Tuesday of Week 28 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Galatians 5:1-6 | Psalm 118:41,43-45,47-48 | Luke 11:37-41
In today’s Gospel, Jesus comments on the Pharisees’ hypocrisy, focusing on external cleanliness without attention to internal filth.
In the months since I began this daily blog, I’ve noticed many instances of what Carl Jung called synchronicity, and today is a prime example. I’d been having trouble with #2 since I returned home from my UK tour, but I just had a massive purge, followed by a thorough shower, and now I feel a lot cleaner both inside and out.
Similarly, purging ourselves of the temptations of daily life is one reason why we go on pilgrimages, retreats and other “time-outs” designed to help us focus on our relationship with God. One such place we visited in the UK was Glendalough, an ancient monastic settlement of great natural beauty and many religious ruins.
(“Glendalough”, incidentally, means “valley of two lakes”. If you’re sensing a water/cleansing theme going on here, you’d be right.)
An Early Medieval saint, a religious settlement, and no drones. What’s not to like?
It’s a place of peace and quiet, where nature reigns and crisp cold air abounds.
A good place to breathe in fresh air…and the Holy Spirit.
It’s easy to see why St. Kevin chose to retreat here in his early years.
As did a whole bunch of us, though not that long.
But I was more fascinated by the parish church of St. Kevin in Glendalough, where we celebrated morning mass…
…and more specifically the grounds upon which it stands, shared with a hermitage centre.
There is a meditation garden outside the church, with sculpted stones bearing messages in a setting that invites deep contemplation…
…and a simple 9/11 memorial, which evoked memories of that terrible day which I spent glued to the TV screen.
There is an explanatory display about midway between this memorial and the “Enter By The Narrow Door” stone, that suggests a meditative walk around the garden.
(And yes, the memorial creator was the same La Salle Brother Joseph McNally who sculpted a significant part of Singapore’s education landscape.)
The quotations at the bottom bear repeating:
Going on pilgrimage without a change of heart brings little reward from God. For it is by practising virtue and not by mere motion of the feet that we are brought to heaven. – Book of Lismore
May the Son of God be at the outset of my journey,
May the Son of God be in surety to aid me;
May the Son of God make clear my way,
May the Son of God be at the end of my seeking.
– Carmina Gadelica
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
And since we’re on the subject of cleansing, I think I’ll end with an antiphon that we hardly sing anymore, now that the sprinkling rite is so rarely performed at mass:
| Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor, | You will sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be cleansed |
| Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. | You will wash me, and I shall be washed whiter than snow. |
| Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. | Pity me, O God, according to Thy great mercy. |
| Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. | Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. |