Week ending 26th January 2010 www.tourmakeady.com
“When winter comes, can spring be far behind?” is a phrase many of us have heard since childhood. Spring seemed very far away when we were snowed in and frosted over earlier this year. That is not to say that such weather will not return. The great blizzard, the big snow of 1947 for instance did not come until the 25th of February. Getting a natural winter raises hope that we may also get a natural summer, unlike the wet and windy excuses for that season we have had in recent years.
No matter what kind of weather hits us in the next month or two, the daffodils will be on their way, the primroses peeping out, trees beginning to bud, days stretching a coiscéim choiligh, a cockerels footstep in the Irish language. The feast of Saint Bridget on the first of February is the official beginning of spring in the Irish tradition, with about an hours daylight added to the evening since the winter solistice on the 21st of December. But “that was so last year.”
This lengthening evening was noted by Mayo poet Antaine O Raiftéirí the best part of two hundred years ago: “Anois teacht an Earraigh beidh an lá ag dul chun síneadh, agus tar éis na Féile Bríde ardóidh mé mo sheol…” (Now with the coming of spring the day will be lengthening and after the feast of Bridget I will raise my sail…) His intention was to sit off from his voluntary exile in South Galway and head home to his native Cill Aodáin in Condae Mhaigh Eo.
It was on one such journey that Raiftéirí was caught in a shower or a longer spell of rain as he walked the ‘curragh line’ between Galway and Headford. He did not waste his time as he sheltered under a bush, composing the long poem “Seanchas na sceithe” (the bushes’ story or folklore.) It must have been one of the most inspiring showers that ever came. Perhaps we should stay out in more of them and allow the negative ions of falling water to inspire us.
One of the great movements against the tide of modernism of recent times has been the revival of devotion associated with the Saint Bridget’s cross. This simple and beautifully designed cross in various forms was seen as a protection and a blessing for our ancestors for more than a thousand years. It was made from readily obtained and completely free materials, straw, rushes or twigs, shaped and placed in the family home as well as in outhouses to include farm and domestic animals under the shawl of Bridget.
I have always loved the blessings associated with the first three days of February. As well as the blessing of Saint Briget crosses on the first, we have Candlemas Day on the second. This is the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth, the day on which candles used in churches or in homes at times of danger or death are traditionally blest. The third day of February is the feast of Saint Blaise, after whom I notice quite a number of French rugby and soccer players are named. Throats are blest on his feast. I know that my yearly joke about “going to Blaises” is wearing thin at this stage, but it is something worth considering in just over a week’s time.
No matter what kind of weather hits us in the next month or two, the daffodils will be on their way, the primroses peeping out, trees beginning to bud, days stretching a coiscéim choiligh, a cockerels footstep in the Irish language. The feast of Saint Bridget on the first of February is the official beginning of spring in the Irish tradition, with about an hours daylight added to the evening since the winter solistice on the 21st of December. But “that was so last year.”
This lengthening evening was noted by Mayo poet Antaine O Raiftéirí the best part of two hundred years ago: “Anois teacht an Earraigh beidh an lá ag dul chun síneadh, agus tar éis na Féile Bríde ardóidh mé mo sheol…” (Now with the coming of spring the day will be lengthening and after the feast of Bridget I will raise my sail…) His intention was to sit off from his voluntary exile in South Galway and head home to his native Cill Aodáin in Condae Mhaigh Eo.
It was on one such journey that Raiftéirí was caught in a shower or a longer spell of rain as he walked the ‘curragh line’ between Galway and Headford. He did not waste his time as he sheltered under a bush, composing the long poem “Seanchas na sceithe” (the bushes’ story or folklore.) It must have been one of the most inspiring showers that ever came. Perhaps we should stay out in more of them and allow the negative ions of falling water to inspire us.
One of the great movements against the tide of modernism of recent times has been the revival of devotion associated with the Saint Bridget’s cross. This simple and beautifully designed cross in various forms was seen as a protection and a blessing for our ancestors for more than a thousand years. It was made from readily obtained and completely free materials, straw, rushes or twigs, shaped and placed in the family home as well as in outhouses to include farm and domestic animals under the shawl of Bridget.
I have always loved the blessings associated with the first three days of February. As well as the blessing of Saint Briget crosses on the first, we have Candlemas Day on the second. This is the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth, the day on which candles used in churches or in homes at times of danger or death are traditionally blest. The third day of February is the feast of Saint Blaise, after whom I notice quite a number of French rugby and soccer players are named. Throats are blest on his feast. I know that my yearly joke about “going to Blaises” is wearing thin at this stage, but it is something worth considering in just over a week’s time.
