Samuel, “the man who listens to God” – that’s the meaning of his name. Samuel who pitched tent outside our church in the winter of a few years ago. Samuel, who returns from time to time and gives thanks that we gave him a welcome. And I give thanks that he is now settled in his own home and has a job.
The man who listens to God, the one by whom God is heard, turned up appropriately enough with his girl friend yesterday before the Sunday vigil Mass. Appropriate because she is deaf and unable to speak clearly. Appropriate because the Gospel of this weekend has Jesus addressing the deafness of a man and healing him.
Samuel’s friend is not here to be healed. She isn’t healed of her deafness but what is beautiful is to see the communication that takes place between the two of them; communication on all sorts of levels; a loving communication. He is heard by her, and she is understood by him.
“Be opened!” This is how Jesus addresses the deafness of the man. Be opened, is how he addresses the deafness he encounters in us – the emotional, mental, spiritual deafness. And healing is offered on some level.
I had my own “be opened” moment myself during the holidays. The first week I went to Inis Mór in Aran for five days retreat which was spent alone in the home where my grandmother grew up.
On board Saoirse na Farraige (Freedom of the Sea), the ferry at Galway docks I switched off my phone at 9.30am and left it off for the next five days.
This retreat would be timeless, unmeasured and uncaptured. I had no watch, would not be counting my steps and, most challenging of all, I would not be taking photos.
It’s the Feast day of Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were friends of Jesus and so am I, called now to be a friend like Mary, sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening to Him.
“Come, ALONE to the alone. Come, for You are Yourself the desire that is in me.” (St. Symeon the New Theologian, Invocation to the Holy Spirit)
It’s a wintry summer morning, the sea is lively and passengers stagger like rag dolls on the unsteady deck, laughing at the spray that leaps up from the Bay, drenching us with its saltiness. We are content.
How blessed am I have the family house in Kilronan for refuge and shelter while the wind sweeps in a heavy mist from the Atlantic Ocean. How miserable for day-trippers who have to wander aimlessly in the wet bleakness.
How blessed am I! Lavishly Blessed! And how close God draws me to Himself. These extraordinary words spoken through the Prophet Jeremiah – “For as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I had made you…cling to me.” (Jeremiah 13:1-11). Words I don’t ever remember reading before. Very primal, very intimate!
Aran evenings are something special. Miserable days are often transformed into beautiful dusks and that incredible peaceful silence that settles on the place after the arrival of t he last boat from the mainland and all the others have departed with their crowds of tourists.
Down at island’s end, beyond Frenchman’s beach I found a lovely spot behind a wall with a view of the lighthouse and sat there gazing, listening to the quiet and the sounds of nature that echoed there.
Here as a boy my spirit was fashioned to gaze, to wait, to listen and to recognise the Presence of God, the arrival of the ONE who is already here.
Next morning I woke in the early light, thinking of Padre Pio as he sat in silence beside a crippled man outside the church after Mass. “Listen” he said, “and do what you hear.” Then he left. And slowly, the crippled man’s feet began to stir, and he stood up unsteadily and began to walk.
Listen, and do what you hear!
In these early hours, as I lay in bed I thought of my desire to celebrate Mass at the altar of Naomh Eanna in Cill Éinne, a desire that’s been with me ever since I became a priest. But I was tired and told myself I needed to rest and so fell back asleep.
And in my sleep a voice said very clearly, “go for it Eamonn!” So, I woke up and started out on the two miles to the little chapel of Eanna.
It was the kind of beautiful morning that would normally require a photograph. Looking back from that first bend on the road beyond Kilronan, the sun peeped over the horizon, rising as a magnificent ball of red fire. Everything was perfectly still, the water clear as glass, mirroring everything above it. I hear the cry of the odd seagull, and two white egrets take off into the sky. No sinner other than myself is out.
By the time I get to Cill Éinne the sun is dazzling white over the lighthouse. At the cemetery I descend into the little ancient chapel that is still intact, except it has no roof.
I set the altar, placing on it the crucifix left to me by Mary Ann McDonagh, the crucifix that has also served as my Pallottine Profession Cross.
Mary Ann shaped my spirit when I was a boy on holidays in Kilronan. She is buried in this cemetery as are some of my ancestors.
Here is a silence that is felt, a quietness to be touched. Into it I whisper the words of Consecration, as Naomh Eanna did back in the fifth century. Jesus is present here.
After Holy Communion I sing Céad Míle Fáilte and just as I finish Mass I notice the figure of a man standing on the high ground above the chapel. He comes down to greet me and introduces himself as Patrick from Tokyo.
He was baptised a Catholic in Kilronan some years ago and returns every year. He asked for my blessing and took my photo. And of course, my vanity would dearly love to ask him for that photo of that very special moment, but I refrained.
So, there we were on that sacred ground drawing from the roots of an ancient Catholic Monastic tradition. The old meeting the new. What once flourished now in ruins, still a sign of hope in a time of decay, East meeting West. Patrick from Tokyo symbolising God’s freedom to call when and where He chooses. New life and hope springing up again.
Patrick told me he was staying at Árd Éinne House where Bean an tí Clodagh is a friend of my sister Rosaleen. I whispered my hope to God that Patrick might show her the photo and that somehow it might make its way to Rosaleen. Which is exactly what happened. When I go back on the boat on the Friday and switched on my phone, there was the photo waiting for me. Clodagh has sent it to Rosaleen asking if I was her brother. God is attentive to even to my insignificant vanities.
