

We are still here... Busy is all as always....

The erosion of any morality or cleaving to the laws of God continues.

Grotesque reports abound..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/gay-couple-to-have-children-christened.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-foetus-feels-no-pain-until-24.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/06/reconciling-homosexuality-and.html

That last article is lacking in any reference of course to Jesus; the bland God-made-how-we-would -like-him..... Seeing "religion" for what can be got from it - not the giving of self and desires that faith in Jesus is.

The laws of God are affirmed by Jesus, not set aside.

Marriage is one man, one woman.. parenthood is a man and a woman. Period.

There is left little or no humility; no seeing all we are given as grace and privilege, nothing a right to be demanded.

So now we who know and love the Lord Jesus, are set to one side; we march thankfully to His drumbeat and heartbeat and His only.

And we choose Jesus; to love all, but always to cleave to His Word Who is the Word of God.

Not rewriting it to suit our desires and lusts

Our security is in Him; not in human approval or condemnation.

And now the row widens and deepens, and the "gay lobby" shows itself as having all the "qualities" of an Inquisition; attemptingt force their thinking on all.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-05T00%3A08%3A00%2B01%3A00

(Soon here it will be a crime to gainsay this.)

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/07/civil-partnership-bill-will-create-new.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-03T00%3A21%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=20

And the Church, which is the only agency that "could" have, by purity and example, living the words of Jesus in truth, is a lost and degraded voice, because it has embraced all the evils it professes are sin.

The salt it has has lost its savour; the light is hidden.

And yet, Jesus is alive and He is Lord.

So it is for each of us who know and love Him to live that salt and light, quietly and in every way we are given.

To let His love shine through us to a world that is bewildered.

The "ordinary" folk who will buy from us as we sit in the weekend's storms, then, as they are leaving, "Say a prayer for me..."

Who will give more than what they buy costs, because they know that it will save a baby.

That is Jesus... Full and true.

Blessings this day and every day...

Of First Communion, Irish style.

2010-05-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

This makes difficult reading on so many levels.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/05/parents-ignore-limousine-ban-at-first.html

A few weeks ago on the stall ( we are gathering in First Communion dresses for the missions, as they become available eg at Vincent de Paul Thrift Shops) a lady from Belfast told us she has one in her wardrobe. It was worn by her grand-daughter two years ago, and the child does not want it.

It cost E600.

This is all part of the over-materialistic hype that now surrounds First Holy Communion here.

As this article reveals.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/05/kilkenny-hosts-holy-communion-fair.html

and this even....

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/01/m-launches-cut-price-communion-wear.html

A mini-wedding.

Small wonder one young priest opines that all Confirmations should be suspended for two years, so that the true nature of these vital rites of passage can be revalued and re-inspired.

As he says, the next time he will see the large ( well over 80% ) of the children who are confirmed and than make their First Communion will be at their weddings.

The most troubling aspect of these articles, especially the first one, is the expressed attitude of the priest.

Nothing to affirm and teach the true meaning of this occasion; what was always a sweet and solemn day.

Of that First meeting with Jesus in the Eucharist.

They seem to be afraid of offending people?

For they have truly lost all authority now? And are no longer able to teach even these great truths.

Truly, there is no spiritual life left in this place; empty rituals and the emphasis on the material, the worldly, the outward show without the inner grace.

A child will focus on what is shown to them. If there is to be a bouncy castle, a limousine, hairdressers, make up, a costly dress, then that is what will dominate the day.

Here we see the little "princesses" walking from the car park; elaborately coiffed and dressed.. then a meal in a restaurant, or playing chasing games on the grass in all their holy finery.

As they are taught, so will they grow.

Not in deep awe, but in the material aspects.

Not in this beginning of their full life in Jesus.. Not in that inner grace and holiness and love of the Lord that this day should mean.

Not with the poor Jesus, teaching of loving and giving; but in outdoing their neighbours and emulating the huge Irish weddings we see here.

Blessed the couple we met many years ago. Like many here, they were living together with their small child, because they could not afford a vast wedding AND a house to live in.

The young woman had enough spiritual awareness (she did not go to Sunday mass because she said it had become a fashion parade, but to the quieter mid week masses...) that her situation troubled her. And thankfully we were able with the wonderful kindness of a Franciscan Friar, to arrange a small and very secret wedding for them.

Putting the sacrament before the feast.

Making sure that the holiness is there, the giving to Jesus.

Which Ireland sorely needs in these days and which it is not getting from the priesthood ( see later in the post re Dublin) her life in Him.

They may be learned superficially in rules and dogma; but learned in holiness and truth?

We talked a while ago with an angry English young mother, embittered by a Convent School education where she had seen hypocrisy and a cult like attitude.

She bristled visibly at the mere sight of us; we are sadly used to this. And have learned to introduce ourselves gently and firmly.......

Her children of course not baptised; even though her mother had been very upset at that.

Because like so many she identifies all "religion" as bad, and cannot see that there is a difference between faith and religion.

That Jesus is not religion.

Recently, her son had told her that he wanted to make his First Communion. She had asked why.

His reply? Because his classmates were all getting lots of money.

She told him he would have to go to confession and mass every week; and he dropped the idea.

She was right to do that.

Because this rite of passage has become for most a social occasion; and the more they spend on it, the better, they believe.

Such is modern Ireland.

Older ones remember their First Communion day; often a borrowed dress and maybe a cake afterwards.. and a humbler and more meaningful walk with Jesus.

Even though then as now, a gift of money to the priest/bishop was the custom also...

The Bishop of Longford also has had his say; preaching that the First Communion children should give some of their day's money to rebuild the St Mel's cathedral that burnt down at Christmas.....

And which was of course fully insured....

A message indeed to children in a country where destitution and hunger and homelessness are growing apace like the monsters they are.

The rich Church getting ever richer from the Irish people. Always the same.

Why should we expect differently now?

Still, it is sad to see and hear these things.

***************************************
And as we sit at our stall and sell and chat; we learn more and more each week.

We had read the words of Archbishop Martin and been puzzled at his statement that there were many within the Church who still wanted to suppress the truth.

After a long conversation with a young couple from Dublin, we are puzzled no more.

This is what they are being taught, and, more amazing, believing... that only a very few priests did anything wrong... all priests are holy and that is all that matters about mass, which also must be attended daily...the priest , ie what he may have done - does not matter.... ( this is a gross distortion of the Catechism).... child abuse within the Church will always happen and there is nothing anyone can do about it..

They were all fired up with the positive belief that there is about to be a revival from within the Irish Catholic Church. Suddenly ( and they were speaking as if about the Second Coming of Jesus) the priesthood and the orders were to be filled again.. not foreign priests of course. They spoke of conference E2000, when apparently 1000 young Irish people attended... ( ten years ago; long enough for them to have been ordained or entered, had that been going to be the case....)

According to them, all the religious orders are doing fine; all we told them re the truth was like water off a duck's back. THEY WILL RENEW!

No vision that the only way any renewal will come here is when small children are taught true values by example. By others leading holy lives based on the teaching and example of Jesus.

Priests and religious are the elite of course.. back to the old power and "bums on seats" regime of these few priests succeed.

Whatever a priest or religious does, still holy? No way... That way abuse and corruption lie.

When we said that it was almost impossible for any order from overseas to get more than a toehold here? Ah, but the Franciscan Friars of Renewal! We said, yes, but they are PRIESTS.. oh no they said, there are Brothers too...... not true....and that it has taken them ten years.. oh no it hasn't.. then they realised that that is true..At which stage we realised that nothing we said was going to make any difference to these who are being brainwashed into believing what is not true.

For when it comes to the words of a priest? Even a religious apparently is not to be believed.. and we had given enough facts and figures and quoted enough of the Catechism...

Ostriches who will topple the Church more surely than even the abuse.. No penitence; no shame.

We heard much the same things from an older lady much later in the day from much closer to home; about imminent renewal that is. And they are being given false figures re ordinations also.

And we smiled and nodded; for truly there is nothing else we can do.

They are where they are at; and that is where they need to be at this time.

As we sit among our beautiful wares, striving to save tiny babies from death by starvation and exposure.

Sometimes the contrast is too great to bear for mere mortals .. so we rest our souls and lives in Jesus.

Then we read this....

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/06/bishop-resists-lay-call-to-move-priests.html

So much for child protection guidelines.. and so soon.

***************************************

Full summer greenery here as the year and the seasons catch up with themselves. Blossom in the wind...

We were thinking how poorly our vegetables are doing; all is late.

But a look at the gardening class beds at the local garden centre ! Theirs are even further behind.. And they bought the professionally raised seedlings.

So we wait now....

Peas starting to show flowers.. broad beans in pale blossom.. potatoes through the black plastic mulch and greening.. and today, runner and French beans planted out.. and onions shooting apace.

All depends on the weather now...

It has been hot.... the first two days of hot weather, the wee house "sweated". Floors and walls running with water.

The picturesque Irish cottages have no cavity walls or damp courses, or vents, and no space under the floors.

They topped the old earth floors with concrete, or simply laid stone tiles. No space or floorboards.

So the cold and damp are deeply rooted.

Then they install double glazing, so the problem is compounded.

Which is why we invested in a dehumidifier.

And still, for three days, the walls and floors "sweated"... towels down, all doors and windows wide open day and night..

And dry at last...

Blessings and peace this day....

Ireland; sad tale of a pony tail

2010-05-14T01:21:00.000-07:00

Way back we posted on the wee pony incarcerated in a large metal shed opposite the house.

This shed,we now know, was erected without planning permission; the relevant authorities have been informed.

It may take a while as the Enforcement Officer is snowed under; so many build without applying etc, and in wrong places. This shed is too near the house to keep animals in.

This is so common in Ireland.

For six months this wee one has been in there.

This imprisonment was an Irish custom called "putting manners on"; tied up also by the head " to get him used to the rope."

The pony, a bright and lively black and white critter, hated this and would scream and kick for hours on end.

On concrete, no sky or air or grass.

Deprivation.

Whenever the man tried to get him out, all he would do was kick and scream. So there he would stay, week after week, month after month.

In the last six months, we have pestered and plagued every welfare organisation we can.

Irish law is antiquated. As long as an animal has food, water and shelter, there is nothing the SPCA can do. That is the law unchanged since 1911.

Every time we had it checked, the man would rally his whole family there; showing what a good family man he is..

The Dept of Ag emailed re a query from a year back in another house...

And no release for the wee fellow.

A couple of weeks ago, strangers there who looked official; and again last weekend; a whole gathering of cars.

And, two days ago, there he was, outside.

We had expected to be joyful. But tears ran free to see him. Thin, and walking slowly; cowed, head down.

A noble creature abused and degraded.

A lovely boy; so beautiful.

At least he has sky and air and grass.

But now they leave him out with no shelter. In drenching rain, hunched against it. No trees in that field.

We learned then that there have been other complaints. And that as we had kept the pressure on month after month, finally the dam broke and he was forced to let him out.

He lied; said that the pony had been out often. As he lied before, saying that the goat, who still is on the road every day, had never been loose.

A young Irish man with small children.

Thankfully our testimony is good.

A horse can be a friend and companion; not a subjugated creature, emptied of all life, hollowed out.

He has chickens too; free range and running around on the road. Yesterday he came up twice, searching the bushes and reeds for eggs. And finding none.

He is ignorant! There has been no egglaying heard for days; the hens will all be broody as hens left too free will do , and will all be sitting on eggs hidden well from him.

We would know where and how to look.. and hear..and smell...

So we watch him puzzling now.
*********************************
And new problems.

We heard what we thought was shooting every night from the mountains. Between 2 and 6 am.

Collie of course is traumatised and terrified, so no sleep to be had. Appalling to see her thus when she has been doing so well.

We finally spoke to the Gardai, and later learned that this is in fact a "crowbanger"; a machine that fires loudly every 30 seconds to scare birds off seeds.

At 2 am?

Now it is set off at random; today at 1 am until around 9 am, and our beloved collie in a terrible state.

It is over the ridge and no road there, so we cannot find the source. If we did it would be removed. Without any hesitation.

Today we have put appeals on the two local radio stations to try to make contact with this.... person. Who seems to be playing with a new toy, disregarding the effect on anyone else.

Need a quiet place is all; is that too much to ask in Ireland? It seems so. Our last two houses were made impossible by loud, illegal noise.

Just need a quiet place is all...

Please God tonight is quiet; need to be out selling tomorrow. Punchdrunk with lack of sleep...

Blessings and peace this night.. I mean day..

Of courtesy and respect and other matters.

2010-05-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

Some months ago, we closed this weblog. For a number of reasons during the long , bitter winter.

We had already set "comments" to pre-moderation; yet the sheer vituperation of some made the head spin.

It seems to be so easy on the internet to explode verbally at someone you have never met, cannot see or hear, simply because their perceptions or experience or views differ from your own.

Or, maybe, just because you are in a bad mood and someone has upset you and rather than face THEM with your anger?

As the lads on boards ie say when this happens there, "Who pissed on YOUR cornflakes?"

Another way to put it is the "kick the cat " syndrome.

And in the battle ground that is Ireland...

So we rested and pondered a while.

But the weblog was missed.

So we came back... We barred comments totally, but very occasionally put out an email address, for prayer requests, and for book sales. We need every cent we can earn for the work of saving abandoned babies.

It was an "honour" thing; this address is only to be used for these matters. While we never refuse a plea for help, we are cloistered nuns. Enclosed and thus keeping minimal contact with the outside world.

All has been well for a wee while; the request has been respected.

Until yesterday when a long tirade landed with a thump in our mailbox; oddly entitled "Love"

Looking at the weblog, it must have taken the sender a long while to find the address.. so it was not entirely spontaneous by any means.

Perceptions and experiences and responses differ greatly from person to person; we are not, thankfully, clones.

Rage and anger at differences reveal so much.

Arguments etc take two. It is also unacceptable to argue online with someone we have not met and cannot see.

This is one of the pitfalls of email, is it not?

Things are said that would not be thought of face to face.

So our response was calm; if you do not enjoy the weblog, why read it? That is your choice freely made.

And - and this is why we use a yahoo mail address- an auto response as immediately put on the person's address... Because these folk are spoiling for a fight.

And no one ever needs to justify or defend themselves to any other human being. Period.

Anger is the problem of the person feeling angry. And they need to find a way to deal with it that does not rebound on others.

There are many ways. Physical work is excellent; hard work releases endorphins and releases that tension.

And then, take the Gospels of Jesus to a quiet place, and, beginning at Matthew 5, slowly read what Jesus teaches on these things.

He is not a milk-and-water man. Vivid, real, facing all that we face, anger included as He shouts at the utter hypocrisy of the people of His day.

So we learn from Him now and always; not relying on human ideas or theories.

And in our life as Nuns, we live Him, breathe Him in every part of our day. Loving all.

We tend not to theorise or theologise; we live Jesus simply. Knowing the dire and utter needs for the most basic matters of food and clothing of so many.

And working always to that end. The Word made flesh. Always among and in us.

His words who is Word are written in our hearts.

A chilly day here as we long for summer warmth

Blessings and peace

Ireland; May... and idolatry

2010-05-06T03:57:00.000-07:00

May, especially this year when all is so late and the winter was so long and harsh, is a beauty here.

The gentle, yet fresh greening and flowering.

This week saw a time away, to research one of the old Celtic sites for the guide cards and later the book.

It was a visit we were so looking forward to. Saint Crona's, near Dungloe, dating back to the 5th century; appetite whetted by a wonderful photo sent to boards ie.

No signs to it; maddening and a warning of the gross neglect and utter disappointment.

This is sadly all too common here. Wonderfully kept sites like Glendalough and Clomnacnoise, and then these equally precious parts of Irish heritage shamefully neglected.

There is no pride, no treasuring.

In researching the book, this is the theme, sadly. Ruins abandoned, cattle grazing on graves. In some places, the "killeens" mounds where unbaptised babies and suicides were buried, unconsecrated. Just left in fields.

The place was finally tracked down with the kind help of an English man who was papering the hall of a house nearby.

The gate was ... padlocked. No bar! But as we were just over it, a cross-looking lady with a dog appeared.

They had locked the gate as some people the day before had been abusive when the farmer had told them to make sure the children stayed away from the cattle grazing around the ruins.

On his land.

They are wild, and have calves.

Which we totally understood and were sympathetic to, realising that there was a land dispute once more here. And we offered simply to leave.

But the habit opens doors, and gates, and she went to fetch the farmer to go in with me.

An old man with a walking stick.

It is hard to quantify this.

So common.

And so .... disappointing.

The ruins, utterly neglected in a rough field full of cowpats.

And negotiating the cattle to get there at all.

This site has walls around the abbey ruins. Crona was a 5th century lady made saint in the lovely Celtic tradition , simply for the good wsorks she did.

Inside the graves; totally overgrown and neglected.

Weeds thigh high; broken gravestones, gaping holes.

Except for a row of military graves. Neat and carefully tended.

The farmer, with whom we spent an hour, vented and ranted, bless him.

Yet he has no idea who owns the site. No one seems to know.

The graves inside are it seems Protestant graves.

In places, the walls are crumbling and need urgent attention. It seems there has been some major dispute with the old farmer and there is some attempted manipulation going on.

So we listened and commiserated, and looked and pondered.

His knowledge re the ruins is amazing; we are noting it and plan to go back soon to ensure that this is not lost.

A large pit was found at the back; full of seashells. Their rubbish tip as the sea was their supplier

And a further shock; that there are famine victims buried there; unmarked.

So we promised and undertook to do what we can to find out who owns what and who is responsible and so to do what we can; and not for the first time in this incorrigible land where these precious sites are at risk.

Knowing that we have heard only one side of the story of course...

Well aware of the depths and layers of these people now.

Idolatry?

The spin has begun in the preaching at Holy Mass.

A lady seeking a statue of St Anthony... A Dominican preacher... If she remembered the teachings of Jesus as well as she did the main points of the homily, we would do well here.

But Jesus is never mentioned seemingly as the Church here attempts to pick itself out of the rubble.