Week ending 19th January 2010
Two leading members of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, Ms. Arlene Foster and Mr. Sammy Wilson called to visit Cardinal Seán Brady to offer their sympathies before the funeral of Cardinal Cahal Daly recently. They were there to represent their Party as their leader; Mr. Peter Robinson was dealing with family issues we came to hear of later. Because of their own beliefs the visitors did not feel it right for them to attend the Mass itself, and Cardinal Brady had no problem with that. He appreciated their sympathy on behalf of the people they represent.
This courtesy call would have been inconceivable up to a few years ago. When one of the predecessors of Cardinals Daly and Brady, Tomás O Fiach died in Lourdes, the then leader of the DUP, Dr. Ian Paisley made the snide comment that not even Lourdes was able to save him. Par for the course at the time, but we have come a long way since. Dr. Paisley had the courage to eventually lead his party into power-sharing with Sinn Féin. Despite present difficulties about the devolvement of policing policy, we have seen a hard-won mutual respect in recent times.
I mention this in a week in which Christians throughout the world pray for Christian Unity. Dr.Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church never had any truck with ecumenism, but I have no doubt that the gradual growth of understanding between Christians of all denominations has played a part in creating the mutual respect I have mentioned earlier. This ‘live and let live’ model is a long way from any kind of unity, but it sure is an improvement on beating and berating the hell out of each other. Underlying sectarianism will take a long time to fade, but that will happen too. We know from our own experiences since the Civil War that healing is a long and a slow process.
Another step in the right direction in this slow process was the announcement that UDA weapons have all been decommissioned, and it was a pleasure for many people to hear the quiet behind the scenes work of Dr. Martin McAlese, husband of President Mary, being acknowledged and praised. In the meantime a young Police Service of Northern Ireland officer who is a member of the GAA and a fluent Irish speaker was bombed in his car. As I write blame is being attributed to dissident republicans. The injured officer is still critical but will hopefully recover. Becoming more Irish than the ‘Irish’ themselves does not seem to appeal to those who take it on themselves to fight ‘on our behalf’ even if that is against the will of the vast majority of people North and South.
Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, Pope John Paul 11 have gradually expanded the idea of mutual respect between Christians to more understanding between all religions. Although Pope Benedict at one stage alienated Muslims by a hundreds of years old quotation, he has worked constantly and patiently for an improvement in relations between Jews, Muslims and Hindus as well as other religions. His visit to Turkey a couple of years ago highlighted this. Much of this work, not unlike that of Martin McAlese in the North, is quiet and diplomatic, and we do not hear about it until there is a breakthrough. While unlikely to prevent militants trying to bring bombs on planes, mutual respect helps millions to live side by side, to live and let live.
This courtesy call would have been inconceivable up to a few years ago. When one of the predecessors of Cardinals Daly and Brady, Tomás O Fiach died in Lourdes, the then leader of the DUP, Dr. Ian Paisley made the snide comment that not even Lourdes was able to save him. Par for the course at the time, but we have come a long way since. Dr. Paisley had the courage to eventually lead his party into power-sharing with Sinn Féin. Despite present difficulties about the devolvement of policing policy, we have seen a hard-won mutual respect in recent times.
I mention this in a week in which Christians throughout the world pray for Christian Unity. Dr.Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church never had any truck with ecumenism, but I have no doubt that the gradual growth of understanding between Christians of all denominations has played a part in creating the mutual respect I have mentioned earlier. This ‘live and let live’ model is a long way from any kind of unity, but it sure is an improvement on beating and berating the hell out of each other. Underlying sectarianism will take a long time to fade, but that will happen too. We know from our own experiences since the Civil War that healing is a long and a slow process.
Another step in the right direction in this slow process was the announcement that UDA weapons have all been decommissioned, and it was a pleasure for many people to hear the quiet behind the scenes work of Dr. Martin McAlese, husband of President Mary, being acknowledged and praised. In the meantime a young Police Service of Northern Ireland officer who is a member of the GAA and a fluent Irish speaker was bombed in his car. As I write blame is being attributed to dissident republicans. The injured officer is still critical but will hopefully recover. Becoming more Irish than the ‘Irish’ themselves does not seem to appeal to those who take it on themselves to fight ‘on our behalf’ even if that is against the will of the vast majority of people North and South.
Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, Pope John Paul 11 have gradually expanded the idea of mutual respect between Christians to more understanding between all religions. Although Pope Benedict at one stage alienated Muslims by a hundreds of years old quotation, he has worked constantly and patiently for an improvement in relations between Jews, Muslims and Hindus as well as other religions. His visit to Turkey a couple of years ago highlighted this. Much of this work, not unlike that of Martin McAlese in the North, is quiet and diplomatic, and we do not hear about it until there is a breakthrough. While unlikely to prevent militants trying to bring bombs on planes, mutual respect helps millions to live side by side, to live and let live.
Week ending 12th January 2010
Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin made a very telling point when offering his resignation to Pope Benedict in the wake of the Murphy Report into the handling of clerical abuse allegations in the Archdiocese of Dublin. He said that he regretted that he had failed to question the prevailing culture in this regard while serving as an Auxiliary Bishop in Dublin before being appointed to his present position.
There are other areas in the Roman Catholic Church in which the prevailing culture needs to be looked at. In so far as I know the only Bishop to raise questions about them in public is Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe, who is, I understand, to resign on age grounds later this year. I refer to matters such as gender equality in the top echelons as well as in the ministry of the church, and the abolition of compulsory celibacy for priests. These matters are in a very different category to child sexual abuse in that lives are not being destroyed because of them, but have implications for the future direction of the church.
By far the most important of those is gender equality, the recognition that men and women are equal before God, equal before the altar. Of course we say they are. We bend over backwards to say they women are wonderful and beautiful, that they are generally more religious than men, that they do wonderful work in choirs and schools and cleaning churches. When it comes to sharing an altar with them, we collectively baulk. Somewhere in the unconscious or conscious we do not accept that they are equal, because we are not willing to share altars with them.
The biggest steps for humankind in the past century had nothing to do with walking on the moon or fighting world wars or inventing micro-chips and computers. They had to do with women reaching (some would say approaching) their rightful place in the world. They attained the vote, equal pay (at least in theory) they became Prime Ministers and Presidents. They joined the priesthood of some churches, but the Roman Catholic Church kept them in their place, at tóin a’ phota, the bottom of the pot. “They were not at the Last Supper, and by Christ they won’t be at the next one,” ran the argument.
There are great worries in the Roman Catholic Church about the shortage of priests, about smaller numbers of increasingly aging priests being landed with more and more work. I know it, particularly when a run of funerals, weddings and christenings come together, as happened earlier this year. The church without a Eucharist is increasingly becoming a reality and it should not necessarily be so, simply because people at the top have closed minds on the question of the ordination of women. Would the half-parishes that have lost priests care if their pastor was a man or a woman?
The answer is not just re-organisation, not just clustering of parishes. It is looking at radical solutions. Don’t ordain women for the wrong reason, because we are running short of men. Ordain those who seek ordination because it is their right. I would dare to suggest that is direction in which the Holy Spirit, like a Baptist at the Jordan, is pointing: “Behold…” Are we looking and listening, or are we just too busy to notice?
There are other areas in the Roman Catholic Church in which the prevailing culture needs to be looked at. In so far as I know the only Bishop to raise questions about them in public is Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe, who is, I understand, to resign on age grounds later this year. I refer to matters such as gender equality in the top echelons as well as in the ministry of the church, and the abolition of compulsory celibacy for priests. These matters are in a very different category to child sexual abuse in that lives are not being destroyed because of them, but have implications for the future direction of the church.
By far the most important of those is gender equality, the recognition that men and women are equal before God, equal before the altar. Of course we say they are. We bend over backwards to say they women are wonderful and beautiful, that they are generally more religious than men, that they do wonderful work in choirs and schools and cleaning churches. When it comes to sharing an altar with them, we collectively baulk. Somewhere in the unconscious or conscious we do not accept that they are equal, because we are not willing to share altars with them.
The biggest steps for humankind in the past century had nothing to do with walking on the moon or fighting world wars or inventing micro-chips and computers. They had to do with women reaching (some would say approaching) their rightful place in the world. They attained the vote, equal pay (at least in theory) they became Prime Ministers and Presidents. They joined the priesthood of some churches, but the Roman Catholic Church kept them in their place, at tóin a’ phota, the bottom of the pot. “They were not at the Last Supper, and by Christ they won’t be at the next one,” ran the argument.
There are great worries in the Roman Catholic Church about the shortage of priests, about smaller numbers of increasingly aging priests being landed with more and more work. I know it, particularly when a run of funerals, weddings and christenings come together, as happened earlier this year. The church without a Eucharist is increasingly becoming a reality and it should not necessarily be so, simply because people at the top have closed minds on the question of the ordination of women. Would the half-parishes that have lost priests care if their pastor was a man or a woman?
