We are delighted to launch a new CMHI prayer/Bible verse booklet in response to requests from people who have found our beautiful prayer cards useful, and asked us for something longer. This is a 12-page booklet, in black-and-white for easy printing, that contains beautiful prayers, some familiar friends from the Book of Common Prayer, and others new companions written by CMHI. There are Bible verses on the themes of love, peace, and light in the darkness. Finally, the booklet contains a page for your own journaling or notes. This is an ideal booklet for anyone who needs comfort or spiritual guidance, and perfect for those in hospital who want to pray and read some verses from Scripture. Contact hello@ministryofhealing.ie to ask about copies – we do ask for a small donation, if possible, to support our work and help us to offer our ministry as widely as possible.
The Examen is a spiritual practice that has been used since the 16th century. CMHI provides you with a gentle, Anglican, version. In this prayer, we notice God’s presence, and name it, at both the joyful and the sorrowful times.
Like other forms of contemplative prayer, using the Examen practice regularly may aid you in discerning God’s voice in your life. When we direct our attention to God, he shows us the ways in which we will be helped by focusing our time and energy on him, and guides us away from the things that do not help us.
This is a short, mindful, kindly spiritual practice that helps us to find God in the everyday as we pause at evening-time to look back over the joys and laments of the day, and to focus on where God spoke to us, even if we may not have heard his voice at the time.
We are delighted to make a new version of our guidelines and help for Healing Prayer Groups available, so if your parish is planning to set up such a group, or revive one that’s dormant, or is looking for help and ideas for your existing group, then our booklet is just what you need.
It’s available for download and printing by clicking here.
As all our work is funded by donations, if you find this booklet useful, please donate to support us. Details of how to donate are available here.
Advent is a season of watching and waiting. Through Windows of Waiting, you will receive twelve gentle reflections by email, or WhatsApp. This mix of prayers, poems, guided meditations, and creative ideas will help you to rest, reflect, and prepare room for the coming of Christ this Christmas. Make space to pause this Advent.
Sign up HERE or email hello@ministryofhealing.ie if you have problems with Eventbrite. This is a donation-based event, so you are welcome to give whatever you would like.
Join Windows of Waiting, a 12-part email/WhatsApp series of short reflections, poems, and prayers, which offer gentle encouragement for the journey of Advent.
Advent is busy, but it’s also a time to pause, breathe, and remember what we’re really waiting for. Windows of Waiting is a gentle companion for this season: twelve short reflections delivered to your inbox, with poems, prayers, and ideas to help you find light along the way.
Advent is a time of holy waiting — a quiet season when even the smallest glimmer of light can speak of hope. Windows of Waiting offers twelve moments of stillness by email: a window to open, a word to hold, a light for your waiting heart.
You will receive two reflections each week, across the six weeks of Advent, written and created by Lydia and Catherine.
Week 1 (3rd December): “the solid existence of love” – preparing for Christmas Day
· “Christmas Eve,” by Maeve Brennan (a short story, first published in The New Yorker in 1972) – audio version, read by Roddy Doyle, available
· “Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing,” by Toi Derricotte (a poem)
Week 2 (10th December): “the smaller you are, the bigger Christmas is” – childhood and Christmas
· “Christmas,” a chapter from the memoir Sculptor’s Daughter, by Tove Jansson, (published in 1968)
· “Taking Down the Tree,” by Jane Kenyon (a poem)
· “Christmas, 1970,” by Sandra M. Castillo (a poem)
Week 3 (17th December): “eventually they noticed” – Christmas cooking
· “This Year it will be Different,” by Maeve Binchy (1996) (short story)
· a short extract from The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015)
· a short extract from “Village Christmas” by Laurie Lee (published 2015 but written much earlier)
· a short extract from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)
Week 4 (7th January 2026): “snow was general all over Ireland”
· The Dead by James Joyce (1914)
Each session offers gentle discussion, space for reflection, and the gift of listening — a pause in the busyness of winter to rest, read, and renew the spirit. Gather with us for four evenings as we explore and discuss short stories, poems, and reflections that open the heart to the season’s mystery and hope. Together we’ll read works that explore the complexity of Christmas from a child’s point of view, the sometimes painful family dynamics of celebration, and the moments of beauty that remain etched in memory.
Each reading group meeting will start with an introduction to the authors, their lives, their work, and their artistic views. We will then open up discussion, comments, likes and dislikes, and any thoughts or ideas you want to share. If you prefer to listen rather than speak, to have your camera off, or to journal or sketch during the discussion, please do!
Sat 22 Nov 2025, 10am-4pm, The Dominican Retreat Centre, Tallaght
You are warmly invited to join us for this gentle. creative, quiet day, as we pause, rest, and replenish ourselves in God’s love. The day offers: silence; scripture prompts; centring prayer; story-telling; poetry and reflections; creative practices; and woodland wanders.Book your place by clicking HERE
A session in nature, slowing down, noticing what’s here and turning towards the wisdom held in scripture together
Join Lydia from the Church’s Ministry of Healing: Ireland and Julie from the Bible Society Ireland as we take a pause in nature.
We invite you to come as you and spend time slowing down and resting in a beautiful space in Rathmines.
This 90 minute session contains settling in practices and nature connection prompts to support us to notice what’s here, internally and all around us.
After this we will spend time in a Scripture Circle – nourishing mind, body and spirit. This is facilitated to support wondering, listening and curiosity.
As it’s Autumn and the evenings are getting darker, we may move from our usual spot to a residents garden on the same grounds, and if weather is very prohibitive, we may move indoors for the Scripture Circle. But we will email all of that information, as well as what to bring and where to park, closer to the time.
30 minutes.
Silence.
Scripture.
Contemplative Prayer.
Quiet Companionship – with God, with self, with others, with the here and now.
Turning our attention simultaneously to less and to More.
You can join from your bed, from your desk, as you walk the dogs, wherever you are at, let’s acknowledge together the Presence of God in that moment, in that place.
Cameras on, cameras off – your choice. We will be blessing and praying for each other quietly as part of our practice so it can be helpful to have your name on the screen, even if it’s blank. I can help you with that if you like, and will be there 10 minutes before the session starts. But remember, God knows who you are, and you can journey with this little community anonymously or otherwise. There is room for you.
Church’s Ministry of Healing
Egan House, St Michan’s Church,
Church Street, Dublin 7, D07 X865
T: (01) 872 7876
E: hello@ministryofhealing.ie
Website by Sam Bourke