by Vera Grant AMMM Ireland 31.01.2026
Reading one of Richard Rohr’s meditations on ‘Sacred Places’ he defined ‘sacred’ as something which pulls us beyond the bounds of our individual selves. The dictionary defines sacred as something connected to a God and deserving of veneration.
I asked myself where is my sacred place? Rohr’s suggestion that the sacred place could be sitting in the shade of an overhanging tree made me firstly think of my garden only to be quickly dismissed because it’s a place where I find solace, busyness and a sense of fulfilment but to call it sacred. No.
Then I thought of my home, the place I look forward to returning after being away. The sense of relief in closing the front door is for me closing out the world and at times the chaos in it. It’s a safe place, a private place where I can be myself but is it sacred. No.
Rohr also suggests reaching the top of a mountain as another example. I have climbed many and can admit that after the hard slog they can be places which fill me with sheer exhaustion and relief at having reached the summit before I can start to take in the awesome majesty of the panorama. In those latter moments it can appear like a place of tranquillity, and I can allow myself to embrace the solitude, the peace and the stillness but sacred. No.
The one experience that stands out for me as being sacred is the day I went into the chapel and saw the door of the tabernacle flung open. It was a Good Friday but it seemed as if it was the first time I had taken note of the void, the emptiness and the extinguished red light. I felt at a loss, shocked and totally bereft but by habit, knelt down in the pew all the while not taking my eyes of the bare and stripped altar. I was choked and all I could think of was, “He’s not there, He can’t hear me.” It was like a child coming in from school and the house empty, the mother gone and no kettle boiling for the welcoming cup of tea. I stood up and left.
The leaving was as much a shock as the empty tabernacle and walking home I berated myself for not staying, for not talking to God and telling Him how I felt.
Going back the next evening for The Easter Vigil I was on alert and witnessed the return of the newly consecrated hosts to the tabernacle and the door being closed. Jesus had risen and was present once again.
The church is my sacred place. It’s where I feel like I am the only person in the world when I bow before the altar. I feel God’s presence and I can sit or kneel in prayer, at ease, in awe, in a sense of security and of being loved. The child has found its mother…all is well.
by Sr. Sheila Campbell, MMM Ireland 28.01.2026
Recently, I heard a story from one of our Sisters, Chris, that warmed my heart. Chris herself has cherished the memory for many years.
One day she set out from Drogheda to visit a cousin in Galway. The woman said she would be staying in a certain hotel in the city. The bus journey began uneventfully, but the further west they travelled, the weather deteriorated. The rain and wind came in large gusts and the bus rocked from side to side. To make things worse, the wipers on the bus broke and yet the driver struggled on.
Getting near Galway, Chris realised she would be several hours early for her appointment, so she decided to get off the bus early and go to a small café she knew on the side of the road, have a cup of tea, and then catch a later bus to the hotel. As she left the bus the wind was so strong that it whipped off her headgear and blew it away over the hedge. She had no raincoat and soon became drenched. She turned to the café to find the door closed.
Just as she was facing this dilemma, a very elegant lady was passing by under a very large blue umbrella. She didn’t seem to the bothered with the rain but noticed Chris. “Can I help?” Chris explained she just wanted a cup of tea in the café, but the woman explained that the café had closed many years back. “This neighbourhood has changed,” she said, “what once was a business area had become a housing estate with many young, hard-working families.”
She insisted on bringing Chris back to her house, taking off her jacket to dry on the radiator, made the tea and sat and talked. She told Chris that she was originally from the Aran Islands, a retired University lecturer (and indeed the table was full of books!) Her husband was dead; she had no children and that life was lonely. She tried to keep active by joining local groups and going to the gym in the hotel Chris was heading for.
“What age do you think I am?”, she asked Chris. Reluctant to guess, she suggested late 60s. “I am 93!”, the lady proclaimed.