The answer is not just re-organisation, not just clustering of parishes. It is looking at radical solutions. Don’t ordain women for the wrong reason, because we are running short of men. Ordain those who seek ordination because it is their right. I would dare to suggest that is direction in which the Holy Spirit, like a Baptist at the Jordan, is pointing: “Behold…” Are we looking and listening, or are we just too busy to notice?
Week ending 5th January 2010
The Twelve Days of Christmas are hastening to an end as the Three Wise Men tie up the loose ends on Little Christmas, the 6th of January. I have remarked in previous years on how quickly we put Christmas behind us and move on. This is a good thing as there are few things more boring than a festival which has overstayed its welcome. Even the Catholic church, for which the festival has been one of its few feel-good factors in recent times, moves on quickly. We are looking at Jesus in our mind’s eye one day, still a cuddly baby in the Bethlehem manger. Less than a week later we join him at Jordan’s bank as he is at the riverside waiting to be baptised by his cousin, John.
Thirty years of Jesus’ life have sped past in a few days in so far as the commemoration of his life in liturgical terms is concerned. We move from one beginning to another, from the start of his life as a person to the beginning of his public life of preaching and teaching which leads him, seemingly inevitably, to the cross. We move from the relatively warm-hearted atmosphere of Bethlehem – in so far as a stable can be described as warm-hearted – to the beginning of the real life of Jesus, the work for which he has come into the world, to make known the work of God through trying to live the best human life possible.
Many people have tried to imagine what is sometimes described as the hidden life of Jesus, those thirty years or so of which we know little or nothing. It is interesting to indulge in such speculation but it does not really tell us anything. The only episode which we have heard about in the gospels is the story of him being lost in the Temple, with Mary and Joseph desperately searching for him. It is a lovely human story that tells us that not everything was completely rosy all the time even in what we call the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
This story shows us Jesus about to move into his teens and beginning to assert himself in typical teenage fashion, feeling that he knows it all. In his case we might even think that he does, but he has still to learn a lot about acceptable human behaviour. You can’t just take off and leave your family in the lurch even if you are the Son of God. For centuries theologians and scripture scholars have wrestled intellectually with the knowledge of Jesus. Did he know it all as he lay there in the straw of the manger? Did he learn like everyone else as he grew up and got to know himself and thought through his mission? That would seem to fit in best with the idea of Incarnation, of God becoming human in the most fundamental way.
It does not really matter to us what Jesus did on a day to day basis as he grew up and learned carpentry, scripture and living skills. All of that has happened when we meet him at the banks of the Jordan asking the blessing of the man who has prepared the way before him, John the Baptist, the Pre-cursor, the one who put his finger on the importance of Jesus, what it was that set him apart. The words John used are repeated on a daily basis by millions throughout the universe: “This is the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sins of the world.”
Thirty years of Jesus’ life have sped past in a few days in so far as the commemoration of his life in liturgical terms is concerned. We move from one beginning to another, from the start of his life as a person to the beginning of his public life of preaching and teaching which leads him, seemingly inevitably, to the cross. We move from the relatively warm-hearted atmosphere of Bethlehem – in so far as a stable can be described as warm-hearted – to the beginning of the real life of Jesus, the work for which he has come into the world, to make known the work of God through trying to live the best human life possible.
Many people have tried to imagine what is sometimes described as the hidden life of Jesus, those thirty years or so of which we know little or nothing. It is interesting to indulge in such speculation but it does not really tell us anything. The only episode which we have heard about in the gospels is the story of him being lost in the Temple, with Mary and Joseph desperately searching for him. It is a lovely human story that tells us that not everything was completely rosy all the time even in what we call the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
This story shows us Jesus about to move into his teens and beginning to assert himself in typical teenage fashion, feeling that he knows it all. In his case we might even think that he does, but he has still to learn a lot about acceptable human behaviour. You can’t just take off and leave your family in the lurch even if you are the Son of God. For centuries theologians and scripture scholars have wrestled intellectually with the knowledge of Jesus. Did he know it all as he lay there in the straw of the manger? Did he learn like everyone else as he grew up and got to know himself and thought through his mission? That would seem to fit in best with the idea of Incarnation, of God becoming human in the most fundamental way.
It does not really matter to us what Jesus did on a day to day basis as he grew up and learned carpentry, scripture and living skills. All of that has happened when we meet him at the banks of the Jordan asking the blessing of the man who has prepared the way before him, John the Baptist, the Pre-cursor, the one who put his finger on the importance of Jesus, what it was that set him apart. The words John used are repeated on a daily basis by millions throughout the universe: “This is the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sins of the world.”
