Welcome / Fáilte Romhat!

During Covid-19, we were all warned about the dangers of touch. Those many moments of touch that never needed words but which, nonetheless, said all that needed to be said, were impossible! It could be as simple as a handshake, that touch of hand to hand or an embrace that expressed a warmth without ever needing to be verbalised and yet, what was unsaid was understood. It could be to express sympathy, or pleasure at meeting, or congratulations, but whatever it was, touch conveyed so much.

And only when it was gone, did we realise how much touch was important in our lives.

In his reflection, Fr Kieran reflects more deeply on the significance of touch – in the story of the woman with a haemorrhage who wished only to touch to cloak of Jesus to be healed, of the intimacy of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples with his own hands, of Jesus touching the leper and making him clean. We have much to think about!

In this part of the world, it is often the case that we can use terms or phrases in English which, to someone for whom English is not their native language, can be difficult to understand. Often, it is because they are difficult to translate and instead, we have to explain the concept behind the phrase and not just the words. There is many a non-English speaker who has looked perplexed when they put the phrase, “catching a bus” into Google translate!

Fr Kieran points to an example of this in his reflection when he explores the theme of time as recorded in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel reading and second reading for the Third Sunday in Ordinary time (there’s that word again!).

The Greek’s differentiated between ‘chronos’ time – that which is tracked by clocks and watches – and Kairos time, those moments when we are at a point of a critical decision, a make or break, on which so much that follows might depend.

Kieran links this Kairos time of the Gospel with the call to repent, a critical moment, not just to confess our sins but to quote from the final lines of Robert Frost’s famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” to go in a different direction:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Kieran’s reflection this week centres on the Ordinary Time reading from the first book of Samuel and the story of Hannah, Samuel her son, and Eli. And it is all about listening.

An encounter of being listened to, and being heard, can be transformative. We only have to look across the water at the scandal playing out about the grave injustice done to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses by the Britain’s Post Office. Although an injustice that has continued for twenty years, the effect of the ITV dramatisation on the public conscience has led many to say that “for the first time ever, we are being heard.”

God listens to us; and we need to listen to God. Like Hannah, we need to pray to God as, how else can he hear us? And when we do this, and God is always listening, the result can be transformative!