Week ending March 25th 2014
The Stations of the Cross are one of the traditional forms of Lenten prayer, although ‘doing the stations’ is not confined to Lent. It is a way of walking the walk with Jesus on his last journey before his crucifixion. Although people generally follow the pictures in a booklet or a church as an aid to meditation, it is a form of prayer that gives great scope to the imagination. The pictures are just a guide. I notice that the same pictures are used here in Carna church as in my previous posting in Tourmakeady. This shows they were mass produced, mainly in Italy, and there is nothing wrong with that. The paintings are realistic enough but do not really show the pain and the suffering and the barbarity that were part of the passion of Christ.
This is understandable. Just as parents would not allow their children watch the savagery depicted in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” and rightly so, the walls of a church can hardly be adorned with pictures aimed to frighten and upset people. Newer or restored churches tend to have more abstract Stations which leave more to the imagination while depicting the love of Mary or the compassion of Simon or Veronica. The Stations are not all about savagery or brutality, but about people’s reaction to those barbarities. The famous slogan of “The News of The World” – “All human life is there” could also be applied to the Stations of the cross, even though the pictures are somewhat different.
The real ‘Station’ this Lent is not on the walls of a church but in places like Syria, the reaction to protest in Ukraine, the ongoing problems in the Phillipines after the severe weather events at the end of last year. All of the emotions we encounter in the Stations of The Cross are there to see in the faces of people caught up in the horrors of war or as a result of uncontrollable forces of nature, shock, horror, disbelief, loss as well as little successes in finding someone alive after many days or the kindnesses of strangers brought in to help with the relief work. We have had our own severe weather events too with constant storms for the first two months of the year. Piers, roads, walls, acres of land have been destroyed and their loss has affected the lives and livelihoods of many people. Areas of South Galway and the midlands are still under water, while people in Cork and Galway fear the next high tide.
The Station that touches me most in the conventional Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrow is the second last, generally known as The Pieta. It was the subject matter for Michaelangelo’s famous statue of that name, with Mary holding the cold body of her dead son in her arms after he has been taken down from the cross. There is a poignancy there that is repeated in every sad situation in which we see a parent parting with their child of any age. It always reminds me of John Millington Synge’s “Riders To The Sea” in which an island mother, Maurya, holds the body of her drowned son for the last time. What always struck me most was that mothers I saw in such situations on Irish islands were much younger than Maurya is generally played on stage.
I once calculated that I had personally known more than twenty young men who were lost at sea. Many more young men and women are lost on the roads or through suicide or cancer. Death at any age is a cause of sorrow, sadness and loss. The Way of Sorrow is not far away, and everyone gets to walk it at some stage. The consolation from a Christian point of view is that it is also the road to the resurrection
This is understandable. Just as parents would not allow their children watch the savagery depicted in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” and rightly so, the walls of a church can hardly be adorned with pictures aimed to frighten and upset people. Newer or restored churches tend to have more abstract Stations which leave more to the imagination while depicting the love of Mary or the compassion of Simon or Veronica. The Stations are not all about savagery or brutality, but about people’s reaction to those barbarities. The famous slogan of “The News of The World” – “All human life is there” could also be applied to the Stations of the cross, even though the pictures are somewhat different.
The real ‘Station’ this Lent is not on the walls of a church but in places like Syria, the reaction to protest in Ukraine, the ongoing problems in the Phillipines after the severe weather events at the end of last year. All of the emotions we encounter in the Stations of The Cross are there to see in the faces of people caught up in the horrors of war or as a result of uncontrollable forces of nature, shock, horror, disbelief, loss as well as little successes in finding someone alive after many days or the kindnesses of strangers brought in to help with the relief work. We have had our own severe weather events too with constant storms for the first two months of the year. Piers, roads, walls, acres of land have been destroyed and their loss has affected the lives and livelihoods of many people. Areas of South Galway and the midlands are still under water, while people in Cork and Galway fear the next high tide.
