Week ending 29th December 2009 www.tourmakeady.com
The Millennium was the big deal ten years ago as we prepared for the New Year. Dire predictions told of the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we knew it. Forecasts of science fiction proportions told of planes falling from the skies because of the ‘Millennium bug’, cars stalling on the road because their engine electronics had not been tuned to ‘2000,’ and after. Heating systems, televisions, mobile phones, etc. would become useless for the same reason.
The Millennium came and went and most things stayed much the same. Planes fell from the sky or crashed into buildings the following year, not because of the Millennium bug but because of meticulous terrorist planning. It was a bad start to the years that have become known as ‘the noughties.’ This was because of the noughts in the date rather than any impression that they were any naughtier than usual. I suppose we will be into the ‘teens’ next week, though that will be hard to explain until we get past two thousand and eleven and twelve.
There will be many predictions and forecasts for 2010. A few will probably hit the spot because of laws of averages, but there are bound to be surprises. There usually are, or life would be much duller. I have often said that the thing we can be most sure of at the beginning of any year is that most predictions will be wrong. This is not the fault of those making them, but of the uncertainty of life. The weather alone is capable of throwing many things into confusion as recent events have proved.
Many people will end up outside their homes this New Year because of floods. Their pain and loss has slipped from the news agenda because they are no longer news. As always such tragedy has brought out the best in many people, through church and other collections routed through the St. Vincent De Paul Society to help with flood relief. Farmers all over the country have shown their solidarity too, in the provision of fodder for beleaguered animals.
This time last year I predicted the passing of the Lisbon Treaty. I was one of those who voted against it the previous time but I felt enough had been done, particularly through holding on to a Commissioner for each country, to allow me change my mind. My political prediction this year is that the Government in attempting to save four billion euro will in fact save closer to six billion. This will make them heroes in international financial quarters but villains among those who are literally counting the cost of cutbacks.
The year gone by has been a particularly painful one for the Roman Catholic Church to which I belong because of the reports detailing sex abuse by clergy and religious in Institutions, churches and presbyteries. It has been a cleansing process that has brought many out of denial. Facts and realities that may have been doubted or denied are now there in black and white for all to see. I hope the worst is over, not because I don’t want to have to face any other reports, but because the procedures put in place in the past twelve to fourteen years have been effective.
A Happy New Year to readers everywhere.
The Millennium came and went and most things stayed much the same. Planes fell from the sky or crashed into buildings the following year, not because of the Millennium bug but because of meticulous terrorist planning. It was a bad start to the years that have become known as ‘the noughties.’ This was because of the noughts in the date rather than any impression that they were any naughtier than usual. I suppose we will be into the ‘teens’ next week, though that will be hard to explain until we get past two thousand and eleven and twelve.
There will be many predictions and forecasts for 2010. A few will probably hit the spot because of laws of averages, but there are bound to be surprises. There usually are, or life would be much duller. I have often said that the thing we can be most sure of at the beginning of any year is that most predictions will be wrong. This is not the fault of those making them, but of the uncertainty of life. The weather alone is capable of throwing many things into confusion as recent events have proved.
Many people will end up outside their homes this New Year because of floods. Their pain and loss has slipped from the news agenda because they are no longer news. As always such tragedy has brought out the best in many people, through church and other collections routed through the St. Vincent De Paul Society to help with flood relief. Farmers all over the country have shown their solidarity too, in the provision of fodder for beleaguered animals.
This time last year I predicted the passing of the Lisbon Treaty. I was one of those who voted against it the previous time but I felt enough had been done, particularly through holding on to a Commissioner for each country, to allow me change my mind. My political prediction this year is that the Government in attempting to save four billion euro will in fact save closer to six billion. This will make them heroes in international financial quarters but villains among those who are literally counting the cost of cutbacks.
The year gone by has been a particularly painful one for the Roman Catholic Church to which I belong because of the reports detailing sex abuse by clergy and religious in Institutions, churches and presbyteries. It has been a cleansing process that has brought many out of denial. Facts and realities that may have been doubted or denied are now there in black and white for all to see. I hope the worst is over, not because I don’t want to have to face any other reports, but because the procedures put in place in the past twelve to fourteen years have been effective.
A Happy New Year to readers everywhere.
