Shel-ebrations!

Last week my team, Shelbourne FC (whom I have followed and supported for 30 years) won the league again! What joy and celebration there was amongst all the supporters, team and management of the club. The scenes I was able to view online were so uplifting and made me smile and my heart pump with happiness! It was the first time in 18 years since they won the league… eighteen long years… it makes me stop and think…
Eighteen years ago I joined this community at Kilmacud, and so much has happened in my life in that time – ups and downs, joys and sorrows.
Eighteen years ago my nephew was born, and over all these years, through the normal ups and downs of life (thank God more ups than downs) he is now grown into a wonderful intelligent, healthy, caring and thoughtful young man.
And over the past eighteen years, that beloved football club, Shelbourne, that was my second home for many years before I became a Carmelite, have been through such doldrums, such difficult times, barely surviving… but now have risen again! This victory means a lot to so many people who stuck by them through all the bad times and it brings back memories to me of travelling up and down Ireland in cold and frosty weather (when the season was played through the winter), of games lost at the last minute, of frustrating 0-0 draws, but also so many good times witnessed as well, and all the many people and friends I met there.
Having lived so many years in a Carmelite monastery, life events often bring to mind the words of a psalm or piece of Scripture that seem to resonate with what is happening in front of me. That is the privilege of contemplative life, to become so familiar with Scripture that it connects to everything that happens… it becomes the LIVING word of God. This past week, the verse that has been repeating over and over in my head since the Shelbourne league victory is from Psalm 90:
Give us joy to balance our affliction
For the years when we knew misfortune
Yes, faith teaches me that joy and resurrection will follow affliction and sorrow. May we all remember this life lesson through any struggle or difficulty that comes our way – God is good, and will send us the joys if we hang in and wait long enough... and hopefully not as long as eighteen years!

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