The Station that touches me most in the conventional Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrow is the second last, generally known as The Pieta. It was the subject matter for Michaelangelo’s famous statue of that name, with Mary holding the cold body of her dead son in her arms after he has been taken down from the cross. There is a poignancy there that is repeated in every sad situation in which we see a parent parting with their child of any age. It always reminds me of John Millington Synge’s “Riders To The Sea” in which an island mother, Maurya, holds the body of her drowned son for the last time. What always struck me most was that mothers I saw in such situations on Irish islands were much younger than Maurya is generally played on stage.
I once calculated that I had personally known more than twenty young men who were lost at sea. Many more young men and women are lost on the roads or through suicide or cancer. Death at any age is a cause of sorrow, sadness and loss. The Way of Sorrow is not far away, and everyone gets to walk it at some stage. The consolation from a Christian point of view is that it is also the road to the resurrection
Week ending March 18th 2014
By the time this article is in print I hope that Castlebar Mitchells are celebrating All Ireland success. As I have no way of knowing in advance, I had better take the advice given to shoemakers in the past and “stick to my last.” In my case this means sticking to the religion and commenting on tomorrow’s feastday. The feast of Saint Joseph on the 19th of March tends to be overshadowed in this country by the Saint Patrick celebrations two days earlier, just as Joseph himself is overshadowed in the New Testament and church history by the great personalities that surrounded him. It is not easy to be the centre of attention if you are sharing a home and a life with the Son of God and the mother of God. In Christian tradition. Joseph comes across as the quintessential figure in the background, the man in the shadows, the supporting actor, a prop on the stage as the great scheme of things we call the story of salvation, is acted out
Joseph is often portrayed in religious art and Christmas cards as an aging, balding grandfathet type, leaning on a staff, while Mary, the teenage mother looks after her baby. It looks like an unconscious way of saying that there is no way this old fellow could be the real father, in case you had doubts about the virgin birth. There is no suggestion in the Bible that Joseph was an old man. In this day and age he would probably be at college, or finishing his apprentiship as a carpenter. There is a story told of Joseph hitting his thumb by mistake with a hammer. The boy Jesus runs to him and asks: “Did you call me, Daddy?” If Pope Francis can drop the “f-word,” why can’t Joseph drop the “J-word.”
That story is just a joke but it suggests more humanity in Joseph than we often give him credit for. Despite arguments and comparisons between nurture and nature, Jesus had to be influenced by the father figure in his life. He learned from him how to hold a hammer, to saw a piece of wood, to drive a nail as well as how to deal with people, to be respectful in the Synagogue or the Temple. How many of the teachings of Jesus that carry Old Testament echoes came to him first from the lips of Joseph? We tend to associate values such as loving God and neighbour with the New Testament, but they were around forever in so far as forever was understood at the time. A recent weekend Bible reading from the Old Testament’s Leviticus speaks of loving the neighbour and not taking revenge.
I sometimes wonder at this time of the year whether carpenters such as Joseph or his apprentice, Jesus would have been asked por ordered to make crosses by the occupying Roman army. I have little doubt that Jesus knew more about wood and nails than the soldiers who nailed him to the cross, missing a stroke now and again and bruising flesh and bone. Death had spared Joseph the pain of Calvary, but Mary was there to listen to what must have been to her the old familiar sound of hammer on nail, and nail on wood. The sounds that had been part of making a living were now part of her son’s dying.
We are sometimes exhorted to follow the example of the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. We think of holy pictures and imagine how easy it must have been for them compared with the realities of life that we have to face. When we really think about it we realise that they did not have it easy at all, but I am sure there was joy and laughter there too. For some reason I can not imagine Joseph without a twinkle in his eye, as well as a gentleness, that with the serenity of Mary led to what we might now term the laidback-ness of Jesus.
