Grace and Mercy Await

Waiting  Across the field to dawn at sea  a corner in the midday sun beneath the sky at night  alone within his heart  the warrior waits for death the watchman waits for dawn  to this have I been called to wait on God  a moment forever in expectancy of surprise.  Advent  A bitter bracing day  Is what I need To snap me out Of apathy A perfect Winter’s day Bright sunshine and cold Beautiful colours of evening  Birds singing like Springtime  Going inside to solitude The cell of my heart With a thirst and a hunger To attend to There’s a tightening about me Hopeless of change But  a memory  Of old blessedness stirs To give hope to the waiting I trust it has a reason. Advent  Child Go back to the child Who understood the truth Folded into the shape Of its mother’s arms Draped across Its father’s shoulder Before the rigidity Of independence Set in The weaned child Whose hand explores The empty space Touching the face As yet ...

Take your seat, He said At the lowest place Even under the table Where the dogs sit Eating crumbs And I always thought I was special Or so I could become But He said It was the widow With the little Who gave the most And those of ill repute With nothing of their own To boast The destitute dependent Who would best discern Divinity +++ "...she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."  (Luke 21:4)

I unexpectedly ended up giving a homily today, just when I thought my preaching days were done for a while. We were having breakfast when Derry suggested I preach at the Mass we were going to celebrate in the Presentation Convent later. Looking at the readings, the words that jumped out at me were these, "Behold, we are your bone and flesh", spoken by the tribes of Israel to David before anointing him king. Bone is a strong word. Bone and flesh, flesh and blood. It is what we might say to Jesus, the Word become flesh and bone and blood in us. Not just what we might say but it is what the Spirit prays within the temple of our bodies in groans beyond all utterance. "For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones." (Ephesians 5:30 NKJV) Our bones tell the truth, as does our flesh. They are real, what they feel is real and there is no disguise. We pray with our bodies as much as with our spirits. In spirit and truth. It is significant that Christ the Kin...

This is a memory of a Conference given by Timothy Radcliffe OP to the Religious of Arundel and Brighton in my early days in Hastings. He walks into the room looking like he fell out of bed in his clothes – a well worn aran sweater, the tail of his shirt hanging out, hair tossed. He tells us he intended wearing his habit but when he picked it up this morning it had too many coffee stains, so he dropped it. And I find myself in admiration of this unworldliness, this total lack of vanity! It's as if humility himself walked in the door. Vanity clings to me like a disguise, a cover for my interior shabbiness and I'm thinking that Timothy Radcliffe must have great interior strength, a man so self-possessed that he doesn't require the kind of nice exterior appearance that many of us think we need. Here is a man at home with himself. His eloquence becomes his clothing and I could have listened to him all day. He's very polished in the way he speaks, well read, very intelli...

  On September 2nd 2017 I wrote in my diary that Shankill gave birth to me in a great impulse of love by which God delivered me to Hastings where He has given me a home and haven. A place of refuge until another great moment of giving birth to love arrives. And now it's the 18th of November, 2025,  a week since I left Hastings, and I think this must be the beginning of that other great moment of giving birth to love. What it will be I have no idea but I am here.  And I am resting And I am waiting  And I am at peace As always for a new period in my life I ask God for a Word that will somehow define what lies ahead.  And what has come is the a line from Wisdom chapter 3, verse 9 which was in the first reading at Mass on my first day at home. It says, "grace and mercy await those he has chosen." Grace and mercy await!  So if I am waiting, then Grace and Mercy await me too. On my fourth day at home I woke up thinking about unfinished business, things that I had...