Week ending 23rd February 2016
“What’s this ’Physical Space’ they are all talking about?” the man at the counter wondered out loud. “Has it something to do with Star Wars?” his companion asked.
“It’s some kind of space anyway, but I don’t think it’s outer space.
“They might be talking about the space between our ears.”
“I remember the time they put the first satellite into space,” said the first man.
“The sputnik. Didn’t the Master give us a composition to do about it?”
The first man quoted from memory : “I am a flea on the back of the dog that went up in the sputnik.”
“Loika,” his mate said.
The barman was a bit perplexed: “Like a what?”
“Loika. That was the little doggies name.”
“Was it a bitch?” the barman asked.
“I’d say it wasn’t the worst, but you would never know with them soviets.”
His mate was seemingly on a different planet; “Amen.”
“It’s not a prayer I’m saying.”
“Isn’t that what soviet means? We learnt it in the cathecism; “Amen means: ‘so–be-it.’
“I’ve lost ye now,” the barman said. “I thought ye started to talk about Fiscal Space.”
“That’s it,” said one of his two customers: “What exactly is Fiscal Space?”
“It has something to do with a rainy day,” the barman answered.
“It has something to do with everyday so,” said his second customer.
“Them satellites are causing all the rain,” insisted his companion. “There is no physical space left in the sky with all those yokes flying about. The rain has nowhere else to go except down on top of us.”
His mate had his own theory: “Did you ever think that all those dogs they sent to space have nowhere to lift their little legs except down out of the clouds.”
“Not to speak of the fleas. The first sputnick was sixty years ago. I’m seventy myself in a few weeks and I’m sure I was no more than ten at the time. Some of those fleas could be as big as elephants now.”
“It’s no wonder there is so little physical space left.”
Calm and quiet descended on the public house as the three men contemplated the wonders of the world.
It was the barman who broke the silence: “Isn’t it remarkable too how much you can learn from the television, I had the grandchild on my knee this morning watching Dora. There she was talking about the need for a plan, Just like all the political parties. I know where they got that idea from now.”
“Dora is a smart little girl, and she speaks Irish too,” the man who was ordering another pint said. “Just what we need in 2016.”
“It will all be over in a week,” his companion answered, “and things will be back to normal again.”
“Apart for the horse-trading,” the barman answered.
“What horse trading?” he was asked. “Sure the fair in Maam Cross isn’t until around Hallow/een?”
“It’s some kind of space anyway, but I don’t think it’s outer space.
“They might be talking about the space between our ears.”
“I remember the time they put the first satellite into space,” said the first man.
“The sputnik. Didn’t the Master give us a composition to do about it?”
The first man quoted from memory : “I am a flea on the back of the dog that went up in the sputnik.”
“Loika,” his mate said.
The barman was a bit perplexed: “Like a what?”
“Loika. That was the little doggies name.”
“Was it a bitch?” the barman asked.
“I’d say it wasn’t the worst, but you would never know with them soviets.”
His mate was seemingly on a different planet; “Amen.”
“It’s not a prayer I’m saying.”
“Isn’t that what soviet means? We learnt it in the cathecism; “Amen means: ‘so–be-it.’
“I’ve lost ye now,” the barman said. “I thought ye started to talk about Fiscal Space.”
“That’s it,” said one of his two customers: “What exactly is Fiscal Space?”
“It has something to do with a rainy day,” the barman answered.
“It has something to do with everyday so,” said his second customer.
“Them satellites are causing all the rain,” insisted his companion. “There is no physical space left in the sky with all those yokes flying about. The rain has nowhere else to go except down on top of us.”
His mate had his own theory: “Did you ever think that all those dogs they sent to space have nowhere to lift their little legs except down out of the clouds.”
“Not to speak of the fleas. The first sputnick was sixty years ago. I’m seventy myself in a few weeks and I’m sure I was no more than ten at the time. Some of those fleas could be as big as elephants now.”
“It’s no wonder there is so little physical space left.”
Calm and quiet descended on the public house as the three men contemplated the wonders of the world.
It was the barman who broke the silence: “Isn’t it remarkable too how much you can learn from the television, I had the grandchild on my knee this morning watching Dora. There she was talking about the need for a plan, Just like all the political parties. I know where they got that idea from now.”
“Dora is a smart little girl, and she speaks Irish too,” the man who was ordering another pint said. “Just what we need in 2016.”
“It will all be over in a week,” his companion answered, “and things will be back to normal again.”
“Apart for the horse-trading,” the barman answered.
“What horse trading?” he was asked. “Sure the fair in Maam Cross isn’t until around Hallow/een?”
