Notebook On Saturday evening I felt a sadness in my heart. I knew it was around going to an empty church to celebrate Mass as I have done for much of the past nine or ten months. It is not the ideal, and like many, I have questioned the need, given that our churches are…

Notebook Dear Santa, You were mentioned in the Dáil recently and I heard the Irish Ambassador to Finland say she had spoken to you and that you reassured her that you will be travelling this year.  Good news, for sure. You are, as you told her, an “essential worker”.  Locally I have heard children speak…

Notebook Her first anniversary took place a few weeks ago. I spoke with her husband around the days – a phone call to a man who likes to talk – maybe needs to talk. I remember the call when his wife died and my visit to his little cottage where they lived, shared life and…

Notebook I was in your house the day they brought you home. I watched your two-year-old sister and wondered what was going through her mind. I saw your mother, glad to be home but tired too, having carried you so lovingly, through those long months of waiting, and now sharing you with a world that,…

Notebook He knelt, having just received his First Holy Communion. For how long did he kneel? I am not sure, but I imagine the teacher told the boys and girls that they should kneel when they returned to their seats, having said “Amen” to the Body of Christ. When he felt an appropriate length of…

Notebook During the week we re-scheduled a date for First Holy Communion. It is another re-scheduled date in a year of cancellations, postponements, and disappointments. The hope is that the new date will go ahead and that the day the children have waited for will come, be lived, enjoyed and forever remembered. That, of course,…

Notebook There was a funny song a while back about a man going into Lidl or Aldi to buy a few loaves and rashers and leaving with a chainsaw, a wetsuit and a portable generator. I have been that man… well apart from the wetsuit and maybe the generator and the chainsaw! I mean, I…

Notebook In recent days I have found myself awake quite a bit when ordinarily sleep would have overtaken me. Thanks be to God; I sleep easily and well as a rule. You might or might not wonder or care why my sleep has been broken but I need to fill this page, so I am…

Notebook   I once heard the comedian Ardal O’Hanlon say that he would love to have his own chat show and invite famous people to be his guests. The twist was that he would not talk to them about what they expected. He gave an example: “I’d love to have Neil Armstrong on and talk…

Notebook   We buried him today in Culmore 10, 15 people there, no more; for we are told that is the way to keep the deadly virus at bay. But it’s sad for sure and lonely too far removed from what we do, when parish stops to bow its head and mourn a neighbour who…