I gave a Scriptural interpretation of this in a post above which some kind person send me. Apparently this is a significant number in the bible.
I was going to work the other day when, outside the train station early morning I heard a bird sing. I stopped to listen and it was so beautiful I stopped a while to listen. As I listened I heard other birds singing from other trees. Like a little dawn chorus to heaven. This made me both happy and sad at the same time. Happy because who on hearing these birds could not beleive in their Creator. Sad because I racked my brian trying to think how ong it had been since I heard a bird sing. Like most of us I am just too busy. Later on in the day in the hospital grounds I looked at a tree, I mean I stopped an really saw it as though for the very first time. Its beauty and greatness just overwhelmed me. Feeling of awe and gratitude filled me. But again how long since I had realy, I mean really stopped to look at a tree? What a gift. But sad too. I can hardly remember. Many years ago I read a bok called, 'I heard an owl call my name'. It was about a young Anglican pastor in Canada who had been told he had a terminal illness. He shared this news with his Bishop , an old holy wise man who send him to the wilderness to work with the Indians there. Now the Indians had a legend that when someone is about to die they hear an owl calling their name. But this young man kind of slowed down and started to llok at and listen to all that was going around him in the very beautiful wild world he had been sent too and eventually did indeed hear the owl , 'Call his name', before he died. But of course the onyl reason why he heard the owl call his name was because he took the time to here it. This reminds me of the counsel Jesus gave us of always having our Lamps of prayer lit as we never know the day or the hour. Matthew 25:13 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. This waiting on the Hand of the Lord is so very much a part of Catholic Spirituality and mysticism. Well at least it used to be. It reminds me of the time I worked in the hospice. People used to be asked what they always wanted to do in life but never had. To give them a last chance to do it. You know they never asked for big things ; they were always quite small, like painting a picture or wrting a poem. I used to sit and watch them doing these things with a kind of awe and ask myself what I always wanted to do and yes I went our and done it. It was a book about Meeting Our Lady in Prayer. So it is a very good thing to hear the owl call our neme. But we have to take the time to hear it. We don't have to wait till we are dying to hear it. We jsut have to take the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_the_Owl_Call_My_Name I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a best-selling 1960s book by Margaret Craven. The book tells the story of a young Anglican vicar named Mark Brian who has not long to live, and also who learns about the meaning of life when he is to be sent to a First Nations parish in British Columbia. Here is the TV film adaptation:
I have two very spoilt pups to take care off, it will be fun watching them grow up till Christmas I think they are two females. ..I think...
I have often thought Padraig that perhaps we humans are not meant to live in cities in the sense that it can cut us off from nature. But you may well have a different perspective being a city-slicker
I am sorry I cannot post much this moring but I was awake three or four hours last night. I ahd the most extraordinary double experience of evil/ the devil. While I was walking through the woods in the park last night at twilight one of the drug addicts shouted at me to come over. He was right out of his head. When I did not come he rushed over to attack me, in a greatrage, howling, but the dogs went between us. I warned him not to come closer or they would go for him. He tried three times each time but each time the dogs stopped him. He gave up in the end. I beleive this came from the evil one. Later on in the night I felt the devil in the middle of the night awaking me. He placed a temptation before me which was overcome the night before. I felt no strnegth so I told him, 'I cannot fight you , I'll have to let the God take my place tonight and you and fight with him'. As son nas I said this he went but I heard the most errie sound form my living room for several minutes, kind of like a long drone. I was awake last night for about four hours and am done in. The devil knows what he is doing at the moment even if many others seems confused. I saw the most idiotic post on Charlie Johnston.s blog from some woman who claimed that the Pope does not know what he is doing appointing Liberal Cardinals because he is an Argentinian and doe snot realy know them. I ask you , what idiocy? https://charliej373.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/vox-populi/#respond 'So what about Pope Francis? I’m hardly Rocco Palmo, but my GUESS is that this is what you get when you have a cardinal from Argentina elevated to the papacy. He was so far removed from the politics of Rome that he doesn’t know who the enemy really is. He has, frankly, Argentinian notions about the rest of the world, and I think he’s actually seen that some of these notions weren’t quite what he thought. He was insulated there and he’s insulated now. He has no clue and simply trusts those that appear to be friendly really are. Heck, I’ve seen that happen to great bishops right here in America. It’s amazing how well the dissidents can gain confidence when they adjust those halos. However, the faithful bishops and cardinals had better figure out a way to clue him in that he is being handled, or the Church that my kids have to live in is going to tank for the foreseeable future.' I mean really I ask you?
Another week starting. Our Lady walk with us throiugh the days ahead. May we so perfectly imitate you that you can pluck us like your little flowers to presnet as a fragrant offering to the Lord of Hosts.