Week ending 16th February 2016
For the second time in little more than six months I found myself driving through the Connemara mountains to a family funeral. Last time it was my sister Mary Hoban who had died after a long illness. This time it was a nephew Sean Staunton who had died suddenly and unexpectedly in Florida. The mountains that had sparkled in June sunshine were now capped in snow, but the feelings of sadness and loss were similar. There was the same worry about getting through the prayers without a breakdown. Once again it was the mountains that pointed the way. Again the psalm: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, where will my help come from?” came to mind. The psalmist had answered his or her own question: “My help shall come from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” It did and I prayed the same help be provided for Sean’s mother and father, Teresa and Joe, his twin, Mary, his sister Joanne, who also lives in Florida, his brother Pádraig and the youngest Elaine, as well as the extended families, friends and colleagues.
It was Candlemas Day, Feast of the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth. Mary and Joseph and their baby were met by two of the elders, Simeon and Anna, some those who had kept the flame of faith in the Messiah alive until they actually got to see Jesus. Simeon was overjoyed and said he could now die in peace. He realised that things were not going to be easy for this young family, and he told Mary that “a sword would pierce her own soul.” Looking at my own family, their souls pierced by sudden loss and grief, it was clear that the cross comes to every door sooner or later. We don’t go looking for crosses and we don’t have to like them. Jesus hated his cross. Sweating blood in fear and trembling in the Garden of Gethsemene, he prayed to God the Father to “let this chalice (of pain and suffering) pass.” It didn’t. His prayer was not answered in the way that he wanted. He had to face reality as we all do.
Battered broken and beaten Jesus was at a low ebb the following day on the cross. The words of a psalm he had learned in the Synagogue summed up his feelings: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The sword had pierced his soul too, just as the nails had pierced his hands and feet. But he couldn’t escape the God that the poet Francis Thompson called “the hound of heaven” because he always manages to sniff us out even when we try to escape him. Even at his worst moment Jesus could not reject what he believed in, what he stood for. In Gethsemene he had said: “Not my will but thine be done. On Calvary his last recorded words were: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.” Into the hands of the same Lord we commended Sean.
I recalled the words of Czech poet, Vlkadimir Holan (1905 – 1980) whose idea of resurrection was not the clamour of trumpets or the Halleluih chorus, but the quiet sounds we associate with getting up in the morning.
“Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened
By a terrifying clamour of trumpets?
Forgive me, God, but I console myself
that the beginning and resurrection of all of us dead
will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.
And that we will remain lying down for a while.
The first to get up will be mother... We’ll hear her quietly laying the fire,
Quietly putting the kettle on the stove.
And cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.
We’ll be home once more.”
It was Candlemas Day, Feast of the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth. Mary and Joseph and their baby were met by two of the elders, Simeon and Anna, some those who had kept the flame of faith in the Messiah alive until they actually got to see Jesus. Simeon was overjoyed and said he could now die in peace. He realised that things were not going to be easy for this young family, and he told Mary that “a sword would pierce her own soul.” Looking at my own family, their souls pierced by sudden loss and grief, it was clear that the cross comes to every door sooner or later. We don’t go looking for crosses and we don’t have to like them. Jesus hated his cross. Sweating blood in fear and trembling in the Garden of Gethsemene, he prayed to God the Father to “let this chalice (of pain and suffering) pass.” It didn’t. His prayer was not answered in the way that he wanted. He had to face reality as we all do.
Battered broken and beaten Jesus was at a low ebb the following day on the cross. The words of a psalm he had learned in the Synagogue summed up his feelings: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The sword had pierced his soul too, just as the nails had pierced his hands and feet. But he couldn’t escape the God that the poet Francis Thompson called “the hound of heaven” because he always manages to sniff us out even when we try to escape him. Even at his worst moment Jesus could not reject what he believed in, what he stood for. In Gethsemene he had said: “Not my will but thine be done. On Calvary his last recorded words were: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.” Into the hands of the same Lord we commended Sean.
I recalled the words of Czech poet, Vlkadimir Holan (1905 – 1980) whose idea of resurrection was not the clamour of trumpets or the Halleluih chorus, but the quiet sounds we associate with getting up in the morning.
“Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened
By a terrifying clamour of trumpets?
Forgive me, God, but I console myself
that the beginning and resurrection of all of us dead
will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.
And that we will remain lying down for a while.
The first to get up will be mother... We’ll hear her quietly laying the fire,
Quietly putting the kettle on the stove.
And cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.
We’ll be home once more.”
