At my age a person should not be wishing their life away, but I am writing this just a few days before the end of a year that I think a lot of us will be glad to see the back of. What I want to do here is to reflect a little on what the year was life for me personally. (A blog like mine gives me, I like to think, the right every once in a while, to be a little self-indulgent!}
My initial thoughts on the new appointment to head of Dublin Archdiocese.
It is no surprise to me, or, I’m sure to most people, that the choice fell to Dermot Farrell, current bishop of Ossory and former President of Maynooth College.
It is important to wish him well, since he is taking on an enormous task.
I never had any dealings with Dermot in his Maynooth days, but when a request came in for a parish mission in Dunboyne, where he was parish priest, it was my task to lead it.
From the Outside is a wonderful wonderful book. It is written honestly with humility, with courage, and with an intimate understanding of the life and teachings of Jesus and the problems with institutional church.
It is written, not as a theologian would write it, but by a man would lived and loved his church and his people, but with the maturity and courage to expose and discard the institution’s evils.
On a similar journey, I too suffered the grief associated with the loss of some lifelong practices and beliefs, but also tasting the pure Joy of the Freedom espoused and offered us by Jesus.
