Week ending 30th March 2010 www.tourmakeady.com
Jesus the carpenter would have been at home with hammer, nails and timber. For him a nail-bar would not be a place to have your nails shaped or your cuticles cutened. It was a rough tool to pull a nail that had bent or twisted whole being driven by hammer blows. The carpenter of Nazareth was a connoisseur of all things tool and timber. He would probably have known much more about hammer and nails than the man called on to nail him to Calvary’s cross.
I imagine the sound of the hammer in the cool of the evening. It is a sound with which Jesus the carpenter is very familiar. Steel on steel, but this steel is being driven through the sinew and flesh of his hands and feet, and then into the timber. He may be numb with pain after the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of his own cross, but every hammer blow rattles through his head and body: “Will this nightmare ever end?”
The real pain comes when the cross is raised and the nails have to take the weight of his body. In the words of the Irish phrase, the crua has really come on the táirní now, the weight on the nails, but the worst pain is psychological, sweating blood, rejection, betrayal, denial, spitting, insults, the disappearance of most of his friends and followers. Who could blame them? Who would want to be part of this? The worst of all is the absence of God. The words of the old psalm runs through his mind: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is the cry of the innocent, the cry we failed to hear in the church until recently.
The weight of the world is on Jesus’ back. Many artists have portrayed the crucifixion of Jesus, but if I had the ability to do it I would have a great uneven globe of the world on his shoulders as he hangs like a scarecrow on the cross. In the old Greek myths Atlas carried the world on his shoulders. In Christianity Jesus carries the sin of the world. It is not a neat globe of the world that I see on his shoulders, but a massive bag of ugly rubbish he is taking with him to the bin of death, to be recycled like himself.
Death is the easy part. A blessed relief after what has gone before. Creeds say Jesus descended into hell after his death. Hell, Hades, the underworld, whatever translation you want to use. I think of him as bringing the rubbish to the incinerator, the sin to be cleansed by fire, the body to be freed. It is the re-cycling of the body that makes it all worthwhile, the emergence of the butterfly body from the cocoon crafted by the swaddling clothes of convention and law and limit. With one great leap our hero is free. The best part is that we can rise up with him if we want to.
I imagine the sound of the hammer in the cool of the evening. It is a sound with which Jesus the carpenter is very familiar. Steel on steel, but this steel is being driven through the sinew and flesh of his hands and feet, and then into the timber. He may be numb with pain after the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of his own cross, but every hammer blow rattles through his head and body: “Will this nightmare ever end?”
The real pain comes when the cross is raised and the nails have to take the weight of his body. In the words of the Irish phrase, the crua has really come on the táirní now, the weight on the nails, but the worst pain is psychological, sweating blood, rejection, betrayal, denial, spitting, insults, the disappearance of most of his friends and followers. Who could blame them? Who would want to be part of this? The worst of all is the absence of God. The words of the old psalm runs through his mind: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is the cry of the innocent, the cry we failed to hear in the church until recently.
The weight of the world is on Jesus’ back. Many artists have portrayed the crucifixion of Jesus, but if I had the ability to do it I would have a great uneven globe of the world on his shoulders as he hangs like a scarecrow on the cross. In the old Greek myths Atlas carried the world on his shoulders. In Christianity Jesus carries the sin of the world. It is not a neat globe of the world that I see on his shoulders, but a massive bag of ugly rubbish he is taking with him to the bin of death, to be recycled like himself.
Death is the easy part. A blessed relief after what has gone before. Creeds say Jesus descended into hell after his death. Hell, Hades, the underworld, whatever translation you want to use. I think of him as bringing the rubbish to the incinerator, the sin to be cleansed by fire, the body to be freed. It is the re-cycling of the body that makes it all worthwhile, the emergence of the butterfly body from the cocoon crafted by the swaddling clothes of convention and law and limit. With one great leap our hero is free. The best part is that we can rise up with him if we want to.
Week ending 23rd March 2009
I sometimes wonder what would have happened to Jesus if he was allowed to live. If Judas has been less greedy, if the chief priests had been a little more open-minded, if Pontius Pilate had been a little more courageous… If, if, if… Would he have grown old gracefully? Ended his days like Saint John the Apostle with his teaching honed down to the basics: “Love God” and “Love your neighbour as yourself.” I certainly could not imagine Jesus turning into a grumpy old man. Like myself did you say? Didn’t I tell you I was off the grumpiness for Lent?
