Week ending 31st March
Stress testing has been in the news quite a lot in recent years, and it got me to thinking of the stress on the apostles of Jesus in the lead-up to the first Easter. As the group’s banker, Judas Iscariot was being tested by the local civil and religious authorities to accept a bailout of thirty pieces of silver. All he had to do in return was to deliver his leader and friend, Jesus of Nazareth into the hands of the law. Imagine the negotiation
Judas: “I can’t do it. You are just going to kill him.”
Negotiator: “Don’t be ridiculous. We just want to ask him a few questions.”
Judas: “You will still kill him, no matter what he answers.”
Negotiator: “We are civilsed people. He will get a fair trial.”
Judas: He was always good to me. I don’t know why I’m even discussing this”
Negotiator: ”Because your conscience is getting at you. Because he is questioning everything we believe in. He is flouting the law of the Sabbath. He is mixing with all kind of undesirables. He needs to be taken out.”
Judas: “He has healed the sick, cured the lame, given sight to the blind…”
Negotiator: “He has pulled the wool over a lot of eyes, you mean.”
Judas: “How can you expect me to betray my leader, my friend?”
Negotiator: “Because of your faith. Because it is the right thing to do. And there is a little nest-egg in it for you.”
Judas: “I’m not doing it for the money. I don’t want the money.”
Negotiator: “Of course you don’t. But he reward is there. I can’t keep it. Look on it as redundancy money.”
We know that Judas failed the stress test, as did Peter when he denied Jesus three times. All of the other apostles did too, except John who had enough courage to follow him to the foot of the cross, with his mother, Mary and some of her friends.
We sometimes think that things are bad for followers of Jesus in this day and age, but that cross on Calvary Hill must have been a particularly lonely place, with just a handful of friends and followers left from the crowds that had rushed from place to place to see and hear him, not to speak of those who had spread coats and palms on the road as he entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
I think that it would amaze Jesus that anyone would pass the stress tests of life or religion. He is aware of our humanity more than anything else. It is what he likes best about us. It is why he decided to join us. He wanted to taste that freedom, that take it or leave it feeling, to show that “take it” was the best choice, doing good the best option. We would stumble and fail, grumble and gripe. We would mess up our stress tests but on balance stay on the right road. And even if we didn’t he would still love us, as he continued to love Peter, Andrew, Thomas, Judas and the rest of them.
The biggest Easter stress test was probably in the garden of Gethsemene in which Jesus sweated blood in fear and trembling as he thought of his impending death and the manner of it. Like the rest of us he wanted to go for the easy option, to “let this chalice (of pain and suffering) pass” His prayer was not answered in the way he wanted. In his loneliness and desolation he questioned God: “Why have you forsaken me?” It was as if God himself had failed his stress test. But even then it was to God he surrendered himself: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”
The next stress test was on the rock at the entrance to his tomb. That was really blown away.
Judas: “I can’t do it. You are just going to kill him.”
Negotiator: “Don’t be ridiculous. We just want to ask him a few questions.”
Judas: “You will still kill him, no matter what he answers.”
Negotiator: “We are civilsed people. He will get a fair trial.”
Judas: He was always good to me. I don’t know why I’m even discussing this”
Negotiator: ”Because your conscience is getting at you. Because he is questioning everything we believe in. He is flouting the law of the Sabbath. He is mixing with all kind of undesirables. He needs to be taken out.”
Judas: “He has healed the sick, cured the lame, given sight to the blind…”
Negotiator: “He has pulled the wool over a lot of eyes, you mean.”
Judas: “How can you expect me to betray my leader, my friend?”
Negotiator: “Because of your faith. Because it is the right thing to do. And there is a little nest-egg in it for you.”
Judas: “I’m not doing it for the money. I don’t want the money.”
Negotiator: “Of course you don’t. But he reward is there. I can’t keep it. Look on it as redundancy money.”
