Week ending 26th May 2015
My favourite line in all of the Bible is the Ascension promise of Jesus: “I will be with you always, yes, until the end of time, or as we say in this part of the country – “Beidh mé in éineacht libh i gcónaí go dtí deiridh an tsaoil.” How is Jesus with us? Through his Spirit, the Holy Spirit whose feast we celebrated last weekend at Whit or Pentecost. There is usually a little confusion at this time of year as the June Bank holiday is often referred to as ‘Whit weekend,’ while the church’s ‘Whit’ is, like Easter, a moveable feast that moves one way or another fifty days after the feast of the resurrection of Jesus, This is where the ‘Pente’ (five) part of Pentecost comes from.
Those of us born and reared in the past century still associate the word Thursday with Ascension, as Ascension Day was on a Thursday for centuries, exactly forty days after Easter. In more recent times the importance of such literal associations has been relaxed, with the feast moving to the following Sunday. You can only go so far with such changes, so there is little likelihood of Ash Wednesday being moved to a Thursday, or Easter Sunday moving to a Monday anytime soon. Still anything is possible with the continuing scarcity of priests. We already have ‘Sunday’ Mass on Saturdays as well as on various weekdays in some places as there are not enough priests available to go around.
Pre-Ascension promises are that Jesus will not abandon us; “I will not leave you orphans, I will come back to you.” At Pentecost Jesus comes back as Spirit to be with us always. I have heard someone recently use the metaphor of radio waves to give a sense of how the Spirit lives with and in us. It has often fascinated me that radio waves were always there but in a sense were only drawn down when instruments to do so were invented in the past century or so. The old folktales of people hearing fairy music may have a fairly simple scientific explanation. A combination of metreological factors may have led to radio waves being accessed, with music from a far-off session being picked up inadvertantly on air.
A TG4 programme about Hy-Brasil a couple of years ago gave a somewhat similar explanation of how an illusion of a faraway city on the horizon may in fact be a picture of a real place transported by athmospheric conditions in something the same way as a television picture. The air waves or whatever it is that gives us the worlkwide web many of us use every day of the week must have always been there but we did not know how to, or did not have the equipment, to plug into it. Many would see the Spirit of God as being with us in a similar sort of way. All we have to do is to decide to access it by our prayer.
It is never a great idea to try and explain any mystery, but some human pictures and experiences give us hints about such matters. That is all. When I was a child at Clogher National school I could never understand how teachers and others considered the Holy Trinity to be a mystery. Nothing was simpler in my little mind. My approach was that if God was all he was cracked up to be he could be anything he liked. No need for further explanation. Ah yes: “Unless we become as little children…”
Those of us born and reared in the past century still associate the word Thursday with Ascension, as Ascension Day was on a Thursday for centuries, exactly forty days after Easter. In more recent times the importance of such literal associations has been relaxed, with the feast moving to the following Sunday. You can only go so far with such changes, so there is little likelihood of Ash Wednesday being moved to a Thursday, or Easter Sunday moving to a Monday anytime soon. Still anything is possible with the continuing scarcity of priests. We already have ‘Sunday’ Mass on Saturdays as well as on various weekdays in some places as there are not enough priests available to go around.
Pre-Ascension promises are that Jesus will not abandon us; “I will not leave you orphans, I will come back to you.” At Pentecost Jesus comes back as Spirit to be with us always. I have heard someone recently use the metaphor of radio waves to give a sense of how the Spirit lives with and in us. It has often fascinated me that radio waves were always there but in a sense were only drawn down when instruments to do so were invented in the past century or so. The old folktales of people hearing fairy music may have a fairly simple scientific explanation. A combination of metreological factors may have led to radio waves being accessed, with music from a far-off session being picked up inadvertantly on air.
A TG4 programme about Hy-Brasil a couple of years ago gave a somewhat similar explanation of how an illusion of a faraway city on the horizon may in fact be a picture of a real place transported by athmospheric conditions in something the same way as a television picture. The air waves or whatever it is that gives us the worlkwide web many of us use every day of the week must have always been there but we did not know how to, or did not have the equipment, to plug into it. Many would see the Spirit of God as being with us in a similar sort of way. All we have to do is to decide to access it by our prayer.
