Snapshots of Encouragement

A child's letter to a parent

"Sometimes you may get discouraged because we were so small and always leave our fingerprints on furniture and walls. But now we're getting bigger and will be grown up one day and all those tiny handprints will surely fade away, so here are some more handprints. Just so you can recall exactly how our fingerprints looked when we were very small."

The Cross of the Scriptures

A Treasure of Ireland is the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise. During a Parish Pilgrimage in 1978, the Cross spoke these words - "I am the Cross of the Scriptures, I have listened to the sounds of life for a thousand years".

I am for sinner and saint.
I have seen prince and peasant come with their dead hoping in Him who restores all. I have seen our cities and towers burned, robbed and destroyed. I have seen faces from the lands of Europe and far away come to pray and wonder. I have felt the arms of youth around my body, hoping for the vigour of health. I have felt the touch of old and innocent. I have watched the mind and eye of scholar, pupil and mason, desiring to catch my secret. I have been photographed, painted and pencilled., but there is no end to my secret. I am of Him who is from age to age.

I am to the memory of King Flann of Tara.
I am a thousand years and more. I was broken from the rock of this land, carried by man and beast. I was cut and measured by strong hands. I was shaped and designed by faith loving fingers. My head, body and arms tell the story of my God. He is a God of heaven and earth. He is a God of beauty. He is the God of the living and the dead. He is the God who sent his Son amongst us.

Clonmacnoise, the city of St. Ciaran is a place of quiet, peace and loveliness, graced by the silver winding waters of the River Shannon, coloured with meadowlands of The Sons of Nois, and enveloped in endless sky.