Week ending 29th November 2011
Purple is the colour of Advent in church circles. Advent is a kind of mini-Lent, a time to reflect on how things are between God and ourselves, as well as between us and our neighbour as we approach the feast of the birth of our Saviour. As I prepare for this new church season I am pleased to find that my vestments are less threadbare than my investments. I just wonder is there a bit of a colour clash between my white head and my deeply purple overclothes. Perhaps a touch of colour in the hair might add to the season, a little henna maybe, though this may lead to the eternal question being paraphrased: “Which came first, the henna or the egga?”
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe the Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
‘Unnecessary servile work on Sundays’ was a phrase many of us learned from our catechisms as part of the commandment to ‘keep holy the Sabbath Day.’ I have heard of priests who went into field or bog to physically beat those working on Sundays in the past. That level of zealotry certainly added nothing to the holiness of the Sabbath. It was the kind of over-enthusiasm for the letter of the law that Jesus condemned again and again in the Scribes and Pharisees. Like the Civil Servant who acts as if the State money under his/her own control is their own and has to be doled out as sparingly as possible, the person with the same attitude to religious commandments also betrays the spirit of the law.
Jesus preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. During Advent it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus as Christmas recognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of Christmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Many stores at least waited until Halloween was over before showering us with Christmas goods and music. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but the recession has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. “May you always have enough,” was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in these harsh times. We don’t need everything as in celtic tiger times, but it sure helps to have enough
In recent years the depth of the recession has led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it. While many people like to observe the Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, I think the priority in recessionary times is for people to feed themselves and their families. Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good, to heal people in his case. The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man the baby Jesus was to become in later life.
‘Unnecessary servile work on Sundays’ was a phrase many of us learned from our catechisms as part of the commandment to ‘keep holy the Sabbath Day.’ I have heard of priests who went into field or bog to physically beat those working on Sundays in the past. That level of zealotry certainly added nothing to the holiness of the Sabbath. It was the kind of over-enthusiasm for the letter of the law that Jesus condemned again and again in the Scribes and Pharisees. Like the Civil Servant who acts as if the State money under his/her own control is their own and has to be doled out as sparingly as possible, the person with the same attitude to religious commandments also betrays the spirit of the law.
Jesus preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels. It was not as if he was without principle, as shown by his willingness to die for what, or because of what he believed in. He did not make big issues of little things, make mountains from molehills. He knew what was and what was not important. During Advent it would be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Let our own little lullaby to baby Jesus as Christmas recognise his later fairly relaxed attitude to law and to life.
Week ending 22nd November 2011
Down here in the long grass where voters wait patiently between elections before giving the thumbs up or down to governments, like Emperors of old in the Coliseum, the closing of the Irish Embassy to the Vatican is not going down well. The words ‘arrogance’ and ‘Stickie’ are whispered by people who are pleased enough with the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition’s efforts to rescue the State from enormous debt burdens. “Why can’t they just leave it at that?” they ask. “Why are they going out of their way to put ‘the natural party of Government’ back in power with Sinn Féin as a mudguard in time for the 1916 Rising commemoration?” Fine Gael has shown it is capable of dropping to 6% of the votes, 3% of those eligible to vote, PD country, Green Party country, Wipeout country.
The more cynical, who live down at the very grassroots, see the Presidential election as a sop to ‘Old Labour,’ Michael D Higgins and his Director of Elections, Joe Costello, TD, while the Official Sinn Féin/Workers Party/Democratic Left wing, better known as ‘The Stickies’ get on with the real business of life, which has ground to a halt since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even China isn’t really Communist anymore, as their capitalist money gets ready to bailout Europe. It is time to put God and all his/hers/its cohorts back in their place. First the Papal Nuncio became the Papal leg-it, as he was made to leg it out of Dublin. Then the Vatican embassy closure was slipped into the mix as the cherry on the cake of Michael D’s Presidential election victory.
The religious maniacs among us, who lie in wait in the long heather rather than the long grass, would rejoice in a bit of persecution. “Bring back the penal days,” we say, “bring back the catacombs, and the churches will thrive again. Bring it on, Éamon, Pat, and the rest of ye, you’re doing us a favour.” Rumour has it that Sky Sports and Setanta are vying for the television rights of a Gilmore vs God duel at the KO corral. The Minister for Communications could even get it on terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. Some say they have seen footage of poor God facing the wall in the dunces’ corner, wearing a ‘Gilmore for Taoiseach’ t-shirt. Rumours of a ‘Gilmore for God’ campaign have been discounted as premature. “The Presidency and the Tánaiste’s office are enough for now” was the modest line taken by a spokesperson.