It is never a great idea to try and explain any mystery, but some human pictures and experiences give us hints about such matters. That is all. When I was a child at Clogher National school I could never understand how teachers and others considered the Holy Trinity to be a mystery. Nothing was simpler in my little mind. My approach was that if God was all he was cracked up to be he could be anything he liked. No need for further explanation. Ah yes: “Unless we become as little children…”
Week ending 19th May 2015
It is a time of the year that church focus moves from Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity to the Third Person we refer to as the Holy Spirit. Spirit is not an easy concept to grasp. We can’t catch it in our hands as you might the dove that represents the Spirit in so many medieval paintings, or as you might catch one of the pigeons that is so fond of your vegetable patch now that young vegetables are growing beautifully. It is one thing to beat the carrot-fly by having a raised vegetable bed, another to fend off, not so much the doves of peace as the doves of seeds and plants. Maybe that is the answer, feed them plenty of birdseed, so that they won’t bother your vegetables.
The Holy Spirit came in for some re-branding about fifty years ago, as it was known as the Holy Ghost when I was growing up. I suppose the word ghost had scary connotations and it could have been seen as implying something dead. Spirit on the other hand implies life. The Holy Spirit is the life-force of God which Christians see as living within us even if we are not always inclined to let it out. Just as we often allow the God-son Jesus remain boxed up in a fancy box called a tabernacle in the church, we are sometimes inclined to neatly file away the Spirit in a mythical box of its own in case it might bother anyone.
One of my smart-alecky jokes to anyone within earshot as I close a church door or gate at the end of the day is that I am doing so in case God escapes during the night. God knows it is a joke but sub-consciously it carries a grain of truth. It is handy for us to keep God stashed away at arms length. It is nice to have the power with us so long as it doesn’t bother us or anyone else too much. A place for everything and everything in its place, including God. We can be scared of what might happen if we were really to allow God get off the leash in case he might lose the run of himself.
It happened before, and where did he end up? Like a scarecrow on a cross between two thieves. Not very politically correct if you ask me. He pushed things to the limit altogether when he died and came back to life like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, arriving in locked rooms or walking the roads with disciples who did not recognise him until he broke bread at table with him. He even went so far as to put on a barbeque for some of them, lighting a fire on the strand and cooking fish for them when they came ashore with a great haul of fish. Water into wine, walking on water, calming storms, there was always that touch of a showman about him. No wonder we like to keep him under wraps as much as we can.
Then he took off. Just like that. We call it the Ascension. He had done all a person could do. God the human had lived and died, taught and showed the way, but as one of us he was confined by space and time and the constraints of this world. But he did not go away without making one of the great promises: “I will be with you always, yes until the end of time.” How was he to do that? The Holy Spirit, the Jesus Spirit, the Risen Jesus glorified and unrestrained, unconstrained, unconfined, unrefined in so far as it was the same incarnated, en-fleshed Godman who had walked the roads of Gallilee. He is back. Without a vengeance. “Come Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”
The Holy Spirit came in for some re-branding about fifty years ago, as it was known as the Holy Ghost when I was growing up. I suppose the word ghost had scary connotations and it could have been seen as implying something dead. Spirit on the other hand implies life. The Holy Spirit is the life-force of God which Christians see as living within us even if we are not always inclined to let it out. Just as we often allow the God-son Jesus remain boxed up in a fancy box called a tabernacle in the church, we are sometimes inclined to neatly file away the Spirit in a mythical box of its own in case it might bother anyone.
One of my smart-alecky jokes to anyone within earshot as I close a church door or gate at the end of the day is that I am doing so in case God escapes during the night. God knows it is a joke but sub-consciously it carries a grain of truth. It is handy for us to keep God stashed away at arms length. It is nice to have the power with us so long as it doesn’t bother us or anyone else too much. A place for everything and everything in its place, including God. We can be scared of what might happen if we were really to allow God get off the leash in case he might lose the run of himself.
It happened before, and where did he end up? Like a scarecrow on a cross between two thieves. Not very politically correct if you ask me. He pushed things to the limit altogether when he died and came back to life like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, arriving in locked rooms or walking the roads with disciples who did not recognise him until he broke bread at table with him. He even went so far as to put on a barbeque for some of them, lighting a fire on the strand and cooking fish for them when they came ashore with a great haul of fish. Water into wine, walking on water, calming storms, there was always that touch of a showman about him. No wonder we like to keep him under wraps as much as we can.