We know that Judas failed the stress test, as did Peter when he denied Jesus three times. All of the other apostles did too, except John who had enough courage to follow him to the foot of the cross, with his mother, Mary and some of her friends.
We sometimes think that things are bad for followers of Jesus in this day and age, but that cross on Calvary Hill must have been a particularly lonely place, with just a handful of friends and followers left from the crowds that had rushed from place to place to see and hear him, not to speak of those who had spread coats and palms on the road as he entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
I think that it would amaze Jesus that anyone would pass the stress tests of life or religion. He is aware of our humanity more than anything else. It is what he likes best about us. It is why he decided to join us. He wanted to taste that freedom, that take it or leave it feeling, to show that “take it” was the best choice, doing good the best option. We would stumble and fail, grumble and gripe. We would mess up our stress tests but on balance stay on the right road. And even if we didn’t he would still love us, as he continued to love Peter, Andrew, Thomas, Judas and the rest of them.
The biggest Easter stress test was probably in the garden of Gethsemene in which Jesus sweated blood in fear and trembling as he thought of his impending death and the manner of it. Like the rest of us he wanted to go for the easy option, to “let this chalice (of pain and suffering) pass” His prayer was not answered in the way he wanted. In his loneliness and desolation he questioned God: “Why have you forsaken me?” It was as if God himself had failed his stress test. But even then it was to God he surrendered himself: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”
The next stress test was on the rock at the entrance to his tomb. That was really blown away.
Week ending 24th March
Five funerals in a week in a country parish left the aging cleric involved (myself) reeling. The only saving grace involved was that all were from their mid-eighties to late nineties. Sad for their families and friends but not nearly as tragic as the death of a young man in a car accident a month earlier that left a widow and two young children. It amazes many people year after year that so many elderly people make it through Christmas and the new year only to be swept away in the cold winds of March. Could it have something to do with Easter’s resurrection hope? New growth, new life, new next life. I don’t know, but every death and every funeral at this time of year focuses believers more and more on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Lenten period that leads up to it..
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 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 peoples 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 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-five young men who were lost at sea, and that number has unfortunately gone to thirty in recent years. 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 Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow is never too 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 resurrection
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 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 peoples 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 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-five young men who were lost at sea, and that number has unfortunately gone to thirty in recent years. 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 Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow is never too 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 resurrection
Week ending 17th March
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 seems to be 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, 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?”
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.
I sometimes wonder at this time of the year whether carpenters such as Joseph or his apprentice, Jesus would have been asked to make crosses bt 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 leading to death.
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?”
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.
I sometimes wonder at this time of the year whether carpenters such as Joseph or his apprentice, Jesus would have been asked to make crosses bt 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 leading to death.
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 10th March
Seachtain na Gaeilge
(Irish language week) which in good Irish fashion tends to last for a
fortnight, takes place before or around Saint Patrick’s Day. Every week is
seachtain na Gaeilge where I live here in Carna, as it is the almost exclusive
language of the area. I am now in the forty-fourth year of a priestly life, all
of which has been spent in Gaeltacht areas. I am at present working on my
fourteenth Irish language novel, as well as having a book for children and two
books of historical nature published in Irish also. My books are being
scrutinised next weekend at a seminar in
Maynooth College. As I write these few words in advance of Seachtain na Gaelge,
it gives me the pleasure of knowing that
some of what I have written will be read and commented on by people of all ages
as well as by people of different nationality in online book clubs. Criticism
may please or displease an author, but it sure beats being ignored.
