They All Heard The Call

They All Heard The Call

By Paul McCann

Mrs Murphy lived alone in her own wee house in a safe community on pension that gave her enough to get by .At 72 she was coping quite well with life . A small group of her neighbours were church going people and they would call in now and again to say hello .

They encouraged her to join their prayer group every morning and then afterwards to stay for morning tea .At least once Mrs Murphy took up their wee offer . She enjoyed the prayer time and when she got to know some of the group a little more she got involved with assisting the church community .

Once a year they had a bus run

Drumalis for the Snowball bingo with a massive jackpot game . Buses would come from all over Northern Ireland to try their luck

Some of the experienced bingo players could mark of five books at once . Mrs Murphy was happy to play one book as there were other things going on . Her hearing wasn’t as good as it once was so one of her prayer group friends Mrs Edwards would always sit next to her and repeat the number that was called if she missed it . Mrs Murphy had great eyesight so Mrs Holmes would sit next to her as Mrs Murphy would keep an eye on the numbers in her book in case Mrs Holmes couldn’t see the numbers in the book .

Mrs Edwards sometimes would nod off to sleep so both Mrs Murphy and Mrs Holmes would give her a shout to wake her up .

Then three ladies from Ardoyne loved bingo and the bus trip once a year was a grand day out for them

all and before the journey they always said a prayer to get there and back in one piece . There was always a sing song and Mrs Murphy loved to sing . When she was young she got involved in the choir and they would sometimes put on wee concerts for disabled people to come along and enjoy . The choir had men and women and once they went overseas on a Catholic crusade in different places in America .

Back in those days it was wonderful to see how the Holy Spirit moved . At some of the concerts people in one corner of the hall would be laughing and in other parts of the hall they would be crying . The people in the audience were young and old , abled and disabled but they all came to

listen and even join in singing in what was called Catholic freedom of expression crusade .

Not many catholics in Ardoyne had ever experienced that kind of thing. before so it had a big impact on the choir members who came from there .

On the day of the big snowball

at Dramalis , a near deaf woman

and a nearly blind woman , woke up Mrs Edward’s as they screamed out BINGO .

They called had a check of the numbers which verified they had won and all the way home on the bus the Holy Spirit had people singing and crying , laughing and jumping up and down in their seats .

Doesn’t that just go to show us how God much loves us when we can work together to over come our little problems in life .

The End