One thing other denominations always say is this; that the Irish Catholic Church seems to always defend itself and not Jesus, Who needs no defence.

We gently mentioned Jesus; and there was a long and bewildered pause.. "Oh yes, of course Jesus.."

The pause spoke worlds.

She had asked us what we thought the Church here needs; we were temporarily speechless...

But it needs that all take off the rose coloured glasses, and see what has happened in full penitence and shame; and to start then looking at what Jesus teaches on this.

And to start looking outwards, away from fine buildings etc, to the people Jesus loves... the needy ones.

Away from defending the indefensible to nurturing the ones Jesus loves; from introversion to outreach.

And this can only happen if there is honesty and acceptance of reality; which it clearly appears is being gainsaid.

It is only in giving that there is reality then.

Jesus Who gave His life.. How can we hold back?

From saving babies, from feeding others as well as we feed ourselves.

Saying this on an internet board earned the accusation of iconoclasm.

Not so; but icons are not Jesus and if they become an end in themselves? then that is idolatry.

And it seems that here the Church has become an icon.

Blessings and peace this chilly May day.

Almost May

2010-04-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

Wind and sun delight the eye with cloudscapes.

And slowly the land greens. Latest up here. We have celandines and a few violets even.

Some here know that we have been trying for many months to get someone to come and cut wood for us. There are fallen trees here in abundance and a wilderness of dead shrubs choke the land.

Always to no avail.

Then I put an appeal on boards ie donegal. For a man with a chainsaw.. I titled it "Need a man." to attract attention, and watched the viewing numbers rise rapidly into three figures... and not one reply.

Our wise Mother Abbess suggested a second message. "Well, it seems there is not one man in Ireland who can cut wood ..."

Of course the replies flooded in.. lol
But also that there was already something being organised.

So a few days ago, the great woodcutting party happened up here.

Five men; all of whom had done a day's work already; giving time and skill to help another.

I had previously hated the sound of chainsaws, but it was music that evening.

A whole groups of conifers had fallen together; and then I saw that some of the branches had turned to grow upwards, looking like new young trees.

So it needed careful cutting to preserve them.

The first man to arrive was a professional tree cutter; a young man with such skill it was a joy to watch him. The chainsaw became an extension if his arm, as a sewing or beading needle does with us.

Like the sword in those sci-fi cartoons, if they have them any more.

Then the others; two more chain saws and two more men to carry and stack.

The central area saw light for the first time for many years. Old hawthorn and blackthorn, dead and withered.

And the beauty of "sallies" ( salix; willows) one of which had a corkscrew shaped trunk through having to fight to reach the light, now free to grow.

Until the light faded, and the saws were silent and the men drank tea and ate of the food we had prepared. Simple, strong dishes.. potato salad, sliced sausage, brown bread, cheese.

And a wondrous stack of wood against whatever next winter throws at us here. It makes me smile to think of it.. Under thick black plastic.

And much more to carry in and stack.... and many branches to break up for kindling.

There was not time to clear up and we can do that work anyway. Little by little in the clear sweet air.

And as that is done, the shape of the new garden emerges. A goodly space, circled and sheltered by native Irish trees in their beauty and grace.

Were we ones to spend money on such things? But we are not so it will grow as we find spare plants and even chairs etc. A true prayer garden with nothing taken from our real work . .....

Cuttings and plants rescued from old abandoned gardens; already spearmint to plant free.

Still a little more to be felled, but that is all... Just the clearing now, and the sweet planning.

And lo! There has been a garden there at one time, an d there are straggly currant bushes, that have struggled for light. So we wait now to see what they will yield with the few flower buds there are there now.

A rich (!)harvest of old bottles and other rubbish of course.... Always thus here...

But the evening of giving a wonder. None of the men are "religious" ... yet their giving is more of Christ than much that we have experienced, and so much that is truly of that overused word "community"

And this is what we find more and more, to gladden and to perplex in these strange times.

And so good to put real names and faces to the "handles" used on boards!

Each has a wee angel of course, and every time I see the wood, they are held in prayer.

Oh I had asked the organising man to be careful to advise that we are Nuns lest anyone get a shock as has happened before.. The first man apparently got lost and asked an old man down the mountain if there were any Nuns nearby.. "Oh yes, there is a Nun up there...."

***************************************

The pony is still incarcerated, and we are in the dog house because of making waves.

Well, when it takes A YEAR for the dept of ag to reply to a welfare query.. tempers get frayed. And when we hear buck passing eg a horse is not livestock and the goat is clearly a feral..

***************************************

In India, wee tiny twins found; beautifully dressed. As if the mother could hardly bear to abandon them.. and maybe knew the Sisters would find them. Please God that that gave some ease and comfort to her.
***************************************
So we work on now as the year ripens into summer. Peas and beans are looking good and cabbages and all are starting to grow.

Blessings and peace this evening,,

Aspects of Ireland; animal abuse.

2010-04-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Those who love Ireland and come here to visit, get the cream.

The top of the milk, rich and golden.

Those who come here for longer, or even move here to live, soon see and taste the skimmed milk, thin and blue.
Many who come here from the rest of Europe and elsewhere call it a Third World country.

And rightly so. It is backward.

One area that this most applies to is the way animals are cruelly abused here.

A forum like boards ie has a section on pets and animal issues; spend a wee while there if you seek the truth.

Since we came here. we with our great love of animals, and with long experience of rescuing and caring for abused and unwanted animals, have been horrified and sickened time and again.

This is not some rare incident. it is endemic and a part of Irish life.

And a sone man on the forum says, if you live in rural Ireland and love animals, you cannot be friends with your neighbours.

And that is the bald and ugly truth.

Which we are facing again here.

When we came here, the one thing that gave concern was the large, ugly modern steel barn almost opposite.

We were assured it was only used once a year for lambing; and such, with the other house flooded, was our need....

In fact it is used more than that. The man who owns it has a donkey in a field opposite, chickens running round, a pony in a field and a wee white goat that runs loose on the road..."She's alright," he said the first time we met him.

NB this was the man who ignored and appeal for fuel when we were snowed in all those weeks... bad sign!

Several weeks ago, we heard loud animal screams day and night from inside the padlocked barn. And frenzied kicking at the metal walls.

It was not even possoble to tell what kind of animal it was, such was the distress of it.

On and on it went; the man does not live here but a way away.

Finally I went down one morning when he was here and asked him. The pony he said, and it is fine.

If you live in the COUNTHRY ( going all Irish) then you must expect COUNTHRY noises.

As I said to him, that should not include an animal screaming and kicking for hours on end in obvious distress

He got belligerent; refused to move the poor creature or explain why it was locked on there 24/7

Said it would be there for several weeks yet....

We assumed it was the weather? or the late spring that means so little grass?

So we waited and prayed -and wore earplugs 24/7

The SPCA you see did nothing. They are not trained here... so the inspector is Irish..

It was only yesterday that we learned that the purpose of this now four month incarceration is, as they say in Ireland,. "to put manners on him.. get him used to the rope"

A few weeks ago we saw the man try to get the pony into a horse box, for an hour. All he got was screaming and kicking..

So, presumably he thinks that.. still no "manners"..

This is brutal.

And because we complained to the SPCA? NB others did and came knocking at our door accusing us of ill treating our animals..

He sent an off duty cop who is his buddy round to try to intimidate me into leaving the area.

Irish life...

The garda did not get it his way of course. And grew very respectful.

But now the goat is running loose 24/7, quite deliberately. And three times already this week it has almost been killed or injured or caused a serious accident on the road here.

The SPCA can do nothing. "IT IS MY GOAT AND I WILL DO WHAT I LIKE WITH IT."

It can now leap the fence to its field also.

The goat and the donkey were loose in the field all the time of the snow and ice of course.

So now we have again a situation with animal abuse and people abusing us for trying to protect animals.

And we learn that this way of ill-treating horses is a well known one in Ireland.

That wee pony will never be the same again; he will be ruined now. Four months of that kind of suffering.

He screams to me when he hears my voice; help me! And there is nothing I can do and that lacerates me.

Even through double glazing and wearing ear plugs, he is heard.

On Easter morning, we sang in the dawn with him.. lambs joining in.

Ireland; land of ignorance and abuse.

Our consolation is the collie and cats we rescued.. the collie who we found chained 24/7 to a 56 pound weight at the rented house; and the landlord whose dog is was, thinking that that was fine and right.

Oh,the Gardai know re the goat; so far nothing has been done of course. this is IRELAND

We even offered to take it in here; we have grazing and shelter and kept goats many years as those who have read our books will know.

But of course this man is set on hating and aggression.. His choice; ours to love.

Blessings and peace this night

Bright Rising..and the iodine of truth.

2010-04-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

Early Easter Day saw the sun rising in a white gold glory; a shining half moon across the sky.

A tall candle lit; the Light of Christ.

They say, bright at seven, rain before eleven.

And so it was.

Our human eyes cannot long sustain that Pure Light.

Which is why we serve in physical ways. Tiny lights then always.

Always and only for Jesus....

*****************************************

Easter was in the world's ways overshadowed.

This news item sums it up.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100405/tuk-archbishop-aims-to-move-on-from-row-6323e80.html

The Anglican Archbishop speaks truth of course. We have heard similar reactions from Church of Ireland ( Anglican) clergy here; not being Irish we hear more.

"Land of saints and scholars! " said in scathing tones.

And utter scorn from a senior clergyman that the Irish Catholic Church's priority was to protect the Church.

And yes, rarely is a clerical collar seen here. We see many priests around and never a sign of who they are - unless you look at the regulation issues baggy black trousers!

Clerical clothing is worn only on official business; part- time priests.

They don't want to be seen and known; and they speak with no- one but each other.. oh and sometimes now to this Nun.

Whose only clothing is the Holy Habit of religion.

As for the habit...Forget it. One or two old ones maybe, who are rarely seen out of doors.

The few Sisters here travel incognito.. for very "sound" reasons.

As we well know of course. There is a price to pay for the witness we bear.

The knee jerk reaction from Martin and other Bishops was even more revealing.

Desperately sadly so. For the iodine of truth surpised into unwary words.

See the last paragraph of this...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100404/tuk-archbishop-abuse-remarks-regret-6323e80.html

It is all too clear that there is no real regret or penitence. Simply they are claiming there is to protect the Church.

The Church is their priority; not the victims.

Some of the survivors had tea and scones with Brady last week; another empty gesture.

A mere political move, as all these speeches are of course. And note the careful wording of Williams' "apology" : rightly he expresses no apology for what he said! Why should he when it was simply truth?

They have no intention of doing right; which of course means the prosecution of the offenders and their appropriate punishment.

It is the leadership that has offended most; it is they who should pay, as any citizen pays for crimes.

So now they seek to "move forward.." To " draw a line" under the whole matter and pretend it did not happen.

And Jesus wept and weeps still.

And dwells not in houses of shame.

And the Vatican calls the reports of abuse "petty gossip."

Their reactions to the iodine of truth shame the Church more and more.

Irish Catholicism has a flavour and identity all of its own. In times within living memory, every household would be praying the rosary at 6 pm.

So if anyone knocked at the door then? Of course the priest or the nun, calling to collect money.

This was the degree of control they had.

******************************

Collecting money?

We have just put up a large Cross by the gate; and a white mail box clearly labelled "PRAYER REQUESTS"

( There is already a large box at the other side of the gate for ordinary post etc)

Early yesterday, it was time to plant a wee Easter garden at the foot of the Cross.

Small and simple , as we cannot spend on these things. The glory of God is not in elaborate displays or jewelled Crosses, but in tiny lives nurtured and saved.

So the Cross is simply wood we begged; and three plants now. A royal purple pansy, a spray miniature daffodils and a golden primrose.

Royal hues for the Risen Lord of all.

And the Prayer Request box was checked then.

Behold! A large, thick unaddressed white envelope...

Containing?

A demand for weekly money from the local parish Church.... A collector will leave you envelopes and collect one each week.

Apparently the new. ie 25 year old, Church, needs a new roof and many other renovations.

So now every one of the 800 households in the parish is being visited; not with the Good News of Jesus, not to be prayed with and comforted in need - but to ensure that each gives. Every week they will be knocking on every door.

Lay involvement of course.

They suggest E2. Maybe they say some will not be able to afford that - but maybe many will give more.

They need they say around E30,000

Of course we do not involve in the parish and in fact we have never met the priest here.

Our Sacramental link remains with the lcoal Franciscan Friars, as it has been all our years here in Ireland. A constant factor and presence for us.

The move was so sudden and then winter hit.

And there was no neighbourly help in tha hard time; rather the opposite.

So now the priest will be contacted. And as we say to him, if we gave that amount, a child would die.

Such is our fragility and the needs we serve.

And, please! That box is for prayer requests only.

And of course, no one will get past the locked gate of our enclosure.

Catholic Ireland.

A place apart.

The Tale of the Pony /Goat/Donkey is one for another day..

Meanwhile, work here goes on quietly. Still hard frosts, so no planting out yet. Each day that it is possible, all the seed trays are out to harden off, then in at night.

One of the First Communion rosaries sold on the quietest Saturday yet. So when the beads arrive from America, that work will have priority.

And Francisan Crown rosaries are planned.

Seeking also some Connemara marble beads to combine in rosaries.

Many ideas....

For the boys, one idea is the Olive Wood beads from Bethlehem. For the girls, pure white with silver or gold; and one with the tiny white sea shells also.

And yes we have informed the local priest of this work also...

We still see our last parish priest; one of the very few who spoke with us - after we left a gift of jams.

Sweetness takes many forms, does it not? As does love.

Blessings this chilly wet morning.... Blessings and peace

Darkness of Friday

2010-04-02T01:09:00.000-07:00

Wind howling over a snow-scattered land.

And we stand aside from the continuing political rows that have nothing to do with Jesus or this day.

Thankful to know that and to do so.

To watch and vigil this long day through away from the machinations and verbosity and hypocrisy and political cant.

Back to Jesus on this day; alone.

As each of us truly is.

Alone.

And we see how man defending the indefensible twists and distorts, as he has done since the Church became "respectable" and middle class.

When attending Church was part of a socially accepted life that has nothing to do with the reality of faith in Jesus.

When also rejecting any Church involvement became as hypocritical and un-Christ like as attending without a true belief.

Paul speaks of being crucified with Christ; because for the early Christians, that is what, in some cases quite literally, happened if you were seen to be a follower.

He speaks of staying faithful to Jesus, even if that follows.

And almost all the disciples and many others paid for their faith with their lives; as Jesus did.

Yet this phrase gets used and distorted so often.

Until it is jargon and cant.

So now some say eg the Pope is being scourged and persecuted as Jesus was.

Whooaah....

The Sinless One alone suffered that.

He Alone is Sinless.

And now we have a "faith" that says that the priority is to attend Church.

As opposed to living our faith in such a way that the world will truly hate us; as Jesus tells us it will.

Because the world will hate us if we live the words of Jesus.

Very few do in seeking human approval.

As we are seeing now in this furore when many here speak eg of "fast track healing" for the victims of abuse, who truly are the ones who paid an unutterably high price for their innocence. What they mean of course is that now a line should be drawn under it all. Go away! Kick it all under the table again.

If anyone in this is being crucified with Christ, it is the victims.

So today we see an utter hypocrisy.

Which was so in the time of Jesus also of course, in the church of His day. The type who crucified Him do so again this day, in bright warm Churches and rich vestments.

Not alone in utter pain.

Each must choose the way to go.

The Way of the Cross is not in a ritual.

It is in the daily life each lives.

Not in fine words that hide dirt.

But in honesty; in reading the words Jesus teaches in solitude and seeing them as a recipe or a kniting pattern.

Already this year, on our few out times selling, so many "evangelising".. Young people preferring expensively printed tracts attacking other Christians to the Gospels on our table.

Today; alone, open the words of Jesus.

As we do here, in sorrow and prayer

Ready then to go into the world He loved, to nurture the lost and hungry, to love the rejected in the humblest ways there are; as He did.

No ivory towers for the true followers of Jesus. No adulation, no worldly approval.

There is no true life of prayer without physical service.

No resurrection without crucifixion.

No short cuts. No evasions.

Blessings and peace

April in Ireland...

2010-04-01T00:36:00.000-07:00

Snow falling on white-covered ground as April dawns. Frost and ice. Sudden hail storms batter the bare trees.

They say rain will melt the snow and then there may be floods.

April!

As much an anomaly as this report

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/04/ennis-sculpture-to-commemorate-nuns.html

They have no tact; no sensitivity.

This is not deliberate, you see; simply..... stupid.

Not being au fait with much of Canon Law, this report puzzled me for a while.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/reports-blaming-pope-for-mishandled-sex.html

After all, this priest had committed crimes, and yet, so longwinded was the procedure that he died before any decision was made to hand him over to secular authorities.

Apparently this was - and is?- perfectly permissible.

But in truth this is shielding a criminal and thus complicity in his crimes.

So the storms gather momentum now. See CW, where the US is demanding the Pope be questioned.

******************************************

Sometimes we have to bite our tongue very hard indeed at the stall.

One such occasion last week.

A woman told of a young relative going to India for two weeks with the Church in a group to build a house.

These schemes are common. eg they take 20 people over, and build a small house.

Imagine the cost; air fares, accommodation etc.

E20 - 30 000 is not an unfair estimate.

Imagine then how many children that could feed and nurture for how long.

And yes, the logistics of giving do matter.

Read Jesus on the talents, please.

How we use what resources we have.

One person, who was seeking greater simplicity in her life remarked how much Jesus speaks of money. Have a look?

We have a huge power to work for good; and this is not the remit of nuns only as some like to think.

All of us make decisons daily that can save and feed and clothe Jesus.

One small example here.

A big supermarket is selling perennial plants; E4 each. Lupins are such; they will flower this year and be a bright beauty.

Our planted seed will not flower until next year.

But no real trial to wait those months, rather than spend money on an instant display.

Our garden will be thin on colour this year; but rich in food, if this weather ever eases!!