Week ending 22nd December 2009
The ox and the ass are still there, but the celtic tiger has disappeared from the Christmas crib. It comes as almost a surprise to see that baby Jesus is still in the manger, after all we heard about the mistreatment of children by clergy in recent weeks. But Jesus, Mary and Joseph are hanging in there, not because it is popular or profitable but because we need hope now more than ever. We need the Son of God to see us in our embarrassment and shame, not to say that everything is alright but tell us to get back to basics, and the most basic themes in religion are love of God and love of neighbour.
Neighbour of course includes neighbour’s children, all children, every child. It is most ironic that a church so insistent on the sanctity of human life from the cradle to the grave should be complicit in the abuse of children. What shocked people most of all in both the Ryan and the Murphy reports was not just the abuse, but the cover up, the blind eyes by both Church and State, the movement of clergy and religious from place to place which was a recipe for further abuse. If I have been guilty of suggesting that the media were too gung-ho in their investigations of abuse or other church excesses down through the years, I apologise, and acclaim them for their pursuit of the facts.
The church feast that will probably have most resonance after Christmas this year is the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children under the age of two killed by Herod’s soldiers in his effort to wipe out ‘the newborn king of the Jews.’ Their deaths are often looked at as an example of the cruelty of life and the way in which the innocent often suffer more than the guilty. The destruction of innocence, of childhood, of goodness is one of the themes of recent scandals. Lives were destroyed in ways no amount of therapy can put right.
Many of us will approach Christmas with heavy hearts, but will hope those hearts will be lifted by the enduring appeal of the story of the infant Jesus. The details of the story as told in the gospels are not that important, nor is it a major issue that it was decided long ago to celebrate Jesus’ birthday at this time of year so as to coincide fairly closely with the winter solistice and the brightening of the evenings from now on. This was to see Jesus as the light of the world banishing the darkness, as the Sun-God was seen to do in other days.
What is important for Christians is that God became human in the person of Jesus, born of a woman, Mary, making Jesus truly God and truly human. Humanity and divinity were fused together, creating an equality beyond our wildest dreams. Jesus is one of our own, the poor relation born in the stable who can make eternal life possible for us. The story of Bethlehem is more than just a heart-warming tale told to shorten a long winter’s night. It is the story of God’s love arriving quietly and humbly among us, a message of hope in difficult times.
Neighbour of course includes neighbour’s children, all children, every child. It is most ironic that a church so insistent on the sanctity of human life from the cradle to the grave should be complicit in the abuse of children. What shocked people most of all in both the Ryan and the Murphy reports was not just the abuse, but the cover up, the blind eyes by both Church and State, the movement of clergy and religious from place to place which was a recipe for further abuse. If I have been guilty of suggesting that the media were too gung-ho in their investigations of abuse or other church excesses down through the years, I apologise, and acclaim them for their pursuit of the facts.
The church feast that will probably have most resonance after Christmas this year is the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children under the age of two killed by Herod’s soldiers in his effort to wipe out ‘the newborn king of the Jews.’ Their deaths are often looked at as an example of the cruelty of life and the way in which the innocent often suffer more than the guilty. The destruction of innocence, of childhood, of goodness is one of the themes of recent scandals. Lives were destroyed in ways no amount of therapy can put right.
Many of us will approach Christmas with heavy hearts, but will hope those hearts will be lifted by the enduring appeal of the story of the infant Jesus. The details of the story as told in the gospels are not that important, nor is it a major issue that it was decided long ago to celebrate Jesus’ birthday at this time of year so as to coincide fairly closely with the winter solistice and the brightening of the evenings from now on. This was to see Jesus as the light of the world banishing the darkness, as the Sun-God was seen to do in other days.
What is important for Christians is that God became human in the person of Jesus, born of a woman, Mary, making Jesus truly God and truly human. Humanity and divinity were fused together, creating an equality beyond our wildest dreams. Jesus is one of our own, the poor relation born in the stable who can make eternal life possible for us. The story of Bethlehem is more than just a heart-warming tale told to shorten a long winter’s night. It is the story of God’s love arriving quietly and humbly among us, a message of hope in difficult times.
Week ending 15th December 2009
I consider myself a morning person in that I can write best in the early day. By that I mean after ten o’ clock. I am not a morning person in the sense that I like to get up early. I love my sleep. I need my sleep. I can not function very well without eight hours in dreamland. I can take one night or two of interrupted sleep in the event of a sick call or other emergency, but I am more zombie-like than usual afterwards until I catch my full quota of codladh sámh (contented sleep).