Joseph is often portrayed in religious art and Christmas cards as an aging, balding grandfathet type, leaning on a staff, while Mary, the teenage mother looks after her baby. It looks like an unconscious way of saying that there is no way this old fellow could be the real father, in case you had doubts about the virgin birth. There is no suggestion in the Bible that Joseph was an old man. In this day and age he would probably be at college, or finishing his apprentiship as a carpenter. There is a story told of Joseph hitting his thumb by mistake with a hammer. The boy Jesus runs to him and asks: “Did you call me, Daddy?” If Pope Francis can drop the “f-word,” why can’t Joseph drop the “J-word.”
That story is just a joke but it suggests more humanity in Joseph than we often give him credit for. Despite arguments and comparisons between nurture and nature, Jesus had to be influenced by the father figure in his life. He learned from him how to hold a hammer, to saw a piece of wood, to drive a nail as well as how to deal with people, to be respectful in the Synagogue or the Temple. How many of the teachings of Jesus that carry Old Testament echoes came to him first from the lips of Joseph? We tend to associate values such as loving God and neighbour with the New Testament, but they were around forever in so far as forever was understood at the time. A recent weekend Bible reading from the Old Testament’s Leviticus speaks of loving the neighbour and not taking revenge.
I sometimes wonder at this time of the year whether carpenters such as Joseph or his apprentice, Jesus would have been asked por ordered to make crosses by the occupying Roman army. I have little doubt that Jesus knew more about wood and nails than the soldiers who nailed him to the cross, missing a stroke now and again and bruising flesh and bone. Death had spared Joseph the pain of Calvary, but Mary was there to listen to what must have been to her the old familiar sound of hammer on nail, and nail on wood. The sounds that had been part of making a living were now part of her son’s dying.
We are sometimes exhorted to follow the example of the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. We think of holy pictures and imagine how easy it must have been for them compared with the realities of life that we have to face. When we really think about it we realise that they did not have it easy at all, but I am sure there was joy and laughter there too. For some reason I can not imagine Joseph without a twinkle in his eye, as well as a gentleness, that with the serenity of Mary led to what we might now term the laidback-ness of Jesus.
Week ending March 11th 2014
Three years ago I was writing that there is a deep-seated fear here in County Galway that “The Mayos” had their hearts and minds set on world domination. The election of a Mayo Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny TD had been the final straw. Galway people could put up with having a Mayo Archbishop or a Mayo priest, or Mayo Gardaí or football managers from time to time. To have a Mayo Taoiseach meeting President Barak Obama in the Washington White House on Saint Patrick’s Day was the hardest thing for the “Mayo, God help us,” brigade to swallow. “Galway glad to get us” had been replaced by “Ireland glad to get us.” The biggest fear of all was that “The World glad to get us” was the next step on our relentless surge to the top. There was so much political turbulence at the time that many believed that neither the Irish Taoiseach or the incumbent US President would still be in office three years later, but both economies have been stabilised and there is evidence of growth and an end to recession on both sides of the Atlantic.
There is already talk back then of the “Mayo Third Reich,” even though I hastened to put people’s minds to rest that we had no intention at the time of invading Poland. We would allow the Polish men and women who were returning home then, having helped build much of our infrastructure during the celtic tiger years to do that themselves. We had already conquered Britain, something the Germans failed to do. Our emigrants had done that in the past. There is hardly a road, a bridge, a building or a tunnel across the water that has not seen Mayo handiwork. In the meantime many Mayo and other Irish people have played their part in providing infrastructure for a very successful London Olympics.
I expressed my hope three years ago that the new Mayo Taoiseach would bring a bowl of Manulla shamrock to the White House on Saint Patrick’s Day. Manulla, which is part of the parish in which I grew up had long been maligned for refusing a drink to Saint Patrick, the punishment for which was that shamrock would never grow there. It would be a great pleasure to tell President Obama and the rest of the world “Yes it can.” Let the shamrock from The Junction be the symbol of Ireland’s fightback from the recession, I wrote. We are down but not out. It has been suggested that the real reason for refusing Patrick a drink was that he had enough drank already. Water, that is. It is more likely that he had already started his forty day Lenten fast on his way to Croagh Patrick.
