Blogging With Purpose

A peaceful silent vigil before the crib each day brings revelations far beyond the scene itself.  A deeper understanding of who this Child is for us.  I glimpse the Magi on their journey, coming in the distance, still following in the light-filled footsteps of expectation; of both welcoming and exchanging heart to heart with the Christ Child who has made ...

Making my way to work these days takes me through ancient, weathered countryside.  It has been trod by generations before me as far back as I can remember.  I know this place inside out  – or so I thought. Then, a change of season and the start of Advent, and some sudden subtle change of light and shadow on the ...

As we celebrate Presentation Day may our lives be filled with love and may our world be healed through the grace of Mary our Mother, and her precious Son, Jesus Christ. ~ the Provincial Leadership Team – Presentation Sisters Union (North East Ireland) Before Jesus was his Mother Before Jesus was his mother. Before supper in the upper room, breakfast ...

Meet a woman  “Meet a woman whose love was stronger than the viciousness, greed and violence that swamped her city and nation.  She was a woman of unbounded compassion, deep contemplation, indomitable courage, radical creativity, native shrewdness, and indefatigable zeal for her faith”. ~ Adapted from Salvador Fink, OFM Nano Nagle Cork’s Lady of the Lantern “Benefitting from an education in ...

Often times, as the season starts to change, we sense the subtle shifting of the light to herald autumnal days and all the leave-taking that this can ask of nature and of us.  This changing rhythm can also herald a space for change in us. Perhaps a change in our way of seeing, being, discovering or responding to the needs ...

 …. we pray for all those in our world who are suffering from injustice: For those who are discriminated against because of their race, colour or religion; For those imprisoned for working for the relief of oppression; For those who are hounded for speaking the inconvenient truth; For those tempted to violence as a cry against overwhelming hardship; For those ...

Reading the recent insights shared by Pope Francis at his Wednesday Audience on August 19th, where he reminds us that we must always keep in mind the “preferential option for the poor.” He said: “This is not a political, ideological, or partisan option” … rather, “the preferential option for the poor is at the centre of the Gospel.”  He goes ...

It is past mid-summer.  Our lives seem in these days to be juxta-positioned as part of a profound and challenging landscape of suffering humanity. Perhaps we have never been so inter-connected and so interwoven into the lives of others by the very separation we endure in this COVID-19 environment, that it challenges us to love and care for the other ...

It is in excess of 300 years – three whole centuries – since the birth of Nano Nagle (April, 1718) founder of the Presentation Sisters, and yet it seems more true to say she lives in current times.  Nano initially, did not set out to found anything at all.  Her access to education and her life experience were inextricably woven ...

In Ireland story-telling is embedded in the culture of who we are.  As far back as we can remember there must have been story-telling and the sharing of ‘a good yarn’ in the dusk of an evening at the fire or in the coming together at the crossroads after a hard day’s work in the fields.  This seems even now ...