Carmelite Monastery of St Joseph, Kilmacud - Sisters' Reflections

  There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea. There’s a kindness in God’s justice, which is more than liberty . For the love of God is broader than the measures of the mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind. Those who listen to God’s voice will grow in love like trees in Spring-time

Dear Sr. Kevin,  Today, 7th. June 2023 you were born a hundred years ago from Government buildings. Now you are at Home in the Father’s House in Heaven and we sense your happiness and joy. We like to think that you are doing what St. Thérèse said she would do - spending your Heaven doing good upon earth especially bringing peace to war-torn Ukraine. You entered life at a most difficult time in the history of our Country.  The Civil war was only a few months formally ended when your mother gave birth to you.  You came in the wake of the killing of your Grandfather Dr. Thomas O’ Higgins as a reprisal for  his son Kevin’s role in the execution of four leading Republicans. Small wonder then that your young Daddy who carried such terrible pain in his heart, would see in you his first born little daughter, a sign of peace, an olive branch.   Your parents remembered that in the Bible  Noah had sent out a dove to see if the waters were receding from the surfaces of...

All Creatures Bless the Lord I never cease to marvel at how God created the whole universe with such variety and diversity,     earth, oceans, sky and all living beings from the tiniest insect to the complexities of the human person. What is God trying to teach us? There is a lovely canticle we recite on Sunday which begins with ‘O all you works of the Lord, O bless the Lord. To him be highest glory and praise for ever. ’ And the canticle continues to praise God in sun, moon, stars, night day, mountains, plants, earth, fish, birds, beasts wild and tame, all creatures, humans and angels. Everything from heaven to earth, ‘bless the Lord’. Our photo shows Sr. Teresa (Roebuck Carmel) with Shula the community dog. When you visit Roebuck monastery Shula will not run to meet you she charges out the door and shows how excited she is to see you. She lifts the heart. She accepts you whoever you are and whatever way you are. St. Th é r è se before she entered had a dog called Tom. O...

  I can still see her, framed in the doorway as we said our goodbyes...our Donegal Granny, hand raised in blessing :“Sl á n Abhaile”... Long before I knew what they meant, I just felt blessed by these magic words, spoken in her soft native Gaelic.   Even though we lived only a block away they carried a protection for us every step of the way...”Safe Home”... Aren’t we always on our way home...the shorter daily mileage only a fraction of the longer life journey we all have to make....because truly we are ‘home birds’ as Sr. Fionnuala wrote in her lovely reflection last week.   Yes, we’re all ‘homing pigeons’, born with a ‘return ticket’.    There is an ache in our hearts, a sense of incompleteness, a knowing that our hearts are created to live forever...This wayward restlessness in all of us will only find peace when we rest in Him.   Our spirits echo the words of Jesus, ‘I have come from the Father... and now I return to the Father’. He has told us ...

A few weeks ago there was great excitement when we noticed activity at a birdbox on the shed wall that has been vacant since we hung it there many years ago. A pair of coal tits decided it would make a good home for their family and set about the furnishings and bedding inside. And then there was quiet for a while, but last week the activity increased exponentially, and we realised that the chicks have now hatched! We are thrilled watching mother and father coal tit flying rapidly in and out from early morning until evening trying to keep the babies fed! It is extraordinary how much food is needed and how busy the parents are trying to provide. At some stage over its empty years, the box had got a knock and is hanging crooked on the wall, but now we don’t dare to straighten it in case we disturb the growing family! Our coal tit family prompted me to reflect on the challenges of family life in the modern world. Not everyone can find a cosy home to live in. Not everyone can provide eno...

  We all associate Thérèse with roses because she promised to send down a shower of roses after her death, and the many miracles attributed to her intercession in the early years were known as the showers of roses. When Thérèse wrote her story, now known as ‘Story of a Soul’, she entitled it, ‘The Springtime Story of a Little White Flower’, which of course was how she became known as ‘The Little Flower’. She explains this title when she recalls the day she asked her father’s permission to enter Carmel.   It was Pentecost Sunday 1897.   Thérèse tells of the symbolic action her father performed, without realising its full significance. She wrote: ‘Going up to a low wall he pointed to some little white flowers…and plucking one of them he gave it to me, explaining the care with which God brought it into being and preserved it to that very day’ While I listened I believed that I was hearing my own story, so great was the resemblance between what Jesus had done for the little f...

     Did you ever dream of being more like God? Well, there is a way for you and me and it is the only way. To be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is compassionate. I am always marvelling   at Jesus in action in the   Gospels. He is entirely devoted to people who need help. He can’t pass them by or turn a blind eye to them. He does what he can for them and identifies himself with their poverty and need. He refuses to tolerate unjust and inhuman systems. A story comes to my   mind.   Two men were racing to catch a train in another part of the world.   The street was full of poor fruit dealers trying to sell their produce. The men in their haste to catch their train knocked over the stall of a young boy who watched in consternation as   his fruit went flying all over the street. One man continued running for the train regardless of what had happened. The other bent down picked up the damaged fruit wherever it had scattered, then opened ...