Photo was taken at St Dominic’s Retreat House, Ennismore, Cork (Irl)

Even in December nature is full of surprises. Just when you think nothing is in flower is when you get the surprise! These Fushia flowers were in full bloom in the gardens at Ennismore.

Thought on Monday – December – 15/12/2014

Thought For The Week

On the RTE programme ‘Ear To The Ground’ last Thursday, they did an interesting piece on Christmas trees. We found out that the average age of a Christmas tree is 7 Years. We found out that real Christmas trees are so much kinder to the environment than artificial trees. 300,000 Christmas trees are sold in Ireland each year.

There is a Christmas quote that stands out for me. It is by Charlotte Carpenter and she said: ‘If Christmas isn’t found in your heart you won’t find it under the Christmas tree.’ So Christmas really has to start within. Everyone is looking for peace, harmony, happiness, direction, good health and stability in life. Few achieve all of this fully in their lifetime but we can certainly go a long way towards it. Christmas is a great starting point but only a starting point.

Yesterday marked the 3rd Sunday of Advent, traditionally called ‘Joyful Sunday’. We tend to lean towards negative and sad stories and we take so much for granted the many good things happening in our lives. There is much to celebrate but we often don’t bother or think its not worth doing or sadly maybe we think we are not worth it. The message of ‘Joyful Sunday’ is of course you are worth it and of course you are worth celebrating. If we can’t do that, then there is no point having Christmas.
Christmas celebrates you. Christmas is all about God celebrating you. We put the spotlight on all our good news stories today.