Having probably spent more of his time in Mayo than anywhere else – maybe our crowd were harder to convert,- I’m sure Patrick has a pep in his step in the heavenly halls at the moment. He is probably telling all and sundry that his favourite county produced a President and Taoiseach in less than thirty years. Being a saint he is not allowed to make any politically offensive remarks about snakes or anything else. Strangely enough I have been told that our most popular saint out here in Carna, Saint Mac Dara was a Coptic priest, and that for the Coptic Christians the snake was a symbol not of the Garden of Eden serpent but of the snake Aaron raised up on a stick to stop a plague. The idea of Patrick driving out the snakes in that context refers to the Roman church under Patrick triumphing over the Coptic (MacDara) Either way the reputation of both and the common faith they brought has survived for more than fifteen hundred years. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
There is already talk back then of the “Mayo Third Reich,” even though I hastened to put people’s minds to rest that we had no intention at the time of invading Poland. We would allow the Polish men and women who were returning home then, having helped build much of our infrastructure during the celtic tiger years to do that themselves. We had already conquered Britain, something the Germans failed to do. Our emigrants had done that in the past. There is hardly a road, a bridge, a building or a tunnel across the water that has not seen Mayo handiwork. In the meantime many Mayo and other Irish people have played their part in providing infrastructure for a very successful London Olympics.
I expressed my hope three years ago that the new Mayo Taoiseach would bring a bowl of Manulla shamrock to the White House on Saint Patrick’s Day. Manulla, which is part of the parish in which I grew up had long been maligned for refusing a drink to Saint Patrick, the punishment for which was that shamrock would never grow there. It would be a great pleasure to tell President Obama and the rest of the world “Yes it can.” Let the shamrock from The Junction be the symbol of Ireland’s fightback from the recession, I wrote. We are down but not out. It has been suggested that the real reason for refusing Patrick a drink was that he had enough drank already. Water, that is. It is more likely that he had already started his forty day Lenten fast on his way to Croagh Patrick.
Having probably spent more of his time in Mayo than anywhere else – maybe our crowd were harder to convert,- I’m sure Patrick has a pep in his step in the heavenly halls at the moment. He is probably telling all and sundry that his favourite county produced a President and Taoiseach in less than thirty years. Being a saint he is not allowed to make any politically offensive remarks about snakes or anything else. Strangely enough I have been told that our most popular saint out here in Carna, Saint Mac Dara was a Coptic priest, and that for the Coptic Christians the snake was a symbol not of the Garden of Eden serpent but of the snake Aaron raised up on a stick to stop a plague. The idea of Patrick driving out the snakes in that context refers to the Roman church under Patrick triumphing over the Coptic (MacDara) Either way the reputation of both and the common faith they brought has survived for more than fifteen hundred years. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
Week ending March 4th 2014
Ash Wednesday is late this year, the 5th of March, so this is being published on Shrove Tuesday, a day long associated with having a last fling before Lent. The name of the Biblical prophet, Nehemiah does not exactly leap off the page, even for religious maniacs like myself, but he wangled his way into my affections recently when I read of him instructing people to go out and enjoy themselves, to “eat the fat and drink the sweet wine, and send a portion to the one who has nothing prepared ready. For this day is sacred to Our Lord. Do not be sad. The joy of the Lord is your stronghold.” No spoilsport this prophet, he is a suitable patron for Shrove Tuesday, better known in many places as Mardi Gras, or in others such as Rio De Janerio as Carnival Day.
