John O'Donohue (1956 – 2008) was an Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality.

I have read one of his last interviews with Krista Tippett, transcribed by Heather Wang, for the On Being Project, before his untimely death.

From that long interview, I have noted some very good quotes –

“I love Pascal’s phrase that ‘you should always keep something beautiful in your mind.’ And I have often, especially in times when it’s been really difficult for me, found that if you can keep some kind of little contour that you can glimpse sideways at, now and again, you can endure great bleakness.”

“I think the beauty of being human is that we are incredibly, intimately near each other; we know about each other, but yet we do not know or never can know what it’s like inside another person. And it’s amazing, you know? Here am I, sitting in front of you now, looking at your face, you’re looking at mine, and yet neither of us have ever seen our own faces, and that in some way, thought is the face that we put on the meaning that we feel and that we struggle with, and that the world is always larger and more intense and stranger than our best thought will ever reach. And that’s the mystery of poetry.”

He talks about Meister Eckhart, the 14th-century German mystic who said, “There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor any created thing can touch.” He explains that “what it means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography, and that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.” 

I also first read about that Greek phrase, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

His first book, Anam Ċara, was published in 1997 and became an international bestseller, and the final work, To Bless the Space Between Us, was published posthumously. 

Sharing one of his more famous poems, ‘On the Death of the Beloved.’ - 

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

 
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

 
The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

 
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

 
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

 
We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

 
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

 
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

 
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

 
May you continue to inspire us:

 
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.