A recent parish mission had me up at six in the morning for most of the week. I have heard the past called a different country, but as far as I am concerned early morning is a different country too. It reminded me of getting up to go to fairs in Balla or Castlebar when I was a boy, except that I never had to go to fairs five days in a row. I know that thousands of people get up early for work or because they like the dawn, or to go for a walk or a run in the early mornings, but for an old codger like me it is a penance I am happy to do only at mission time.
The Mission could not have come at a worse time in that it started two days after the Murphy Report of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin. Everyone in the country was devastated, disgusted and angry, and with very good reason. It did not seem like a good time to try and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the Redemptorist Missioners, Michael Cusack and Clement McManus managed to do so with grace and dignity, acknowledging the deep hurt that people all over the country felt, but also the determination that nothing like this should be allowed happen again.
The Missionaries acknowledged that it was not just in the area of clerical child abuse that many people have been hurt by the clergy and leaders of the church. Arrogance, abuse of authority, unfair demands on couples in matters like contraception were among the subjects dealt with, with emphasis on the basic teachings of Jesus: “Love God and love your neighbour as yourself.” Matters like relationships were considered with sensitivity, as well as interpreting the Bible not as science or factual history, but as faith and story.
It was probably the first time I have heard Charles Darwin praised in church for his theory of evolution, in that it forced the churches to look at their own notions of creation. I had written here last year that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with evolution, but the idea of ongoing creation was explained much better during the mission than I would be capable of doing. This was in the context of the word of God as read at Mass, and the sacramental side was reflected on in similar terms.
Father Clement was staying with me, and it gave us time to remember with affection the times we had spent in the smaller islands of Aran in Galway Bay. His interest in the Irish language and its literature had us poring over books of history and biography, while his experience in the Clonard Monastery in Belfast brought me up to date with that part of the country. Father Michael, as Director of Vocations for the Redemptorist Order was a celebrity in his own right, but we had President Mary McAlese’s cousin staying in our side of the parish. Follow that…
A recent parish mission had me up at six in the morning for most of the week. I have heard the past called a different country, but as far as I am concerned early morning is a different country too. It reminded me of getting up to go to fairs in Balla or Castlebar when I was a boy, except that I never had to go to fairs five days in a row. I know that thousands of people get up early for work or because they like the dawn, or to go for a walk or a run in the early mornings, but for an old codger like me it is a penance I am happy to do only at mission time.
The Mission could not have come at a worse time in that it started two days after the Murphy Report of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin. Everyone in the country was devastated, disgusted and angry, and with very good reason. It did not seem like a good time to try and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the Redemptorist Missioners, Michael Cusack and Clement McManus managed to do so with grace and dignity, acknowledging the deep hurt that people all over the country felt, but also the determination that nothing like this should be allowed happen again.
The Missionaries acknowledged that it was not just in the area of clerical child abuse that many people have been hurt by the clergy and leaders of the church. Arrogance, abuse of authority, unfair demands on couples in matters like contraception were among the subjects dealt with, with emphasis on the basic teachings of Jesus: “Love God and love your neighbour as yourself.” Matters like relationships were considered with sensitivity, as well as interpreting the Bible not as science or factual history, but as faith and story.
It was probably the first time I have heard Charles Darwin praised in church for his theory of evolution, in that it forced the churches to look at their own notions of creation. I had written here last year that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with evolution, but the idea of ongoing creation was explained much better during the mission than I would be capable of doing. This was in the context of the word of God as read at Mass, and the sacramental side was reflected on in similar terms.
Father Clement was staying with me, and it gave us time to remember with affection the times we had spent in the smaller islands of Aran in Galway Bay. His interest in the Irish language and its literature had us poring over books of history and biography, while his experience in the Clonard Monastery in Belfast brought me up to date with that part of the country. Father Michael, as Director of Vocations for the Redemptorist Order was a celebrity in his own right, but we had President Mary McAlese’s cousin staying in our side of the parish. Follow that…
Week ending 8th December 2009
The eight of December is often seen as the day that Christmas shopping really begins in Ireland. For Roman Catholics it has another meaning, though one that does not preclude a bit of shopping. It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, another way of saying that Mary was free from all sin from the moment of her conception, as befitted the woman who was to give birth to the son of God. The Immaculate Conception is sometimes confused with the virgin birth, but is a separate matter.
