Athgarvan Musings

The University of Dundee has released a photograph showing an almost completely cloud-free Ireland over the weekend. 

The image of Ireland and the UK, which was captured by the university’s Satellite Receiving Station, was taken on Saturday.  (Click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, Met Éireann has said that the recent good weather is set to continue for the June Bank Holiday weekend.

It says although Wednesday may see some showers, a return to high temperatures is likely for the weekend.

The University of Dundee has released a photograph showing an almost completely cloud-free Ireland over the weekend.

The image of Ireland and the UK, which was captured by the university’s Satellite Receiving Station, was taken on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Met Éireann has said that the recent good weather is set to continue for the June Bank Holiday weekend.

It says although Wednesday may see some showers, a return to high temperatures is likely for the weekend.

 

People all over the globe now seem to be caught up in the sudden realisation that life is demanding of us to stand up and live more responsibly.

"When the wild ducks or the wild geese migrate in their season, a strange tide rises in the territories over which they sweep. As if magnetized by the great triangular flight, the barnyard fowl leap a foot or two into the air and try to fly…. All the ducks on the farm are transformed for an instant into migrant birds, and into these hard little heads, till now filled with humble images of pools and worms and barnyards, there swims a sense of continental expanse, of the breath of seas and the salt taste of the ocean wind. The duck totters to right and left in its wire enclosure, gripped by a sudden passion to perform the impossible and a sudden love whose object is a mystery.  

  But domestic security has succeeded in crushing out that part of us that is capable of heeding the call. We scarcely quiver; we beat our wings once or twice and then fall back into our barnyard. We are prudent people. We are afraid to let go of our petty reality in order to grasp at the great shadow”    Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars

Our Lady's Island is an ancient place of pilgrimage in Wexford in the south east corner of Ireland. Yesterday I joined Wexford Branch of CORI (CONFERENCE OF RELIGIOUS OF IRELAND) on their annual pilgrimage to the island. Since the 6th century it has been a favourite place of Catholic devotion and retreat for those who revere the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Last year, Brian O'Driscoll and several members of the Leinster Rugby squad visited the patients and families of Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin. They brought with them many gifts and the newly won Heineken Cup.

"We confine our mystery within the prison of routine and repetition."  John O’Donohue, from Eternal Echoes

To Look at Any Thing

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0We0CZI9_Q

The world and the Church appear to be in an awful mess nowadays. It has been said that it is easy to have faith when things are going great but it is far more difficult for a Christian to have faith in God's deliverance when we are in the midst of significant challenges.  Jesus has told us that we would have such challenges. He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33)

In this context I have been trying to make sense of dramatist and Quaker, Christopher Fry's, difficult work:

The Sleep of Prisoners
The human heart can go to the lengths of God.
Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now. The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul men ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEMw9qgQ-j0

Congratulations to Irish girl, Jenny Murphy, from Dun-shaughlin, Co. Meath, who won Gold and the much-sought-after title Florist of the Year at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show yesterday! The show was especially im-pressive this year which was on the theme of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Anniversary Celebrations. The brief was to create a chandelier to be hung at the Queen’s Jubilee dinner. Jenny's floral display was inspired by the imperial state crown which Queen Elizabeth wore at her coronation in 1952. That was decorated with diamonds, pearls,  sapphires, emeralds and rubies. The display uses more than 150 deep-red roses, 100 purple Canna lilies and over 80 orchids as well as carnations and chrysanthemums.

Today, Thursday 24th May, President Michael D. Higgins will reveal which of the ten paintings below has been voted Ireland's Favourite Painting by the Irish people. These 10 have been whittled down from an original list of 100.
Which would be your choice? To enlarge click on the thumbnail.

1.2.3.
4.5.6.7.
8.9.10

1. Kilmainham Gaol - communicating with prisoners (Jack B. Yeats)
2. Meeting on the Turret Stairs (Frederick W. Burton)
3. A Family (Louis le Brocquy)
4. Lady Writing a Letter (Vermeer)
5. The Eve of St. Agnus (Harry Clarke) (glass)
6. The Artist's Studio (John Lavery)
7. A Convent Garden in Brittany (William Leech)
8. Wall of Light (Sean Scully)
9. A Connemara Village (Paul Henry)
10. The Taking of Christ (Carravaggio)

Winner?   2. Meeting on the Turret Stairs  http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/meeting_of_turret_stairs.htm

Vocare, is a S.A.T.B. choral group, based here in Wexford. Founded and directed by Sue Furlong, a noted musician and composer, the choir held its first rehearsal in September 2007. It has become a choral group of excell-ence and its styles of music include classical, contemporary, pop, world and ethnic.

The choir is comprised of 46 members, both male and female, and
has now been invited to perform in the Carnegie Hall in New York, the world's most prestigious concert venue, in February, 2013. They will take part in a performance of Carol Barnett's The World Beloved: a Bluegrass Mass conducted by Dr. Nancy Menk.

The choir, seen here with Wexford in the background, is performing in the town, this Friday night, at 8.00 pm. 

      Katie                        Sarah                     Robert                 Lauren