“O that today you would listen to His voice, harden not your hearts”.
This was the response to last Sundays psalm “O that today you would listen to His voice, harden not your hearts”.
Having said this over and over, I hope this truly registered with me. What a dreadful year it has been and right now there is no let up. We had the Deanery Meeting of the priests and deacons, and I could not get over how stressed they were. It really is a stressful time.
To begin with the message “Listen to His voice, yes to His voice”, and then to the messages coming from health and safety. From the beginning of the pandemic, because it is malign and evil, the most potent emotion is fear. Because of this the importance of the message of Jesus. “By their fruits you shall know them, good trees bare good fruit”.
Now that we have passed “La le Bride” St Brigid’s Day, spring is on its way. The days are a cock step longer. Real progress is being made with the vaccinations and please God, before we know it we will be on our way again. This is a most important opportunity and let us treat it as a fresh start, with the hope of living, learning and celebrating again.
Okay, the message still remains – keep safe, “Festina Lente”, hurry up, but slowly, and this week I am once again expecting Fr Kieran to give me a break, but most important is the message of Pope Francis for 2021:-
“To be happy is to let live the creature that lives in each of us free, joyful and simple. It is to have maturity to be able to say: “I made mistakes”. It is to have the courage to say “I am sorry”. It is to have the sensitivity to say, “I need you”. It is to have the ability to say “I love you”. May your life become a garden of opportunity for happiness….. That in spring may it be a lover of joy. In winter a lover of wisdom. And when you make a mistake, start all over again. For only then will you be in love with life.
You will find that to be happy is not to have a perfect life. But use the tears to irrigate tolerance. Use your losses to train patience. Use your mistakes to sculptor serenity. Use pain to plaster pleasure. Use obstacles to open windows of intelligence. Never give up …… Never give up on people who love you. Never give up on happiness, for life is an incredible show”.