All the time they sat talking, the lady never pried about Chris and her life. She never even knew she was a Sister. Eventually, she offered to drive Chris to the hotel in her little car and as she parted gave Chris a big hug. “You don’t know anything about me, and I don’t know anything about you, but I really enjoyed the visit. Thank you”
What a wonderful gift of hospitality each woman gave that day!
by Jo Wardhaugh Doyle Ireland 24.01.2026
Do we notice the imperceptible change of the dark nights of January? I don’t, not really, but what I notice is my hope. The light is coming. Hope is a great virtue, it’s like spring, yet we are still in the dark hauls of January. I wonder how dark it is in Bethlehem in January. Is it cold at night? How far is Bethlehem to Egypt. I would have guessed it was a good few days of travel. But to the border it is fifty miles. There they would meet border people. Where their border checks? Did they have family in Egypt? If you Google Joseph and Mary’s journey into Egypt, it will tell you about the various places and caves that they stayed in, further North in Egypt. The journey to the caves would be around 320 miles, give or take, the length of Ireland. And that is how far they had to walk. That’s quite a distance. Hiking up through Gaza and along part of the Nile.
Meanwhile, back home infants were being slaughtered like a new Passover. I wondered what changes in the centuries of our lives. How did Mary, young mother, woman with her own infant, feel with Joseph, the slightly older wisdom figure that their child was spared. The kings had come, you see and warned them. The kings had come with gifts and now on their journey they held tightly to these gifts, wondering what they were about. These treasured gifts were significant, and they were taking them through these dark January nights into the heart of Egypt. Imagine the kings arrived in Bethlehem around about the 6th of January, give or take! They stayed with Joseph and Mary for a short while before heading home in a different direction. So how long would it take Joseph, the donkey, and Mary with child to arrive in the higher caves of Egypt. I would guess they would arrive sometime in late January carrying their gifts.
Yes, these three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Deeply Spiritual gifts used for their life’s journey.
Myrrh. It does not tell you that life will be easy. There will be suffering, a suffering that no one can avoid. It’s part of our journey. But sometimes Myrrh will help to sustain you through that suffering and into finding your purpose in life. Then frankincense, where Christ found his identity as priest. Maybe that gift is for us to find our true self, our identity, who we are and meant to be. Then the Gold, for Christ it is his kingship, but for me it is like the gold in the Japanese cracked bowls called kintsugi. The strength of the gold brings our vulnerable fractured bits together to reveal beauty.
I have thought for a long-time what gifts I have given to people. What is important to give to someone a gift that has depth and love and meaning? But for a while I wondered what gifts have been revealed within me, that is the journey. From my Bethlehem to my Egypt. My journey may be dark and cold, frightening, and lonely, but yes, we are called to journey and find the hidden gift we were given, the hidden gift we are and asked to reveal to the world. Imagine that if during our lifetime we found these gifts and shared them with our friends, family, and world. What a difference that could make in our planet today.
by Suzanne Ryder RSM Ireland 24.01.2026
“It won’t last,” says the seasoned voice; but I want it to linger. Through my upstairs window this morning, I am transported to a childhood memory of the momentary delusion of the world falling away, while I am rising miraculously. It’s a bit like the conundrum of sitting on a train in the station when another train moves. Two worlds in transit, beyond my comprehension. Am I the moving part, or is the strange motion belonging to the other perspective?
That day, my brother and I were to accompany our mother on her regular visit to a hairdresser in Cong, some seven miles away. I felt a certain excitement, even though it meant waiting, while all the washing, styling, and drying of hair took place. Still, it involved some variety in an empty space during Christmas holidays from school. I was ready for off! But I was in no way ready for the sudden thrill, the moment of disbelief, as snow began to transfigure the familiarity of my normally grey, ball alley, Abbey Street view.
We were sent off together, to begin leading the pilgrimage on foot. We would be picked up by car. You see, it wasn’t going to last. Two small adventurers, warmly clad and wellingtoned, we headed up the town, crossed the road at the bank corner, heading along Main Street. White flakes came from every side, as if secretly wishing to whisper urgent, surreptitious secrets. Along Bowgate Street, our noses met a new, clean cold. The familiarity of our well-known Ballinrobe was putting on a new face, a muffled mask that seemed to boast, “See what I can do!” Some adults showed a brisk uncertainty of gait, as though teetering uneasily between known normality being suddenly upended, and a secret access that might reveal new promises that could open through this unannounced pleasurable presence.
