Photo was taken looking across at the snow covered Nephin Beg Mountain range with its reflections on Lough Beltra, Co.Mayo (Irl)

Our photo today taken by Meabh Mac Manaman, captures the beauty of a snow covered mountain range between Castlebar and Belmullet, Co.Mayo. Snow always adds something special to any photo and we get double value for money with its reflections on the water!!

Thought on Sunday – January – 10/01/2010

The following reflection is written by Fr.Tom Cahill

According to one recycling agency Ireland’s consumption of alcohol over Christmas would fill ’29 Olympic-sized swimming pools’. On average, adults drank 16 litres of alcohol or 2.5 times their own blood levels. If that’s hard to swallow try this: the nation gobbled 4 million boxes of chocolates; guzzled 54 million cans and 15 million bottles of beer, 20 million bottles of wine, 4 million plastic bottles and 28 million cans of soft drinks. Households disposed of 96,500 kg of packaging ‚Äì equivalent to an adult’s weight in cardboard per household ‚Äì and 4 million sheets of gift-wrap paper. And that was in 2005! Just image what it must have been like every Christmas since then.

As Christmas celebrates Jesus’ birth, how could recycling our waste produce seem more pressing a problem than renewing our faith in God and our service of each other? Our feasts are always occasions for renewal. Today’s feast, the Baptism of the Lord, shows this. It reminds us of our own baptism and of what we are committed to because of it. We need reminding from time to time that baptism, while it may have come easily, does not come cheaply. It does cost. Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 3:15-16, 21-22) makes that clear: He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (3:16)

So, as we begin this New Year let us not take our baptism for granted, or forget it. That can so easily happen. When the Spirit’s fire truly burns within us, we’ll know that it’s not for recycling used goods but for renewing God’s gifts.