This is, of course, all speculation. Books have been written about it, about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and going off to live in France. I have no problem with speculation, with fiction, with imagination. I love fiction and try to imagine all kind of different scenarios. But I know that these are not the real world, enjoyable and challenging as they are. It is too easy to live in the ‘what if’ world, the ‘might have been’ world, the ‘every world except the one in which I live’ world. Such worlds are lovely as a recreation, but in real life the place to live is in the now.
The ‘now’ is a tough place, just as it was in Jesus own time. As I write this there are questions being asked about what Pope Benedict knew and what Cardinal Sean Brady knew of cover-ups with regard to child sexual abuse between thirty and forty years ago. There is no suggestion that either had anything to do with abuse, but in Pope Benedict’s capacity as an Archbishop thirty years ago, or Cardinal Brady’s capacity as a bishop’s secretary thirty-five years ago, was either involved in a cover up? Such questions need to be asked and answered, painful and all as they are. Should there be one rule for bishops who served in Dublin? Another for others?
Some have described the Roman Catholic church of the present time as a ‘crucified church’ but if so it could be said that we have driven in the nails ourselves. For too long we may have blamed the media for an admittedly hostile attitude in many cases, but an attitude which has brought about the truth while bringing us to our knees. Not that there is anything wrong with being on our knees. Some would claim that if we were on the same knees often enough or long enough we would not be where we are now. Battered, bruised and broken. Do you remember your man Jesus? That is exactly how he was on the way to Calvary. Except that he didn’t deserve any of it.
It was a time of confusion and failure. The apostles were up in a heap, this Jesus in whom they had placed their hopes a figure of fun, laughed at, mocked, spat upon, kicked, jeered, betrayed, denied, physically destroyed. What is the same Jesus doing two thousand years later with a couple of billion followers despite the abject failures of those who accepted the call to follow him?
No. Jesus has not grown old gracefully. He has allowed each generation live in the now, make our own mistakes, stumble, grumble and sin. This is what we call incarnation, God becoming part of real life, getting down and dirty in order to show us the way to stagger back onto our feet. “There but for the grace…”
This is, of course, all speculation. Books have been written about it, about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and going off to live in France. I have no problem with speculation, with fiction, with imagination. I love fiction and try to imagine all kind of different scenarios. But I know that these are not the real world, enjoyable and challenging as they are. It is too easy to live in the ‘what if’ world, the ‘might have been’ world, the ‘every world except the one in which I live’ world. Such worlds are lovely as a recreation, but in real life the place to live is in the now.
The ‘now’ is a tough place, just as it was in Jesus own time. As I write this there are questions being asked about what Pope Benedict knew and what Cardinal Sean Brady knew of cover-ups with regard to child sexual abuse between thirty and forty years ago. There is no suggestion that either had anything to do with abuse, but in Pope Benedict’s capacity as an Archbishop thirty years ago, or Cardinal Brady’s capacity as a bishop’s secretary thirty-five years ago, was either involved in a cover up? Such questions need to be asked and answered, painful and all as they are. Should there be one rule for bishops who served in Dublin? Another for others?
Some have described the Roman Catholic church of the present time as a ‘crucified church’ but if so it could be said that we have driven in the nails ourselves. For too long we may have blamed the media for an admittedly hostile attitude in many cases, but an attitude which has brought about the truth while bringing us to our knees. Not that there is anything wrong with being on our knees. Some would claim that if we were on the same knees often enough or long enough we would not be where we are now. Battered, bruised and broken. Do you remember your man Jesus? That is exactly how he was on the way to Calvary. Except that he didn’t deserve any of it.
It was a time of confusion and failure. The apostles were up in a heap, this Jesus in whom they had placed their hopes a figure of fun, laughed at, mocked, spat upon, kicked, jeered, betrayed, denied, physically destroyed. What is the same Jesus doing two thousand years later with a couple of billion followers despite the abject failures of those who accepted the call to follow him?
