Under the title Reconciled Being, Love in Chaos, a new book by President McAleese will be published in Dublin on Monday.

The contents were first presented by her to a religious seminar held earlier this year, the 1997 John Main Seminar, named after Dom John Main, a former professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, who became a Benedictine monk and who, it would appear from the text, inspired the President with his devotion to prayer and meditation.

The book is published by Arthur James and is priced £5.99 sterling. President McAleese writes in the first person and the following extracts have been taken from the book's 115 pages.

On entrenched attitudes in Northern Ireland and on reconciliation:

". . . With specially constructed phrases we [the Catholic/nationalist people of Northern Ireland] refused to see the sectarianism in killing policemen. They were, we contended, a partisan militia, part of the forces of the Crown, soldiers in a war and therefore legitimate targets.

"We told ourselves that our side's bombs were much less profane and barbarous than the slitting of throats, the kickings to death favoured by the sectarian thugs of militant loyalism. Those who used bombs and bullets had a genuine clinical distance about them which made them superior to the bully boys whose feet trashed Catholic bodies.

"Our intentions were purer because, after all, God was on our side. Instead of practising love in chaos we added to the chaos practising dissembling and the language of denial. `Not me, Lord,' we said. `If you want to find the source of the problem look over there at those `others', what a thoroughly bad lot they are.'

"We learnt to live in a bilingual and bifurcated world where we could quote the gospel with one tongue and deny it with the other. We condemned the violence out of one side of our mouths and condoned it with the other. We lived in a world of shock, not a world of wonder. Christ became shockingly paraphrased . . ."

". . . There are forms of well-meaning social reconciliation which make us look and sound busy and full of doing good things. But they rarely stretch us to the full distance demanded by the gospel.

"That is not to denigrate their importance. They are important building blocks, crucial starting points on the way to a more demanding `giving and doing' but they are not substitutes for it. Concepts such as parity of esteem, fair employment, equality of treatment, equality of opportunity have to be real in their consequences, not just pretty in their rhetoric.

"These are concepts which mature Christians should readily recognise as no less than what the gospel demands. But in a conflict society or institution where power is skewed in favour of one group or one gender, Christians often go from cradle to grave in a state of morbid anxiety. They are terrified that every gain made by the `other' side is made at their expense.

"The hard evidence is that once people start to accept that genuine reconciliation can only be built on an honest acknowledgment, firstly, that inequality exists and, secondly, that its effects must be addressed, two things happen.

"First the forces of resistance muster. They have been programmed to squeal like stuck pigs when their dysfunctional boat is rocked. Secondly, intelligent, thinking people in the rocking boat start to question the wisdom of squealing so loudly. They begin to listen to the `other' and to agree that he or she does after all have a point.

"A quiet dialogue takes place against the background of the din of dissent. Over a period of time the squealers begin to notice that they are losing volume. Not as many people are squealing any more. Some of them have merely gone silent, given up in the face of the inevitable. Others have been persuaded that change is coming and it is something they could and should embrace.

"I believe we are close to that stage both in the politics of Northern Ireland and in the politics of the church. It is perhaps the most dangerous stage of all . . ."

". . . Things have not stayed still. Views once compacted like hard-core sediment have begun to soften. More people are becoming uncomfortable with their own old ways of thinking.

"On the political front there is evidence of this changing mood which it is important that we acknowledge, nurture and protect from the infection of cynicism. These small but perceptible shifts are precious, but precarious stepping stones to the full embrace we all long for.

"The old monoliths are fragmenting, each new grouping a sign of the level of discomfort with old myths and perspectives. The loyalist Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party now engage in robust political discourse which is refreshingly free of the sectarian overtones and sneering verbal violence of the past. They now routinely challenge the verbal terrorism which can fuel conflict as effectively as physical violence.

"Maybe soon the language of the golf club, the coffee morning and the dinner table will follow suit. Sinn Fein set out their negotiation stall but indicate that they are prepared to work a consensus which will be less than their deepest ambition for a united Ireland.

"The paramilitary ceasefires show too how perspectives can turn around. Cynics snarl `tactical'. Tactical or not they change the landscape. They give a space in which raw wounds get time to heal instead of becoming re-infected. It is important that when we hear good news and see it happen we counter the tendency to dismiss and zap it with disdain. Reverencing every sign of hope has to be part of practising the gospel of love in the chaos . . ."

On being a woman and choosing a career:

"In the [Passionist] monastery [near where she was born in Belfast] there were over 40 men who, dressed in their flowing black habits, dominated the thinking and spiritual landscape of my childhood. I was taken aback to hear my daughter ask me some years ago if monks were examples of cross dressers. Strange how a new vocabulary can shake your perspective!

"I owe those prayerful men a lot, for their love of God was palpable but there was also a deficit. It was not deliberate or malintended but there was a deficit nonetheless. On the day I spoke out loud my desire to be a lawyer, the first to say, `You can't because you are a woman; you can't because no one belonging to you is in the law', was the Dublin-born parish priest who weekly shared a whiskey or three with my father.

"It was said with the kind of dismissive authority which is intended to silence protest or debate. The owner of superior knowledge, of real certitude has spoken, and that was that. The same priest incidentally kept a double-entry scorebook of the indignities heaped upon Catholics by the Protestant government at Stormont, many of which ironically involved keeping Catholics out of jobs for no reason other than the fact that they were Catholics.

"The irony of the similar group exclusion of women was unfortunately lost on him. My mother had inculcated into us a respect for the priesthood bordering on awe. I watched therefore in amazement as the chair was pulled out from under the cleric and he was propelled to the front door before the bottle of baby Powers had been uncorked. `You - out,' she roared at him. `And you,' she said to me `ignore him'. That was the only advice I ever received from either parent on the subject of career choice."

On meditation and the simplicity of a child's mind:

My own track record as a teacher of meditation is less than inspiring, according to my daughter Emma. Some years ago when she was four or five I used to disappear into my study regularly for this mysterious thing called meditation. Asked to explain what I did there I simply told her I talked to God.

"One day she asked me if she could come too and would I teach her how to meditate . . . I told her, `Close your eyes lightly and repeat the word Maranatha over and over in absolute silence.' I did the same. Five minutes into my meditation the little voice interrupted me. `Excuse me, mammy, but is God talking to you?'

"Ignoring everything John Main [her meditation mentor Dom] had ever said about meditation I rashly answered `Yes'. `Right,' she said, `Will you please tell him that when he is finished with you I am still waiting?' "