And what is more important, more children will be cared for.

Always it is priorities, is it not?

And that is where close involvement in an order like ours helps some to give more cogently and in a more Christ-like fashion.

Unconditional gifts; no strings attached.

Leaving us free to do the most where it is most needed.

Often folk ask if I have been to India, or Canada. No; not even to Dublin, where we are feeding the homeless.

We do not travel; it costs too much. No, we do not take holidays for the same reason.

Remembering Jesus Who gave all.

And no, no deprivation and no sacrifice for us. Simply our giving. And not wanting to do else.

After all, this corner of Ireland is rich enough and small enough to find fresh fields on shopping days.

So now the Sacred Triduum. Towards the great gift of Jesus.

Hands busy this year so the traditional foods matter not and are not here. And no loss.

Simply Jesus and hands busy for Him.

Blessings and peace from this snowy land

Snow....

2010-03-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

All yesterday and last night the storm raged, flinging snow like sand at all.

Banshee gale.

Soon after midnight, up to fill hot water bottles, and let the dogs out as always.

Wee dog came in fine, but collie?

So out in the snow to search and call and whistle ( the dogs are newly whistle-trained).

No response; no collie.

Gritty snow stinging the eyeballs; great swathes of it sweeping in across the exposed back field.

She cannot get off the land here; the fencing is good and strong, but it is a fair acreage. With ditches too, that are full now.

But too cold for her to be out like that; and this is not like her.

We came in, plastered with snow and chilled to the bone to warm up ready to go out again.

Leaving all the house lights on to guide her in.

Thankfully, she came.

The snow then was not sticking.

It has since; waking now to monochrome once more.

One side of the trees is white; as is the front door.

So out with the dogs, as they dance and race and eat snow.

To see the mountains, where the last specks of snow had only just vanished, once more shrouded in white.

Against a dark, lowering pewter sky.

The wind an ache in the chest to breathe.

A bitter icy cold once more.

The road white and hardly marked yet.

March going out like a great white tiger, snarling and raging.

Deeply thankful the broad beans and onions did not get planted out.

But pity any critter out in this. At lambing time too here. The wind flays.

So we shall see now what the day brings.

Gale again now; set to ease later.

So back to soup and many layers and also beading and knitting.

All in Prayer..

Blessings and peace this day

Storms a-raging.

2010-03-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

Snow blowing in sideways, so that the fence posts are painted white on one side only.

So far this is the only place the snow is sticking, thankfully.

But down it comes, blizzarding icily.

Outings with the dogs are brief and purposeful.

Once mission is accomplished, back we all come.

To the big fire.

Weekend selling is not likely, but we shall see nearer the time and all is ready.

Meanwhile, First Communion rosaries are a-threading.

Each will be packaged with a pretty white pouch, and a leaflet teaching how to to pray the rosary.

This tradition, albeit diluted and often meaningless, is still a large feature of life in Ireland.

This Good Friday, there will be a large sporting fixture in Limerick, and the pubs are being allowed to open.

This is the first time that this has happened here.

And of course it is the Church ironically that is the cause of this breaking with tradition.

The Franciscan Friars, in from the US at Limerick, are planning to hold a prayer vigil at the gate.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/Watching-rugby-on-Good-Friday.6139819.jp

and

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/friars-to-hold-vigil-outside-thomond-park-114281.html

How you see this depends on so many things. One commenter on CW said he was "gutted" and asked all to pray and fast for Ireland.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/irish-pubs-to-open-on-good-friday-as.html

Yet not all have ever attended Church on Good Friday.

One early year here in Ireland, in a remote mountain area, Good Friday prayer was wrecked by a local man clearing ditches with a digger.

And many will watch sport on TV.

What value forcing the day on people who have no belief?

This year of all years.

So many questions and issues.

A huge change in a land where religion has played a central role.

And one that would not have happened had not the Church fallen from grace and integrity.

Just in Limerick this year.

Small wonder the land is afflicted with storms and snow.

Yet is our faith is in Jesus and in Him foremost?

If we truly seek to obey and follow Him?

So few do. So very few give themselves to Him wholeheartedly.

So many veer away into various idolatries. Sex, ecology...money....intellect... theology.... so many ways to abandon Jesus.
And maybe sport is the least of these.

Each to give and each to love, in fact and in truth, in body always.

Blessings and peace this day.

Stormy times; Ireland

2010-03-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

One article suffices...

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/brady-is-fighting-five-legal-cases-from.html

Such a leader, such a shepherd...

Here, the weather is taking a large stride backwards; northerly gales and snow on the hills from tonight.

Seed trays are in and out like yo yos. we were about to plant the broad beans out when the warning came out.. We would have been digging them out again else! Almost a hundred seedlings, and a precious food crop for us.

Today a short journey to Town for essential business, then here all week.

The beaded knitting goes well as the new skill eases in. Always the creativity and the fact that the beauty will both give pleasure and will feed our babies adds a dimension of grace to the sheer pleasure of the work.

As we tell people at the stall. We do not just stretch out a begging bowl.

Saturday was slow. Wet and windy too. We have extended the table, with the help of two long pieces of wood. A far cry from the shoe box carried in the car several years ago indeed.

Soon we will have First Communion rosaries ready. Hand made and each different. using Czech glass beads, which are the best in the world. They wil be here from the US very soon now.

If you need such, please email us? anchoresscj at yahoo dot com will reach us here. They will be very lovely indeed! Truly they will, for these old hands love to make fair prayers!

We had a visit at the stall from a Roma man with the wee baby. Only five weeks old and begging already. "No milk; no Pampers!" was the cry. ( NB Pampers are the leading brand of disposable nappies/diapers here)

The baby was well dressed and clearly well fed. Had it not been we would have given a hat!

But we know that these people get money from the EU schemes. More than we do in fact.

And thus we do not give.

The way they use their children is appalling; on a wet cold windy day, wee girls barefoot and in thin cotton dresses dancing to a fiddle.

The man was full of complaints. When we directed him to Vincent de Paul, oh they only give a little. They know the Roma as we do and that they are well provided for.

It was from him "Mamma" this and "Mamma" that; but Mamma has tiny wee ones to feed who do not even have a roof over their heads or a warm pram to sleep cosy in.

Were there need we would give. As we always do everywhere.

******************************************

So we enter Holy Week; walking always and only with Jesus now as the world claims its own once more.

He Who walked so much alone so often.

And always we are rich in those who walk alongside us at a sorrowful and disappointing time.

Always blessed by all we meet.

Pray with now?

Blessings and peace this day from a cold grey land where no green is

Words are hard to find...

2010-03-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

This shows so clearly the degree to which the Church in Ireland has lost all touch with reality, of any understanding of the damage they have done, of what they need to do.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/priests-seek-atonement-at-lough-derg.html

The phrase, "lost the plot" comes to mind.

These words from the Bishop make bizarre and illogical reading.

Bishop Duffy said of the pilgrimage: “There is a need for atonement. There is a need for conversion and there is a crying need for renewal of a radical nature in the church, and if this is seen as a part of that, then by all means.
“Priests could learn to value their vocation and to restore any damage done to their self-esteem due to adverse criticism.
“It is a hard time for priests and we are here to derive strength from our faith and to reaffirm our faith together.”

This day will be like the diocesan retreats... old men gathering together with nothing spiritual happening. Patting each other on the back.

A hard time for priests indeed.

This says it all, does it not?

A bishop also who is in trouble himself of course.

And notice that the trip was already planned anyways. More duplicity.

Seeking sympathy. Not facing reality in seeing the lives they have ruined.

Trust and credibility are gone now. As the storm gathers momentum and ripples out now across the world

See clerical whispers, if you can face it.

***************************************
Town is quiet these weekends. Too quiet as we keep vigil the selling hours.

Little coming in and so much needed.

And the weather is breaking and backtracking to winter once more. A cold Holy Week, with the probability of snow.

Wandering the old and neglected copse here, we found frogspawn in a wet hollow. Memories of childhood school nature study, watching the tiny tadpoles grow legs.

These of course will stay hidden and quiet as they grow; and the wee frogs will give so much pleasure.

Still the trees are bare, and the grass sparse and dull.

A hard and harsh time.

Blessings and peace...

Somewhere in Rome...

2010-03-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

.. there is a room, where they are shredding....

Sleeves of costly vestments rolled up, for this is dirty work...

As the rot is uncovered more daily around the world, they are shredding...

Here in Ireland, reaction to the Pope's letter is.. interesting..In Dublin, people walked out of Mass..

While in Cork, a lay official asked permission to address the congregation, a clearly pre-planned event. With a lauding of the priests there that raised an ovation. ("Thou shalt have no other gods but Me..""Only God is good...")

They need to take care; there are few priests in Ireland who can safely open their closet doors and not hear the rattle of skeletons... for knowing of abuse and not exposing and shaming it is supporting it...

Because they like a man? They say Torquemada was a good Catholic boy...

It is interesting that priests here do not look you in the eye.

While in Killarney, a man in distress ( and for an Irish Catholic to interrupt mass like that is an act of utter desperation) a man speaking out is set upon by six men and the gardai are called.

Revealing that one man is allowed to speak and another is not.

For if there is truth and purity? No speaking need be shunned.

Beware, says Jesus, when the world applauds you.

Interesting too that that was a congregation of around 300 .. and did not one think to speak for and with that man?

We would have done. Believe us on that. No one would have laid hands on him had we been there. We have a track record...

But those who say that the abuse here is the same as in the US have no conception of life in Ireland and the total control the Church has strong armed for many generations.

"The faith" simply is such an integral part of Irish rural life that to try to challenge it is to challenge life itself.

We had as neighbours once an old farming couple. In their late 70s , early 80s. Minimal education. In religious-run Church schools as that was all there was then.

They were kind folk, with humour. And they shared with us fruit for our jam, eggs, wool.

Yet to see that old man in Mass was to see a small boy, cowed and repressed and subdued A far cry from the hardworking one who still tended sheep, face raised to the skies.

We were in that parish when the Laghey Barr dispute erupted.

And with a troubled face, the old lady told us that they were taught never to question anything a priest said, and they could not do so.

To try to persuade that generation, after nearly eight decades of brainwashing, to think else, would be a brutalising.

We must respect and honour these old ones, gently and with great love.

And this is why this present furore is so damaging to so many. To the simple folk - from whom most of the abused came, and from whom most of the religious also came.

On Monday, the reactions, and the ferocity re the Killarney incident gave rise to thoughts of a similar kind.

The radio and TV news did not mention that the man was an abuse survivor, and they said he abused the bishop. ( we saw the same kind of misreporting re an outburst at the time of Laghey Barr).

We were in a small butcher's shop this week .

The face grew red and " There must be another way to do that!!" exploded.

So we explained, and that no there was not.

There is huge confusion and frustration; for these are sheep whose shepherd has let them down.

Any query and the response is "Ask the priest."

So the wife expressed in great angst why she is not leaving the church and why she goes to mass every week. " I have three children and my health and I go to say thank you to God.".. Then she adds.."BUT THAT IS ALL."

And we say together, "God bless all of us."

Incidentally she had reached this conclusion after going to mass to hear the bishop's letter... smiling! And no way would we correct her words.

And they ask for prayer as the business is failing now.

Small Irish town, and all the sheep with no reliable shepherd.. and the foundations of Irish life are shaking.

******************************************

Here, our work goes on.. Jam and marmalade to make as we are able to be out selling again now.

A lady commented how we must scrape together every jam jar we could find...

No one seems to notice that all our jars are the same.

So we quietly say, no we get them by the thousand...

This time, we were offered a "broken pallet", so of course we said yes. Thinking it meant a thousand.

We asked for the van, as access here is a problem.

The large lorry arrived. We asked how he had managed to get up the mountain road.." I closed my eyes and drove.."

So he was persuaded to unload a huge shrink-wrapped mound.

Before he realised the size of the task, we had unwrapped the jars, and started carrying them to the shed in bags and boxes... in the rain.. and we were still at the task an hour later....

So he joined the task ...

A track worn across the grass as little by little the mountain was moved....

The last few trays we managed to move intact and that heap sits on the grass and will be a frame for beans and peas.

The man was a hero......

He kept saying he didn't mind doing it but it was the time it was taking. He had to get back to Dublin and had more deliveries to make...

God bless him...

Much later, when we checked? A pallet of that size of jar is nearly 3,200 jars.

That will make 13,000 jars in our years here in Ireland ...

9,000 filled and sold.

Our shed is piled high now!!

So now as the season widens, we once more start to make and sell.

Greeted warmly in Town again. Sister is back...

The beaded knitting work is absorbing and addictive. Head bowed over it in silence becomes deep prayer.

Seed trays are out now on windowledges, hardening off as frost is still a risk.

And more and more trays showing tiny shoots.

The weather has caught up with the seasons. So now grass and shamrock will grow.

All is right and ripe and in sweet harmony.

To assure us of the love of Jesus; and to strengthen us to work for his weak and needy ones. Lest we think that these things are there just to rest in.

Beauty to comfort and renew; as He used it here on earth.

Not to worship and seek to use as an escape.

Ireland; a parable

2010-03-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

This reads like a parable to teach and shame

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/man-accosts-bishop-at-kerry-mass.html

That poor man. So much utter pain. And so much desperation and courage to enter that Church and do that.

What an opportunity for the bishop to show even an iota of remorse and mercy and compassion for a victim of the Church's abuse.. which, after all, is what the letter from the Pope is supposed to be about.

To have reached out in sympathy to that man... what a wondrous thing that would have been.

Instead, six "men" .. SIX...roughhouse him outside God;s house and call the Gardai.

It says it all.. one report even says he has been arrested and charged with a public order offence.. while the bishop goes free?

Let this teach all once for all what is really the state of the Church here.

The inhuman reality of it now.

Meanwhile, three more bishops have been exposed as having covered up abuse and gagged the abused.

****************************************************
Sweet rain falling; may it cleanse the earth and renew the green......

One American has described what is happening in Ireland as "raining sewage"

Ireland; criminal clerics on the loose?

2010-03-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Few can have missed the news in Ireland these last days. Although it seems that little filters through to the US sometimes?

To update, please see the clerical whispers site as it lists all the input and sometimes has evaluations etc.

While shopping after market yesterday, the summary of and reaction to the Pope's letter were on the radio that is always on in one shop.

It makes "interesting" reading indeed....

Even more interesting are the omissions of course. The evasions of issues that are central to any true ideas of integrity - if any in authority in Holy Mother Church know what that word means any more?

The abuses only came to light because of the pressure of the victim groups.

There was no owning up; no admission of sin and crime.

At every stage, with agonising pain, the truth has had to be dragged out.

Not the reaction of a penitent Church.

The news this week of the involvement of Cardinal Brady, Primate of all Ireland, shocked and shook to the core.

The evasions and "lies politic" that have issued since would break the heart - were it not centred on Jesus..

And he used Holy Mass then as a political platform to raise sympathy and support. On Saint Patrick's Day..

And again yesterday..

"Is there not one holy man left?" See the Bible re Sodom and Gomorrah.

It would indeed be hard to find one here; or a priest who can truly be trusted.

Who wants to receive communion from such hands?

The central issues?

Let the words of Jesus speak..

When He was asked re paying taxes.. Seeking to evade their civil/civic responsibilities? (sounds all too familiar!!)

"Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's; to God that which is God's."

Please see our comments here..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/letter-disappoints-victims-of-abuse.html

NB there was a small editing of my comment..

Recently there have been many trials here of abusers within families... long prison sentences.

As there should be.

And no one is above the law - period.

Of course this will drive those who have left the Church further away now. The word we heard yesterday was "disappointing."

Interesting post on clerical whispers..
http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/alternate-papal-letter.html

The danger is that once more the filth will be swept under the carpet.

This cannot be allowed to happen.

And of course, events here have opened the floodgates throughout Europe.

Austria is not accepting the apologies as the last word.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/03/austrian-victims-of-child-abuse-plan.html

And the lawsuit against Cardinal Brady is in the US.

And lest anyone not know this; it is a criminal offence without statute of limitation to conceal a criminal offence.

An interesting time to shop in an Irish town dressed in full monastic habit..

But as we tell everyone, we are not Irish and we have no connections with the Church here ...

**********************************

As for us...

Ireland is finally emerging from a long, cold, hard winter.. Almost April, and the trees are bare. no leaves; no buds opening.

Finally we are getting milder days.

After literally months of unrelenting cold and hard, hard frosts. Weeks of -5.

From the air, the land is brown as no grass has grown yet.

We have ventured out only rarely to sell, for the cold has been unbearable.

A frustration when the need now is so great.

After Haiti, came Chile. We had Sisters in both, and babies in our care rescued from the rubbish tips.

So our barrel has no bottom even to scrape.

Yesterday was the first day it was possible to be out and selling, and folk lifting thankful faces to the sun.

And people out once more.

Praise to God....

We are well known in Town now. It takes a long time. We have stayed the course.

Still the Roma are begging here, colourful in national dress. They call "Mamma" to us as that is how Nuns are addressed in Romania.

They start their life of begging early; yesterday a newborn baby in a pram with them. The child will grow up trained to beg.

A teenage boy with a guitar kept passing the stall.. When we spoke? He had been busking.. When asked if the Gardai had allowed him? One had given him money!

He gave us a little - so he has an angel for his guitar now.

*********************************

This wee house has flat space for growing food. Digging is impossible now, so we are using no-dig techniques.

A donkey had been allowed to overgraze the small field.. so we are gathering in the plentiful droppings, four carrier bags at a time, and they are atop cardboard.

Perservering toil...

Potatoes will be grown under thick black plastic.

And indoors, every windowledge and table are filled with trays and boxes, and finally shoots are emerging.

Money for seed is hard come by; some we have saved thankfully.

And a couple of gifts; among them a packet of Texas Blue Bonnets. And lupins; again spares will be sold..

Now we are adding herbs; we can sell spare plants you see.

In summer we can put a table outside the gate with jams etc.