I made no comment up to now on the controversy about possible apparitions of Our Lady in Knock in recent months, because I just did not know who was right or who was wrong. As often in those cases everybody was probably right in their own way. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of those predicting such events or for that matter the deep devotion of the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Michael Neary to Our Lady or the interest he has shown in Knock since he was a young boy. I have known him since he was thirteen years old and he is a rock of sense, someone who does not make a public statement on religious matters without giving it a lot of thought and very serious consideration.
The way I look at it is that no apparition anywhere is a matter of the essential faith of the church, faith in God, in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and all else we say in the creed. Any Catholic anywhere in the world is free to believe in Lourdes, Knock, Fatima, Garabandal, Mejagoire or not believe in them. They are not articles of faith. They help many people to pray, and as far as I am concerned that can only be good, but they are not essentials of the faith. The person who is sceptical or who questions such phenomena is completely free to do so without being any less a Catholic.
We would all love miracles, signs and messages from Heaven to guide us on our way, but unfortunately we have to do things the hard way for the most part, to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. There was a stage in Jesus’ own ministry when he seemed to regret the ‘signs and wonders’ because that seemed to be the main reason people were following him. Who could blame them? We would all follow a miracle worker, but Jesus chided them: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” There came a stage when those who followed for the miracles fell away and he was down to the bare bones of his original disciples, still prepared for the hard road despite everything.
We are back on the hard road, a road paved with self-inflicted wounds, own goals and fumbling ineffectiveness as shown by the Ryan and Murphy reports. It may be a strange thing to say that we have at last arrived in a good place, but we have. It is a place in which facts are faced and reality checked. We have stumbled from the pedestal and fallen flat on our faces. Better still the pedestal has been demolished and will hopefully never be rebuilt. Pomp, power and privilege lie in the dust all around us. Humpty Dumpty will not be put back together again. It is time to start over, with only the story of Bethlehem to hide our shame as we slink from our self created garden of Eden.
I made no comment up to now on the controversy about possible apparitions of Our Lady in Knock in recent months, because I just did not know who was right or who was wrong. As often in those cases everybody was probably right in their own way. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of those predicting such events or for that matter the deep devotion of the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Michael Neary to Our Lady or the interest he has shown in Knock since he was a young boy. I have known him since he was thirteen years old and he is a rock of sense, someone who does not make a public statement on religious matters without giving it a lot of thought and very serious consideration.
The way I look at it is that no apparition anywhere is a matter of the essential faith of the church, faith in God, in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and all else we say in the creed. Any Catholic anywhere in the world is free to believe in Lourdes, Knock, Fatima, Garabandal, Mejagoire or not believe in them. They are not articles of faith. They help many people to pray, and as far as I am concerned that can only be good, but they are not essentials of the faith. The person who is sceptical or who questions such phenomena is completely free to do so without being any less a Catholic.
We would all love miracles, signs and messages from Heaven to guide us on our way, but unfortunately we have to do things the hard way for the most part, to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. There was a stage in Jesus’ own ministry when he seemed to regret the ‘signs and wonders’ because that seemed to be the main reason people were following him. Who could blame them? We would all follow a miracle worker, but Jesus chided them: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” There came a stage when those who followed for the miracles fell away and he was down to the bare bones of his original disciples, still prepared for the hard road despite everything.
We are back on the hard road, a road paved with self-inflicted wounds, own goals and fumbling ineffectiveness as shown by the Ryan and Murphy reports. It may be a strange thing to say that we have at last arrived in a good place, but we have. It is a place in which facts are faced and reality checked. We have stumbled from the pedestal and fallen flat on our faces. Better still the pedestal has been demolished and will hopefully never be rebuilt. Pomp, power and privilege lie in the dust all around us. Humpty Dumpty will not be put back together again. It is time to start over, with only the story of Bethlehem to hide our shame as we slink from our self created garden of Eden.
Week ending 1st December 2009
Relentless rain, storm, flood damage that drove many people from their homes and left many houses un-insurable and un-saleable, reminded us once again of the effects of climate change. This is the most pressing problem for the twenty-first century. I am sure that humanity has the intelligence and ingenuity to tackle it, but have we the will? We should have. We need to have. If the type of energy and resources put into wars and armaments in the past century could be put into feeding the hungry and saving the planet in this one, what a world we could have.