No. Jesus has not grown old gracefully. He has allowed each generation live in the now, make our own mistakes, stumble, grumble and sin. This is what we call incarnation, God becoming part of real life, getting down and dirty in order to show us the way to stagger back onto our feet. “There but for the grace…”
Week ending 16th March 2010
When Nancy Griffith sang “From a distance” on a recent Late Late Show it brought back fond memories to many people of tours she undertook in this country in years gone by. Written by Julie Gold and first made famous in the USA by Bette Midler, it is a song associated most of all in this country with Nancy Griffith. The lyrics inspire people of many different religious persuasions, the idea of God watching us from a distance carrying the meanings of both caring for us and giving us freedom to be ourselves at the same time.
Although I love the song I have always had a slight difficulty with the ‘from a distance’ aspect of it. The closeness of God has probably been inculcated in us since Saint Patrick first brought the Christian faith to our shores. That faith in God being close through nature is even older than Christianity in Ireland as the revival of interest in all things Celtic reminds us. It is one of the old ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ scenarios. Was it the Celtic or the Christian notion of the closeness of God? It does not matter in that this was the faith our people imbibed.
This faith is probably best summed up in the prayer we call “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate” Lúireach Phádraig. The lúireach or ‘lorica’ the protective armour worn by a warrior inspires the name. We know it best from the extract which begins: “Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me…” etc, but it is a much longer prayer than that. The version we have now was written about 850ad, about four hundred years after the time of Patrick. It is said to have been composed by the saint, and if not, it certainly expresses the faith and spirituality he displayed in his ‘Confession”.
Four hundred years might seem a long time for a prayer to be passed on by word of mouth, until we consider that many of our ancient legends about Cúchulainn, or Fionn and the Fianna have survived as long or longer before being eventually written down. The spoken word is even more important when there is no writing, and can be almost as accurate. We see that from songs, poems and stories that survived for centuries before they were recorded by folklorists. Distance is of little consequence in this regard, as seen by the way the Irish and many other cultures have carried their belief systems with them to the ends of the earth.
Christocentric is probably the word best suited to describing the faith of Patrick as handed down to us by both word of mouth and documentation. While concentrating on Jesus as the centre of our faith, it is Christ as the Incarnation of God whose work continues through the Holy Spirit. It is Trinitarian in that sense: “Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.”
Heavy stuff in the theological sense, but it realises that Jesus is the person of the Trinity easiest to identify with, the homely God, one of our own: “Christ in the heart of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in the eye of everyone that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me…”
Although I love the song I have always had a slight difficulty with the ‘from a distance’ aspect of it. The closeness of God has probably been inculcated in us since Saint Patrick first brought the Christian faith to our shores. That faith in God being close through nature is even older than Christianity in Ireland as the revival of interest in all things Celtic reminds us. It is one of the old ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ scenarios. Was it the Celtic or the Christian notion of the closeness of God? It does not matter in that this was the faith our people imbibed.
This faith is probably best summed up in the prayer we call “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate” Lúireach Phádraig. The lúireach or ‘lorica’ the protective armour worn by a warrior inspires the name. We know it best from the extract which begins: “Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me…” etc, but it is a much longer prayer than that. The version we have now was written about 850ad, about four hundred years after the time of Patrick. It is said to have been composed by the saint, and if not, it certainly expresses the faith and spirituality he displayed in his ‘Confession”.
Four hundred years might seem a long time for a prayer to be passed on by word of mouth, until we consider that many of our ancient legends about Cúchulainn, or Fionn and the Fianna have survived as long or longer before being eventually written down. The spoken word is even more important when there is no writing, and can be almost as accurate. We see that from songs, poems and stories that survived for centuries before they were recorded by folklorists. Distance is of little consequence in this regard, as seen by the way the Irish and many other cultures have carried their belief systems with them to the ends of the earth.
Christocentric is probably the word best suited to describing the faith of Patrick as handed down to us by both word of mouth and documentation. While concentrating on Jesus as the centre of our faith, it is Christ as the Incarnation of God whose work continues through the Holy Spirit. It is Trinitarian in that sense: “Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.”
Heavy stuff in the theological sense, but it realises that Jesus is the person of the Trinity easiest to identify with, the homely God, one of our own: “Christ in the heart of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in the eye of everyone that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me…”
Week ending 9th March 2010
“A humbled, contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.” (Psalm 50:19) That line jumped out at me from a psalm read at Mass recently. I belong to a clerical caste that has been humbled by revelations of child sexual abuse in recent times. But humbled is one thing, humble is another. Is the humility beginning to melt already? Have we just weathered the storm? Have we got away with it again? Have we counted the weekend collection or the number of people attending Mass and decided that not much has really changed? The faith has survived another crisis, so we can go back to more of the same. The media has moved on. Political resignations have taken over the airwaves. We can batten down the hatches and just go with the flow.