I am constantly amazed by the number of people from different nationalities who are studying or are fluent in the Irish language. Raidió na Gaeltachta or TG4 are constantly finding people in various parts of the world who can discuss global politics in Gaelic. I listened to a Russian recently discuss the policies of President Vladimir Putin in fluent Irish, while there have been comments from troubled areas such as Syria and Libya by people who went to school in Ireland and learned their Irish here. An increasing number of Ulster Protestants are learning the language and there are a number of them working as journalists north of the Border who write or broadcast regularly in Irish
The Internet has been one of the biggest influences on Irish language expansion in that it keeps many who have left our shores with some smattering of the subject in touch with what they learned in Gaelscoileanna or other schools or Gaeltacht summer colleges. They can hear or read it in virtually any part of the world if they so choose, and many of them do, as calls to Raidió na Gaeltachta, for instance attest. Unfortunately from the nation’s point of view the flow of young people from the country has been devastating for most communities here, but at least they have advantages their fathers, mothers or grandparents did not have when they had to leave. They can keep in touch with the people and things they love through Skype, phone, radio, and TV output.
While it is always nice to think of people in various parts of the world reading your stuff, the fans from nearer home are just as welcome or more so, to join in book-club discussions online. It is always good to get feedback from what we might call ordinary readers, as much as professional critics. Reviewers in newspapers, magazines, radio or television can be more conscious of themselves and how well written their own views are than of what they are supposed to be reviewing. I will be looking forward to the twitters and the tweets, wherever they come from.
I was amused recently to find journalists and leader writers in some of our national newspapers nail their colours so firmly to the mast of free speech after the atrocities in Paris. These same self-styled “quality” papers consistently refuse to review books in Irish. As I have written in the past: “Censorship is as alive and unwell as it ever was, but church and State can no longer be blamed, just the Pale media.” Let’s have free speech in the old language of Ireland too.
I am constantly amazed by the number of people from different nationalities who are studying or are fluent in the Irish language. Raidió na Gaeltachta or TG4 are constantly finding people in various parts of the world who can discuss global politics in Gaelic. I listened to a Russian recently discuss the policies of President Vladimir Putin in fluent Irish, while there have been comments from troubled areas such as Syria and Libya by people who went to school in Ireland and learned their Irish here. An increasing number of Ulster Protestants are learning the language and there are a number of them working as journalists north of the Border who write or broadcast regularly in Irish
The Internet has been one of the biggest influences on Irish language expansion in that it keeps many who have left our shores with some smattering of the subject in touch with what they learned in Gaelscoileanna or other schools or Gaeltacht summer colleges. They can hear or read it in virtually any part of the world if they so choose, and many of them do, as calls to Raidió na Gaeltachta, for instance attest. Unfortunately from the nation’s point of view the flow of young people from the country has been devastating for most communities here, but at least they have advantages their fathers, mothers or grandparents did not have when they had to leave. They can keep in touch with the people and things they love through Skype, phone, radio, and TV output.
While it is always nice to think of people in various parts of the world reading your stuff, the fans from nearer home are just as welcome or more so, to join in book-club discussions online. It is always good to get feedback from what we might call ordinary readers, as much as professional critics. Reviewers in newspapers, magazines, radio or television can be more conscious of themselves and how well written their own views are than of what they are supposed to be reviewing. I will be looking forward to the twitters and the tweets, wherever they come from.
I was amused recently to find journalists and leader writers in some of our national newspapers nail their colours so firmly to the mast of free speech after the atrocities in Paris. These same self-styled “quality” papers consistently refuse to review books in Irish. As I have written in the past: “Censorship is as alive and unwell as it ever was, but church and State can no longer be blamed, just the Pale media.” Let’s have free speech in the old language of Ireland too.
Week ending 3rd March 2015
One of the joys of
priesting close to the sea-shore is the fairly constant supply of fresh fish. I
doubt if the man who brought me fourteen scallops recently knew it was my
birthday, but his present certainly made my day. All I lacked was a candle to
place atop a giant scallop as it sat in an envelope of rasher in its own shell
surrounded by mashed potato. Who needs cake? It is not that most country towns
do not have their own fish shop in this day and age, but it is hard to beat the
freshness of the fish delivered with the sea-water still dripping from it. The
occasional lobster arrives at the door, but lots of the more common and
probably healthier mackerel, pollock, herring, monkfish, haddock and whiting,
as well as farmed salmon from time to time. The big red van with the meat from
Westport supplies enough for the rest of the week. In case you are worried I do
not expect to die of starvation anytime soon.
