Day 2: Tuesday, Sept 17, 2019 Dublin

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland 

DAY 2: You will meet your Irish Driver/Guide in the arrival’s hall of the Dublin airport and he will escort you to the waiting motor coach for your tour. Depart the airport and travel into the capital city for a panoramic city tour. You will then visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, before moving on to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. Then some free time in Dublin to take in one of the museums or wander the streets. You will meet back up with your driver and he will take you into the Dublin suburbs to Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel for the first of a 3-night stay. Dinner at your hotel this evening.

REFLECTION

The Celtic soul is intuitive, leaping readily beyond the here and now. It is imaginative, playing gleefully with the symbolic and mythical. It is inclusive, caught up in family and community. It is wide open in its hospitality. It is God-centered in its day-to­-day orientation toward life. It is given to storytelling and song, in the company of friends, over a pint in the local pub.

A Celtic spirit sees God’s action as integral to moment-to-moment living. Every aspect of life is enabled by God and enlivened by God. It is the kind of God-awareness that inspired many Irish mothers (including Bridget’s mother, Bridie) to begin each day with the phrase: “In the name of God.” The awareness of being immersed in the holy in the midst of a circle of love like a cocoon or a womb which God has woven around you–this is core to the Celtic understanding of life. Praying with Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver

(Praying with Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver p. 4)

PRAYER 

A Friendship Blessing

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.

SONG 

Anam Cara by Jan Novotka

https://youtu.be/Co-1RvbMK4c

You are here in my soul. It is here where we are one. Fullness is what I know!
Oh, such Presence, gentle Presence, with you! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!

Can it be? Is it true? My soul finds rest in you! It’s as if with you I’m home.
Oh, such fullness and completeness with you! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!

Now I know. I’m at peace. “Anam Cara” is your name. Holy is this love that flows,
Gift that’s given as a blessing for all! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!