Pancake Tuesday is a long way from the carnival in Rio, but it is one of our last remnants of what was once a strong tradition of pre-Lenten enjoyment, because of course Lent was a lot more difficult in terms of cutbacks and belt tightening then than it is now. I remember the days when church fasting rules laid down: “One small meal and two collations.” As a youngster growing up at the time of this State’s second Coalition Government between 1954 and 1957, I found it hard to get my little brain around how the name of the government ‘coalition’ had found its way into Lenten regulations. Collation was explained to me later as a “light breakfast or tea, preferably not containing an egg.”
I had a February wedding this year on Saint Valentine’s Day, real romantics for the first time in my nearly forty-three years a priest. A glance back fifty or sixty years through the Marriage Register in any parish shows that February weddings were popular because Shrove Tuesday was a big day for getting married, as ‘eating the fat and drinking sweet wine,’ not to speak of frothy Guinness or lethal poitín would be frowned on big time during Lent. There is a tradition in many faiths that fasting is preceded or followed by a bit of a party. We hear quite often of Ramadan these days and how Muslims celebrate afterwards. I have often drawn attention to how many of our feasts, festivals or occasions for enjoyment have their roots in religious celebrations. The experience of officially Godless societies during the heyday of communism in Europe suggest that enjoyment was sadly lacking for many people during those times, and that in itself probably hastened their downfall.
Lent itself has not gone away, you know. It has taken on a different form. People decide themselves on what they will or will not do for Lent, rather than being dictated to. Despite that, it is surprising how many people actually start some programme of spiritual or physical rehabilitation, or both, for Lent. Coming as early as it does this year, Lent fits into the after Christmas operation transformation, as many of us have, perhaps unknown to ourselves, followed the advice of the prophet Nehemiah in eating the fat and drinking the sweet wine. Then too, there is the Trócaire tradition which is there for more than forty years now, and which has taught us that giving is more important than giving up. We can of course do both and enjoy ourselves even more afterwards as we “eat the fat and drink the sweet wine” of celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
Pancake Tuesday is a long way from the carnival in Rio, but it is one of our last remnants of what was once a strong tradition of pre-Lenten enjoyment, because of course Lent was a lot more difficult in terms of cutbacks and belt tightening then than it is now. I remember the days when church fasting rules laid down: “One small meal and two collations.” As a youngster growing up at the time of this State’s second Coalition Government between 1954 and 1957, I found it hard to get my little brain around how the name of the government ‘coalition’ had found its way into Lenten regulations. Collation was explained to me later as a “light breakfast or tea, preferably not containing an egg.”
I had a February wedding this year on Saint Valentine’s Day, real romantics for the first time in my nearly forty-three years a priest. A glance back fifty or sixty years through the Marriage Register in any parish shows that February weddings were popular because Shrove Tuesday was a big day for getting married, as ‘eating the fat and drinking sweet wine,’ not to speak of frothy Guinness or lethal poitín would be frowned on big time during Lent. There is a tradition in many faiths that fasting is preceded or followed by a bit of a party. We hear quite often of Ramadan these days and how Muslims celebrate afterwards. I have often drawn attention to how many of our feasts, festivals or occasions for enjoyment have their roots in religious celebrations. The experience of officially Godless societies during the heyday of communism in Europe suggest that enjoyment was sadly lacking for many people during those times, and that in itself probably hastened their downfall.
Lent itself has not gone away, you know. It has taken on a different form. People decide themselves on what they will or will not do for Lent, rather than being dictated to. Despite that, it is surprising how many people actually start some programme of spiritual or physical rehabilitation, or both, for Lent. Coming as early as it does this year, Lent fits into the after Christmas operation transformation, as many of us have, perhaps unknown to ourselves, followed the advice of the prophet Nehemiah in eating the fat and drinking the sweet wine. Then too, there is the Trócaire tradition which is there for more than forty years now, and which has taught us that giving is more important than giving up. We can of course do both and enjoy ourselves even more afterwards as we “eat the fat and drink the sweet wine” of celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