We need to grow food to release more cash for the children.

We need also a man with a chainsaw to cut the fallen trees here for fuel; but this seems to be impossible.

And new skills in the learning as we keep abreast of fashions. Beading in knitting intrigues and needs new techniques.

And rosaries ready for First Communions...
Pretty and at a cost they in Ireland are willing to pay.

All for the love of Jesus and His small babies who need a chance simply to survive.

Nothing held back; let the love flow freely for Him. He gives all...

For that is how true Christians live; and there seem to be so few.

A wee girl yesterday asked her daddy if that was a real nun. Her daddy carried her over in his arms.. Yes, and for forty years, longer than your daddy has been alive.

Blessings and peace this spring Sunday as the birds rejoice in calm air.

New rules...

2010-03-18T22:45:00.000-07:00

Mid March here.

We are deciding whether or not to reopen this weblog; but it will now be private, to permitted readers only.

If you wish to read the weblog, please leave a message giving your email address; this is mandatory to read these pages.

All message are moderated so these details are strictly private.

Or email us at

anchoresscj@yahoo.com

Again with your email etc.

Then we will send you an invitation.

Our decision on who will read this is final of course...

No one except us will know who is here.

Blessings and peace this day....

Haiti

2010-01-14T08:09:00.000-08:00

There is a poignant old prayer that seeks divine help for all who "wait and watch and weep this night..."

So many now, as the total devastation in Haiti emerges.

Haiti; an appallingly poor country, with utter degradation that we can barely even start to imagine.

It was but a few years go that we mentioned on xanga the news clip of a policeman there pulling a living newborn baby girl out of a latrine.. such is the poverty there.

It shocked the world, yet it still goes on daily. As in India.

Like many, we watch and wait this night; for eight of our Sisters, who work gathering in these tiny ones, and feeding the poorest of the poor, are missing in Port au Prince.

We are no different from any who have workers or families there; as we were no different when the tsunami struck, killing a third of us.

In this we are one with all who suffer, bearing that pain with them.

As Jesus does.

As Jesus is.

Pray please for all who are caught up in this; those whose family are missing; those who are digging to strive to find bodies or the living.. the teams flying in from all over the world now.

So here a candle burns bright and tall; Light of Christ in the darkest of times. Hope and Life and Love and Truth

And fingers fly, for work is a balm. For all our work is for those we serve as we serve Jesus.

Blessings this night...

"Snow had fallen, snow on snow ,

2010-01-09T23:52:00.000-08:00

snow on snow...."

Ironic that the carol we used as the theme for the "Christmas Keepsake" book has been and is being lived out here.

We are well into the fourth week of the Big Freeze and no end in sight.. according to some forecasters... Others say differently.

We shall see..

The cold really is, as they say, something else.

No water still and fridge and dehumifier cannot work in these low temperatures.
And the road up here is till impassable for our wee car.. I am still having waking nightmares from the one time I got out and not about to risk life again now.

Our knight in the van has offered again, God bless him.....

There are deaths; kids racing on frozen lakes, going crazy in the rare weather.... Defying the Gardai to get them off.. in that case, the Gardai knew their parents!

But two brothers perished.

Hypothermia and house fires...

Ireland is unbelievably primitive and backward.

And the great grit crisis as snow hits Dublin and other areas...

And the Irish tales mount up...

Dublin Council washed snow off a road! And of course it froze immediately and cars skidded all over.....

Gritters there? Two lads on the back of a lorry with shovels.....

Here, inured and used to the snow beauty; it has become a part of life after all this while.

Life cannot be lived on a hype..

And always hands busy...

Small sets to go to Canada to sell there...

Sunflowers specially flown in from Texas....

Blessings this day...

Bright gloves..

2010-01-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

...for cold days.

The violets came in from Texas too....along with a whole flock of butterflies...

Bitter cold still, but they say a thaw is on the way, for a few days at least.

Please God enough to clear the road down to the other world below...

Blessings this day

Of cold weather and comments..

2010-01-08T03:04:00.000-08:00

For those who are newly come...

A decision was made for several reasons first to moderate all comments, and them to keep the site a peaceful and simply, uncluttered place, free of comments and blogroll lists etc

This has proved a blessing and wisdom in ways we had not anticipated....

So we stay in this way now.

It also, and this we did know, provides for people to comment anonymously; this again has proved of late a two-edged sword, but, again, we are retaining that.

We do ask that those who need a response entrust us with the means to contact them, especially when query concerns a purchase from us; every cent we can raise especially at this time of year when our funds are so appallingly low, saves the lives of those we care for.

Our books; always best for us to buy direct from us. Amazon take 25%, you see.

Also we always sign our books and include a wee Irish hand made bookmark

The address here is

anchoresscj at yahoo dot com.

And we have a sales page

at

www.xanga.com/sistersofgraceofchrist

Thank you.... we value all who come here.

**********************************
Back later....

Message for Ann

2010-01-06T05:19:00.001-08:00

Ann, from the UK; please would you email me on

anchoresscj at yahoo dot com

About our latest book

Blessings and thanks

Simplicity?

2010-01-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

It has become one of thse cliches, hasn't it?

And so much misinterpreted also; that a hermit "must" eg chop wood and live without amenities.

And of course, there is no virtue in doing this for its own sake.

We live simply so that more money can be released to feed and care for others; for us it is the "true fasting" Isaiah speaks so tellingly of.. To fast so that you can "deal your bread to the poor."

It is for us the physical expression of our love and obedience to Jesus.

Nuns are very practical people!

Lest our faith become empty jangling words and clashing cymbals

So that then the liturgy has meaning and value also. Because it is not an end in itself but merely one small feature.

Because our true life in Jesus IS the service, the giving, the preferring to give rather then take holidays or eat out or buy what we do not need.

And it is not ever indigence or penury.

These are thoughts much with this Nun in this present freeze here in Ireland.

As many know, we each and all live very simply anyway. All we need. A rich abundance in truth.

Now, this is taken further here; the bathroom is still frozen, but the kitchen tap is free flowing; thanks to keeping it running slightly all the time.. so that water is carried to the bathroom and fills the cistern.

An economy and a thankfulness for pure water.

And the fire is piled high in the early evening and the door to the bedroom left open.

And kettle after kettle boils atop the improvised top; and the simple joys of soaking chilled feet in hot water, topped up from the kettle that is black from the fire.

A heat that warms the whole body for hours.

Yesterday morning a power cut; Ireland's infrastructure is as many realise now. Totally inadequate for this extreme weather...

And the long years on the island clicked in immediately. So no hassle or worry now that the fuel stocks are high.

And as the veneer of so-called "civilisation" is peeled away, the spiritual awareness deepens and is enriched.

Virtue then in the utter silence of the mountains....

Far too much sound and stimulation; people bustling round pretty web sites and "spiritual" words; which avail nothing except more discontent..

Because there is only One Mind and One Truth, and He speaks to each as the individual beloved each is.

No clutter of ideas or thoughts.

Just as life here physically is pleached now, so the purity fill it

The advice we give to those who seek?

Take the gospels to a quiet place. Period.

He will walk with you there.

No intellectual ideas, no elitism.. no judging of others.. no clutter.

His life on earth was very simple.

The joys here are deep now; walking the dogs in the frozen snow in the field.. their utter delight in racing and running, crunching the ice in their strong teeth....

Seeing the birds fly in for food; monastic hospitality..

Compassion for yet another neglected farm cat who has been haunting here a while... food is left out every night now....

Knitting and reading.... Working for the months ahead of selling... Always thus focussed and revelling in colour and shape.. and the reading? Wholesome fiction...

Preparing food that will be shared with the dogs as we watch stocks carefully.

And always the deep silent prayer of heart that needs no words; silence here now.

Solitaries and hermits are not recluses; so the fair use of the internet is a perfect medium for communication.. we counsel so many here in total confidence and peace.

We are not Trappists; but Monastics with a deep love for people; as Jesus had, so we have.

Blessings and peace this day and all days...

Blessings for this New Year...

2009-12-30T01:19:00.000-08:00

This is our road.. and last night another inch fell.

For inspiration for the New Year, read Mother Abbess's words, please.

http://letters-from-mother.blogspot.com/

Following Jesus is utter simplicity. In reality and fact

If you give Him your life, He will use it for His needy ones; hold not back. Listen, watch, pray, and then comes the deepest joy, of giving and serving. Sad that few know this.

*************************************************

Here, interesting parables in this new place.

Three times I tried to get solid fuel stocks in... Because the forecast was and is so bad.... And I saw stocks dwindling.

And three times a refusal or a forgotten promise.

So what choice but to try again to get out?

Wee car is not good in ice.... having made it as far as the road, a solid sheet of ice inches thick, there was literally no turning back..

A mile down the mountain, it is clear.. a different world from the heights.. A world set apart here now.

So a swift stocking; coal, wood, gas, dog meat from the butcher who saves scraps, and some treats I had never had all Christmas... In a green world!

And in me the dread of the drive back..

With good cause.; for three times our brave Nunmobile jibbed rightly at a slope of solid ice.. it had been raining and frozen again while I was out.

And three times we were pushed and slithered finally home. In a new blizzard with a north east gale.
In utter deadly beauty...

One woman, safe and snug with others in a warm car as her man fought to get me home, finally calling for help and summoning a whole crowd of men ( what did we do before mobile phones) and vehicles, started "giving out"

"YOU SHOULDN'T BE OUT ON THE ROAD!"

They were! And she told also that they had a small baby in the car; the warnings are out not to go out unless absolutely necessary..I wouldn't take the dogs out in this.

This Nun stood there, ankle deep in snow, veil and scapular streaming out in the icy gale, and with icy politeness apologised, but stressed and repeated that I had no choice; that no one would bring me fuel and there is no oil heating here.

That I did not want to be out; that promises had been broken and appeals ignored or refused.

Did she expect me to sit there and die of hypothermia?

I kept repeating this, making sure the men heard, for some of them had been asked, or had promised and forgotten.

And they fell silent then as the men gritted the road, shovelled snow away and took runs at the slope in the Nunmobile..So many of them!

And knowing that this was so because I was blocking the road..Reality is a hard thing that needs must be faced for safety.

Home was sweet then.

Bruised in spirit, but exulting that I had done what was needed. Safety...

And our Jesus always provides for us, in the most beautiful ways, and a man came out from a fair distance then with coal and gas and wood and even firelighters and matches... For by then the forecast was worsening.

An angel in a large van.. that had problems getting in and getting back up the hill.

So all is fine now, and we know where we are at in this new place.

The last two months have been .... the floods and now this.

And no end in sight to the ice, and some more snow. The usual months for snow here are January and February.

I know; little snow compared to Canada! But for us...

And chaos also as the authorities were not prepared. Many areas are rationing water; empty houses with burst pipes.. ( Not a problem here; private supply) The rural roads are a disgrace after all this time. They need to get the army to work.

So we work on, enclosed by ice and in utter peace. Safe and supplied for a good while, and knowing that always there is provision.

Blessings and peace this New Year.

WInter deepens

2009-12-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

It is hard to express the depth of the weather here now.

It will maybe suffice to say that this Nun is nearing the end of the second week of total enclosure.

The road is permanently thick with ice, compacted snow that has frozen over and over again

On a day when there was a small thaw, I tried to get out, but wee car would not take it and I had to abandon it blocking the lane.

This is Ireland!

I walked icily back to the house, and not knowing what else to do.? Dialled 999 and the lady was so kind and said she would put me through to the Donegal Town Gardai, who we know well of course.

In fact, it was Ballyshannon who answered. And he wanted to chat! About the Order etc. Finally he said he would contact Donegal and that they would phone me. and no, do not go back to the car, stay by the phone.

An hour later, two smartly dressed Irishmen came to the door; I had left the gate open. Collie tried to get through the glass to them..

They were trying to get out and of course wee car was in the way. There were four cars coming down - just about the total population higher up!- on their way to Mass.

Even they could not get the wee car back, so it was left on the drive of the big barn, and later -

and they didn't make it to mass although not sure why as they had to pass the Church on their way to Town... best not to ask! the man came back to me.

He said he would phone"the boys" I thought he meant his sons, but later four old men arrived....

And - and no, I did not drive! Stood there and prayed- they finally managed to get wee car back home.

Where we will stay now until it is safe.

I have abundant food as all our Sisters who live alone in isolated places are under Holy Obedience to keep 2 months supplies in.

But solid fuel is a different matter

The landord became Father Christmas on the Eve, and arrived with a brand new Super Ser gas heater....Much needed.

The man who rescued the car promised to bring coal and gas, but he is Irish and they make these promises..... And New Year in a Celtic land is a drink-fest..

And snow clouds hovering...

Bitter cold now with a fierce wind chill

Yet the utter beauty brings tears....On every side, mountain ranges bleak with snow.

And the back field is still thick and deep, frozen now so the dogs run atop it while Sister sinks to the tops of her wellies..

The dogs are in heaven!

They eat and crunch what is now solid ice, and race and leap. When the snow was new and soft, wee dog was in up to her shoulders, and bunny-hopping....

Pipes froze and two days were without water or bathroom; I had bought water in in case of this..

Then I realised that most of the water pipes here are half inch black rubber tubing outside.... So that any bursts would not flood the house.. And dug them out of the frozen snow.. And now taps are left dripping at night so that they do not freeze.

Someone knew!

We are at 656 feet above sea level here...

And but a tiny taste here of the life of our Sisters in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

But Ireland is in chaos as there was no preparation for such a rare event. Many places are without water and in Donegal Town, it is being rationed; off all night. Which happily does not affect us up here.

Councils ran out of grit and sand etc.. mayhem.

Carnage on the roads and bones broken in falls..

Yet here seems to be the only part where snow and ice have persisted; snow fans are angry that there is no snow, and crazy local folk are pleading for more.

Because they have no thought for neighbours etc.

The old Ireland is gone for ever it seems.

There are darker themes here now; later. Later for that evil.

Blessings and peace this day

Our Christmas Road..

2009-12-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T00:51:00.000-08:00

A frozen white Christmas up here.

The mountains and sky are a constant ineluctable and humbling wonder.

Temperatures have continued to plummet and the thick snow ( ie thick for here; in places several inches) is frozen solid.

Colder today; yesterday wee dog was falling through the icy top layer of snow and doing bunny hops to run about and up to her shoulders; today she has run easily atop it.

Our habit of shopping North every few weeks means that we are well stocked now with basics and even a few Christmas items.

The turkey that has been lurking in the freezer is now being dismantled and will feed us all royally these next days.

Dogs will get a leg each in the morning, raw as always, bones and all. The best and most natural food on the world for them.

And cats a wing each...

There is already turkey soup simmering in the slow cooker.

And the birds are getting porridge oats every hour or so; all is freezing as fast as it goes out.

It is good that we stocked well, as the road up here is solid ice and there is no way we would risk it. Downhill all the way and winding. Only four wheel drives are safe.

Very few cars pass, and the postman has only been once this week.. He has his wee gift from us.

Today is the last delivery there will be.

Oh and the mad rally driver we reported last month to the Gardai is out again. Desperately dangerous for him and all on the roads. Needless to say he has been reported once more.

Fuel is lasting, which is as well as there is still a bad forecast for renewed cold after Christmas.

So we hunker down now for our quiet and set-aside time.

Truly we are separate from the world; hidden and unseen and this serves to emphasise this.

As is right and fair and good for Monastics.

And as it grows dark tonight, the candles will shine out their fair and lovely light.

Light of Christ, Only Hope of the World

Feed Him in the cold and hungry this year; feed Him as you would yourself and even better. Rejoice in giving food to the homeless, for Jesus dwells with them, not with those who banquet.

Blessings this icy day..

Sister on God's frozen mountain

Marooned...

2009-12-22T00:26:00.000-08:00

... in a sea of white...

See

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/overnight-freeze-hits-commuters-439213.html

They are forecasting -9 for tonight and tomorrow.

They say it may ease on Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day, then back to heavy frost.

All the shops will be closed then of course.

Daylight comes with leaden skies, gravid with snow, and it has frozen hard in the night. Thick snow up here frozen hard.

Crunches with a most satisfying sound!!!

The lane is still solid white.

So we review cupboards! And fuel..

Our wee car would not be happy in these conditions. The lane down is steep and narrow.

A day to bake to warm the house of course. Maybe a rich bread and butter pudding.. a fruit cake too.. slow and long cooking. Yesrterday a one pot meal.

And as I was planning to buy chocolates maybe this week? An old recipe for uncooked chocolate "tiffin"..... I have Cadbury's in stock and all else it needs,,,

The farmers are using "cats" to feed their stock etc.

I have a whole new spare gas cylinder; will bring it indoors to thaw.

Multi -fuelled is the way of course. I have altered the huge old fireplace here so I can boil kettles etc atop and so that more heat comes into the room.

And stay snug now; take the dogs out later, well-wrapped.

They create laughter; wee one is up to her shoulders in snow and revels in it, leaping and bouncing. Collie starts dancing when she sees me putting wellies on. She knows then that we are heading for the field.

Our Christmas lights are pretty. One window has the crib, and a network of tiny white lights. In the shed there was Victorian pottery Christmas village scene, with light inside the Church, and it still works. So that is in another wondow.. we were given a wee artificial Christmas tree and the one other set of lights works only on the red and orange circuit.. it looks so pretty.

So we work on; no use else. This is how it is.

Please, check on old neighbours? For Jesus; for me. I am new here and somehow folk think of "nun" and not of "old", and that is fine too. Decades in isolated places hav rendered me resourceful and we knew that this was coming.

And I am far from fragile still.

After all, this Christ-life is about giving. Truly it is. Not about self at all. In no way; any more than Jesus on the Cross was about self. Only giving.

So now on with the knitting... loving it also.. bright colours and pretty things.

Blessings this day and every day!

Utter beauty...

2009-12-21T03:52:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to describe the scene here now.

My wee camera is full of photos, but, alas, the cable and battery charger are nowhere to be found. Casualty of the abrupt and hasty move of course.

