Irish Chaplaincy blog: Climb Every Mountain

"It's true; Irish people are everywhere!" So said to me Quitterie, a Frenchwoman (with an Irish mother), as we made our way out of Mass at La Grande Chartreuse in the South East of France. I had just explained to Quitterie (who is named after a popular saint in the South West of France where she grew up, and who has a brother called Patrick!) that the Carthusian monk of 30 years who had said the Mass in that incredible monastery nestling in the Alps had been born in Dublin.

We were in the Alps as part of the team organising a retreat for 50 assistants of L'Arche, a world-wide organisation that I was involved with for 28 years before coming to the Irish Chaplaincy last year. Another member of the team is an old friend of mine Pat Corcoran who left Cork as an 18 year-old to join L'Arche in France. He and I first met in 1989 when we were ourselves on a retreat for new L'Arche assistants. It's very special for us to meet up for this week every June in such a beautiful place where we walk in the mountains each day with a lovely, and very international, group of people, including some from L'Arche in Ireland. We stay in a large house in a village called St Pierre de Chartreuse which is 900m above sea level and a ski resort in the winter. The sight of mountains rising up in each direction is one that never fails to excite me.

To read on see: www.irishchaplaincy.org.uk/climb-every-mountain/