LiturgicalReflection
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Writing a Hymn—and Learning Stabilitas Overnight
This hymn didn’t emerge in a chapel. It came overnight. In silence. In storm. In the unbuilt monastery of the mind. “Wild winds rise fierce across the plain,My refuge be.” The imagery came quickly. But the deeper formation came slowly—as most Benedictine things do. I’m part of a Benedictine community without walls. We are dispersed… Continue reading
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Unknown Paths, Rising Hills: Writing a Hymn for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year A) — “You call us out to unknown paths” (CM)
You call us out to unknown paths You call us out to unknown paths,Like Abram long ago;Through mist along the Barrow’s bends,Your pilgrim people go.You lift our eyes to rising hills,Where skylarks greet the dawn;Your keeping shade, like hawthorn’s bough,Stands guard till night is gone.Not by our striving, strength, or claimBut gift of grace alone,You… Continue reading
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🌿 Morning Reflection for 25 February
Inspired by the appointed readings and psalmody The morning opens gently, the way dawn often does in Ireland—grey first, then slowly revealing colour. The psalms speak of trembling bones, weary eyes, and the long nights when the pillow is wet with tears. Anyone who has ever lain awake listening to the rain on a Kildare… Continue reading
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Divinity in Difference: The Window That Says What We’ve Been Trying to Say
Every now and then, an image comes along that says in colour and light what pages of writing have been circling for years. This stained-glass window feels like that. It gathers the heart of NeuroDivine—the essays, the fiction, the hymns, the poetry—and holds them up to the light with one steady claim: Difference is not… Continue reading
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Stay with me in the waiting.
There are days when Jeremiah’s cry—“My anguish, my anguish!”—feels less like something from long ago and more like the body’s own truth. In the dialysis unit, with the soft beeping of the machines and the hush of people doing their best to get through another session, you can hear that same ache. Jeremiah speaks of… Continue reading
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In the Thin Place of Forty Days
Rooted in the landscape, spirituality, and imaginative tradition of the Irish midlands, the text interweaves the great biblical “forty” journeys—the flood, the exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, and the risen Christ’s forty days—with the sacred geography of Kildare and its surrounding boglands. Drawing on Celtic Christian imagery and the rhythms of creation, it invites worshippers to… Continue reading
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Waiting
In much of Christian spirituality, waiting is treated as a virtue—Advent waiting, prayerful waiting, hopeful waiting. But that language can sometimes feel abstract, almost decorative. It does not always account for the body. For the nervous system. For the long fluorescent hours in hospital wards. For the way time stretches, distorts, or presses against the… Continue reading
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Ash, Attention, and the God Who Breathes: Writing This Hymn for Ash Wednesday
I wrote this hymn for Ash Wednesday out of a neurodivergent way of praying. For many of us, faith does not begin in abstraction. It begins in texture. In the grit of ash against skin. In the sound of a river looping the same bend again and again. In the stillness of a heron that… Continue reading
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Word. Refuge. Faith.
“Write Your Word Upon Our Hearts” is a hymn rooted in Deuteronomy 11, Psalm 31, Romans 1 and 3, and Matthew 7, the readings for today (Proper 4) in the Church of Ireland. It prays that God’s Word would be inscribed not only on stone, but within our lives—shaping faith, grounding us in Christ’s righteousness,… Continue reading
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Rule. Dawn. Praise.
This hymn and stained-glass image are inspired by Chapter 13 of the Rule of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict, in which he sets forth the reverent ordering of the Divine Office at Lauds on ordinary days. Rooted in the rhythm of psalmody, canticle, Gospel praise, and litany, the work reflects Saint Benedict’s vision of a… Continue reading
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Before Your holy altar
This hymn was written as a prayer of presence and sending — rooted in the Celtic landscape, centered on the Eucharist, and alive with the missionary fire of the saints. It gathers altar, land, and people into one act of worship: Christ present among us, Christ restoring us, Christ sending us forth. May it be… Continue reading
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Stop. Start. Stay.
Not every journey is straight. Some of us live by detours. Some of us measure time in appointments, recoveries, resets, and the quiet courage it takes to begin again. This new hymn was written from within that kind of landscape. It blesses the roundabout and the restart. The traffic light on a rain-washed street when… Continue reading
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Healing. Prayer. Hope.
This hymn was written for World Day of the Sick, a day when many pilgrims gather in Lourdes seeking healing, prayer, and hope. While crowds pray at the grotto and walk in candlelight procession, many of us keep the day in quieter places—hospital wards, dialysis units, and our own homes. For me, it is shaped… Continue reading
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Fall. Grace. Love.
This morning did not unfold as expected. Before Mass began, our celebrant was injured in a fall and taken to hospital. In her absence, the community gathered for Morning Prayer and the Litany. The form of worship changed, but prayer continued. What had been prepared for Eucharist became something simpler and quieter, shaped by attentiveness… Continue reading
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Shepherd. Host. High King.
This hymn began with a simple wondering: What if Christ doesn’t only meet us at the table, but walks the whole week with us? Faith is rarely confined to sacred hours. It unfolds in Mondays heavy with responsibility, Wednesdays full of noise, Fridays marked by grief, and Saturdays thick with waiting. This hymn traces the… Continue reading
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Claimed. Accompanied. Sent.
I wrote this hymn slowly, paying attention to water. Not water as an idea, but water as something that moves, waits, gathers, seeps, and returns. Water that has weight and sound and temperature. Water that holds memory. Baptism is often talked about as a moment—something that happens and is done. For me, baptism has always… Continue reading
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Courage. Gentleness. Wisdom
This hymn grew out of listening rather than certainty. It brings together two women who never met, yet somehow recognise one another across time and land. Saint Agatha, standing her ground in the hard stone world of Rome, and Saint Brigid, whose holiness took root in hearth-fire, field, and care for ordinary people. One knew… Continue reading
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Carried. Promise. Radiance.
Written for Candlemas (The Presentation of the Lord), this hymn celebrates Christ as the Light of the nations at the turning of the year. Drawing on the witness of Simeon and Anna, and set within the landscape and seasonal rhythms of Ireland, it weaves biblical faith with themes of light, hope, and patient renewal. 87… Continue reading
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Silence. Suffering. Steadfastness.
A day of uneasy memory, quiet courage, and layered history. On 30 January, NeuroDivine holds space for complexity, conscience, and the land’s long remembering—and offers a new hymn rooted in Leinster’s fields for those who honour your servant Charles with tenderness rather than triumph. Continue reading
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Starfield. Shadow. Covenant.
This hymn is shaped by the daily readings at Morning Prayer for today from the Church of England. It draws together the promise God makes to Abram beneath the night sky, Christ’s faithful obedience in the garden, and the Spirit’s work of forming trust and courage in us today. Set in the landscapes of water,… Continue reading
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