IF I get to Town on Christmas Eve, the cable is easy to replace, and I have batteries.

IF? I will try! Depends on the weather..

NB photos are borrowed; I am glued to boards ie weather threads.

We had a white- out this morning and every twig and branch is thick with snow.

The dogs and I went crazy in the field we have with the house: I was in over the wellies at times.

They are in bliss in the snow ; zany and full of life.

And the wide, wide vista of the mountains.. utter awe and humbling at the mighty majesty.

Tears come readily.

Snow again now.....

This is the main bypass here; wide busy road. At ten am it it was little different.

This is Mount Errigal, Donegal...

And yes, bitterly and intensely cold now all the time.

They say it will milden during Christmas Day; for which there will be gratitude.

Stay safe.... Blessings and peace

Snow on snow...

2009-12-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

In the wee small hours, powdery snow arrived. A bare inch, but the forecast is laden..

Locally ( and here we class as Ulster)..

Ulster20 December 2009- updated at 06:00
Today Frost and ice for a time this morning in many places. Widespread hail, sleet or snow showers, heaviest in the north and west with deposits of between 5 and 12 cm. Very strong, west to northwest winds will gust 70 to 80 km/hr, making it feel bitterly cold throughout. Highest temperatures 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.
TonightWintry showers persisting, with further accumulations of several centimetres likely in the north and west. West to northwest winds decreasing fresh to strong but remain bitterly cold; lowest temperatures 0 to -3 degrees Celsius, leading to ice on untreated surfaces.

And the national scene..

National Forecast20 December 2009 05:18Today
Widespread sharp ground frost this morning, with icy stretches likely on untreated roads. Hail, sleet and snow showers affecting Ulster and Connaught will spread to west Munster and north Leinster but much of the south and southeast will be dry and sunny for the day. West to northwest winds will strengthen everywhere, with blizzard conditions and drifting snow at times in the north and northwest. Exceptionally cold due to the wind; highest temperatures 1 to 4 degrees Celsius.

Tonight
Wintry showers persisting tonight in northern and western counties, with further accumulations of snow likely there. West to northwest winds decreasing moderate to fresh generally but remaining bitterly cold. Lowest temperatures 0 to -4 degrees, leading to sharp or severe ground frost and some icy stretches.

So no car boot sale for this Nun. It would be foolhardy. Praying that the shortfall on sales will somehow be made up, as it niggles like toothache. So great is the need. Helplessness is hard.

A couple of cars cawled past in the night, but the road is still covered, and it has frozen also now. My wee torch was in the car and it was a major task getting the door open even. Frozen up.
The wind is howling now...

When daylight comes, the scene will be a glory.. expect photos later..

Yet the scene is too wide here to take true photos. Miles visible in almost all directions.

Stay warm and safe

Blessings...

"Baby it;s cold..."

2009-12-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

But not as cold as for those with no home... and not as cold as all who feel so lonely at this season.

We can each and all comfort and ease.

It is so simple.

Imagine this.. someone alone at Christmas, goes to a Church to seek??

And at the end, everyone either rushes out - or stops to speak to those they know.. YOU know, those small intimate looking groups.

And there is nothing lonelier than seeing others laughing and chatting together..

Ah now; before we start saying how bad that is?

What do we do? Truthfully?

Let us never judge others before examining our own conduct; then we will never judge anyone.. Jesus is wise always.

A casual greeting? Or genuine warmth? A true greeting, showing warmth and concern?

You may never know how much that meant to a person..

The stranger at the gate, who is Christ.

What each of us does may make the diference to others..

Yesterday included "casual" encounters with several people; people precious to God.

Each blessed me mightily, without realising they were doing so.

Is that not a wonder? The love of Jesus reaching out though each of us?

We cannot get to Carol Services here.

Go for us? Sing with real joy. And let the heart reach out in sincere love for those around us there.

Watch for the strangers. Maybe many who stumble in the singing... watch for them secretly.

People hide their pain; yet there it still is always.

Bless them as you have been and are blessed.

Cold winds here; but colder is the desolation of so many at this time. Needless pain that we can ease.

Blessings and peace with bitter winter night.

"Shiver me timbers..."

2009-12-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

Shiver is the word here these days.

We are in what seems set to be a record breaking cold spell.

Rarely above freezing day and night.

Longing for snow; and one shower today, and real snow forecast for tomorrow afternoon and night.

Which will scupper the last car boot sale on Sunday. There is a strong safety warning out now.

So today saw all stocked up and ready for a siege if need be.... Fuel, food, even bottled water in case it freezes.

The island was good training of course.

Wood smoke in the air; we were given a few huge logs that should have been split and they are coming into their own now; one nestled on a bed of coal that will melt all night now.

Today too a leisurely drive... some beautiful moments of refreshment and joy.... A donkey, then three, then four, racing across a field at my call.. four great furry heads to rub.. such moments are pearls beyond price. Donkeys share this Holy season in a special way.

And the Irish custom of dressing family graves for Christmas.... An old tradition. Wreaths, pots of primroses...

Cribs in Churches now...

A while at a peaceful shore in a milder moment....

None of the hype; simply Christmas in beauty.

Set against this? The increasingly shameful and impentitent attitudes of the Irish bishops as they go down now one by one. Incredible... read clericalwhispers and wonder what we have had for leaders all these decades? No guilt, no shame. Objecting and protesting.

Sigh...And many supporting them and calling them good, and that they are being victimised EVEN comparing them to Jesus.. see what they have taught in their power? What wrong teaching they have inculcated.

So we tune out now and turn to the solitude and simplicity of enduring and enjoying the season and its challenges.

The clear lights shine out gently from the window here and soon the great star will hang low.

Nothing else matters.

Peace then; peace and utter trust in He Who never fails or falls.

Blessings this night.... from a chill, still mountain

"Gathering winter fuel..."

2009-12-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

With warnings - or hopes - of snow, and a bitter chill, today was a day to ensure that the wee House is well-stocked.

We who live a remote and Solitary life are always bidden and under orders to keep good supplies in. Common sense and wisdom.

Going down the mountain lanes might be feasible, but coming back up...

One supermarket that sends fliers out has specials on fruit and vegetables; sprouts, carrots , parsnips, melons and pineapples for 50 cents....

No pineapples had come in, but the rest were there... Rich winter fare and sunnier fruits.

And friends gave turf and logs, leaving "only" coal to buy.

So deeply grateful for kindness that warms and sweetens our days.

Bones for soup and for the dogs....

So we are snug now.

A kettle simmers atop a huge fire; a grate set above works well.

And the wee old House will warm through more and more now as the walls absorb the heat.

The sky looks as if anything could happen as darkness gathers and thickens now.

Time and space to knit and dream and above all to pray with all we are and all we do.

For prayer is this life.

As it is every life that loves Jesus and seeks to give His love as He gives it.

Our Mother Abbess writes of this...

http://letters-from-mother.blogspot.com/

Birds come in to feed now; blue tits, a larger great tit, chaffinches, a robin, a thrush higher up.

Sadly a pair of magpies are threatening, but there are techniques for seeing these off.

The great tit is the boldest, with his wide black stripe.

Tiny bird to be called great! Smaller still than our wee robin..

Blessings this winter's night of vigil...

"In the bleak midwinter.."

2009-12-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ah no; there is no wind to "make moan.."Still chill, silent stars.

Yesterday came frost; the car iced over as we set out in the dark for the car boot sale .... And in the early afternoon, signs of freezing fog. Some of the fields were white all day.

And this set to last now, with a strong possibility of snow later this week.

They have ruined the car boot sale. When it started, they boasted NO TRADERS. That means none of the big "professional" stalls selling cheap lines eg bedding and clothes.

That attracted small "amateurs" like us, and the atmosphere was good..

Yesterday the big traders came en masse.

And the whole atmosphere has changed, and many have left now of the small ones.

Money of course... He can make more from them, he thinks.

Next week will be our last selling day this year; a wee break in January then we shall see.

Hopefully back to our usual pitch in Town.

But it has been good to be indoors and to meet so many.

Slowly settling in the new place! Nomad Nun..... And still sorting paperwork etc.

And fighting a mighty fluey cold.

Eircom displayed their usual style; told us that this address did not exist...then lost the order . Twice. Then the day after the line was connected it went off again.

Now we are waiting for the line to be handed over to a better company!

And there is a fine moment on the short drive from Town, when we emerge from trees and houses to an open stretch. high on the mountain tops, and see the wide vista and far ahead the cluster of conifers that shelter the wee house.

And of course the shameful furore goes on here. Bishops of disgrace. And their depravity and intransigence frees all now. Their authority is gone forever.

Yesterday a youngish priest was at the sale; he introduced himself with a warm handshake and we chatted. He knew what autocephalous means, which is rare here, and has been to Taize several times.

And he bought also.

It is good to meet like that. And rare.

An interesting encounter on a large Irish forum, with a Protestant pastor posting a celebration of the fact that the Irish Evangelical Alliance has voted to back the proposed Civil Union Bill...

Which has been fought here by so many.

When we challenged his glee, all kinds of anti Catholic rage erupted and it became clear that his response was based on his perception of Catholic abuse of Protestants. Not on the teachings of Jesus. He became abusive also.

And he avers his belief in a "secular society" ....

All kinds of words of Jesus come to mind.

Some of his scathing accusations were simply ignorant. That the Nazis only committed their atrocities because the churches "sat on their hands looking smug." My response reminded him of Br Roger, Protestant founder of Taize ( which began as a refuge for Jews) and the many Catholic Nuns who quietly without fanfare sheltered and saved so many Jewish children and often were executed for doing so.

OF COURSE he ignored that and attacked more and more....

I am well aware that he will try to get me booted off the forum; his tirades against me as Catholic...

Fanaticism is not of Jesus; period.

That is fine: it has taught me so much, and more and more that the church in all its official manifestations is not Jesus centred.

And I will not be a whipping boy for anyone; the wrongs done are not by me. No scapegoating allowed. He is breaking the forum rules anyway and that can be pointed out...To the right people there.

And that frees mightily.

And there is only love for the damaged ones too damaged to see their wounds.

Paul speaks with wisdom when he bids to be at peace with all, in so far as it is possible. For as he knew, there are those who will not allow that. Time then to withdraw peacefully. And let them seem to have the last word. For God always has that.

So now we meander towards Christmas in our gentle way. No huge feast, but a quietude now.

Last week to Strabane to shop, then on to Cranaknits.. who filled the spaces in the Nunmobile with wool gifts so that now I am like the princess in "Rapunzel"...Like a child in a sweet shop, not knowing what to eat first... Oh such riches!

Are we not all so RICH.. So utterly wealthy!

Yesterday the crib went in the window here, with tiny white lights around it. The shepherd has been decapitated in the move, but all else is fine and fair.

So we learn to bloom where and how we are planted; because if we truly trust God? And unless and until we fully and wholeheartedly live where we are, how can He take us forward?

So we trust and love all and give all we can now..

Blessings this silent night...

The pits of hell

2009-12-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/12/bishop-attended-parties-thrown-by.html

NB it may be that this article has been pulled off? Yep! It has gone! yet we will remember the contents.

Checking clerical whispers today after a break is to see the pits of hell open.

http://www.clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/

Maybe at last Ireland will shake off the shackles and domination of the corrupt Church now.

Maybe at last the govenment and other agencies will ensure that Bishops and all who offend are treated the same as other criminals.

One small point of hope..
http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/12/cork-priest-to-leave-parish-ministry.html

It seems though that money is more important than children?

Yesterday, the indoor car boot sale, again in appalling weather. So many children. A wee Latvian babe in arms, whose mother bought a pretty pink hat for from us.

Three generations of the family gathered round the stall.

The little dote who ran off with a large ball of wool I had on the stall. She was so funny...

Their total innocence and beauty, and utter vulnerability.

We had printed simple, small cards, as we are getting so many prayer requests now, and it was humbling how people sought them. Truly humbling.

We are needed in our small way; and worth the early start, the hours of queuing in the road..

Many of the stall holders come in from the North, driving long hours to try to earn a little by their work.

And much good baking, and increasingly kindness for us; and of course we ensure now that they know we are not connected to the Irish Church.

And these are the things that matter now; the needs and the strength of others.

For what avails it as Jesus said so often, to look at the speck of dust in the eyes of others and thus ignore the great planks in our own eyes?

To point out the abuse and scandals - if we are failing to live Jesus in our every breath and action?

This is one of the worst spiritual and physical dangers this and all matters creates.

So we work on now...striving ever to be the small light of Jesus in a dark world.

Loving Him and loving the beauties He gives us.

A new 'line" this week was butterfly hats... pretty knitted hats with crocheted butterflies perched atop; thanks to an American Associate whose skilled giving creates works of beauty for us.

None sold this week; but they were greatly admired.

They lifted hearts and saw smiles on faces. Every smile is the gift of an angel.

Helped also by the gift of a parcel of such beautiful yarn from another Friend.

Yesterday too the man who gives us the Nunmobiles came to the sale; I had alerted him to our move and where we are trading.

He lit up the warehouse with his kindnesses.

He is the one man who is allowed to hug and kiss Sister! There is, simply, no stopping this kind and large- hearted man! His bluff goodness is a cheeriness.

Other stall holders watched, open-mouthed! SISTER! REALLY!

But then he went to them and cheered them also.

His wife was with him; she had cancer and is free now two years, and looks radiant.

There is so much goodness and so much love.

And somehow, the total outrage of these events, frees us to disassociate. There is no margin of error any more.

Blessings this day from a wet Ireland, longing for the Light of Christ.

Irish logic?

2009-12-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

This caught the eye today...

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/crossborder-shopping-threatens-11000-jobs-436979.html

It really is a kind of emotional blackmail.

One facet they ignore? When we go North, to ASDA in Strabane, it is in the early hours when the Night Team are there. Many are young people and many of these? They live South. A friendly lot they are and there is a good team spirit.

So these are jobs for the South.

And yes, of course we vote "with our pockets" .. Strabane is as near as Letterkenny for us and the price differences are huge. And we have very little money for food; and everything we save goes for our children.

You cannot afford to eat in the South!

Some examples.

Small electrical appliances; ASDA has kettles and toasters etc for 5 sterling. Here they are at least E15.

A good pair of sturdy shoes; around 20 sterling. Here, at least E40

Socks and clothing also a third of the price we pay here.

Stationery items; a quarter of here.

OTC meds from ASDA; basic paracetamol for 16 pence that here are almost E2

VICK; half the price.

Food! Coffee, cheese, butter etc 1/3rd to half cheaper, and the same across the whole range.

Needless to say we do not buy alcohol so that man's premise is wrong.
Our shopping is always basic.

So now the only things we buy here are bread, which is a little cheaper here than there, and a few other items - and anything they put on special as a loss leader.

The only way they will stop the flow North is to reduce prices.

Some chains have on a few items.

So we work on. My ASDA day is only every five or 6 weeks and it is combined with a visit then to our friends up in Buncrana at Cranaknits. Who support us with yarns.

And this means too that more time and focus is freed from shopping.

A wee bit less cold here; but heavy rain is again with us and Cork is threatened once more with flooding. last week we had snow up here.. so lovely.

Tomorrow the indoor car boot sale once more. We have crocheted butterlflies atop "funky hats" now... So pretty and unusual

Blessings from the mountain tops.

"Holy Poverty"?

2009-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

Is it not passing strange that the religious orders here have such millions?

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/abuse-report-nuns-offer-128m-compensation-436859.html

Their Vows of course include "poverty"; which has become an estranged term, to mean that no sister owns anything.

How do they come by such huge riches?

And to be so utterly rich and half starve the children in their care, claiming as they did poverty?

For that was the initial excuse they gave." We had no money to feed them with."

And few know also that when a religious order dies, as these are doing, all their assets etc go to the Vatican.

As for us?

We live by the seat of our pants for all we have and all we earn is given to feed the poor.

That is what religious always lived, and in all our 160 years, we have never strayed from that.

It leads to worry, but is our purity. Always we long and yearn to do more, to feed more, to clothe more. Because at this time of year there is so much need and our hearts ache when we cannot save more children or ease more hunger.

And always we are deeply and sincerely grateful to those who support us, especially those who dedicate a small monthly sum that we can rely on.

And no; we do not offer individual child sponsorship. We would never exploit our children in that way - nor would we use food money for the photographs and advertising that that entails.

We hear more and more of disillusion with these schemes; wages being paid to workers and more and more money being demanded.

Of course we take no wages! Enough to do the will of Jesus. Our skills are from Him and for Him.

Bitter cold here now. A full moon rides high in a clear, still sky, and yesterday saw snow and hail and sleet.

And they say more heavy rain and flooding on the way in this unsettled year.

Blessings from Ireland

Headlines and other bits,,,

2009-12-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

See these...

http://oceanfm.ie/news/2009/12/02/eye-damage-cases-linked-to-knock-apparitions/

and

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/archbishop-apologises-over-priests-tirade-against-revenue-436665.html

REALLY!

eircom arrived; the techs are fine. Once you get through the office and especially the automatic questioning. The new phone number is not yet on the system. He went up a ladder to the terminal, then came back to tell me that the fault is on the line further down and that he will give me a call when it is fixed.. ie does not need to come into the house.

It is very still and very chill. The smell of woodsmoke fills the air. Always the mountains now.

Dark soon now. Earlier always.

Blessings and peace from the high land

Matthew 18.... Words of Jesus

2009-12-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

Early morning from the latest Irish mountain residence.

Somehow the move, from the cottage two inches deep in water, was effected.

The new house has been beset by the typically Irish problems of a primitive society with erratic infrastructure and very new Tenancy Laws.

Including telecommunications.

Eircom no longer have a monopoly over telephone service; but they do still own the lines, and most of their call centres are in Bangladesh.

As there had been no phone usage here for some while, we were told a new line was needed. Ten working days they said.

However, it transpired that they mislaid the order.. so it has taken hours on the phone at various places... Finally the technician arrived yesterday. In a storm; they are grand men.