There are positives. Despite blanket condemnations and wall to wall coverage most people have been able to distinguish between those involved in paedophilia (about 4%) and the rest of the clergy. The figures for the Archdiocese of Tuam bear that out. Three hundred and seventy seven priests served in the seventy years since 1940. The number against whom allegations were made is fifteen. One is of course too many, but the impression often given in news reports is that virtually every priest has been involved. While saying this, the media in general has to be applauded for their part in exposing abuse.
While reeling beneath the weight of horrific evidence presented in the Ryan and Murphy reports, it is important to point out that measures taken since the mid-nineties of the last century appear to have been successful. We will not know for some time if clerical child abuse has been completely prevented, but a statement in the factual report of statistics for the Archdiocese of Tuam, made last November, tells us: “No priest has been asked to stand aside due to a reasonable suspicion of his having committed Child Sexual Abuse for some years now.”
This gives hope for the future, but it can also lead to complacency. Pope Benedict’s letter will, I hope, point some of the way forward. The findings on clerical abuse in Jesuit schools in Germany gives the lie to the theory that it is a problem confined to English speaking countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada with their often Irish/Catholic connections. The law of compulsory celibacy needs to be looked at by experts from both inside and outside Catholicism. Some dismiss any connection in this regard because abuse is also committed by married men, but many wonder is it a factor?
I began with the words of Psalm 50: “humbled and contrite.” The humbling has been obvious. Contrition has been expressed, apologies offered. Meetings between bishops and survivors have taken place. Compensation has been paid in many cases, although this only does a little to right the wrong. But are we going to have a humble church? The misuse of power has been rightly blamed for clerical sex abuse as well as for other areas of life in which the Roman Catholic Church has alienated many of its own members. We need to examine our consciences against the words of Jesus to the law-enforcers of his own religion: “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they move a finger to lift them? Not they.” (Mt 23: 4)
There are positives. Despite blanket condemnations and wall to wall coverage most people have been able to distinguish between those involved in paedophilia (about 4%) and the rest of the clergy. The figures for the Archdiocese of Tuam bear that out. Three hundred and seventy seven priests served in the seventy years since 1940. The number against whom allegations were made is fifteen. One is of course too many, but the impression often given in news reports is that virtually every priest has been involved. While saying this, the media in general has to be applauded for their part in exposing abuse.
While reeling beneath the weight of horrific evidence presented in the Ryan and Murphy reports, it is important to point out that measures taken since the mid-nineties of the last century appear to have been successful. We will not know for some time if clerical child abuse has been completely prevented, but a statement in the factual report of statistics for the Archdiocese of Tuam, made last November, tells us: “No priest has been asked to stand aside due to a reasonable suspicion of his having committed Child Sexual Abuse for some years now.”
This gives hope for the future, but it can also lead to complacency. Pope Benedict’s letter will, I hope, point some of the way forward. The findings on clerical abuse in Jesuit schools in Germany gives the lie to the theory that it is a problem confined to English speaking countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada with their often Irish/Catholic connections. The law of compulsory celibacy needs to be looked at by experts from both inside and outside Catholicism. Some dismiss any connection in this regard because abuse is also committed by married men, but many wonder is it a factor?
I began with the words of Psalm 50: “humbled and contrite.” The humbling has been obvious. Contrition has been expressed, apologies offered. Meetings between bishops and survivors have taken place. Compensation has been paid in many cases, although this only does a little to right the wrong. But are we going to have a humble church? The misuse of power has been rightly blamed for clerical sex abuse as well as for other areas of life in which the Roman Catholic Church has alienated many of its own members. We need to examine our consciences against the words of Jesus to the law-enforcers of his own religion: “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they move a finger to lift them? Not they.” (Mt 23: 4)
Week ending 2nd March 2010
I have not seen a hare so far this year, but with the start of a new month my chances are improving The words ‘March’ and ‘Hare’ often go together, especially in the phrase ‘as mad as a March hare.’ I always attributed that phrase to Lewis Carroll’s famous book about Alice in Wonderland, but it seems to be much older than that. It refers to the mating rituals of hares in which they seem to dance around and engage in a form of shadow boxing. This seems to take place mainly in March, even though hares are known to breed at other times of the year as well.