We turned on to the Neale Road, our steps turning into a more hesitant, trudging pace now. Our eyes were adjusting to that out of the usual, shimmering of light. Tiny puffballs toyed with our vision, urging our small fists to rise, clearing snowflakes from our eyes, giving new sight to our rapidly changing view. Then, just beyond the houses (were we really on the right road?) tyres squelched to a stop beside us, and we recognised a voice calling us to safe shelter. New plan…turn around…let’s head home.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux received an insight when she saw an early elevator bringing hotel guests effortlessly to other floors. It might have made a strange mechanical rattle as it moved people mysteriously up and down. However, in her nineteenth century contemplative mind, it reflected what God can do for a human soul in ways unseen, with a sudden uplift, through no action of its own; a larger presence with unknown power.
While I reminisced on other days, this morning, I was called into that spacious silence, where the outer world is held suspended for a time, and things as usual are adrift. There was an inducement to let go of the scheduled, timetabled routine, while reality could find itself anew in reflection. A magician’s sleuth like trick of drawing attention away from what I thought I had desired, only to reveal a mystery prize in the least expected place. A short sojourn, enabling review.
Snow hasn’t lasted on my winter scene. The window is back this afternoon to courtyard grey. However, my day has been touched by a tinge of mystic enchantment; not by seeing a rabbit in a hat or by finding a coin behind my ear, but by uncovering wordless, wondrous memory. I hope this gift will last.
First published on 20/03/2025 by Mercy Ireland
Recently I wandered down to Our Lady of Lourdes Church as part of my daily outing – indeed one of my very first post-surgery walks. It was early afternoon and I was surprised to see the car park full to overflowing with car registrations for all over this part of Ireland. What was happening? This was the Syro-Malabar bi-monthly Mass and the Indian Christians were here in throngs. The church was filled with young parents, children from birth onwards and a great crowd of youth. I was certainly the oldest member of this enthusiastic congregation!by Sr. Sheila Campbell, MMM Ireland 17.01.2026
Recently my brother sent me a short announcement about a forthcoming lecture in the local University about Humility. Oddly enough the lecture was to be given in the Medical School, which I found rather ironic as some of the consultants I have known in the past would not have been renowned for that virtue.
Is it a virtue? That is what I was left thinking about. The word is not used much nowadays because it often implies a creeping obsequiousness, or a low self esteem. In the blurb about the forthcoming lecture, it used words like ‘humblebragging’ and ‘arrogant humility’. I suppose that is when people say, “in all humility, I do ….” And then they go on to boast about their achievements or academic success.
However, I think the word humility, for me, is linked to the Latin word for earth, or ground, “Humus”. The key to humility is exactly this ability to be rooted, firmly planted. When one is in touch with the reality of life, including our gifts and talents, a false humility would be to deny them or play them down. A true humility takes them for what they are, gifts, gifts to be used for the benefit of the common good.
Am I a humble person? No, I don’t think so. I still have too much to shed before I can return to my basic sense of the person I am before God.
But I have decided that yes, it is a virtue that I would like to attain one day. So, thank you, John, for giving me food for thought today!
by Sr. Liana de Jesus MMM Brazil/USA 14.01.2026
Consecrated Religious Life lives in a time of great transformations with profound changes. , This leads us to think that challenges multiply, especially among the new generations directly involved in them, as well as the other generations challenged by the new reality. Changes in new technologies. such as the internet, mobile phones, and social networks. These facilitate information, break down geographical and cultural barriers, and create cultural multiplicity. Because of these changes, consecrated life is challenged to seek a new identity and a resignification to better respond to the “signs of the times”.
The time we live in is marked by intense, fast and profound changes. This leads us to think that after the “time of change” many of the old-style models support a worldview, insecurities and even disorientation. For the late Pope Francis “this change of season was produced by the huge qualitative, fast and accrued jumps that occur in scientific progress, technological inventions in various areas of life”. Changes are in all grounds and in all human actions, which straight or circuitously affect religious life. Even, “the reoccurrence to the holy and the mystical exploration, which symbolizes our time, are equivocal miracles”.
