Author Archives: Niall Power

The Pope in Ireland, The World Meeting of Families and the media

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It’s Saturday morning. Pope Francis lands in Ireland, Niall’s native land. Niall is eager to switch on the computer. Through a live feed we can watch the Pope’s visit without filters or commentary as he goes through a day of meetings, speeches and journeys. With only the images and the sounds of the moment to see and hear, we manage to follow the visit as we do our usual household chores. Our children know that it’s a special day and only a worthy exception justifies us having a computer turned on during mealtime as we listen to the speeches of(…)

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The Blue Hour

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Family holiday at Peneda-Gerês National Park, Portugal. At five in the morning, Frankie’s alarm clock rang. Time to get up for an early morning hike to catch the sun rising over the waters of the lake. Frankie, who is almost 20 and has a passion for photography, had always wanted to photograph what’s known as the “blue hour”, the few short moments before the sun rises that delight photographers. The price to pay was to get out of bed at an unseemly time of the morning and make the half-hour hike to the exact spot as indicated on an app(…)

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Transfiguration

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Last Monday our family set off for a week’s holiday in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Peneda-Gerês National Park here in Portugal. We wanted to leave early in the morning, but packing bags, putting everything into the cars and generally maneuvering a large family and their two rather old dogs is not something that is done too quickly. In any case by 11 am we were out the door and on our way. “Are we going to stop for a picnic in Sameiro like we usually do Mum?” asked the kids. The pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of(…)

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This was the 2nd Cana Camping Weekend

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Early on Friday morning, around 6 o´clock, Anthony, who is 8, opened our bedroom door and whispered, “Mum, can I go ahead down to the park at the Cana Prayer Corner? I want to make sure everything is ready for the Camp tonight”. The excitement was so great, I really don’t know how he and his brothers and sisters managed to sleep at all during the night. From what other families told us, the excitement wasn’t only at our house. For weeks the children of Cana had been planning the event of the year with every bit as much enthusiasm(…)

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Patience

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With my eighth pregnancy, the question that people ask me most often has surprised me. No, not whether I’m rich – to which I always reply yes, I am, because anyone who has children is rich. Nor whether my house is a mansion – to which I reply no, it’s not, because we have a room for the boys and one for the girls, whatever their number. No, the question I hear the most is, “where do you get the patience for so many kids?”. I reply in a spirited tone, saying that patience comes with the child delivery kit.(…)

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When are you having an amniocentesis?

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This question to a 46-year old pregnant woman is so common it deserves some attention here. My response is quite naturally that I don’t do amniocentesis. And then the surprise reaction, “but isn’t it compulsory at your age?” Amniocentesis is an invasive pre-natal diagnosis that holds a minimum risk of miscarriage (generally 1 out of 100 to 300, depending on the expertise of the doctor and the gestation period) and has a sole purpose – to detect genetic malformations in the baby, or to say it plainly, to check if the baby has Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). There are diseases(…)

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Mothers on their knees

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One of the passages that touched me in the Dorothy Day autobiography, The Long Loneliness, refers to an apparently insignificant episode during Dorothy’s infancy. Dorothy Day grew up in the USA in 20th Century, in a family without religion. Around her there were catholics, episcopalians and evangelists, and the churches with their hymns held a great fascination for the young Dorothy although she never went in. Her conversion happened much later, after a failed romance, an abortion, a new romance and a baby in her arms. And the leap to sainthood, an unquestionable sainthood, would start exactly there with the(…)

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Surprise

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Dinner-time, end of May. I place a beautiful red box on the table tied up with a bow. A present for everyone. The kids come into the kitchen and take a seat. “What’s this Mum?” they ask. “Is it a box of chocolates?” But Frankie looks over at Clare: “Where have I seen a box on the dinner table before?! Clare, I think we’ve seen a few scenes like this before… Is it possible?!” I try to look serious. “No, it’s not chocolates. It’s a Christmas present:” “Christmas?”. Now curiosity is raging. “Sara will be the one who has the(…)

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Graces or disgraces?

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Recently, on my birthday, my mother was here in my house telling me how she remembered the happy day 46 years ago when she picked me up in her arms for the first time. Beside her, in the maternity ward, was another mother, a mother of six children who were never born. Yes, that’s right, beside my mother there was a woman recovering from her sixth miscarriage… My mother still remembers today her face and the tenderness with which she looked at me. In life, and cost what it may to believe, everything is a gift. Both fertility and infertility.(…)

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