Fr La introduces a new theme in our Pause and Ponder series this evening. Every Monday, from now until the beginning of Lent, we invite you to pause with Fr La and ponder on one of our nine ‘Lough Derg Values’. Tonight’s value is Welcome. Blessings

Hello again dear friends.  Welcome to a new theme in our Pause and Ponder series. And thanks to Mary for the heart-warming poems she shared with us through December.

If you have had a chance to walk the Loughshore Pilgrim Path, you will remember I’m sure seeing the posters displaying nine values that we have set out along the path.  We believe that these values are timeless, in Gospel terms, and that they highlight the heart of what Lough Derg today has to offer across our various programmes.

From now until the beginning of Lent I invite you each Monday to pause with me In any of our usual virtual venues and ponder one of these Lough Derg Values.  I hope they may lift our spirits and offer some spiritual sustenance and light on our path of life as winter moves forward into spring.

It will be no surprise that Welcome should be the first of the nine values that we meet, near the familiar statue of Patrick the Pilgrim. We name it this way: Welcome for each one who comes, true to the spirit of a place of sanctuary.  In Irish the term was tearmann – once you crossed into the monastic lands you were guaranteed sanctuary: protection and safety. 

May 2022 be a year when Lough Derg can again safely welcome many pilgrims in a world that – particularly of late – has been an anxious place for us all.

We Pause and ponder the words of Jesus:

Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.

Watch Fr La’s previous Pause and Ponder videos along the Pilgrim Path here

Keep up to date regularly with Lough Derg here