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Ireland

Responses to Totus2us podcasts given by Irish people with Christian names beginning with A to F - many thanks to you all   ♥

Father Alan Neville      

"In that parish there were two priests, Father John and Father Jim, who were just really wonderful priests, great sense of humour, lovely sense of humanity, and as I grew up with them, because I was an altar server there and then I was a reader when I was considering a vocation to the priesthood, it didn't occur to me to consider any other group. It was always going to be the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart."

Áine       

"For me, Mary is somebody who I can call on like a mother when I'm nervous, or sad or just somebody who I feel is always there."

Andrew      

"I see Our Lady as being a personal friend, someone who I can confide in, someone who I talk to throughout the day, who gives me strength, comfort and reassurance."

Angela      

"Our Lady means everything to me, especially as I'm born on the 8th September so I share the same birthday .. She's very special to me and I say the rosary every day, as we always did after dinner in Ireland."

Ann      

"I think there was only one truly blessed mother in the world and that was Mary. .. I found out this since I came to Walsingham - to pray for people like who do you wrong, who you think that done you wrong. .. After we spoke to Our Lady in the tent we're all going home, not angry, nothing, just happiness, because we prayed so hard to Our Lady."

Anne      

"Mary to me is a life lived without fear, a life totally in the trust and care of God. A yes beyond all yeses, a yes without a second thought, a total trust and faith in the providence and care of God. Forever, throughout the whole world, throughout the whole Church, till the end of time, Mary stands alone: God’s great yes, humanity’s great yes."

Anne      

"I am a child of Mary, belong to many confraternaties of associated with Our Lady, and I'm the representative of the Living Rosary Association which is in response to Our Lady's request for the rosary to be said every day. So we say one decade each day and we've got 18 million members all over the world praying the rosary in response to Our Lady's request. … We're going to get into heaven holding Our Lady's hand and hanging onto a rosary."

Anne      

"I’ve always had a love for Mary but when I went to Medjugorje that was deepened. And then I had a tragedy in my life, and without Mary and Jesus I wouldn’t have survived."

Anne      

"I have a great devotion to Our Lady and I pray the rosary every day because I think it is a real power prayer. And I do it to get great favours from Our Lady and I don't think my life would be complete without praying to her and to her holy mother. So I would say that she is a big part of my life."

Anne      

"We're going to get into heaven holding Our Lady's hand and hanging onto a rosary!"

Anne      

"I ask Mary for any favours, will she ask her son a favour for me. I always go through the mother."

Anne-Marie      

"To me Mary is the ultimate ‘yes’ and she is all embracing."

Anne-Marie      

"For me Knock is very special because we would tend to go as a family when I was younger, and we would go every August and would join the other people who had come on pilgrimage at the end of the summer. .. It's in a really beautiful place where there wasn't very much and it's amazing to think that Our Lady came to somewhere so desolate in the middle of nowhere and lit it all up. "

Anthony      

"I want to thank Our Lady for guiding me through my life and for all my blessings."

Aoife       

"Our Lady really shows me how to be little before God."

Barry      

"Our Lady has always been the most important person to go to at any time: at times of help, times of need, times of happiness, she is always there."

Bernadette      

"Mary is our mother and she’s trying to help us, and she loves us more than we deserve and she suffered for us. And what can I say? Every time I think of how much she suffered, I cry. It's wonderful, wonderful."

Bernadette      

"Our Lady for me is always the Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church."

Breda     

"Now I'm trying my best to ask for Our Lady for her help and any time I do ask for her help, especially when I'm not feeling the best, I've never experienced where she hasn't actually come to me and helped me. And it's probably just because of her humility that I find it so easy to go to her and usually I go to her when I'm looking at things about myself that I find difficult to accept ..and every time she helps me not to ignore it but to look at it and she helps me to move on to the next step, which is to give my heart to Jesus."

Breda Coman was a member of St Patrick's Community Parish Mission Team from 2002 to 2013. She is a singer - to listen to her music, visit her website

Bridget       

"I have a big statue of Our Lady in my house and I pray to her to pray to Jesus for me. She'll talk to him you know, to help the family, and help everyone, help the homeless on the street  and the people in need too, you know, because there are a lot of people in need."

Bridget      

"My mother has got a very big devotion to Our Lady, she loved Our Lady and I love her as well. She's done an awful lot of things. Without Our Lady I don't think we could ever go on, and her son Jesus. She really do help us all in every day, she really do."

Bridget gave this recording in Walsingham.

Bridie       

"Thank you very much, dear Mother Mary, for helping me so much, so far."