Week ending 9th February 2016
Once again we are invited to start flexing our spiritual muscles as Ash Wednesday comes around to get us restarted on the springcleaning of the soul. It is earlier than most years, in contrst with 1916 when Ash Wednesday, and consequently Easter were about as late as they could possibly be. Many Eastern European churches have long had a fixed Easter, and it just happened that their Easter and ours coincided from time to time in recent years. The Irish church was at the forefront of efforts to have a fixed feast many years ago, but they eventually lost out to Roman influence.
I am quite pleased with the idea of having an unfixed Easter. It is good to have something that is not tied down by commercial considerations. Great sporting events and occasions for instance are nailed down by TV deals, while the chocolateers who make our Easter eggs have to time their products to moveable markets. Our Easter is tied to the date of the Jewish Passover which was being celebrated the week that Jesus was crucified. This commemorates the escape of the Jewish people across the Red Sea from captivity in Egypt. The miracle of the parting of the waters was obviously connected to a natural event, an extremely low tide, as tides are governed by the phases of the moon. For that reason the Passover and Easter are connected with lunar activity. Easter falls on the Sunday after the full moon after the Spring equinox.
Now that I am back living close to the sea-shore for more than five years I appreciate more than I had done for a long time the vagaries of moons and tides. I walk out at the rear of Carna Church most days before Mass to gather my thoughts, as I used to do along by the Glensaul river that runs by Tourmakeady church. While the river was in full flow from time to time, the seashore nearest to me now can be completely empty one week and full to the brim the next. I am well aware again of the phases of the moon and the tidal charts I used to follow in years past while in the Aran Islands or Carraroe.
The build-up or the slim-down to Easter starts on Ash Wednesday this week. Operation Transformation may be half way through on RTÉ 1 (Yes I saw Fr. John Kenny leading his people with typical gusto a couple of week’s back) Operation Spiritual Transformation is about to start and this year it is built into the annual novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (Muire Síor-Cabhrach) here in Cill Chiaráin. Lent reflects the forty days that Jesus fasted in the desert, forty days mirrored by Saint Patrick on his holy mountain, Croagh Patrick. It is a time to look in the mirror of our own souls, to see where are we at and where are we going in our lives. Ash Wednesday has a resonance for many people who are not particularly religious. Some old instinct tells people that it is time to get their act together, to give up the fags, to start a healthier phase of life.
Trócaire, as it has done for more than forty years now will play an important place in many people’s Lent. Giving to those who need it most in other parts of the world complements the traditional ‘giving up’ and people’s small sacrifices over the years have played an enormous part in helping others to help themselves. There are probably millions worldwide who have benefited. While Trócaire will continue to be part of Lent, it is gradually expanding its fundraising appeals. We regularly hear those on radio and TV advertisements. Many people nowadays make a monthly contribution through a Bank account. It is good to see that so many people are willing to share some of what they have with the poorest of the poor.
I am quite pleased with the idea of having an unfixed Easter. It is good to have something that is not tied down by commercial considerations. Great sporting events and occasions for instance are nailed down by TV deals, while the chocolateers who make our Easter eggs have to time their products to moveable markets. Our Easter is tied to the date of the Jewish Passover which was being celebrated the week that Jesus was crucified. This commemorates the escape of the Jewish people across the Red Sea from captivity in Egypt. The miracle of the parting of the waters was obviously connected to a natural event, an extremely low tide, as tides are governed by the phases of the moon. For that reason the Passover and Easter are connected with lunar activity. Easter falls on the Sunday after the full moon after the Spring equinox.
Now that I am back living close to the sea-shore for more than five years I appreciate more than I had done for a long time the vagaries of moons and tides. I walk out at the rear of Carna Church most days before Mass to gather my thoughts, as I used to do along by the Glensaul river that runs by Tourmakeady church. While the river was in full flow from time to time, the seashore nearest to me now can be completely empty one week and full to the brim the next. I am well aware again of the phases of the moon and the tidal charts I used to follow in years past while in the Aran Islands or Carraroe.
The build-up or the slim-down to Easter starts on Ash Wednesday this week. Operation Transformation may be half way through on RTÉ 1 (Yes I saw Fr. John Kenny leading his people with typical gusto a couple of week’s back) Operation Spiritual Transformation is about to start and this year it is built into the annual novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (Muire Síor-Cabhrach) here in Cill Chiaráin. Lent reflects the forty days that Jesus fasted in the desert, forty days mirrored by Saint Patrick on his holy mountain, Croagh Patrick. It is a time to look in the mirror of our own souls, to see where are we at and where are we going in our lives. Ash Wednesday has a resonance for many people who are not particularly religious. Some old instinct tells people that it is time to get their act together, to give up the fags, to start a healthier phase of life.
