~ Celebrating St. Patrick ~

St. Patrick

May your troubles be less

And your blessings be more

And nothing but happiness

Come though your door.

Places where people feel most strongly connected with God’s presence are referred to as “thin places.”

In John Shea’s Finding the Thin Place
is the following short story:
A woman returned from a trip to the
isle of Iona. When her gardener heard
where she was, he quietly said, “Iona
is a thin place.”
“A thin place?” she asked.
“There is very little between it and
God,” the gardener explained.

Shea questioned, “Are there thin places where
the usual thickness between the sacred and the
profane is only a fine membrane?”
Indeed, there are moments in life when we
experience that fine membrane—waiting for
medical test results, or receiving notification of
the death of a loved one, those times when we
feel vulnerable and we ask, “What if God were in
that ‘thin place’ all along?” Seeking the courage
to accept that grace and realizing that we are not
alone is finding that “thin place.”
Just as the child in the womb rests before moving into
the birth canal, we are each “pre-programmed” with an
inner knowledge of the need to rest while transitioning
from a place of comfort to one of new life and surprises.
This is that “thin place” where we find God.
The process of discernment is a similar transition,
when we rest before moving from darkness to light,
from cloudiness to clarity, from doubt to certainty.
It is in those places and at those times that we
learn deep within our beings that there is very little
between ourselves and God.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=0

http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Mar2001/feature1.asp#F3

http://www.thinplaces.net/openingarticle.htm

http://www.poetseers.org/the-great-poets/irish-poets/celtic-poems-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evs6NVFKpbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgzKIsV01A0

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Irish+Blessing+Song&Form=VQFRVP#view=detail&mid=65F30DE60F5C3E14EE0465F30DE60F5C3E14EE04

http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en&utm_source=Sabbath+Moment+-+290B+%22Create%22&utm_campaign=Sabbath+Moment&utm_medium=email

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhMCBnwS220

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw-67dNESf8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day

http://www.historyofholidays.com/history_of_st_patricks_day.html

http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/history-of-St-Patrick.html

http://goireland.about.com/od/historyculture/ig/Saint-Patrick/Saint-Patrick-at-Knock.htm

The Blessing of Light, Rain and Earth

May the blessing of Light be on you
light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you
And warm your heart till it glows
Like a great peat fire, so that the stranger
may come and warm himself at it
and also a friend
And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you
Like a candle set in the windows of a house
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the Rain be upon you, the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up
And shed their sweetness on the air
And may the blessing of the Great Rains be on you
May they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean
And leave there many a shining pool where the blue of heaven shines
And sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the Earth be upon you, the great round earth
May you ever have a kindly greeting for them you pass
As you're going along the roads
May the earth be soft under you when you rest upon it
Tire at the end of the day
And may it rest easy over you
When at the last you lay out under it
May it rest so lightly over you
That your soul may be out from under it quickly
And up, and off, and on its way to God.