Published on April 2nd, 2020 | by admin
0An 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)