As we prepare to dig ourselves into thr trenches or retire to the catacombs, strategies need to be devised to outwit the Politically Correct police who have managed to embarrass God out of existence in polite society. I myself have come to the conclusion that the best term for a ‘supreme being’ might be ‘whatever.’ It is a word in common usage that might also refer to the eternal question. It is a word beloved of teenagers, so it would be a way of getting them to pray unknownst to themselves. Imagine the amount of indulgences that could be gained from all the times they say the magic word. For adults it could give a completely new meaning to the phrase: “Whatever you’re having yourself.”
The more cynical, who live down at the very grassroots, see the Presidential election as a sop to ‘Old Labour,’ Michael D Higgins and his Director of Elections, Joe Costello, TD, while the Official Sinn Féin/Workers Party/Democratic Left wing, better known as ‘The Stickies’ get on with the real business of life, which has ground to a halt since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even China isn’t really Communist anymore, as their capitalist money gets ready to bailout Europe. It is time to put God and all his/hers/its cohorts back in their place. First the Papal Nuncio became the Papal leg-it, as he was made to leg it out of Dublin. Then the Vatican embassy closure was slipped into the mix as the cherry on the cake of Michael D’s Presidential election victory.
The religious maniacs among us, who lie in wait in the long heather rather than the long grass, would rejoice in a bit of persecution. “Bring back the penal days,” we say, “bring back the catacombs, and the churches will thrive again. Bring it on, Éamon, Pat, and the rest of ye, you’re doing us a favour.” Rumour has it that Sky Sports and Setanta are vying for the television rights of a Gilmore vs God duel at the KO corral. The Minister for Communications could even get it on terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. Some say they have seen footage of poor God facing the wall in the dunces’ corner, wearing a ‘Gilmore for Taoiseach’ t-shirt. Rumours of a ‘Gilmore for God’ campaign have been discounted as premature. “The Presidency and the Tánaiste’s office are enough for now” was the modest line taken by a spokesperson.
As we prepare to dig ourselves into thr trenches or retire to the catacombs, strategies need to be devised to outwit the Politically Correct police who have managed to embarrass God out of existence in polite society. I myself have come to the conclusion that the best term for a ‘supreme being’ might be ‘whatever.’ It is a word in common usage that might also refer to the eternal question. It is a word beloved of teenagers, so it would be a way of getting them to pray unknownst to themselves. Imagine the amount of indulgences that could be gained from all the times they say the magic word. For adults it could give a completely new meaning to the phrase: “Whatever you’re having yourself.”
Week ending 15th November 2011
I found it interesting that in the Frontline Presidetial debate on RTÉ, it was the Protestant among the candidates, Church of Ireland member David Norris who spoke up to highlight the way Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Kevin Reynolds had been treated despicably on a Prime Time programme earlier this year. The Parish Priest of Ahascragh in East Galway had been accused of fathering a child through rape in Africa. DNA tests however have proven that he is not the father of the child in question. RTÉ have belatedly apologised. Fr. Reynolds had to step aside from his duties after the programme was broadcast, and no amount of compensation is likely to completely clear his name.
The other six Presidential contestants remained silent on the issue. There are no votes in speaking up for the human rights of a Catholic priest. This is understandable to an extent, given the fact that up to three percent of priests have been involved in child sexual abuse, basically the same percenage as of other males, but considered more serious because of positions of trust. When newly elected President, Mr. Michael D Higgins promised to be a ‘President for all the people’ I hope he meant it. He has a good record on human rights worldwide, but has been rather scathing in his poetry of ‘priests on their high Nellies.’ Human rights can not just be for everyone except Roman Catholic clergymen.
That said, I congratulate President Higgins on his election and wish him well. I was once a staunch supporter of his and voted for him in West Galway for the best part of thirty years. I had been drawn to the Labour Party by a talk given by Dr. Noel Browne in Maynooth College prior to a bye-election in Kildare in the late sixties of the last century. Like many ‘children of the sixties’ I had been influenced by the radical ideas emanating from Paris to Pasadena, by the non violence of the American Civil Rights movement, by the opening up and seeming flowering of my own church after Vatican 11. Like millions of others I wanted part of that new and seemingly imaginative world. While based in the West Galway constituency, Michael D seemed the ideal man to hang my political hat on.
On one occasion the new President contributed inadvertantly to having me silenced by my Archbishop. I travelled with him to a meeting in Limerick in advance of the 1986 Referendum on civil divorce. We were joined on the platform by the late Jim Kemmy TD and proceeded to give our views on the issue. I could not see how the availability of civil divorce would adversely affect my church’s commitment to the sanctity of marriage. Roman Catholics, after all were living in communities all over the world in which civil divorce was available, from Northern Ieland to the USA. A Limerick Parish Priest wrote to Archbishop Joseph Cunnane to complain that I had entered his parish and spoken there without his permission. I was officially ‘silenced,’ not for my views on divorce but for being present without leave in Limerick.
