I took this photo at the Pavilion Garden Centre, in Ballygarvan, Co.Cork at the weekend
These daffodil bulbs are a lovely reminder how spring is approaching with every passing day
Video for the Week🎥
This is my latest video and it is called ‘Some of the Spiritual Blocks in our lives’. A walk along by the River Aubane created the inspiration! ( A new video will be up here on Wednesday morning)
As we start 2025 this video is simply called ‘A Prayer for a Happy New Year’
With all the recent snow in different parts of Ireland including Millstreet, Co.Cork this video seems a good recommendation🙏
If you would like to see a selection of my other videos on YouTube you are welcome to have a look at some of them here: https://www.youtube.com/@JamesMcSweeneyFr/videos
Spiritual Thought For The Week
This weekend we celebrated the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. It is always celebrated in early January. It is a good time to reflect on our own baptism and what it means to be baptised today. For me our baptism is like a compass. Our baptism points the way forward on our daily journey and points us in the direction that will bring out the best in each of us.
A question we could ask is why did Jesus need to be baptised? Surely he might have got some exemption for who he was and what he stood for. But for Jesus it was an outward sign of a personal decision. This decision was to live in God’s love and to share this love with everyone.
Sharing love and kindness and blessings is something we try to do our best with every day. It certainly is not always easy. Some days we do it naturally and then other days we struggle to get going. We also know that sharing love and kindness cannot be limited to just one day or some days, it is part of our daily life journey.
It reminds me of an artist who will work with many brushes but it is the small brushes that bring out the finer details. It is the same in life. Life is so often a mix of our many small and ordinary moments. They won’t all make headline news and they never need to.
And finally just to say our Baptism is a gentle reminder that life is a journey. Like a compass we sometimes need pointers in our life as to what direction to take. Our baptism like a compass always points us towards God’s beautiful love of each of us. Our baptism celebrates God’s love of you and inspires us to share this love in whatever way we can.
(Spiritual Thought For The Week is updated each Monday)
