Photo was taken yesterday at the Honan Chapel, UCC, Cork (Irl)

Susan O’Mullane & Andrew Manning are all smiles at the end of their wedding Mass yesterday.

Thought on Sunday – September – 18/09/2011

The following reflection is by Triona Doherty called ‘Setting The Bar High’

The following story landed in my email inbox this week: ‘Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. ‘The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liz’. ‘As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the colour returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’ Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood. Some stories make us stop and look at life in a different way. Some of the best ones feature characters who surpass our expectations and inspire us to greater things. Jesus uses the landowner in today’s Gospel to drive home a simple message: God is more generous and giving than we could ever expect or imagine. Like the boy in the story above, the landowner sets the bar high. In the words of the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, ‘The heavens are as high above earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your thoughts.’