My last contact with the new President of Ireland was a rather vicious and abusive phonecall I received from him when I questioned a decision made by the Department of the Gaeltacht when he was Minister during the Rainbow Coalition Government. ‘Somewhere between apoplectic and apocalyptic’ was what I noted about his rant at the time. For the then Minister it was probably the robust cut and thrust of politics. For me it was devastating and insulting, and it affected my confidence for some time. I eventually got over it and can now wish the new President and his wife Sabina and family well in Aras An Uachtaráin. Weren’t they lucky Tánaiste Éamon Gilmore conveniently or cynically left the closure of the Vatican embassy until the election was over.
The other six Presidential contestants remained silent on the issue. There are no votes in speaking up for the human rights of a Catholic priest. This is understandable to an extent, given the fact that up to three percent of priests have been involved in child sexual abuse, basically the same percenage as of other males, but considered more serious because of positions of trust. When newly elected President, Mr. Michael D Higgins promised to be a ‘President for all the people’ I hope he meant it. He has a good record on human rights worldwide, but has been rather scathing in his poetry of ‘priests on their high Nellies.’ Human rights can not just be for everyone except Roman Catholic clergymen.
That said, I congratulate President Higgins on his election and wish him well. I was once a staunch supporter of his and voted for him in West Galway for the best part of thirty years. I had been drawn to the Labour Party by a talk given by Dr. Noel Browne in Maynooth College prior to a bye-election in Kildare in the late sixties of the last century. Like many ‘children of the sixties’ I had been influenced by the radical ideas emanating from Paris to Pasadena, by the non violence of the American Civil Rights movement, by the opening up and seeming flowering of my own church after Vatican 11. Like millions of others I wanted part of that new and seemingly imaginative world. While based in the West Galway constituency, Michael D seemed the ideal man to hang my political hat on.
On one occasion the new President contributed inadvertantly to having me silenced by my Archbishop. I travelled with him to a meeting in Limerick in advance of the 1986 Referendum on civil divorce. We were joined on the platform by the late Jim Kemmy TD and proceeded to give our views on the issue. I could not see how the availability of civil divorce would adversely affect my church’s commitment to the sanctity of marriage. Roman Catholics, after all were living in communities all over the world in which civil divorce was available, from Northern Ieland to the USA. A Limerick Parish Priest wrote to Archbishop Joseph Cunnane to complain that I had entered his parish and spoken there without his permission. I was officially ‘silenced,’ not for my views on divorce but for being present without leave in Limerick.
My last contact with the new President of Ireland was a rather vicious and abusive phonecall I received from him when I questioned a decision made by the Department of the Gaeltacht when he was Minister during the Rainbow Coalition Government. ‘Somewhere between apoplectic and apocalyptic’ was what I noted about his rant at the time. For the then Minister it was probably the robust cut and thrust of politics. For me it was devastating and insulting, and it affected my confidence for some time. I eventually got over it and can now wish the new President and his wife Sabina and family well in Aras An Uachtaráin. Weren’t they lucky Tánaiste Éamon Gilmore conveniently or cynically left the closure of the Vatican embassy until the election was over.
Week ending 8th November 2011
Forty years ago this week I was introduced, fairly unceremoniously, to the Atlantic Ocean. I sailed out for the first time on the Naomh Éanna as curate on the Aran Islands of Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time as I was stagnating as Prefect of Studies in Saint Jarlath’s College, Tuam. I felt that this is not what I had been ordained for, and expressed such sentiments in ‘The Western People’ in an article entitled – ‘The Dog Collar, From the Inside.’ I wrote: “Supervising the rat-race from the inside of a dog-collar certainly wasn’t my idea of the priesthood, but here I am, a three month old baby priest, providing a police service for those parents who can afford to send their children to secondary boarding school.”
Fairly strong stuff from a young fellow, and I found myself on board what the islanders referred to as ‘An Steamer’ heading for my new posting the following Wednesday. Legend has it that then Bishop of Galway, Westport man, Dr Michael Browne quipped: “Happy the Bishop who has islands in his diocese.” I didn’t care. There was no going back so I faced the wintry seabreeze with the idealism and foolishness of relative youth. It was a life-changing experience, a move from mainland to island life, from English to Irish language, from driving from one place to another on the mainland, to the sometimes hair-raising experience of crossing a couple of miles of dangerous sea by currach between Sunday Masses.
There was an element of culture shock about the move. I found it difficult to believe that such a place existed about sixty miles from where I was born and reared. Many of the island women wore coloured shawls and large red petticoats. Men wore homespun trousers and waistcoats as well as pampooties, a kind of slipper/sandal made from rawhide, with the animal hair still attached. It was not unusual to see a man wade into seawater above his knees while launching a currach, without a seeming care in the world about pneumonia. I was used to limestone walls around fields at home, but on the islands many of the walls were as tall as myself with some enclosed fields not much larger than a cottage kitchen.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was relatively easy as I had the book in front of me and enough school Irish to get on with it, whatever about the pronunciation. Conversation, communication was the biggest problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down I would probably have recognised them, but were just a blur when put together. People on the islands were patient and said they didn’t really expect a new priest to have Irish. They just had to train us, one after the other.. They assured me that they themselves often found English just as difficult when they visited Galway.
