One Sunday afternoon
at the end of May,
on a day of blue skies
and light rain showers,
hundreds of people
flock to Hannahstown
for the blessing of the graves
on Cemetery Sunday.

As Mass starts
I look down Hannahstown Hill.
Tall beech trees
border the cemetery,
shimmering fresh and green
in a brisk May breeze.
Mile upon mile of green countryside
stretches out before me
through County Antrim and beyond
into County Down,
all the way
to the grey-green peaks of the Mournes
that stretch out along the horizon.

Looking around the cemetery
I see a real mixture of people –
old and young,
optimists sporting tee-shirts
and pragmatists carrying umbrellas.
I even see an air hostess
in full regalia.

I have a sense
of being a very tiny part
of an immense world
created by My God.
I sense
that all of us gathered here today
for Cemetery Sunday
are individual
and yet united
in the masterplan of God’s creation.

I sense
that every single one of us
gathered in Hannahstown today
for Cemetery Sunday
has a role to play in life
that is absolutely vital.

© Claire Murray, 31st May 2015

“In the Wilderness”
by Ron di Cianni
depicts you,
sitting on a barren slope,
head bowed in prayer,
elbows resting on your knees
and a dark sky looming overhead.

I imagine
that you are struggling
to come to terms
with all that lies before you –
Pharisees seeking to entrap you,
betrayal by friends,
torture
and then cruel death.

In prayer
you finally surrender yourself
to God’s will.
But even when you eventually feel ready
to commit your life
and your death
to our God,
your heart still be heavy.

Even times of joy and friendship
must be tinged with sadness
and a sense of foreboding
at the prospect
of what lies ahead.

How you must have been transformed
after your Resurrection!
Anxiety over,
you must have been flooded with relief
and absolutely bursting with joy.

And this morning
as I sit in prayer
I think how wonderful
it must have been
to meet you
after your Resurrection
and see you smile?

© Claire Murray, 14th May 2015

I walk up the Falls Road
at lunch time.
Traffic slowly passes by –
an unending procession
of buses, vans, cars
and black taxis.
There is a whiff of exhaust fumes
in the air
and the steady drone
of car engines.

Crossing a series of slip roads
that lead down
to Belfast’s busy West Link,
I pass a small community garden
and out of the corner of my eye
I glimpse a splash of colour.

When I turn around to look properly
I see startlingly blue cornflowers,
purple bluebells
and crimson poppies,
all nestling
among long, green grass
in a tiny wild flower meadow,
cheek by jowl
with Belfast’s busiest thoroughfare.

I’m amazed!

I drove past this community garden
this morning
on my way to work
and yesterday
and the day before that
and I hadn’t spotted
one single flower!

I sense My God beside me
as I walk,
delighting in my surprise
and reminding me (yet again!)
that there is always beauty
to be found
by those who pause
and take the time
to look for it
in nature
and in each other.

© Claire Murray, 13th May 2015

Aoife bought a fridge magnet
depicting a curious giraffe
along with the caption
“Don’t try to understand me,
just love me”.
And I have to admit
that I would like people
to have that thought
in their hearts
when they’re dealing with me.

But I can’t help wondering
to what extent
I keep that thought
in my own heart
in my dealings
with others,
especially people I don’t like
or who irritate me.

When I meet these people
is my starting point
a position of love
or a position of criticism and rejection?
Do I love them
right here,
right now,
just the way they are?

Do I try my best
to act out of love
and to pray for that person,
that they might have the grace
to allow themselves
to be transformed
and that others may have the generosity
to help them?

Lord,
let Aoife’s fridge magnet
remind me every day
that I am called by you
to love others
in the same way
that I would like others
to love me.

© Claire Murray, 8th May 2015

It’s a Monday morning
and I have no intention
of going to Mass
but as I pass the Fountain Centre
on my way to work
the Alice Clock starts to chime
and the song it plays is
“Christ be Beside Me”.
I give in to My God
and turn to go to St Mary’s
for morning Mass.

During the Consecration
the priest raises the host
and it dawns on me
that what I’m witnessing here,
when this tiny circle of ordinary bread
becomes the body of Christ,
is a miracle of love,
the love that My God
has for me.

I have an awareness
that this miracle is taking place
in thousands of places
around the world
right now.
And suddenly,
on this Monday morning
the world seems to be a place
that is filled
with miracles of love.

© Claire Murray (20th April 2015)

I arrive in plenty of time
for morning Mass.
but it’s been a rush
just to get here.
Now, for the first time today,
I feel that I can simply
be still.

As the sun streams in
through the stained glass windows
of St Michael’s,
bathing me
in its gentle, spring sunlight,
a sense of stillness settles on me
as soft as dew fall.

By the time that Mass starts
the early morning rush
is a distant memory.
My soul is still
and I give thanks to My God
for the precious and gentle gift
of His peace
which came to me this morning
as softly as dew fall.

© Claire Murray (21st April 2015)

Lord,
I’m fascinated by the scene
from St John
in which you sit with your disciples
around a charcoal fire
eating breakfast
and talking about love.

I picture a group
of rough and ready,
down-to-earth,
weather-beaten
and sweating
fishermen.

I picture Peter,
a very direct man,
the spokesman of the group –
the sort of a man
who would happily call a spade a spade,
probably throwing in a few expletives
for good measure!

And yet here they all were,
big, butch, hard-working men,
sitting around a fire
and talking away to you
about love.

For me,
this is as unlikely and unexpected a scene
as seeing a dusty, unshaven builder,
dressed in high-vis jacket
suddenly down tools
and start to ballet dance
on a building site.

And yet something about you
transformed these hard-working fishermen
into disciples
who talked, at length,
about love.

Lord,
give me the courage
to allow myself, like Peter,
to be transformed
by you.

© Claire Murray (16th April 2015)

Lord,
today we went to look at
high crosses,
standing stones,
stone circles
and a megalithic tomb
in the hills around Carndonagh –
all evidence
of people searching
centuries and even millennia ago –
searching for a meaning to life,
searching for help
searching for you.

Gazing around me
at the surrounding landscape
I’m conscious that these hills
have changed completely
since these crosses and stones
were erected
slowly and painstakingly
by hand
all those centuries ago.

And yet the people who constructed them
were simply searching
in the same way
that so many of us are searching today.

Gazing upon these Celtic high crosses,
ironically, it’s a French expression
that springs to mind –
plus ça change,
plus c’est la même chose
(the more things change
the more things stay the same).

Lord,
these high crosses
point people towards you
centuries after their construction.
Help me
in my own small way
to point people towards you
in my ordinary, everyday life.

© Claire Murray (10th April 2015)