From Under The Duvet..: Slow Down

So, I've been working in the office with Rose the past couple of days. It's been fun - if a little stressful at times. This morning I answered the fun to an incredibly stubborn and rude man saying he wanted to make a complaint etc. On it went until I finally managed to get his name. Who was it? Only an elder - one of the members of the Romania team from two years ago who (affectionately) calls me "Trouble" (and I return the favour)... I knew that in this job it would be the elders who would be the trouble makers. Apparently I passed the little test and kept my cool - until I found out who it was!

In other news, I got a distinction in my Stage 3 Part I - my final typing exam result (Stage 3 Part II) should come soon. And, as of today, Operation Banner is over. A good positive step in the history of our country and I hope it's just one more in the many steps needed to bring full and continuous peace to the area.

Thousands of people climbed up Croagh Patrick in the annual pilgramage commemorating St Patrick on Sunday. I read one of the sermons (I'd give the plural of homily but I'm not sure what it is!) given at the top of the mountain by Archbishop Michael Neary and will share what I've read about it here:

From the top, the archbishop encouraged pilgrims in his homily to "slow down the pace of life."

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"All of us have to slow down as we climb to the summit," the Irish archbishop explained. "Now and again we stop to catch our breath, or perhaps, in the early light, gaze on the beauty of God's creation."

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"This is one of those pilgrimages which takes the ever demanding rush out of life," he continued. "The world in which we live has set an impossible pace."

Archbishop Neary continued: "We are rushed from infancy to adolescence and then through those special years to an ill-timed adulthood.

"Then, as we grow older, we might be left to one side as following generations may see us as a burden or a handicap to their progress and ambition.

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"Perhaps, today, we might bring home a lesson from this old mountain of St. Patrick."

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"We might discover the need to reflect, to slow down the pace of life, to wonder at the beauty of the earth, and to really appreciate the value of our friends," explained the 61-year-old prelate.

We have forgotten about the sacredness of now or, as some put it, 'the sacrament of the present moment.'

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He added: "We live in the age of the instant, where there is no joy in the anticipation and no time to value the achievement.

We have forgotten about the sacredness of now or, as some put it, 'the sacrament of the present moment.'

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"As we leave this mountain and find in it a symbol of our own lives and struggles in its call for courage, perseverance, and in its joy, sorrow and fulfillment, we might remember those today who struggle with steeper slopes of hunger, exile, famine and separation from their own native lands."

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Archbishop Neary concluded, "We will pray too for those who scale the dizzy heights in search of peace when that summit seems so distant."

(Source)

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