Brother Camillus     

"We always should remain faithful to the rosary if we can and at least, if we don't pray the rosary, to have the blessed rosary on our person, it could save us on our last day … I always thank Our Lady for that special grace, her answer to my request, to my little prayer."

Brother Camillus speaks about his love for Pope St John Paul II        

"John Paul was such a wonderful person and he had so much suffering in his early life ..He was left all alone in this world aged 20, but he always dedicated and placed himself under the care of Our Blessed Lady, and he renewed his dedication to Mary Immaculate, his Mother.. I am really privileged to have met him and I shall always be keen to pray to him in the few years that I have left. We must thank God for John Paul, the Great John Paul II."

Brother Camillus is a brother of the Order of St Camillus.

Carol      

"Mary means the love of the world . . and we must help, aid her in spreading her love to all children on earth."

Catherine      

"Where is Jesus's mother? She's at the foot of the Cross."

Catherine      

"The first time I really needed God and Our Lady in my life was when I was 16 and my brother was in a very serious car accident. I just remember my parents rushing to the local hospital and I really didn't know what to do so I ended up taking the rosary beads in my hands and for the first time in my life, I prayed the full rosary on my own. And as soon as I started to pray the rosary I just felt a deep peace come over me and I just knew that Our Lady was there with me and I knew that she was going to look after my brother."

Catherine has also given a reflection on Confession      

"The Sacrament of Reconciliation - I just can't encourage you enough in it, it's such a beautiful sacrament. It has brought so much healing into my life. The reason that God has given us this sacrament is really to help us in our lives. He doesn't want us carrying all that baggage, He doesn't want us carrying all that pain and the hurt, He wants us to be free from it. .. So I can't encourage you enough in that. Just to realise that we all get it wrong, we all make mistakes. So don't be afraid!"

Catherine Leigh was for over 10 years a member of St Patrick's Community, along with John Pridmore & Niall Slattery. She entered Carmel in the autumn of 2017.

Catherine       

"Our Lady is very precious to me. I think she is watching over me and my family and protecting us."

Sister Catherine      

"For me, Our Lady is the Mother of the Church, she is the first disciple, and she was a woman of silence, she pondered things in her heart and she lived the message."

Sister Catherine is a Sister of Mercy.

Cathy       

"I've always had a great devotion to Our Lady and, as she says herself, 'I will surpass all your expectations, if only you'll trust in me.' Well, I can vouch for that because I've always trusted in Our Lady and she's never let me down. She's a wonderful confidant, a wonderful mother and a great intercessor. Thank you, Blessed Mother, for all you have done for me."

Christina      

"Our Lady is most beautiful and helpful."

Christina      

"I would say Mary is another mother for me, of my own. Seriously now like, you know, I mean that."

Father Christopher Fox      

"There is an old Irish saying: God is strong and He has a good mother."

Father Christopher looks back over his 55 years of priesthood including two postings in Uganda      

"Overall my reflections of a very varied ministry is one of thanksgiving ..To me the power and the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ shines out more clearly than ever...Very much the role of the priest is to lead people in prayer, to give them a meaning to life. A little poem I remember from my early days which influenced me in the priesthood: 'I search and seek I know not what, I only know it must be there, for in my heart there is a quest for something more than earth lays bear.' So it's a search for meaning and for me Jesus has given me the key to that."

Father Christopher is a Mill Hill Missionary.

Christy       

"Mary, we do love you so very, very much. Mary, help me. Help us, Mary.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

And Mary, thank you for all that you do for us. Thank you."

Ciara      

"Mary to me is a symbol of love and strength, particularly in motherhood."

Father Ciaran McGuinness M.Arf.       

"I’d just like to speak about somebody whom I admired greatly in my life and he wasn’t in any way outstanding, he was just an ordinary parish priest in rural Ireland in the 50s and early 60s, and his name was Fr James Donlon. .. What I remember of him is that he was somebody who brought Christ to the people - when we went to church we always realised we were in a special place and that the Lord was truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. How he did this I do not know, probably by being faithful to his vocation, by saying Mass as he did say it (not in any particularly good way). .. He was someone that I remember: approachable, sincere and, above all, when you went into the church or you met him in confession or wherever, you realised that you were in the presence of God and the presence of Christ. That is what I like to remember about him and thank God for him. May he rest in peace."

Clare       

"Like all Irish, we have devotion to Our Lady."

Conal      

"I think eventually that led me to loving the Church in all its fullness and all its beauty, and also having a real deep faith in God and also a relationship with Him in and through the Church when I went to Medjugorje kind of almost accidentally when I was 19 years old. I think at the time just coming back into really loving the Church and understanding for the first time the role of Our Lady, I always think back to them early days and that exposure with Our Lady, with Lourdes, the Legion of Mary and especially of praying the rosary.  In some way I see that as it were the gentle action of her hand in my life, always keeping me on the right path, keeping me close to her son Jesus."

