We thought these words very daring and wondered if they were okay with God.

On the other hand, Dad could yell at us, "I'll thrash ye tae an inch o yer life!" and we took no notice because he said it often and never did it.

As children, we were trained to replace bad language with good, so that swearing adjectives were predominately "jolly" and "blessed." "That jolly cat has pooed under my bed again." "The blessed fire has gone out because the wood's wet."

Those words took on weight with use and became a part of everything that caused frustration. Blessed cut finger. Blessed power cuts. As you can imagine, when I became a

Catholic, there was a small hiccup from the past over "Blessed be God forever."

When I reflect on the language that is my heritage, I realise that certain words and phrases have formed deep tracks through use, with the result they've become invisible, or their intended meaning has changed.

As a new Catholic convert, the beauty of the Mass enthralled me. It was as fresh as a field of fragrant flowers. Phrases were eagerly internalised and then gradually, they became ordinary and were taken for granted.

Familiarity may not breed contempt but it can produce complacency. In the middle of prayers, I would find myself wondering what kind of vinegar I'd use to pickle some onions, or whether I'd forgotten to put a stamp on a letter I'd posted.

I'm sure I'm not the only person guilty of such wanderings.

So how do we cultivate an awareness that holds the living freshness of the liturgy?

Something that works for me, is to hear the liturgy as lectio divina. This is not about focussing on every word, but about being open to all of it. Usually, the meaning I need falls into an inner space where it feeds the heart.

How does it work? I don't know. The Holy Spirit doesn't reveal secrets, but work it does. Well-worn words come up fresh and new.

Lord, you are holy indeed, the fount of all holiness. This has passed my ears hundreds of times, but today I'm filled with a fountain of water sparkling with light, and it feels very much like love. Yes, yes, I needed that. Lately I've been very dry.

The Lord be with you. There is a rush of knowing. Of course, he's with us. Closer than close! Dearer than dear! He is the light glowing in everyone around me. He connects us all.

Then comes the Lord's Prayer, so dense that meaning can be lost. Our Father who art in heaven. Heaven? Jesus told us the kingdom of heaven is within. Do I need to go any further than that? Something inside me trembles with awe.

When I pray the liturgy this way, there is always something new.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Entitled, "The Taste of Silence," the book chronicles her own struggles after being diagnosed at age 19 with ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that always results in a massive debilitation of one's body and almost always results in death not long afterward. Not an easy diagnosis for a vibrant young woman to accept.

But, after a deep, initial depression, she found meaning in her life through meditation, silence, literature, art, poetry and, not least, through a relationship that eventually led to marriage. Unexpectedly, too, her disease went into remission and she lived for another 20 years. Among the many rich insights she shares with us, she offers an interesting reflection on boredom.

Discussing the prevalence of boredom today, she highlights an irony, namely, that boredom is increasing among us even as we are daily producing every kind of gadget to help us avoid it.

Given that today we carry in our hands technological devices that link us to everything from the world news of the day to photos of our loved ones playing with their children, shouldn't we be insulated against boredom?

Ironically, the opposite seems true. All those technological gadgets are not alleviating our boredom. Why not? We still wrestle with boredom because all the stimulation in the world doesn't necessarily make for meaning.

Meaning and happiness, she suggests, do not consist so much in meeting interesting people and being exposed to interesting things; rather they consist in taking a deeper interest in people and things.

The word "interest" is derived from two Latin words: inter (inside) and esse (being) which, when combined, connote being inside of something. Things are interesting to us when we are interested enough in them to really get inside of them.

And our interest isn't necessarily predicated on how naturally stimulating something is in itself, though admittedly certain events and experiences can be so powerful as to literally conscript our interest. Continue reading

• Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Ronald Rolheiser is a specialist in the field of spirituality and systematic theology.