Then he took off. Just like that. We call it the Ascension. He had done all a person could do. God the human had lived and died, taught and showed the way, but as one of us he was confined by space and time and the constraints of this world. But he did not go away without making one of the great promises: “I will be with you always, yes until the end of time.” How was he to do that? The Holy Spirit, the Jesus Spirit, the Risen Jesus glorified and unrestrained, unconstrained, unconfined, unrefined in so far as it was the same incarnated, en-fleshed Godman who had walked the roads of Gallilee. He is back. Without a vengeance. “Come Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”
Week ending 12th May 2015
“The Russians are coming” was the title of a film back in the days of the Cold War. “The Americans are coming” sums up recent happenings here in Carna in south-west Conamara. Hot on the heels of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, we had a visit from the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin O’Malley whose family roots are in the Westport area. Both men choose to attend Sunday Mass in the local church as well as visiting the site of the proposed Emigrant’s Remembrance Centre (Ionad Chuimhneachán na nImirceach) which it is proposed to build inside the next year and a half. As both men have deep roots in the West of Ireland, Marty Walsh’s father and mother from Carna and Rosmuc, and Ambassador O’Malley’s grandparents from further North of us in West Mayo, they have a deep interest in and knowledge of emigration, and the importance of such an interpretative centre.
It was my pleasure to welcome the Ambassador and his wife, Deena to Mass in Carna church. I remarked on the fact that Mr O’Malley’s grandparents were leaving the Westport area for the United States at a time my own grandfather, John Staunton was returning from Chicago to a small holding about fifteen miles from theirs. I mentioned that if things had worked out differently, Kevin O’Malley might have been Parish Priest of Carna, with me, naturally enough, as US Ambassador to Ireland. I quickly reassured Mrs O’Malley that things had worked out for the better as they had done. In some ways I was paraphrasing President John F Kennedy’s remarks to our then Uachtarán, Éamon De Valera, fiftytwo years ago, that their roles might have been reversed if things had worked out differently.
I could not resist the temptation to draw the most famous of all the O’Malleys into the equation, as Pirate Queen, Gráinne Mhaol, or Grace O’Malley had been well known in the many bays and coves around Carna in her seafaring days. She is reputed to have monitored the sea traffic into and out of Galway Bay, picking up a few “taxes” in the process. Gráinne would not have been on the diplomatic wing of the O’Malley family, even though she did sail up the Thames to meet Queen Elizabeth the first a little over four hundred years ago. Legend has it that they spoke to each other in Latin, one queen to another. It is not for us to judge the doings of people of that day and age, as it was a very different world to the one we have now.
The Carna Emigrant’s Centre will be built on the site of, and incorporating part of what was once a National School, and later a dancehall. Both of those past lives reverberate with emigrants whose parents or grandparents attended school, or danced at the ceilis or the Feis, or attended dramas there. It is envisaged that family records from Church and State will be available there, as well as folklore collections and recordings of some of the great story-tellers and sean-nós singers of the past. Raidió na Gaeltachta, the Folklore Commission and the Galway University (NUIG) Acadamh have all done many recordings in what is one of the richest areas of folklore in the country, and all of this will add greatly to the visitor attractions. The biggest draw of all will probably for local or visitor to sit with their tea or coffee looking out over a bay in which seaweed is harvested every day, and through which their ancestors rowed their currachs to Mass in the Church which has stood nearby since before Famine times.
It was my pleasure to welcome the Ambassador and his wife, Deena to Mass in Carna church. I remarked on the fact that Mr O’Malley’s grandparents were leaving the Westport area for the United States at a time my own grandfather, John Staunton was returning from Chicago to a small holding about fifteen miles from theirs. I mentioned that if things had worked out differently, Kevin O’Malley might have been Parish Priest of Carna, with me, naturally enough, as US Ambassador to Ireland. I quickly reassured Mrs O’Malley that things had worked out for the better as they had done. In some ways I was paraphrasing President John F Kennedy’s remarks to our then Uachtarán, Éamon De Valera, fiftytwo years ago, that their roles might have been reversed if things had worked out differently.
I could not resist the temptation to draw the most famous of all the O’Malleys into the equation, as Pirate Queen, Gráinne Mhaol, or Grace O’Malley had been well known in the many bays and coves around Carna in her seafaring days. She is reputed to have monitored the sea traffic into and out of Galway Bay, picking up a few “taxes” in the process. Gráinne would not have been on the diplomatic wing of the O’Malley family, even though she did sail up the Thames to meet Queen Elizabeth the first a little over four hundred years ago. Legend has it that they spoke to each other in Latin, one queen to another. It is not for us to judge the doings of people of that day and age, as it was a very different world to the one we have now.
