Gregory Porter

From Father Brian D’Arcy, a Catholic Passionist priest:

I’m floating on air this morning. Today is the final day of our Mission of Hope at The Graan, the monastery near Enniskillen where I live.

Every day for the past nine days, 2000 pilgrims came to listen to 9 different speakers share their stories of failure and success. We have been inspired by their honesty and filled with a new hope about our own mixed up lives.

Let me tell you about two of the speakers.

Adi Roche is a middle-aged woman who has devoted 30 years of her life to saving children born with horrible injuries as a result of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. In April 1986 a power plant there exploded, expelling 190 tons of radioactive matter into the atmosphere. Countless people died instantly; injured children were abandoned. Adi held us spellbound as she introduced us to some of the thousands of children she and her team rescued. It was awe-inspiring to discover how much hope one committed person can bring to hopeless lives.

Two days later motivational speaker Declan Coyle showed us that happiness comes from within when we take control of our own lives. He taught us how to change our “poor me” victim attitudes into “can do” success stories

If there is no enemy on the inside, he said, the enemy on the outside doesn’t matter. Each of us has to reclaim control over our own destinies, by first discovering what it is that makes us unhappy.

I’m convinced we must step out of denial and learn to live in the real world. If I continually argue with reality, I will lose 100% of the time. Believe instead that if it’s to be, it must be me; fuel every moment of your life with the best you have. Don’t die with your music still within you.

As the Book of Proverbs puts it -: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is a Tree of Life”. (Prov 13:12)