Today everything seems temporary. Human relations are temporary, marriages are temporary, work is temporary, are also provisional, and we live in an environment full of indecision about the future. However, Religious Life continues to bear the permanence of obligations, even though it suffers the bitter losses of people who abandon it. This makes us think that “if the dedication to permanent values is in crisis, it is since the actual idea of the period is also in crisis.” Constant and strong values have little chance of happening in a fragmented life practiced in disengaged incidents and events.
This is our challenge in 2026!
by Sr. Christine Gill, MMM Ireland 10.01.2026
Soon after my First Profession of Vows, I was on my way to Nigeria. I was in my late twenties and had no experience of Africa at all, so everything was new and exciting. Leaving Ireland I thought I was going to a hospital in Obudu, but I was met at the airport by my new Regional Superior and was told, no, not Obudu, but Nkalagu.
I had never heard of the place – was it an MMM mission? No, I was told, it was a cement factory which had its own hospital and MMM had
been asked to administer it in 1962. It was totally Nigerian, set up and administered by Nigerians, but the top engineers and technicians were international, mostly from European countries. They had their own hospital, which was bright, modern and equipped to a high standard. All the treatments were free for the employees of the cement factory, and the local people could be treated at a reduced rate.
I liked it in Nkalagu, and we were kept busy. We were four, Srs. Madeleine Canno, Oliver Murphy, Áine Lucey and myself. I remember one occasion when a local chief brought two of his wives to the hospital. The second wife was in labour and had a prolapse of the uterus during childbirth. Fortunately, we had a wonderful Spanish doctor who cared for her, and she recovered. The chief was so grateful he brought us a big fat ewe as a present!
However, we began to hear rumour of war. No, no, it will never happen, some said. But there were skirmishes, and injured soldiers began coming for treatment. One of the local army Coronels was friendly to us and began warning us to be ready to leave. So, we had our suitcases packed but continued on with our daily work in the hospital. Then, one day the Coronel came. “You must leave now! The troops are only three miles away and are coming in this direction.” But we were also warned not to leave before nightfall. At night we would not be visible for sniper fire. Just before leaving, our watchman called us to look at the fat ewe we had been given – three little lambs had appeared! But in spite of the rejoicing, we knew we had to leave.
It was a three-hour journey to the nearest MMM house, Abakaliki, but it took us several days as we had to take refuge in an abandoned priest’s house. But the story of the journey from Nkalagu is another story.
And the cement factory? It was taken into federal control and eventually closed in 2000. This year there are whispers to re-open it again, but MMM will not be returning.
by Sr. Sheila Devane,MMM Ireland 07.01.2026
I have heard many sermons- maybe too many? I only remember a few. Those I do recall were built around stories. The story carries the message. Let me tell you of one sermon I remember and which I use from time to time in my own life when things have gone off kilter and become unbalanced – again!
The priest was Ugandan preaching in Swahili in Tanzania to a local audience. The people there often asked: “Who is saying the evening mass in Ulenga Parish?” When it was Fr. Rudi the community of Christians, of whatever denomination, tried to attend as his sermons were so practical. He was a storyteller, and it was clear that, like Jesus, he was telling a story not narrating an historical fact in every single detail. The gospel that evening talked of hypocrisy and pretense so we knew Fr. Rudi would not disappoint. He did not!
A couple living around Lake Victoria in Uganda went on a date one sweltering day; it was a great area for fishing, so they duly called into a local shack to buy themselves fish and tasty chips made from plantain for the picnic they planned. They walked around the lake admiring the scenery and eventually found some beautiful rocks to sit down on and enjoy their food. Pauline gracefully carried the load on her head wrapped in her colourful cloth which hopefully kept the food fresh in the tropical heat. They were so hungry and thankfully too they had brought along sodas to quench their thirst!