He told me that I would not get broadband on this line. But re a mobile modem.

I called BT, our usual providers. They are merging/being taken over by Vodaphone, so over to them.

They are trying to sort a package; hampered by the fact that eircom have not yet released the account number here.

They told me that I can get a wireless modem easily; E20 a month. ( I have been keeping up with email thanks to an internet cafe in Donegal Town who have let me use their computer with no charge; God bless them mighily.)

So off I went to Town, in the storm. To find I needed so much documentation... The day was lightened by a lady leaning out of her car window to tell me how much she is enjoying her rhubarb jam! These are the things that matter; she bought last weekend! Our last jar of rhubarb and raspberry and such a warm smile on her face....

All the world in these moments...

When I got home, it is to find a very slow and erratic connection. No more youtube and great patience needed.

But this morning, the new phone line is down again, so very grateful for this.

We are high up here, but only 3 miles from the Town, and only a mile down the road they have good broadband and phone lines; it needs upgrading of course. The tech said something about this circuit only having 4 lines available...

So when they come on duty, yet another call etc.

As we do not use radio or TV, it has been a quiet while here. There is a new indoor car boot sale nearby, so we are trading there this while. The weather has been and is just too bad to be selling outside.

I gathered that the Dublin Report was out; attitudes have changed subtly now to the Church. Hardened as the truth is accepted at a deeper level. "Too much money and too much power " is a basic assessment.

And yesterday in the butcher's I heard the new, full "party line"... from a man whose brother, it emerged, is a fairly young priest.

"Only a very small percentage abused...... " ( refusing to listen to the truth that almost all the rest knew and ignored the abuse and that it was sanctioned thus at the highest level) " That was then, and this is now. It has been dealt with."

No penitence; no concern with the generation of victims whose lives are in tatters. Complacency and arrogance.

The exclusive club they have created; that we refused to be part of and so are insulted by them.

And glancing at the various items on Clerical Whispers, and in the Irish news, distanced by long days of Silence and Prayer?

The verses that come to soul thought are the ones before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; is there not even one good man left?

It seems not; the leadership is political, worldly and nothing they say can be trusted.

So we learn what Jesus teaches about "offences"; Matthew 18...Interesting that His words re offences against children are near these words..

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18&version=KJV

And I say here with calm and sureness; that the Irish Catholic Church is no longer Catholic, as it is not keeping the laws of the Church, and no longer of Christ either.

So , quietly, we walk our path in Jesus, and away from the furore and the unholiness we see. And are at peace on this.

And quietly also, we love Him and His needy ones as we have done for 160 years ( this is our 160th Anniversary as an Order)

We are needed; for those who come to chat as I sit knitting at our table. Who are troubled and after just chatting, ask for prayer for the most terrible needs. Who know loneliness and pain.

There are so few they can turn to now.

And the oddest things they say. When I made a joke re the problems here, a lady asked if I had lost faith in the "Man Above"? Do they really blame God for the actions of man? It took my breath away, and I told them that God is not to blame for people's deeds... They thought that that was a wonderful answer..

And there is still humour. That first Sunday, the weather was violent. The sale is in a warehouse and they were sweeping the water out of the door. At one stage such a hailstorm that they had to close the great doors. People were jittery.... and then one man attached himself to my Habit.
"Sister will go straight to heaven and I will sneak in behind her."

And the laughter eased tension.

But these people do not deserve what the Church has done to them and does still. Dear Lord; they do not deserve this. It aches the heart to see it.

So we are here for them on our small, small way. Knowing that we are not Irish and do not condone what has gone in in any way...

So we endure all and love all.

And we are well known in the trading community now. Almost five years. And although we are too expensive usually for car boot sales, we are earning more that if I set up in Town at this season. Hats are going well... my funky hats! And the more unusual jams also. "Something different.."

Here, it is taking time to adjust to the altitude and the drastically lower temperatures. For the first time in years, the cats are free of sheep ticks; too cold for them up here!

And we are above the snow line; and yes, we have had snow already this year. So we need fuel etc.

But we are so rich, all of us, are we not? We know how the US food banks are struggling; and we also are fighting to survive in India as the needy ones outstrip our resources. We have a roof, and a dry floor ) when I left the other place, it was inches deep in water.... we still have not got our deposit back either...)

And we have food and clothing.

Donegal has escaped the worst of the flooding also. Down South, there are terrible situations ongoing.

So we work on now; here, knitting and prayer and today I will make a Christmas Marmalade. I told one lady that and her face lit up; we need Christmas this year. Light and life in these dark times. Small pleasures mean so much...

Blessings...

Winter floods...

2009-11-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

Life in Ireland is... interesting.

Deluges and gales.... and water pouring in through the floor in this wee old cottage.

We did warn all concerned re probable damage from the vibration from diggers and lorries, but they did not listen.

So now it , seems there is foundation change.

The cottage, like so many Irish houses, was already damp, and this is the final straw as far`as we are concerned.

When they were built, they kept fires burning day and night; their only means of cooking and that kept wet at bay. Central heating does not help; it is living flame that burns wet away.

Which sounds romantic but is a different matter living it of course; and with turf now at E3 a small bag...

It seems they put stone tiles simply atop earth... no proper foundations. So of course it leaks in heavy rain. But this is a new thing so clearly there is fresh trouble.. Sinking back into the ground!

Flowing like a river...

The landlord tried blaming blocked rainwater gutters; as I assured him, these are kept clear. I have lived in old cottages for three decades and know how to care for them. And in any case, blocked gutters do not make floors pour out gallons of water.

And he has not bothered to send anyone round.

So, now another move, as soon as we find a house that it. Which, with the rent allowance system here, is proving difficult just now.

We rented through a local agency; thankfully personnel there has changed and the new lady is honest and knows now the situation here.

The cottage should never have been rented out of course.

So we wait now; I have one dry room so all that is needful is in here.

As the rain pounds down and the wind rages, snug with work for hands..... Knitting wee red hats and booties with edging of white eyelash for Christmas sale...so pretty..

And hoping to be out at the indoor sale tomorrow. Certainly there is no outdoor selling! Not even this Nun would try in these sudden deluges and with hail and thunder forecast. There are limits!

Stay safe and warm and dry!

Blessings and peace this day...

Sister with webbed feet....

Isis, not Mary

2009-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

The fallout from Knock clarifies and intensifies.

Someone in Canada has rightly opined that the "Mary cult" is in fact the cult of Isis.

Today's offering from the man Coleman ratifies and affirms this.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/visionary-says-virgin-mary-passed-on.html

Queen of Earth? Mother of all God's children?

That is not Mary, Mother of Jesus. That is a pagan deity.

And of course never does Coleman mention Jesus by name; and he does not even capitalise "son."

He cannot use the Holy Name for he is not holy. Levitation? Praying the Lord's Prayer backwards?

And priests are of Jesus not of Mary. She who was humble to speak like this? No.

That photo... yukk!! ANYONE can pose like that.

And leaving the place like that?

See

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/shrine-staff-forced-to-clean-up-mess.html

They should send Coleman the billl for that work.

And the arrogance of the man. Padre Pio? Joan of Arc? Neither advertised and drew crowds in deliberately like this.

No concern for safety, no caring for the Basilica. No respect.

Allowing the crowds to eat and to litter and desecrate the place. A House of God.

That is not the action of a man of God.

So now they really need to stop Knock being used like this. Maybe choose a nearby field? After all, most of the true Marian apparitions happened outside, away from human habitation and always away from any church.. and almost always to simple children, shepherds.. not a man like this.

*************************************

We continue to be horrified and shocked by the spending spree the Church is indulging in here. At a time when many are fighting to make ends meet, when the suicide rate is rising, when Vincent de Paul is experiencing a crisis.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/rise-in-people-seeking-svp-help.html

The Church carries blithely on, asking for money for new gimmicks and refurbishments to Churches that are not needed.

http://www.cinews.ie/article.php?artid=6567

ONLY E27,000? Gee! And is there no stone here in Ireland? We see plenty everywhere and some quarries are on short time working already.

http://www.cinews.ie/article.php?artid=6556

See the last line. E1.5 million raised how? By public subscription.

http://www.cinews.ie/article.php?artid=6544

So they knock on doors where folk are out of work...and grumble at their work load?

While the coffers of Rome are full.

And parish priests go on holiday to the Bahamas while their parishioners line up in the rain in their hundreds to sign on for the dole.

What are they all thinking of? This is a throwback to famine times when all the money they had went to the priest for holy water. Have these men no awareness of the reality of the life lived at their very gates?

As for us? We work on as we always will, living simply and relying on providence and the work of our hands, so that babies can have life.

Joyful that we can do this; desolated that we cannot do more.

And always that provision. The house we were at the other day; the lady enjoys car boot sales, and had seen a large black shawl for sale at one. And in her kindness had thought of us. We cannot wear coats over the habit and while there is a shawl and other items waiting to be sent from Canada, the shipping is beyond us just now.

And this thick garment is a cape/shawl , like the ones we wear in Canada.

And will warm with the caring that gave it.

********************************

And finally " A Christmas Keepsake from the Irish Hermitage " is off to the publishers today and will be available in a very short while. It is a true Christmas book, 300 pages of old and new, celebrating the real season.

Priced at $18 and if you buy from us, it will be signed. And of course every purchase will feed our babies... Please email us to order anchoresscj at yahoo dot com

These orders will come to you from Ireland.

Blessings this wet and windy day, a day for hot soup...

The aftermath of Knock...

2009-11-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

See

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/knock-shrine-in-terrible-state-after-visitors-flock-to-gathering-432737.html

What a shambles; and of course any man worth anything would take care of where he was. Mary after all was a housewife.... And he was a guest there. But no...

And as one of the reports says, they were eating sweets and crisps as they waited..

Ireland is basically a dirty land where you see so much litter in beautiful places and it is taking a huge effort to try to stem that.

Reaction has been interesting.

There was the initial petulant anti-ANYTHING the Church says.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/virgin-mary-was-in-ireland-but-irish.html

See the comments therein

But then the tide has begun to turn as more witnesses reported in.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/self-proclaimed-visionary-hails-second.html

And then...

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/pilgrims-hold-out-for-miracle-as-faith.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/row-is-brewing-with-catholic-church.html

And this..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/spiritual-search-turns-into-stampede-as.html

And this..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/11/knock-knock-whos-there-15000-pilgrims.html

Take care...

2009-10-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

Here, in Ireland, another "apparition" is scheduled at Knock.

If anyone has any doubts as to the origin of this, see.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/10/another-apparition-at-knock.html

Neary for once is right.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/10/statement-by-archbishop-michael-neary.html

Sad that the Church is failing its people so badly that this kind of thing attracts thousands; there are many coaches. booked to go to Knock today.

Were it nearer, we might be tempted to take our beautiful rosaries to sell.. but we would be knocked down in the stampede.

Blessings from Ireland

Bemused... Ireland and elsewhere.

2009-10-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

So many conflicting messages from the doings of Holy Mother Church now.

Here in Ireland, we heard this week of a PP ( parish priest) in Donegal who is off on his holidays - to the Bahamas. His stand in, a young Polish priest, thought it wonderful that they might hear of him winning a surfing championship.

As one of his parishioners, white with anger, said, many of his parishioners just now are struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.

In Dublin.. see...
http://www.cinews.ie/article.php?artid=6544

So while the food queues grow there? The priests are knocking on doors and asking for money; when we are in recession.. and Rome is the richest organisation and landowner there is here.

The response to the Ryan Report here from the Franciscans?

See

http://www.cinews.ie/article.php?artid=6545

Wait a minute: are not Franciscans about social justice?

And in Brazil, the Church is planning to spend 3 1/2 million on what?

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/10/church-plans-christ-redeemer-upgrade-in.html

Brazil?

http://www.udel.edu/butzin/articles/child.html

Am I missing something here?

Or is it yet another example of fiddling while Rome burns?

As for us, we work on quietly and staunchly. Always for Jesus, always for the very poor.

Here, as rain sheets and pounds down almost non stop, fingers are busy with wool, and the wee Nunmobile is packed and ready in case the weather allows selling in the morning.

And work is almost finished on the "Christmas Keepsake;" is should be in print in the next two weeks.

About the world out there we can do nothing.. about our own corner? Ah that is different, thankfully!

Here, we can follow and obey and above all love the Lord Jesus and care for all He bids us do.

Blessings this day from a small place where sanity and love abound.

Of the Church in Ireland

2009-10-21T01:27:00.001-07:00

We have watched the seven years we have been here, and when Mother Abbess was here also.

As the Church here crashes and burns.. as wave after wave of scandals were forced from darkness into the light.

As the priesthood and religious orders faded and began to stagnate and die.

Ferns, then this year the Ryan Report.. and now the Dublin Report hovers on dark wings.

This says so much.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/10/cover-ups-exposed-in-dublin-report-will.html

And such is the seriousness that there are more and more delays now.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/govt-delays-publication-of-dublin-abuse-report-431009.html

And as we knew would happen..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/10/laity-must-do-more-to-run-parishes-says.html

For the retirement and death rate escalates all the time now. Gathering momentum as the months pass.

The laity here in Ireland are not equipped to run the Church. Period.
They have been subjugated for too many generations.

And the Church here will not allow it either.

When we lived in that parish, Mother Abbess and I saw what was done when lay people strove over a long period of almost six years, to run their Church when the Diocese would abandon it.

http://www.donegalpost.com/2009/04/09/church-row-escalates/

Their integrity shines through their words here.

Of course, they were a victim of their own success. A strong and vibrant local community, to whom the Church means much, much more than attending mass.. who had faithfully and lovingly cared for that wee chapel in the mountains for five years, never giving up.

The spirit of prayer in that chapel is strong and true. A beauty and a grace given. And deserved.

As an Order from outside Ireland, with a small presence here, there is little we can do as all this happens.

Until and unless accommodation is given, we cannot bring over the many Irish Sisters we have now in the Order, and who long to come home.

To renew religious life here.

So we wait and watch and pray.. and always our own work goes on as winter takes command.

And we talk with so many on our few hours selling... always a joy. A lorry driver on Saturday pulled his great rig in off the road when he saw us, turned round in the car park, stopped by our Nunmobile, just to buy jam.. "Isn't it wonderful to have something different?" he enthused.

Grandparents who had asked for prayer for their daughter trying IVF, had driven all the way from Dublin to see us; yes, a baby on the way.

A large group from Belfast, in Town for a Line Dancing weekend, who had bought our jams last year and loved them, eager to buy more.

A wee boy seeing the funky hats and uttering a long, "Coooooooool!" lol!

The lady who had found a pearl of great price; that prayer is not words that are just words, but the kindnesses we do for others.. she saw that on out table also.

All God's dear people.. maybe most of all the empty-eyed atheist who clearly makes a hobby of religious arguments from the look on his wife's face.. but who had simply calmness from us. He is free to believe as he wants. As we are.

All people dear to Jesus, who we hold quietly in Prayer now.

Work we have been doing for A Hundred and Sixty Years this year.

Blessings this day as autumn gales sweep across the land.

"A Christmas Keepsake from the Irish Hermitage."

2009-10-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

This, our fourth book, is soon to be out now.

This adds to the three we have now.. "Tales from an Irish Hermitage," "More Tales from an Irish Hermitage" and "Seasons of an Irish Hermitage."

They are based on total truth, but slightly fictionalised, to smooth out some of the rough edges that life throws. And also to protect the privacy of our enclosure and lives.

For the life of a Monastic Nun is hidden in Christ always. Veiled. For Him.

This new book is an anthology; of all that is true and strong of Jesus at Christmas.

For this year more than ever, we need to keep Him in our hearts; and especially in how we celebrate Christmas.

And this book will shine that.

The cover will be here soon; a wonderful bright red! To glow the heart.

We are taking advance orders; thirteen already.

And as always, every cent we make from this book, as from all we make and sell, will help us to feed our babies and the homeless.

Which is what Christmas is about. Living the Light of the Light of the World in all we do and are.

Blessings this soft grey morning from Ireland.

A peaceful PS...

2009-10-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

.. to the entry below...

These things disturb not; they simply reveal so much. That we have seen many times and often now, in this pattern.

"Religion" rather than that shining faith in the Lord Jesus that transcends all else.

One can lead to the other, but sometimes does not.

So then there comes that "see no evil, hear no evil" that means that loyalty to the system and rules and people, rather than utter fealty to Jesus starts to reign and dictate.

That is their choice always, and thus their responsibility also before God.

And we leave it there.

Serene and tranquil in our life of love and Jesus.

A life based on His words, who is Word.

And free thus to say no if "religion" departs from that.

For we have seen here in Ireland, and will see again as the Dublin Report will show, what evil can creep and swarm in when wrong within a human organisation happens.

This week we have watched again the "Sex in a Cold Climate" video...

http://www.videosift.com/video/Sex-In-A-Cold-Climate-Documentary-The-Magdalene-Asylums

It says it all, does it not?

So loyalty is to the Church, not to any abuses therein.

And if anyone has questions or comments, that is fine too, for all learn and journey always.

The comment board here is moderated and thus totally confidential; also you can email at anchoresscj at yahoo dot com.

But, we will not allow ourselves to be treated an an emotional punch bag, or as scapegoats as has happened all too often. And as was clearly the case this week.

Because we are Holy Women of God, Consecrated Nuns.

Blessings this day

Stereotyping and True Monasticism

2009-10-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Or experiential learning!

This Nun should know better than to stick her head up on any secular forum these days.

But sometimes it is refreshing to speak with like-minded people on what we have in common; our occupations and interests.

Each time, we get attacked and lambasted; oddly enough, this always comes not from anyone except our own people .. or, rather, lay Catholics who think they know everything and have no love or charity in them. Whose faith is not in the Lord Jesus, but in a strict and stereotyped set of views.

To these, Nuns are stereotyped. Their view is narrow and quite unreal.

eg unless an Order is heavily on the internet? Not real. Unless an Order is listed in CORI? Not a real order NB CORI after the Ryan Report was discredited and disbanded and lists only some Irish Orders.

