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Published on April 2nd, 2020 | by admin

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An Easter message from our Chaplain

Dear parents and guardians of CCS

Cornonavirus Prayer         The Four Candles

 

At this point in a school year we would be counting the days until the “Easter Holidays”.  The context of our counting this year is somewhat surreal. The Covid-19 pandemic, on-line teaching and learning have all been dominating our every waking hour.

 

I’m thinking of you all at this time of challenge and fear and hoping that you and all your extended families are safe and well. We all find ourselves in a situation where we must take each day as it comes. Never before has living in the “Present” revealed its true meaning and value in our lives .Our awareness of the needs of others and appreciation of each person’s essential role in our local communities and worldwide must remain with us forever. As a result we realise that wealth and status in life is irrelevant, where being compassionate towards all peoples and humanity must find true and sincere expression in our daily lives.

 

May this new realization be indelibly imprinted on our active minds and hearts.

I’m keeping you all in my daily prayer. I light a candle each day to remember you all, your private concerns and intentions.

I offer and invite you to reflect during Holy Week with these poems, reflections and prayer that I am attaching.

 

Easter blessings be yours and all of your families.     #stayhome #staysafe #CCS

Mary Colleary.

 

Lock down

By Brother Richard Hendrick March 23rd 2020 Dublin.

 

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today a young woman I know

is busy spreading flyers with her number

through the neighborhood

So that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting

All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality

To how big we really are.

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

To Love.

So we pray and we remember that

Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

But there does not have to be disease of the soul

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today, breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic

The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing,

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

Open the windows of your soul

And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square

sing..  ………..

 

This is a poem was written in the 1800’s – about 10 years after the famine.

 

And people stayed home

By: Kathleen O’Meara (1839–1888)

 

And people stayed home

and read books and listened

and rested and exercised

and made art and played

and learned new ways of being

and stopped

and listened deeper

someone meditated

someone prayed

someone danced

someone met their shadow

and people began to think differently

and people healed

and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,

dangerous, meaningless and heartless,

even the earth began to heal

and when the danger ended

and people found each other

grieved for the dead people

and they made new choices

and dreamed of new visions

and created new ways of life

and healed the earth completely

just as they were healed themselves.

 

 

Perhaps this is a coincidence or, could both poets be inviting us to reflect, guided by our God ? We notice that the main different really as it seems to me ,is that, each poem was composed centuries apart. What they have in common is that both poems takes cognisance of the lives of people at the time of an pandemic in Ireland, yet each is at different times in our history”

 

May you all stay safe and blessed until we are back at work in CCS ..we truly miss life in School.

Mary Colleary. (CCS  School Chaplain)

 


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