Even though there are good shops within easy reach, I still like to always have a well stocked freezer. I think this is a throwback to the eleven or so years I spent on islands, and how supplies would run low in the shops if ferryboats failed to sail for a fortnight, as happened frequently enough at this time of the year. I remember such an episode about forty years ago when two young American girls decided to holiday in Inis Oirr in February. They had been told in Galway tourist office that there would be no problem in getting an Aer Arann flight back to the mainland. What they were not told was that although there was an airstrip being built on the island at the time, there was no air service to that particular island. The Naomh Éanna was unable to sail from Galway Docks, so they had to eventually pay £100, a lot of money then, to get a helicopter to bring them to Shannon in order not to lose their jobs back in the States.
I often feel that the gospels are easier to grasp by those who fish or live near sea or lake. Jesus and his disciples spent a lot of time getting into and out of boats as well as sailing from one little town or village to another. Stories of storms at sea make a lot of sense to those who have experienced the vagaries of coastal weather. They also carry deeper meanings than just the sailing or the fishing. The boat is out on the sea of life tossed about on the waves. People have no idea of what is going to happen next, but are encouraged to trust the Lord who showed that he was able to calm the waters. When Peter loses his nerve, the hand of Jesus is there to save him in more ways than one. As people used to gather year after year by Churchfield’s lovely cemetery by the shore of Lough Mask near Tourmakeady to have Mass for their dead, I always felt that Jesus would have been very much at home right there. I feel the same now as we cross to Saint MacDara’s island off the Carna coast each summer for the annual feastday.
So I’m not just in it for the fish. I’m there to try and walk in the shoes of the fishermen and women who followed in the footsteps of Jesus. Many of us thread that path at this time of the year as we celebrate Lent and Easter. It is the path that leads to Calvary, but more importantly, to resurrection.
Even though there are good shops within easy reach, I still like to always have a well stocked freezer. I think this is a throwback to the eleven or so years I spent on islands, and how supplies would run low in the shops if ferryboats failed to sail for a fortnight, as happened frequently enough at this time of the year. I remember such an episode about forty years ago when two young American girls decided to holiday in Inis Oirr in February. They had been told in Galway tourist office that there would be no problem in getting an Aer Arann flight back to the mainland. What they were not told was that although there was an airstrip being built on the island at the time, there was no air service to that particular island. The Naomh Éanna was unable to sail from Galway Docks, so they had to eventually pay £100, a lot of money then, to get a helicopter to bring them to Shannon in order not to lose their jobs back in the States.
I often feel that the gospels are easier to grasp by those who fish or live near sea or lake. Jesus and his disciples spent a lot of time getting into and out of boats as well as sailing from one little town or village to another. Stories of storms at sea make a lot of sense to those who have experienced the vagaries of coastal weather. They also carry deeper meanings than just the sailing or the fishing. The boat is out on the sea of life tossed about on the waves. People have no idea of what is going to happen next, but are encouraged to trust the Lord who showed that he was able to calm the waters. When Peter loses his nerve, the hand of Jesus is there to save him in more ways than one. As people used to gather year after year by Churchfield’s lovely cemetery by the shore of Lough Mask near Tourmakeady to have Mass for their dead, I always felt that Jesus would have been very much at home right there. I feel the same now as we cross to Saint MacDara’s island off the Carna coast each summer for the annual feastday.
So I’m not just in it for the fish. I’m there to try and walk in the shoes of the fishermen and women who followed in the footsteps of Jesus. Many of us thread that path at this time of the year as we celebrate Lent and Easter. It is the path that leads to Calvary, but more importantly, to resurrection.