It was co-incidental that the publication of ‘The Cry Of The Earth,’ a Pastoral Reflection on Climate Change from the Irish Catholic Bishop’s Conference came at the start of the wettest week of the year. The rain served to drive home a message that had already touched the minds and hearts of more people than any other communication from the bishops in my thirty-eight years in the priesthood. The fact that copies of the well written and well produced pastoral disappeared from churches like hot cross buns shows the interest it generated. Some churches who ran out of copies were seeking extra and left over ones by e-mailing colleagues throughout the following week.
It was not a matter of the church jumping on the green bandwagon in an effort to alleviate the bad publicity generated by the Ryan and other reports of child abuse. The church does not do popularity for the most part. Almost twenty years ago in his message for the then New Year of 1990, Pope John Paul 11 suggested that the ‘greenhouse effect’ had reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs. He went on to call for an ‘ecological conversion’ pointing out that modern society will find no solution to its problems in this area unless it takes a look at its lifestyle. A lot of ice has melted around the poles of the earth since then.
Saving the planet should not, of course become a competition between different societal groupings, but bring together as many people of goodwill as possible, Catholic, Protestant, Jew and atheist. The world is our common home, and it is being destroyed by greed more than anything. Everyone seems to have an excuse or a reason not to cut back on harmful emissions. The issue can easily be dodged by questioning whether the preservation of rainforests or the reduction of the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere makes any difference. What we do do know when we see too much rain, floods here, drought there is that something is seriously wrong.
The Catholic Bishops give the Christian perspective in their pastoral letter: “As Christians we can never consider ourselves or our obligations in isolation from others….True solidarity is found in our willingness to commit ourselves to the good of our neighbour, especially the poor…Solidarity implies a willingness to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of others and the greater good.” This may seem like a lot of well-meaning generalities, but I have only given a very small flavour of a long, well researched and well written document that reminds us of the faith of Saint Patrick as reflected in his ‘breastplate:’ “I arise today might of heaven, brightness of sun, whiteness of snow, splendour of fire, speed of light, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock.” The faith of our fathers and mothers, what we now call Celtic spirituality (no relation to the tiger of the same name) was a nature based faith, rooted in the earth but with the imagination to include the eternal.
It was co-incidental that the publication of ‘The Cry Of The Earth,’ a Pastoral Reflection on Climate Change from the Irish Catholic Bishop’s Conference came at the start of the wettest week of the year. The rain served to drive home a message that had already touched the minds and hearts of more people than any other communication from the bishops in my thirty-eight years in the priesthood. The fact that copies of the well written and well produced pastoral disappeared from churches like hot cross buns shows the interest it generated. Some churches who ran out of copies were seeking extra and left over ones by e-mailing colleagues throughout the following week.
It was not a matter of the church jumping on the green bandwagon in an effort to alleviate the bad publicity generated by the Ryan and other reports of child abuse. The church does not do popularity for the most part. Almost twenty years ago in his message for the then New Year of 1990, Pope John Paul 11 suggested that the ‘greenhouse effect’ had reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs. He went on to call for an ‘ecological conversion’ pointing out that modern society will find no solution to its problems in this area unless it takes a look at its lifestyle. A lot of ice has melted around the poles of the earth since then.
Saving the planet should not, of course become a competition between different societal groupings, but bring together as many people of goodwill as possible, Catholic, Protestant, Jew and atheist. The world is our common home, and it is being destroyed by greed more than anything. Everyone seems to have an excuse or a reason not to cut back on harmful emissions. The issue can easily be dodged by questioning whether the preservation of rainforests or the reduction of the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere makes any difference. What we do do know when we see too much rain, floods here, drought there is that something is seriously wrong.
The Catholic Bishops give the Christian perspective in their pastoral letter: “As Christians we can never consider ourselves or our obligations in isolation from others….True solidarity is found in our willingness to commit ourselves to the good of our neighbour, especially the poor…Solidarity implies a willingness to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of others and the greater good.” This may seem like a lot of well-meaning generalities, but I have only given a very small flavour of a long, well researched and well written document that reminds us of the faith of Saint Patrick as reflected in his ‘breastplate:’ “I arise today might of heaven, brightness of sun, whiteness of snow, splendour of fire, speed of light, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock.” The faith of our fathers and mothers, what we now call Celtic spirituality (no relation to the tiger of the same name) was a nature based faith, rooted in the earth but with the imagination to include the eternal.