Love is to wholly and fully accept someone, despite their faults. God not only knows everything about us, every sin and misstep, God knows the potential purpose that God has created for us. Our capabilities and the unique traits and talents, God has given us to serve as an extension of the Creators love. We are known by God, and God loves us! God created us specifically, intimately, and purposefully.

Love is mentioned 168 times in the English Standard Version of the Book of Psalms. Psalm 139 reminds us, God is love, and that God formed us with love and care. The psalmist lovingly reminds us, through these poetic words, we are loved! When the world attempts to squeeze us into any kind of mold, or tears us down, remember God loves us for who we are, right this moment. Despite the curse of sin and our constant dysfunction, we are loved.

Join Columba McCann and Regina Deacy as they break open for us some of the psalms of Love.

Columba McCann has a degree in Music from UCD (First Class Honours) and has given organ recitals in Ireland and abroad. He composes liturgical music and was winner of the RTE Radio Church Music Competition in 1997. He holds a licence in Sacred Liturgy from the Pontifical Institute of LIturgy in Rome, and has worked in the field of liturgical renewal in Ireland over the last three decades. He has a particular interest in organ improvisation, which he has studied with Frédéric Blanc (Paris) and Ansgar Wallenhorst (Ratingen). He is at present Chairperson of the National Advisory Committee for Church Music. He is a monk of Glenstal Abbey where he combines musical work with service as novice master, director of Benedictine Oblates and teacher in the monastery school.

Regina Deacy is organist in St Muredach’s Cathedral since 1994 and director of sacred music there and in Killala Diocese since 1998.  A graduate of UCC with a Bachelor of arts and Bachelor of music, she also received a diploma in Church Music and Liturgy from NUI Maynooth and from there completed a research Masters Degree under Professor Gerard Gillen. She is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Church Music to the Bishops. Regina balances a busy work schedule between parish and school. She teaches music full time in St Mary’s Secondary School Ballina where she also directs the school choir for school liturgies, concerts and competitions and directs an annual school musical. She directs St Muredach’s Cathedral choir, trains cantors and organists in the parish and has conducted several workshops on liturgical music in Killala Diocese. Regina directed a massed choir at one of the liturgies at The Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012 and also at one of Eucharistic celebrations in the RDS at the World Meeting of Families in 2018. She has been organ tutor at the ICMA Summer School in Maynooth since 2003.