To their utter shock when they opened the inner parcel carefully wrapped in newspaper, they found money – all the poor fishmonger’s takings in notes and many coins. No wonder the load felt so heavy for Pauline. What to do? They were really starving and although they were surrounded by fish swimming in the lake, not one was ready to be eaten! Charles thought for a few minutes and then they decided they would head back to the fishmonger before dusk with his money – far, far more than they had paid and return it all to him. Certainly, a noble, just, and honorable thought. Back they both trekked and this time the journey was far less pleasant as they were tired, hungry, hot, and fed up with themselves and the load felt even heavier.
The fishmonger having missed his day’s earnings, was totally bereft and in a state of despair when the pair arrived to return his money – and get some fish and chips for themselves! He was stunned beyond belief at their justice and kindness and called out aloud in prayer and praise of this couple. He jumped up and down, danced enthusiastically, threw himself on the floor and all in all had the best few moments of his life to the surprise and glee of everyone in sight! He immediately asked to take a picture of the couple as he needed to advertise this act of honesty to customers at his shack, in his local church and anywhere he could. He spoke of this being the true example of honesty he and his fellow workers needed in their little businesses as they were so often ripped off.
Pauline and Charles refused any photograph. He insisted; they refused, and back and forth they went like this for a while. The fishmonger could not understand why on earth they would not want the praise they deserved for their good deed nor why they were refusing him to spread this first-class example of proper Christian behavior. They were adamant and it ended there.
Pauline was married to another man, and Charles to another women. They were hiding and cheating. Publicity was the last thing they needed. Fr. Rudi invited us to look at the areas of contradiction and thus cheating in our own lives. I am trying. I remember. Amen.
by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer, MMM USA 03.01.2026
Since Kilimanjaro Airport was near to the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro it was decided that I would do a private retreat with the Contemplative Sisters who had a convent in that area, before returning to Dareda. It was an exceptionally enjoyable time in my life, having had the joy of my mother’s visit for three weeks and now being able to pray in such beautiful surroundings. I was very thankful to God for all His blessings.
Upon returning to Dareda, I saw many children who were admitted with burns. Because of cold nights, a kerosene lamp would be near their bed and somehow it would fall into bed. Many children required repeated skin grafts. This was an ordeal for the child and for the doctor. The Flying Doctors taught us how to make the most of a small graft by trying to thin it out like a fish net. This worked. Sometimes the burned area was very extensive, and I asked one mother if I could take some of her skin for her child. It worked the first time but not the second. One child developed tetanus three weeks after he was burned. He survived it all. It was touch and go for a long time. Some children did very well for three weeks and then died suddenly. I asked Mr. Michael Woods, who was the chief surgeon and founder of AMFREF, the Flying Doctor Service, why did this happen? He replied, the burn had caused a lack of plasma proteins, and this resulted in liver failure from lack of protein. We tried to give protein supplements from then on. It really did help.
Martin Woods, the brother of the surgeon, Michael Woods, and his wife had come to set up a workshop to train some local young men in carpentry, mechanics, and some electrical work. Martin was very skilled and produced a solar system barrel that could give one a very warm shower using a hose. I agreed to experiment with the process. Martin wore his bathing suit, and I held the hose. It is the closest I ever got to being John the Baptist. It worked! All were delighted.
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Soon Christmas came and the Church was beautifully decorated. Bishop Winters had brought Conamara marble for the pillars and the old cathedral was very impressive structure located at the foothills of the rift valley escarpment. Great pains had been taken to twist coloured papers in chains of circles up and down the pillars and across the aisles. These were interspersed with sprays of bougainvillea flowers of various hues. The nurses dressed to present a Nativity scene, complete with a Christ-like baby figure to be placed in the decorated crib. The choir chanted a K’IRAQ song, Mother. It was so touching. People came from all over for Midnight Mass. We had to get our seat at 11pm and afterwards from 2-3am enjoyed some refreshments with an English couple. Olivio and his mother came the next day. It was a joy to see them again.
A big sprig of evergreen was our lovely tinsel decorated tree. We opened some presents and went to bed at 3 AM rejoicing in the love and peace of the Lord and of each other.