Trócaire, as it has done for more than forty years now will play an important place in many people’s Lent. Giving to those who need it most in other parts of the world complements the traditional ‘giving up’ and people’s small sacrifices over the years have played an enormous part in helping others to help themselves. There are probably millions worldwide who have benefited. While Trócaire will continue to be part of Lent, it is gradually expanding its fundraising appeals. We regularly hear those on radio and TV advertisements. Many people nowadays make a monthly contribution through a Bank account. It is good to see that so many people are willing to share some of what they have with the poorest of the poor.
Week ending 2nd February 2016
More than forty years ago, as a young priest in the smaller islands of Aran, Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin, I applied for the dole. I had noticed that apart from myself, two teachers and a couple of publican/shopkeepers, every other household was dependant on social welfare. It is not that people were not hard workers on land and on sea, risking their lives quite often in an effort to supplement their income, but there I was living off their generosity. My application was of course a political decision, to draw attention to Government promises of that time to provide “full employment in the seventies,” and how far from reality such promises were. Some years earlier the Labour Party was promising that “the seventies would be socialist.” This was turned on its head by the riposte that “the socialists would be in their seventies” before that came about.
My own views were quite socialist, and I had returned a £200 gift that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane had provided for island priests before the introduction of a salary system that ensured every priest had a basic income. One of my older colleagues was heard to remark at the Diocesan Retreat in Knock: “That is your man that told the Archbishop where to stick his money.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I was very grateful for the offer, even though I had refused it, but was determined to live off what was provided from my parishioners. I asked Archbishop Cunnane to donate the money to Trócaire which had just started its work about that time.
In the fullness of time I had a visit from what local people called “the guager,” the welfare official that assessed suitability for the dole. The man had to do his job but a person in that position was looked on like something like a landlord’s agent from the previous century, especially when payments were docked for catching a few fish or selling some seaweed. When he weighed up the pros and cons of my situation, he decided that I was entitled to 50p a week. That was the price of four pints of porter and a medium at the time and you would have a penny halfpenny change. It was about the amount I had to drink one evening I had put a piece of bacon to boil before heading out to a meeting of the local co-op. I felt the hour and a half the meeting would last was just about right to have my dinner cooked. I was invited for a drink after the meeting and was on my merry way back to the presbytery when I got the smell of bacon about a hundred yards from my destination. Saucepan and all had to go out on the dump. There was little consolation in the assurance that “there was eating and drinking” in the Guinness.
I still wonder do we clergy take enough account of how many people in our parishes depend completely on social welfare. Government figures from some peripheral areas suggest as high as sixty or seventy percent. When parishes are expected to submit a fixed contribution per head of Roman Catholic population for Diocesan expenses, should this not take account of people’s and parishes’ ability to pay? The salary scheme for priests introduced thirty or more years ago brought about an element of equality for clergymen, but the inequalities of rich and poor parishes persist.
My own views were quite socialist, and I had returned a £200 gift that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane had provided for island priests before the introduction of a salary system that ensured every priest had a basic income. One of my older colleagues was heard to remark at the Diocesan Retreat in Knock: “That is your man that told the Archbishop where to stick his money.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I was very grateful for the offer, even though I had refused it, but was determined to live off what was provided from my parishioners. I asked Archbishop Cunnane to donate the money to Trócaire which had just started its work about that time.
In the fullness of time I had a visit from what local people called “the guager,” the welfare official that assessed suitability for the dole. The man had to do his job but a person in that position was looked on like something like a landlord’s agent from the previous century, especially when payments were docked for catching a few fish or selling some seaweed. When he weighed up the pros and cons of my situation, he decided that I was entitled to 50p a week. That was the price of four pints of porter and a medium at the time and you would have a penny halfpenny change. It was about the amount I had to drink one evening I had put a piece of bacon to boil before heading out to a meeting of the local co-op. I felt the hour and a half the meeting would last was just about right to have my dinner cooked. I was invited for a drink after the meeting and was on my merry way back to the presbytery when I got the smell of bacon about a hundred yards from my destination. Saucepan and all had to go out on the dump. There was little consolation in the assurance that “there was eating and drinking” in the Guinness.
I still wonder do we clergy take enough account of how many people in our parishes depend completely on social welfare. Government figures from some peripheral areas suggest as high as sixty or seventy percent. When parishes are expected to submit a fixed contribution per head of Roman Catholic population for Diocesan expenses, should this not take account of people’s and parishes’ ability to pay? The salary scheme for priests introduced thirty or more years ago brought about an element of equality for clergymen, but the inequalities of rich and poor parishes persist.