Father Danny Horan      

"Mary is for me my hope, my life, my love and my mother. And I believe that beyond all reasonable doubt because Jesus, as he was on the Cross, turned to his mother and said ‘Behold, thy son’ pointing to John and, in turn, he said to John ‘Behold thy mother.' At that moment she became our mother - the Mother of God, the most powerful mother in the world. And I rely on her judgement, her love and her mercy to guide me. And I plead with her to plead to her Son to guide me in my priesthood, to help me in my judgements and to do God's work to the best of my ability."

Father Danny speaks about his unusual journey to the priesthood      

"For me, the Holy Mass is beyond all doubt the most powerful prayer in the world. There's nothing to compare with it … That is my belief, that is my trust, that Jesus becomes really and truly present for all us through me. I'm the most unworthy servant to be on his altar but, by his grace and the love and the mercy of the Mother of God, I am there and I'm proud to be a priest."

Father Danny Horan is a priest of the archdiocese of Westminster.

Father Darren LC      

"I've been very aware that Mary is the one who leads us to Jesus and, as a priest, I know that is my mission and I ask my mother every day to make me a vessel, an instrument, like the hem on Jesus' cloak."

David      

"I think of Mary as being the Mother of God and being the purest form of woman, and I try to think of her in an affectionate way or good way by thinking of my own mother."

David      

"What Mary means to me is family."

David      

"God will always forgive and there's nothing so great.... the depth of your sins can never equal the depth of God’s mercy and love, and that's one thing I find every time I go to confession. It's almost a safety net there: I know that there's nothing really so bad that I can't talk to God and confess myself."

Dermot      

"I’m devoted to The Immaculate Conception, and I go to Lourdes. And when you go to Lourdes and you see Our Blessed Lady it’s actually tangible."

Doreen     

"I really, truly pray to Mary so often."

Douglas       

"I pray to Our Lady every night and every day."

Eddie      

"As long as I can remember, I’ve had a great love for Our Lady. When I was younger I was a member of the Legion of Mary, which is the largest organisation of lay Catholics throughout the world. .. I’ve always had that devotion to her, even when I was away from my faith."

Eileen       

"I had a lot of miracles from Our Lady, especially when I went to Medjugorje for the first time. I was addicted to drugs and drink and she helped me to come off all that. She helped to be strong. .. She helped me in all my situations, especially with my family and my children, and she kept me strong and she kept me praying."

Eileen      

"I've seen that Mary intercedes for us to her son so we can go through Mary to Jesus. She will always bring us to her son."

Elizabeth      

"Mary means everything to me and without her I don’t think I could survive, it’s as simple as that."

Elizabeth      

"Mary is my mother and she's your mother. She's the mother of all."

Elizabeth has a blog entitled All the Little Epsilons.

Elizabeth      

"Mary is a very special lady and I pray to her every day."

Emily      

"Our Lady is a virgin and I say prayers to her as well."

Fra Eunan      

"Mother Mary is the way we describe Mary in Ireland and she is a very dear mother to us. There was a song sung this evening in St George's Cathedral ‘Vergin Tuto Amor’ which means "Virgin full of love' and I don't think there can be any higher expression in relation to Mary than that."

Fionnuala       

"Mary for me is the model of who we should be and who I feel I want to be. She is the first person who knew Jesus, who loved him, and she is the first person who followed him completely and who lived the life that we should be living - totally pondering every word of his, pondering every action of his, meditating on his Passion, his suffering. If I can try and do anything, any little thing, that she has done and copy her, then I feel I will be closer to being more like Christ."

Frances      

"All I know is that when Our Lady is in your life, she tries not to lead you to her but to her son Jesus, because all of her life was a reflection of him. I believe all of her messages and her influence is to lead people to Jesus, her son, and to help them to come to understand and believe that he died on the Cross for them to save them, because he loves them. I believe her mission is to bring us to Jesus and to salvation because it is only through him that we can be saved. And that was what she did for me."

Frances      

"What I love about Our Lady is that she never makes it about her, she always makes it about Jesus, and she always makes it about trying to love him and bring him into my daily life, and trying to live a life that's authentic. She never makes it about herself and I just feel she is my mother, I feel she's my best friend. I feel she's given me the greatest gift any mother could give which is her son and I think it's made a huge difference in my life."

Frances      

"I love praying to Our Lady for my friends and family and home and my son and all the needs that are in my family that I've been granted many blessings for."