Over the years I have tended to meet hares mainly while having a walk before Sunday morning Mass in Bunaún Oratory. There are few more beautiful places to walk, in particular when the morning sun shines across Lough Mask and throws shadows on hill and mountain. I once mistook a hare bounding towards me along the road for a young deer because it seemed so tall. For a moment I wondered as it hopped along could someone have smuggled a kangaroo or a wallaby from the other side of the world. As it was Lent I knew that I did not have a hangover, so I decided to look again. I recognised it as a hare as soon as it saw me and headed away across the cutaway bog.
These are rare sightings, and it was only when I examined the subject a little closer that I realised that hares are becoming an endangered species. They have undergone a substantial decline in the past ten to twenty years and may soon be as scarce as the corncrake. I suppose they were protected to some extent in the past by superstitions that associated them in particular with old women, known by the Irish name cailleach which also implied the notion of witch. I remember hearing scary stories as a child of a hare being shot or maybe chased and attacked by dogs. When people arrived at the scene they found an old woman wounded by the roadside.
Some such legends go back to Oisín at the time of the Fianna. Others were collected by folklore gatherers in the past century and refer to living people or people who had died in living memory. One I came across from County Cavan told of people who “used to turn themselves into hares by witchcraft and go around from house to house sucking the milk from the cows. These people could not be done away with except by shooting them with a crucked sixpence.”
There may have been an element of sectarianism involved as she named a Protestant woman who turned herself into a hare and sucked the milk from her grandfather’s cows. The grandfather shot the hare with “a crucked sixpence” and hit it in the head. He followed the wounded hare to the house where he found the woman in bed with her head bleeding. He made her promise never to do that again and she never did.
Back in pre-radio and television days such stories were read by the fireside from the pen of the redoubtable “Kitty the Hare.” They came between many a youngster and their night’s sleep. Could it be that the drop in hare numbers has to do with the fact that cows available to be sucked are so scarce in so many parts of rural Ireland? ‘Crucked’ sixpences are even scarcer. We live in a different world, which unfortunately because of the decline in numbers could be the world of ‘Hare today, gone tomorrow.’
Over the years I have tended to meet hares mainly while having a walk before Sunday morning Mass in Bunaún Oratory. There are few more beautiful places to walk, in particular when the morning sun shines across Lough Mask and throws shadows on hill and mountain. I once mistook a hare bounding towards me along the road for a young deer because it seemed so tall. For a moment I wondered as it hopped along could someone have smuggled a kangaroo or a wallaby from the other side of the world. As it was Lent I knew that I did not have a hangover, so I decided to look again. I recognised it as a hare as soon as it saw me and headed away across the cutaway bog.
These are rare sightings, and it was only when I examined the subject a little closer that I realised that hares are becoming an endangered species. They have undergone a substantial decline in the past ten to twenty years and may soon be as scarce as the corncrake. I suppose they were protected to some extent in the past by superstitions that associated them in particular with old women, known by the Irish name cailleach which also implied the notion of witch. I remember hearing scary stories as a child of a hare being shot or maybe chased and attacked by dogs. When people arrived at the scene they found an old woman wounded by the roadside.
Some such legends go back to Oisín at the time of the Fianna. Others were collected by folklore gatherers in the past century and refer to living people or people who had died in living memory. One I came across from County Cavan told of people who “used to turn themselves into hares by witchcraft and go around from house to house sucking the milk from the cows. These people could not be done away with except by shooting them with a crucked sixpence.”
There may have been an element of sectarianism involved as she named a Protestant woman who turned herself into a hare and sucked the milk from her grandfather’s cows. The grandfather shot the hare with “a crucked sixpence” and hit it in the head. He followed the wounded hare to the house where he found the woman in bed with her head bleeding. He made her promise never to do that again and she never did.
Back in pre-radio and television days such stories were read by the fireside from the pen of the redoubtable “Kitty the Hare.” They came between many a youngster and their night’s sleep. Could it be that the drop in hare numbers has to do with the fact that cows available to be sucked are so scarce in so many parts of rural Ireland? ‘Crucked’ sixpences are even scarcer. We live in a different world, which unfortunately because of the decline in numbers could be the world of ‘Hare today, gone tomorrow.’