Unless your Foundress was beatified?

And from them on, the abuse starts and no holds barred.

Somehow from the Monastic Flowers page, we "live in squalor" and "neglect our health" and NO NUNS DO THAT.

I reread that page and totally fail to see that logic?

Oh, and I stand accused of STEALING the blackberry photo??

The old when is a Nun not a Nun farrago

You will I think get the picture.

Those who read this and know us will smile wryly as they know truth.

And what has happened here in Ireland because we are not an Irish Order and although Catholic we are, like Taize, autocephalous.

And many here know that , like many other Orders are doing now, we removed our detailled web site from the internet, and for the same reasons.

It attracted only voyeurs and eccentrics.

And to the cry that went up; how then are young women to know where to come if they have a vocation if you are not on the web?

Laughter here; vocation is of God, not of the internet and certainly not of us or our making. Many orders have learned this the hard way as we did at one stage. And we are growing at such a rate that we are hard pressed to accommodate those who come and now have a four - year waiting list.

Young women called by God will of course seek an Order that lives its calling fully and with integrity and has not sold out to the world and its values.

The Poor Clares here in Carlow learned that the hard way when they "went public" to try to attract more vocations. All they got was begging letters, accusations of being Lesbians and a loss of their peace.

Why?

Because true Monastics are per se set apart from the world - period. and that is true for every aspect of our lives - period.

The world is not ever going to "understand" . We would worry if they did. So they are always going to attack. And thus also attempt to discredit.

The world's ways are not the ways of Jesus, as He says over and over again. "If you love Me, the world will hate you."

And oh, how we love Him!

If you look at the Poor Clares of Galway and their website?

http://www.poorclares.ie/

Your reaction to this will reveal what if anything you truly know about Monastic and Enclosed life, and Nuns.

The galleries there are the most... revealing.

Of the lack of observation of Monastic Enclosure.. of the great riches of the Order also. Of the luxury they live among.

Enclosure is not a door; well it IS a door, a door no one passes. Period.

Not with a camera either.

Enclosed Monastics are hidden - period. No faces, no photos.

Else how are they observing Enclosure?

It becomes meaningless.

So on this page, you will never read of anything that is beyond our Enclosure door.

No photos either, thank you!
As we explain on our small contacts with the outside world, we are Nuns, not film stars... God bless the old Scottish lady who riposted, "You are better looking than film stars!"

Our standards and observances as Nuns are the ways Monasticism began. Pure and undiluted.

Which is why we are thriving and growing, while the orders that adopted worldly ways are dying.

They became.. respectable... and diluted and lost the Spirit.

But now the world at large thinks that they are other than what they are.

And so the stereotyping is in.

Here, we meet the world at our small point of contact with the world. It is as simple and as pure and as truly Monastic as that.

And yes, we keep Enclosure strictly. As we cannot afford a shop, as all our money is for our babies, we sell at markets. It is simply the same in essence as having a shop. People come to buy or to ask for Prayer, or both, so the stall becomes our Convent parlour also.

Enclosure is a door - but it is so much more than a door. It is a way of life, pure and total.

This Nun is out maybe 15 hours in the week. At the most. In winter, maybe 8 hours in the week.

And those are the hours you share here.

That tiny point of contact; we meet you at the door of the enclosure, and no one goes any further in. No one; the old rule always was, a doctor, a priest, or a workman. Always escorted and always we are chaperoned of course.

Here, even our Associates do not pass the enclosure gate; we meet them elsewhere. And they know us and deeply respect that.

So no one sees or hears about rest of the time that is Prayer and work and Silence, and in this case, Solitude.

Monastic Flowers shares a little more; a small space to rest in.

And the Irish stories ? lol !

You see what we mean re stereotyping?

Once these begrudging ones start?

NUNS DO NOT USE THE INTERNET

Really?

So the Galway site is moonshine? And the Carlow also?

http://www.poorclarescarlow.ie/welcome.htm

Oh those gardens... lol! ( see the photographs link)

But oh the cost financially of keeping those beautiful.. that is done by employees as the Order diminishes.

And in these days, Holy Poverty has become eroded and symbolic. So it is diminished to meaning that no Sister personally owns anything. And the life style has become like any other.

This is not a true monastisicm and not of course how we live it. As most who come here and those who support us know full well.

As I told them before I left, Clare would have loved email. She would have bombarded the Pope with email.. And Julian and the other anchoresses would have revelled in it also.

It is a tool and one that can support and help so many.

Which is what our lives are about.

The small part of our lives that are seen.

And one that is strictly limited also.

And for an order like ours, that is perforce scattered it is a blessing and a boon.

True monastics who the world never hears of. Who vaunt not themselves publically and seek no fame or worldly acclaim.

Living and dying happily and joyfully in total obscurity - and yet enriching the world in ways unseen.

It was sweet for a day or three to chat about knitting and see the beautiful work others do.

To meet the world at that small point of contact.

But Jesus bids us shake the dust off our feet so we obey Him.

What a bad impression of "religion" these ones give though; what a show of begrudgery and closed , narrow minds.

Not the wide, wide love of Jesus for all. Not the joy and riches of Him.

But of course we are separate from the world, and that the world has no idea what we are living is the reason for this.

As soon as an order abandons the purity of true monastic values, it starts to decline.

That is the way of it.

Because God is in charge. Thankfully so.

Is that no reassuring? Alleluia...

An Irish tale....

2009-09-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

We are still in fine weather.. serene and utterly peaceful.. and after an exhausting weekend, this Nun was longing for the Silence of this place.

The old cottage is primitive - but isolated and thus ...always blissfully tranquil... .

So it was less than pleasant on Monday morning, after a week of inactivity down the lane, to hear heavy lorries and the large digger... Ay me! There is an echo here too. Crash, bang,, shake rattle and roll echoing round the mountains and assaulting my weary ears...

The noise in Town is the hardest part of our trading..

I checked the planning map online, then called the Council...Even so, early on Tuesday it got too much.. another ten hours of DIN.

So I dressed, full habit, and strode down, over the gate and across the lane, and lambasted the digger driver, who was clearly having a a ball with his huge toy.

Veil flying.... lol!

He started to protest innocence, but fell silent at the onslaught.. said he would call his boss ( everyone has mobile phones here; the two fashion accessories in Ireland are a mobile phone in one hand and a bottle of water in the other...)

So I wearily climbed the hill again....

It was not long afterwards that the dogs started barking loudly. They are not socialised and are very, very protective. And especially if you cannot see them, they sound huge and ferocious... which is their job.

As the sign on the gate says "BEWARE OF THE DOG. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK"

I called out and a male voice answered; at the door he was.

So he had climbed the gate!! Takes a brave man to do that!!

By the time I got out, he was fleeing down the drive, but came back when he saw I was..... alone!

It was the works foreman!

Auntie is a Nun so he has been raised right...

They had, he said ( and please allow for Irish blarney..) no idea anyone lived here. Fair enough; this is hidden from the road and the padlocked gate would suggest a vacant holiday house.

We are also the only inhabited house for a mile or more in each direction.

All the while, he was twisting his baseball cap in his hands.. These old Irish Sisters have a lot ot answer for, but sometimes we are glad to piggyback on their legacy.

So we talked; the digger was silent and I asked him to listen; the silence here is profound and deep.. "Bliss," he said..

And I told him of our work, and that the noise is so bad I cannot work or pray.

I told him I had called the Council, and of our last bad experience and that we had had to leave one house.....and that I had already started packing..... which is true. We have been let down about two houses already recently.

As I had by then surmised, this is a land reclamation scheme.. which being interpreted means that they have waste from building work and have no idea else what to do with it. They need no permit - as I had already learned.

He tried to mininise the noise, saying that the lorries do not pass very often, but he had to back down over that as he knows they are passing non- stop... A look from me was enough!

Then he, amid profuse apologies, offered a "contribution" - the Irish word they use - for our work...... And a fair one at that.. I asked also for firewood, driving a hard bargain, as we desperately need solid fuel for the winter.

And he assured me, wincing at the week ahead, that they will be finished this week..

The dogs did terrify him! Wonderful!!

As the Nun appearing out of nowhere terrified the digger lad also...

So we arranged he should leave all outside the gate, ie the money, and he offered his mobile number, in the mail box.
He was grateful for that because of the dogs.. and early yesterday the dogs started as there was clearly someone at the gate... By the way, the gate is not visible from the house and the drive is a steep hundred yards.

At first light this morning, I collected the "contribution" from our mail box, and have bagged up some of the beautiful hard wood logs. Not a huge pile, but enough for a good few evening fires. I know the building site they are working from, you see, and although they leave as many trees as they can, there is abundant wood there to spare.

Many years in Ireland have taught this Nun how to forage.

And we need to forage; for we have babies to feed and the more we can forage the more cash that frees for them. A deadly equation.

And they are working hammer and tongs now.. just starting up for today.

The Monastic day starts early, thankfully, and I know now the times they take their break, so we are out then.

Next is the Post Office; there was a note advising of a parcel. We had trained this Post Office to leave these in the large box by the gate, but it seems there must be a new man on duty? So a note has been left.
Flim flam and blarney and a plea for help.. The Post Office is a long drive and would take a whole morning.....

Ireland! It has its moments. A lady at the stall on Sunday told me that I am "nearly Irish" I had as we always, said that we are not Irish.. "You are getting there, " she said, smiling.

So today, knitting ..... I have caught up with most of the stock sold at weekend and am onto "funky hats" now. Bright and using all the oddments of eyelash and other highly textured unusual yarns I have in stock.. fascinating work as the lorries roar past.

Crazy seasons this year. We have just one rose bush, in a container, and it has only just flowered. September instead of June.. and the "giant sunflowers" are just opening; tiny wee things. Our beans? Three small pods only...

There was a slight frost on the logs at the gate...

Blessings this day...

Interesting times...

2009-09-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

We have been in a rare fine spell; our Indian summer...Busy days indeed after a very bad summer...

The weekend saw two days trading.. One in Glenties, the annual Harvest Fair.. I had heard of this but had no idea of the size or scale of the event in this small Irish town, or of the chaos in traffic as there is no bypass.. The town, one very long street, has the only road from Ardara, Donegal and all points beyond there, to Dungloe and thus to Fintown. Letterkenny is usually accessed through the Barnesmore Gap.

God blessed us with a tiny wee space in the middle of Town; along with my professional eye and using the "clout" Nuns still have in Ireland - and a fair helping of flim-flam and blarney.

Sales were low; people at festivals are seeking candy floss and hot dogs, and on that day to stroll in the hot sun.

Yet the encounters were rich indeed. So very rich..

It was only when I left that the scale hit me. Over three miles of stalls, and that is no exaggeration. Every trader in Ireland must have been there. Surreal to drive past so many stalls.. and it took an hour to get out of the town.

An adventure indeed.. followed by another hot day when it would have been sin not to be out.

Top sales were the wee baby sets. And a number of "funky" childrens' hats I had revelled in knitting. Sorting wool stocks here had yielded tiny amounts of costy "fancy" yarns from a few sources who save scraps of us. YOU know, the ones with long dangling coloured threads etc. Just a few rows in a toning cap...

To knit beauty is a joy; to knit beauty that will feed babies is a blessing so rich it feeds souls.

To see a pregnant woman handling the tiny booties ... words cannot express this. The look on their faces..

And tea cosies....

I strung a row of angels across the back of the car, and caught a look of childlike delight on two lined old faces...

Long chats with many...

And chatting too with every Garda and Bangarda on duty which is a very good thing to do.... Maybe only in Ireland could you see three cops standing nattering with their backs to milling crowds...

Today was to be a Quiet Day, but after a gap of a couple of weeks, the mountain-movers are back...

The noise has been horrific.

I finally, as there seems no end in sight. checked with the online planning maps, which are excellent here.. nothing applied for on that site.. If he is simply filling land in to make a field?

So the council now know of this. This will be the second time we have had noisy illegal building activity beside us. The first one ? When they checked, he had over 20 separate major infractions of the planning he had applied for.

They gave him 28 days to stop work before they served the Notice on him; so of course he redoubled the work, and we left that house.

So now we shall see.

The lawless Irish...

Silence is a rare and precious commodity in this world of ours.

Which is why Monastics cherish the early hours.

Blessings this night...

Bomb scare...

2009-09-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, on the main street of our local Donegal Town, someone spotted a suspicious looking parcel.

The Gardai were alerted, and the town centre was immediately evacuated and cordonned off. Shops, businesses, homes.

To wait for the bomb disposal team from the nearby Army Camp.

Who defused the device and removed it.

It was a viable, crude pipe bomb, containing live explosives. The Army have confirmed that officially.

The Gardai are of course expert at this kind of thing; sadly so.

So the machinery went swiftly into motion.

Deeply thankful for that - and that it was spotted in time.

We read of violence almost daily still here in Ireland.

Yet when it is a street where we drive and walk and shop every week, it chills the blood to hear of this.

An ordinary small Irish Town, on a sunny autumn morning. People on their way to work, children walkin to school....

Deeply thankful that no harm was done. And praying that people will be able to rest from the tension.

Blessings this night.

2009-09-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

m, who sent comments... Please, can you email me at anchoresscj at yahoo dot com? Thank you.

Back later...

Blessings this calm night ....

Monastic Flowers

2009-08-27T01:35:00.000-07:00

Referring you over to the other side of our weblog..

www.monasticflowers.blogspot.com

And the precursor of this weblog also...

www.xanga.com/anchoressnun

Blessings this day from Ireland of the autumn tones.

Of cooking and poverty

2009-08-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

It is interesting how conversations go.

We are still working towards our recipe book, in desultory fashion with so much else happening work- wise just now.

And we started talking of how "our" street people manage. They who have no kitchens and no stoves, and often no money.

So we wonder about a section on this... "How to cook an egg on a hot engine".... "How to cook food on a hot pavement."

Because this is literally how our folk have to survive.

And they humble us with their sturdy ingenuity. With their survival and dignity.

Here, as many of you know, we live as simply as we can, because every cent we save gives more to feed our babies and other homeless. So our way is simply to spend as little as we can so that more money can be released to send to India.

The equation is... the number of tiny ones we can save from death is only limited by the amount of money we can send.

So that means that we live for that end. Never counting, but simply not using in food or fuel what we do not need. It is nature to us.

Not in any way a sacrifice or difficult, simply instinct now. And we know what is cheapest and where.

This is our Holy Poverty; not for its own sake, but... "Living simply so that others can simply live.." A joyful giving that is never hard. Always love to give. Nothing is ours; all is of God.

And because we all work in our making of jams, knitteds, rosaries, and other craft work, that we sell, time is very precious indeed, so that food needs for us to be fast and simple.

We chuckle at how fast this can be.. When I begged some marrowbones from a butcher today, she put in a couple with a lot of meat on them, for they know us well now, how we live. And they honour us by their giving that never disdains or patronises us, but honours our way of life.

So tomorrow, these will go in the slow cooker, with carrots and onion and the "soup mix" that is so cheap here..... it is barley, lentils and split peas. And a couple of potatoes.

Time? Two minutes.

We don't add up the cost as there could be nothing cheaper. The carrots this week were free with potatoes, which are in great abundance just now.

So while the food is cooking, flavours slowly melding and permeating all, we work on with our crafts.

And there will be in that a generous serving for our dogs also.

We have just learned that this weekend there is a Food Festival in the Town; blessed happenstance at a knitting-house we called at to beg wool.

Else we would not have been well prepared for what may be a strong weekend for us.

So now all the blackberries are out of the freezer and tomorrow will see jam made in abundance.

And there may be a problem as they are using the place we set up in, so diplomacy is needed as we cannot pay the E200 per place they are charging..

Had we not called at that house, what a dreadful surprise it would have been..

So hot , sustaining food is needful as autumn gathers coolth now. Simmering away as jam boils.

And always a deep thankfulness that we can do this; for the roof over our heads when so many have none, for food and clothing. For all the joyful creativity that is for Jesus and His needy ones.

When we were picking berries today, along a favourite lane by the sea, a local man came along. And he reminisced about his younger days, how they grew their own potatoes and vegetables, had their own milk and eggs. And he was almost shy of saying, in these days of richer fare, that he still does this and that this is the only way he can manage. As we said, the best food in the world this is. It always was. Simple, sturdy,

Blessings this cool night.

Ryan Report; the fallout

2009-08-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

It has seemed quiet.

As things have seemingly settled, attitudes have settled and grown firm.

All is known now, until the Dublin Report, scheduled, if it is made public ( that decision remains with the High Court) for September 8th.

There seems in Church circles, to be no difference made by these shocking abominations being made public.

We read almost daily the boast of increased numbers making pilgrimages to various places in Ireland and abroad ( many to Medjugorje , although that was banned by Rome) Of youth rallies and other feats.

And some Bishops eg Leo O'Reilly, making outbursts about the abuse being an "exception and an aberration" show clearly that there is not real penitence.

Today, figures of new admissions to seminaries; 38 for the whole of Ireland. One or two to each Diocese....

The admission speeches say nothing of the situation.

Fiddling while Rome burns... carrying on as if nothing has happened... as if to hypnotise folk into thinking that.

And now, thankfully, new voices more strong and steadfast, are speaking.

Fr Iggy, God bless him.." The last sting of a dying wasp.." wonderful turn of phrase...And a priest who was removed from Ireland, seemingly because he was too good at the real work of a parish priest. And the Ryan report head....

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/priest-demands-freeze-on-recruiting.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/ryan-report-fallout-poses-major-test.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/pope-day-chance-to-atone-for-sins-monk.html

The latter is not wise with the Dublin report held over.

We have watched and waited in vain; nothing has changed within the Church, in the hierarchy. It all grinds on as if nothing had happened. So indeed yes, there is still danger. Complacent and stolid, blind ostriches.

People know; we are hearing quieter yet more assured and firm outrage than a few months ago, when they know they can speak to us.

And also, interestingly, the focus of our work has been changing subtly. More come to talk, to chat, to ask for prayer as we wait to sell.