The Carna Emigrant’s Centre will be built on the site of, and incorporating part of what was once a National School, and later a dancehall. Both of those past lives reverberate with emigrants whose parents or grandparents attended school, or danced at the ceilis or the Feis, or attended dramas there. It is envisaged that family records from Church and State will be available there, as well as folklore collections and recordings of some of the great story-tellers and sean-nós singers of the past. Raidió na Gaeltachta, the Folklore Commission and the Galway University (NUIG) Acadamh have all done many recordings in what is one of the richest areas of folklore in the country, and all of this will add greatly to the visitor attractions. The biggest draw of all will probably for local or visitor to sit with their tea or coffee looking out over a bay in which seaweed is harvested every day, and through which their ancestors rowed their currachs to Mass in the Church which has stood nearby since before Famine times.
Week ending 5th May 2015
“We don’t do God” is a phrase attributed to Alastair Campbell, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s spokesperson and spin-doctor. “We don’t do equality,” is a phrase some might use with regard to the church to which I have given more than fifty years of my life since going to Maynooth in 1964. The Roman Catholic Church does not have gender equality behind its altars, and its leadership is not in favour of a yes vote in the marriage equality or same sex marriage referendum. Leading Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin have been careful to ask voters to think seriously about changing the traditional meaning of marriage, rather than asking them to oppose the change that is proposed by the Government. This is fair enough, even though I suspect that more Roman Catholics will in practice support the proposal than vote against. The sensus fidelium, the view from the pew, which is as powerful as any other church infallibility says that now is the right time. The people of God have moved on. Leaders please follow.
I am one of those clergy-persons who intends to vote yes, not to cock a snoot at the leadership of my church, or to jump on a popular bandwagon, but because I think it is the right thing to do. As a follower of Jesus, the a lá carte Jew who recognised when certain laws had run their courses I am convinced that now is the right time to have marriage equality. Perhaps it is the end of marriage as we knew it in relatively recent times, but marriage has gone through many changes down through the centuries. In the lifetime of the Bible itself, marriage changed greatly from Abraham to Jesus despite our emphasis on certain quotes that back-up particular arguments. We are discussing changes in the civil law in the forthcoming referendum. Churches can and will retain their own emphases in the celebration of marriage, but in a pluralist, live and let live society I have no problem with the law of the land being more inclusive.
Right now I think the Roman Catholic church and other churches and religions should be devising appropriate liturgies for the blessing of gay and lesbian marriages of those who would welcome such ceremonies. Many people who choose civil marriage for one reason or another still request and appreciate blessings on such important milestones in their lives. Could any clergyman or woman refuse a blessing asked for in sincerity?
Groupthink was one of those words applied to RTÉ executives in the wake of the defamation of Father Kevin Reynolds a couple of years ago. It can equally be applied to clericalist acceptance of certain arguments without question or proper theological examination. We in the Roman Catholic Church have made so many mistakes in the past half century or so that we need to stand back and question our motives in taking certain stances, in fighting unnecessary battles with outdated catchphrases. It is time to be positive, to welcome gay, lesbian and transgender to the top table.
I am one of those clergy-persons who intends to vote yes, not to cock a snoot at the leadership of my church, or to jump on a popular bandwagon, but because I think it is the right thing to do. As a follower of Jesus, the a lá carte Jew who recognised when certain laws had run their courses I am convinced that now is the right time to have marriage equality. Perhaps it is the end of marriage as we knew it in relatively recent times, but marriage has gone through many changes down through the centuries. In the lifetime of the Bible itself, marriage changed greatly from Abraham to Jesus despite our emphasis on certain quotes that back-up particular arguments. We are discussing changes in the civil law in the forthcoming referendum. Churches can and will retain their own emphases in the celebration of marriage, but in a pluralist, live and let live society I have no problem with the law of the land being more inclusive.
Right now I think the Roman Catholic church and other churches and religions should be devising appropriate liturgies for the blessing of gay and lesbian marriages of those who would welcome such ceremonies. Many people who choose civil marriage for one reason or another still request and appreciate blessings on such important milestones in their lives. Could any clergyman or woman refuse a blessing asked for in sincerity?
Groupthink was one of those words applied to RTÉ executives in the wake of the defamation of Father Kevin Reynolds a couple of years ago. It can equally be applied to clericalist acceptance of certain arguments without question or proper theological examination. We in the Roman Catholic Church have made so many mistakes in the past half century or so that we need to stand back and question our motives in taking certain stances, in fighting unnecessary battles with outdated catchphrases. It is time to be positive, to welcome gay, lesbian and transgender to the top table.