The Anchorage- A Sanctuary of Wisdom and Spirituality.

12/01/2026

Monday Morning Reflection

Today marks the beginning of "Ordinary Time" in our liturgical calendar. As mentioned yesterday, this return to "ordinary" or "getting back to normal" after celebrations and holidays can be a bit of a jolt for many of us, especially if it involves early morning rises (like us!) and starting work again (also like us!). This reflection from Victoria Erikson invites us to enter into all things "ordinary" with gentleness and simplicity. Wishing all of us many "hums of beauty" as the day and week unfolds...

I don't ever crave
extraordinary
moments anymore.
Just small, gentle
hums of beauty
streaming from below,
above, and beyond simply
from paying attention.
Sound. Light. Shadow.
Art. Warmth. The night.
The morning. Dreams that
are not faraway but
exist right here –
already in my days,
hands, and heart.
~ Victoria Erickson

Image ~ a little "hum of beauty" from Helen Davies

06/01/2026

In her homilies the medieval Abbess Hildegard of Bingen invites us to translate the Epiphany story into the soul’s journey towards new life.

31/12/2025

31 December 2025

"At The End Of The Year" by John O'Donohue invites us into a gentle examen of the year that's about to finish. May our reflection, acknowledgment and gratitude help us to claim all the light and shade of the year gone by and ready us for the opening of the new with all its hope and promise...

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
~ John O’Donohue from Benedictus

28/12/2025

Feast of the Holy Family

Today, as we celebrate this feast, we pray for families everywhere. We celebrate the gift of love which binds families together and brings such deep joy and meaning to our lives.

We remember families who are struggling at this time and are also mindful of the heartbreak so many families are enduring due to fires, floods, car accidents and violence over recent times and the Christmas period. Our hearts go out to them and our prayers are with them.

And, on this day when we remember and pray to the Holy Family who were in danger and fleeing for their lives, we pray for families throughout the world who have been forced to leave their homes and face incredible danger every day.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, hold us, keep us, pray for us all.

This beautiful Australian image of the Holy Family is by Austrian/ Australian artist, Leopoldine Mimovich

26/12/2025

26/12/2025

'St. Stephen' ~ Malcolm Guite:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,

Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.

They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,

And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul.

When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter

He had to pass through that Damascus gate

Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter

As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,

And showed him the same light you saw from heaven

And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;

Christ did not ask ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’

But ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’

Each martyr after you adds to his story,

As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory.

25/12/2025

24/12/2025

On Christmas Eve, 1775, in Cork, Ireland, Nano Nagle founded the Presentation Sisters.

Throughout 2026, we will be sharing stories of Nano’s life and how she brought joy, compassion and the love of Christ to all.

10/12/2025

December 10th is the anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death in 1968. On embarking on his final trip to Asia he wrote, “I am going home, to the home where I have never been in this body.”

08/12/2025

Second Week of Advent - Monday
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

"Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so . . ."

~The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe
by Gerard Manly Hopkins

May Mary lead us more deeply into God's glory and may it shine through us...brightly!

Image ~ "A feather on the breath of God" by Mary Southard csj