So now we wait and watch and work all our days, in prayer and in longing for the love of Jesus to return to the Church. Love that we see in the faces of many; in a radiant young mother with her tiny baby nestled in a sling, in the mother also of a child we prayed for before she was born. That small family come to see us every year. In those who seek prayer for illness; facing hospital tests.... And so many in deep, dark troubles.. for they have no other they can speak to now.

And the shared laughter also that lightens hearts; the kindnesses of the offer of a cup of coffee.

And we ask also for your prayers in these difficult days as we strive to meet the needs of all we serve. Because we are here to serve, not as the elite seeking status as the wont has been. But to serve and be the love that is so sorely needed.

Blessings this day and night, this dark and light.

Of celibacy and other things...

2009-08-24T02:59:00.000-07:00

Once again, I omitted the link and cannot find the exact one..
However, these two offer most.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/130854/

http://www.freshconservative.com/Fresh_Conservative/Fresh_Conservative/Entries/2009/6/10_One_Lutherans_View_On_Homosexuality_And_Gay_Marriage.html

One speaker says that to refuse these things is against "hospitality"? and that all this is what Jesus would do? Of course with no Scriptural support?

Jesus gives us two great commandments and sometimes it seems as if they are taken out of order.

That we love our neighbours more than we love God?

So we think less of disobeying Him that we do of pleasing others?

*********************************************************
The way themes recur...

On Saturday, a group of family members, all past middle age, stopped at our stall.
One among them; it was difficult, even when "he" spoke, to determine if "he" was male or female.

They admired all our work as many do, them one asked how we found the time to make it all.
"Because we are celibate."
There was immediate silence as we went on to explain that celibacy had almost nothing to do with sex, but was about focussing all on Jesus and about His needy ones.

The "he/she" applauded with,"You are right," in that tone that expresses awe at revelation.

It gives pause for thought, does it not? For a whole Church to sit for days debating sex?

That is not healthy, or about loving God.

As we were packing up, we talked with a lady who used to volunteer with Vincent de Paul here, working with the handicapped. Thus she knows the Church scene here very intimately indeed.

I mentioned the talk with the buddhist last week, and as she was applauding what he had said re the "total vacuum of igorance about sexuality in the Church"., I again spoke of the true meaning of celibacy.

And again, it was new to her.

It seems that no-one is teaching these things, and that all the people know of this is the terrible pollution that has come because the Vow has been broken again and again and so much abuse against children.

So now we teach this and foremost we live it. Singleminded focussing on Jesus and on living His love - love that has nothing to do with the triviality and self centredness that is sexual idolatry.

And everything to do with the pure love of the Lord Jesus for all people.

Blessings this day

Sunday, wet Sunday

2009-08-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

Ireland is being.... water-challenged and wind-swept..

Yesterday a "pet day" with sun until mid afternoon... More of that later.

Here is the report re the US Lutherans referred to yesterday.
It in effect seeks to rewrite Scripture.
So now they are God?

The words of Jesus are thus to them no longer valid or relevant?

Had Jesus sanctioned this - and there were of course homosexuals in His days on earth, and there is documentation of some in the early Church trying to effect same-sex unions, He would have said so openly.

He challenged so many other aspects of life.

But there is not one word that would approve "gay unions".

Many forget that our faith is based on the Mosaic Covenant, in which Jesus lived.

He quite openly rewrites - He Who is the Son of God - some sections of that detailled Covenant. The laws about hygiene, about food, about the sabbath, and about vengeance. All are redefined.

And He reaffirms always marriage; as the union between one man and one woman. With not a word to redefine it.

That is the natural order, created by God, by Jesus. Man, woman, child . The foundation of family, of the entire social structure. The family unit in fact that His Father placed Him in.

And no, I am not spoonfeeding on this; please, read His words and find these.. see what Jesus truly teaches us to live, not what man has contorted it to for his own ends and justification.

He also does not condemn; see for this John 8. Where He upholds the law on any form of adultery, ie sexual transgression, but prevents the penalty demanded by the Law, ie stoning to death.

Not because the woman has not sinned, but in His mercy, He bids her to go and sin no more.

There is a great difference, is there not, between judging/condemning, and speaking of the laws of God.

And in an age when terms like homophobia, discrimination and the whole sorry vocabulary, are thrown about at the slightest irritation, it can become hard to speak or write of true laws.

Yet we realise that no one is teaching any more - except the "gay lobby".

So we remind of Jesus and His words; immutable, for all time, not by man and out of date as these would have us believe.

Not with condemnation but simply to remind of who we are in Jesus. Of His words...

For there is ONLY JESUS in these matters.

And in knowing that, there is peace. And tranquillity.

There needs no strife; no discussion. Simply; Jesus.

Blessings this day and always

Sad times of blindness.

2009-08-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

The headline that leaped off the page on checking mail spoke of the Lutheran defection to "active gays" as pastors.

Reading the smooth arguments, one could - almost - forget that this is not about "relationships" but about the great god sex, and about an act that is lustful and unnatural and totally gross.

Of course that is what they want to forget, but it is the reality and the truth.

Not love but lust. Sterile and bestial.

It is against the laws of God, against all His teachings.

Suddenly celibacy and restraints and morality that embraces love not lust has become??? Unfashionable? Unimportant?

And the separation between faith and life widens and deepens. So that it is fine to live as you want, as long as you attend Church, mass, praise and worship?

This is what we see here; the smooth veneer covering the reality.

What Jesus called whited sepulchres.

The poison that pollutes.

Making liturgy an empty sham.

So now? Our faith is about?? "Fulfilment"? Of every part? Whatever the teachings of God?

Like spoilt children.

Ah well; this is all foreseen and prophesied.

It is rare indeed that Old Testament texts come strongly to mind. But .. "Is there even one Godly man left?"

Yes, Lord, we are here.

So now, in a clear morning, off we go to sell our jams and knitteds. so that babies can be loved in the purity of love that is real and simple.

Maybe if these people worked and thought of the reality of the world's needs, and what celibacy can work, they would be far, far more fulfilled than any act they perform can ever effect.

And then they would be loving Jesus by obeying His commandments as He bids us do.

Which they ignore totally in their smooth arguments and redefining of "love" as lust.

For there is nothing in any of His words that says else about this.

Blessings and peace this quiet day, when there is almost frost.

The sadness of Ireland.

2009-08-15T19:08:00.000-07:00

This news item ...

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/ireland/first-child-killed-in-troubles-40-years-ago-422666.html

Yesterday a visitor told of how she was in the North and her hosts spoke proudly of a local school being "integrated". She had no idea what that meant and was appalled when they explained.

Yesterday was one of those days when we wonder how God bears it all.

And we realise how many have no one to talk to; how much pain they carry alone.

( For those new to our weblog; we who are Monastic Nuns always use "we"; our human identity is as Nuns, and where one is, in a very real sense, all are. As some know, this Nun is here at present as a Solitary, after decades as a hermit in the Order. This is one of the true reasons for the habit of course.All are the same thus)

"Ordinary" folk; children of God, many in so much pain and bearing heroically..

We ask if they are on holiday; and that simple question seems to mean so much.

The elderly man who has just buried his father; over from the North for a couple of days. They had bought jam, and his wife was taking it back to the car. Simple words of commiseration, and that it was fine to grieve. Then he spoke of prayer. The pain in his face....

The young Polish mother with a pretty wee girl in a pushchair, buying a warm hat. Again, a simple enquiry, and we hear that they are returning to Poland... partly because their old mother is ill, but also the wee girl is needing more company. Seemingly they have not been made welcome here by the clannish Irish. We know the feeling....

The American mother, married to an Irishman, with a severely autistic boy in a push chair. He is hyper and she is clearly worn out. So she talks and talks, as she needs to. She is a heroine, and we award her an angel; when the little girl says SHE wants it, we tell her no. She has to look after her mother and her mother needs the angel.

The man who starts swearing and accusing "the homeless" of choosing to be so; he gets reprimanded for his language, and re-educated.

The pompous young English buddhist who stands, his hands in a pious mode... he has two Swamis and thinks reeling their long names off will impress.. then he name drops Brother Roger of Taize.

He is greeted calmly and we talk of the situation here in Ireland; his mother is with him. Northern Ireland again.

One of his Swamis has written two books about Jesus; but of course not as the Son of God.

Then he starts pontificating, and in his bitter tones and curled lip we see the damage he has been done. And that he will pass on now.

Of the "total vacuum of ignorance in the Church about sexuality"

No, we say, quietly, the Church knows exactly what it is doing. ( Not in the way he thinks we mean that, but it stops the flow.)

We are celibates, I tell him; and that really silences him. He saw us simply as "the Church" and fired.... and for an Englishman to speak like that shows deep woundedness..he has been damaged. And gently but firmly, looking him full in the face, we tell him the truth about celibacy. That it has almost nothing to do with the triviality of sexuality. That the preoccupation with sexual idolatry is of the world. That it is not a sacrificial or repressed thing, but a joyful and willing refocussing. That we never speak or think of it. Triviality that it is.

He has never heard this before, and there is a silence.

So many become buddhist because of the Church. Is that not so very, very sad?

He started earlier, you see, of the new ideas here re permanent deacons, and that they will be married men. OF COURSE we knew of that, and asked him had he not noticed that any under 25 will be celibate? He had not of course.

Oh, we found this article that explains the reason for the diaconate move..

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/cardinal-says-deacons-must-know.html

So the priests will say Mass and hear confessions, while the deacons will do "lesser" tasks.

Only of course, it is the deacons who will be closer to the people, and who will do the real work.

And once more always men; and we are so very grateful for that as it frees us to do the real work also; this is why and how we were founded all those years ago.

A Sister-encounter; this time a Holy Cross Sister home from South Africa for a holiday. Is that scrap of material precariously clinging to the back of her permed head really a ..... veil?

See what this Order used to wear; and she was old enough to have known those days.. and most of the Order wear nothing distinctive any more.

She is staying with her sister in law, who, it emerges, lives just down the lane from us; so we are able to explain more of our puzzling life here! The padlocked gate especially...

And so it goes on, on a windy Saturday in a small Irish town. More and more, those who have met us before, like the lady from the pharmacy who is eating her way along our jams. Loves them all, bless her. And the children always.

And our own parish priest, who is the one kind of his kind; always a cheerful greeting, and he comes to ask if our dog came back; we had left a flier and to ask for prayer at mass.

And in the supermarket, the most disquieting encounter of all. Because intentional? A family of the sweetest swarm of coffee-coloured children. The man, English/Irish it emerges, is a BAPTIST, and, arms full of peaches ( they are selling them off at 79 cents a kilo so what can a thrifty Nun do!) backs me up against the potatoes to... pontificate... about sola scriptura and wrong teachings..

Meaning Catholic of course, and look; here is one of them!

I look him full in the face and say, but there is ONLY JESUS. There is no room in the heart for anything more.. and I quote His words of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.

It pauses for a wee while; but this is a zealot.. Not for Jesus, but for doctrine and RIGHT.. as I say also, I am not God to say what is right and what is wrong.

ONLY JESUS...

It is like being on oneof the "bad"forums again.. And I am aware that we are being listened to by those around.

That young man will do so much damage; probably most to his wee ones?

Turning more away into meaningless conflict and division.

Because there is ONLY JESUS.

And so the day ends; sitting here outside a while, watching the trees twist and writhe in the increasing gale.

And wondering how God bears it? All the pain. All the damage. All the need.

An honour and a privilege, a humbling and an awe-ing to be there in this tiny way.

Blessings this night and day.

Interesting development

2009-08-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

See

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/married-deacons-within-three-years.html

See the last sentence though. Why?

Of course these men as they will have secular jobs, will not cost the Church wages?

Forgive the wariness..... It seems there is more to this than at first appears?

And trust is in low supply here now.

****************************************
Watching the weather....Yesterday it rained heavily non stop, and all night. There may be a pause so that we can sell for a while, before another high wind hits later today.

The first few jars of Irish Blackberry jam are ready to go; this always sells well early in the season.

Blessings this day

True attitudes..

2009-08-14T03:25:00.000-07:00

Now that the fallout has lessened, some true attitudes emerge.

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/08/bishop-defends-religious.html

The bishop seems to forget that as religious we are Vowed to do good, without fanfare or accolade, serving the people in chastity and poverty.

He forgets Who and who he is to serve. Not the Church when it departs from truth, but Jesus.

To dismiss the decades of systematic abominations that deliberately and knowingly broke all Vows and all the teachings of Jesus as "an aberration and an exception"? This in itself reveals the true state and mindset of the hierarchy; the hollowness of the forced apologies that were dragged from them only by exposure.

Blind arrogance even now.

There is no humility and no true penitence.

Which many know of course; sad to have it thus reaffirmed.

An ongoing seeking to brush the dirt under the table once more.

Small wonder the skies weep heavy rain.

Blessings this sodden day!

Thank you...

2009-08-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

All is well with the comment system; thank you to those who helped with this.

As we did on xanga - and this weblog is a continuation from http://www.xanga.com/anchoressnun - we are hiding followers and moderating comments, for privacy and also because of time zones.

Always here on email also

anchoresscj at yahoo dot com

Gathering resources for the weekend, and hoping for better weather always. ....Deluging again just now, and dark skies. And high winds due.

Yesterday was dry and quieter.

Blessings this day

An appeal...

2009-08-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

Please; there seems to be a problem re comments getting through with the moderation in place.

Could you send a short comment so I can sort out what is going on here?

May be the system, although I managed to get one through myself from another address.

Thank you!

A priestly encounter in Ireland

2009-08-11T01:35:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday... we set up our stall on a grassy patch at the top of a large car park.

Grass in front of us, then the slip/service road.

Clearly visible from the main road beyond that.

A car crawled past on the service road. Man staring hard .... His collar was not visible because of his seat belt, but immediate awareness was that he was a priest. Just the way he was dressed etc.

Two minutes later, as I was serving a family, back the car crawled.. and, yes, a priest. Still staring.

Only now he had a camera in his hand and was waving it as if in question.

Of course the gestured reply was NO, and off he crawled.

Our customers were as amazed as I was, then we shrugged.

The car registration was Wexford; he had clearly been driving past and seen the indigo veil blowing in the wind.

But a simple thing to stop, get out and meet ?

Or is that too simple?

Nothing surprises any more; but so sad is it not? Just so very sad.

A lighter note...

2009-08-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

People in Ireland are not used to Nuns being happy or making jokes. On Saturday, a man said, "Still here, Sister?"

And I replied, "Well, yes; they won't let me back in at the door until I have sold everything.."

His wife's face was a picture; she took me quite seriously and was so concerned....

I ended up comforting and reassuring the poor lady.

Miserable faces? Time was I sat at the back in midweek masses to smile at the tired old faces at the end and see them change.

Where is the joy and peace?

Blessings this night.

Birds in a gilded cage.., that cost 4 and a half million sterling

2009-08-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

As a Monastic Nun,It is hard to know what to say here, so let the urls speak.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/york/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_8124000/8124279.stm

http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/leisure/feature/4317628.Hard_hatted_nuns_so_excited_about_move_to_their_new_tranquillity_base/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/01/catholicism-religion

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/3801893.Abbey_auction_raises_tens_of_thousands/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/nov/27/benedictine-nuns-stanbrook?picture=340123242

These are enclosed Benedictines, vowed to .... Holy Poverty.

They have it seems lost the plot.

This is an Order that is not renewing either. So in ten years?

And yet they can spend 4 1/2 million sterling like this on a luxurious new place?

Many Orders have old money and investments. This is what we are seeing here in Ireland now; orders who own so many houses that no one will ever know the full extent of their wealth.

Would we ever do this? roflol at the mere thought of ever having either that kind of money, or of owning a building even.

As an Order we are not allowed to own property, or to retain money. All goes to the homeless we serve - period. Any of us who owns when we enter, or inherit, give that to the work, if it cannot be used.

What we do not need, is sold immediately. No hoarding.

We live our Vows as fully as we can.

And for us, Holy Poverty does not mean that we as individuals own nothing; it means that the Order owns only what it truly needs.

Our simple wants are supplied from thrift shops.

And from the kindness of others - like the man who gave us the car.

Which is why many of us are at the mercy - or lack of it- of landlords of course.

The accommodation here was described by the telephone engineer as "backward" and we were almost refused Rent Allowance on it.

But that is fine too; it meets the need, and certainly no great issues with eg waste or environmental concerns.
And we will know next month if the lease will be renewed on the terms re privacy etc that we need.. or if once more this Nun will be packing her spare habit .....for the fourth time in as many years.

Benedict would be rolling in his grave at this kind of expenditure, when their needs could have been met so much more simply and sincerely.

And the old Convent lying empty rings a familiar bell also.

Conversations have themes here.

On Saturday, an elderly English lady took me aside at the supermarket checkout. How lovely it was to see the Habit.... and how sad that there were no vocations these days..

But there are, quoth I, for the umpteenth time that day. We have so many that we have had to close the door because we have no accommodation. We could bring over 200 Irish Sisters back - IF we had a house for them.

But there are empty Houses ( convents) all over Ireland, the astonished lady said.

Yes, but they will not give them; we bang our heads against that brick wall frequently.. and I mentioned some local ones, and that they would literally let them rot into the ground before they would give them...

She was aghast...as everyone is of course.

So, as I said then, we do not judge; we accept that this is so and wish it were otherwise and we know that God will provide in His time, and we go on with our own work.. just on my way back from selling, I said.

Oh, YOU are the Sister at the festival? They are all saying how terrible it was that Sister 's stock all got blown away.... Poor Sister!

So the legend gathers momentum now.. Makes us smile, knowing how these things are in Ireland. Remembering the time I was alleged to have saved five ewes and ten lambs from a flash flood single handed...

So we work on.. blessed in all we do...

New Beginnings....

2009-08-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

Here we are, a new weblog site, that is quieter and more fitting for a Nun.

More later... as we get used to the difference.

You can still sign up as followers of course.

Blessings always and always Prayer....