My efforts at pidgin Irish were often returned to me in the correct order, so it was up to me to pick it up and try and get it right. The slow slog of trying to get one word or sentence right every day paid off eventually. Apart from those who are linguistic wizards it is surely the best way to try and learn a language. After forty years I would still not hold a candle to a native Irish speaker. Despite that I am pleased that my eleventh Irish language novel (“I gCóngar I gCéin,” Cló Iar Chonnacht – cic@iol.ie)is due for publication the week after next, most of them inspired by forty years on Gaeltacht islands and mainland.
Fairly strong stuff from a young fellow, and I found myself on board what the islanders referred to as ‘An Steamer’ heading for my new posting the following Wednesday. Legend has it that then Bishop of Galway, Westport man, Dr Michael Browne quipped: “Happy the Bishop who has islands in his diocese.” I didn’t care. There was no going back so I faced the wintry seabreeze with the idealism and foolishness of relative youth. It was a life-changing experience, a move from mainland to island life, from English to Irish language, from driving from one place to another on the mainland, to the sometimes hair-raising experience of crossing a couple of miles of dangerous sea by currach between Sunday Masses.
There was an element of culture shock about the move. I found it difficult to believe that such a place existed about sixty miles from where I was born and reared. Many of the island women wore coloured shawls and large red petticoats. Men wore homespun trousers and waistcoats as well as pampooties, a kind of slipper/sandal made from rawhide, with the animal hair still attached. It was not unusual to see a man wade into seawater above his knees while launching a currach, without a seeming care in the world about pneumonia. I was used to limestone walls around fields at home, but on the islands many of the walls were as tall as myself with some enclosed fields not much larger than a cottage kitchen.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was relatively easy as I had the book in front of me and enough school Irish to get on with it, whatever about the pronunciation. Conversation, communication was the biggest problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down I would probably have recognised them, but were just a blur when put together. People on the islands were patient and said they didn’t really expect a new priest to have Irish. They just had to train us, one after the other.. They assured me that they themselves often found English just as difficult when they visited Galway.
My efforts at pidgin Irish were often returned to me in the correct order, so it was up to me to pick it up and try and get it right. The slow slog of trying to get one word or sentence right every day paid off eventually. Apart from those who are linguistic wizards it is surely the best way to try and learn a language. After forty years I would still not hold a candle to a native Irish speaker. Despite that I am pleased that my eleventh Irish language novel (“I gCóngar I gCéin,” Cló Iar Chonnacht – cic@iol.ie)is due for publication the week after next, most of them inspired by forty years on Gaeltacht islands and mainland.
Week ending 1st November 2011
Today is my day, your day, everybodies’ day, All Saints Day, the first of November, Lá Samhna. Most people would be too shy, too humble, too honest to include themselves among the saints, but in the early church all followers of Jesus were referred to as ‘the saints’ in the ‘Acts Of The Apostles.’ The fact is, as far as I can see it, that most people of any religion or none do very little wrong, very little that could be described as sinful, and they can be easily referred to as saints. Most would blush at the thought, but this is the kind of ordinary sainthood celebrated and commemorated on All Saint’s Day.
It is a day set aside for the people who will never make the bigtime, never be canonised or considered as official saints, but they are saints nonetheless, all the more saintly in many cases because they have gone unnoticed, earned their sainthood in the ordinary and everyday, the giving of themselves for others that so many people do for their families and those living with them or near them. We used to think that the statement thet there is no greater love than to lay down your life for others referrred to martyrdom or war, when it is in fact far more applicable to daily living.
I was thinking recently of a story I heard many years ago in the Aran Islands about a young priest who was sent there, like most of us, with very little Irish. He was hearing confession at one side of a church in Inis Mór on his first Saturday there, while the Parish Priest was in the box opposite. When they were finished the young curate referred to the Irish word for cursing – eascaine, which he had heard in the box for the first time: “I don’t know what this eascaine is,” he told the Parish Priest, “but there are an awful lot of them at it.”
They were innocent times when so many people felt the need to invent ‘sins’ to have something to tell in confession, because in fact most of them had no sin on them at all. About thirty years ago when confession was being rebranded as ‘The Sacrament of Reconciliation’ I remember the day that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane brought Monsignor Gerard Mitchell, a former Professor and President of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth around to Diocesan Priest’s Conferences to speak on the subject in Clifden. Monsignor Mitchell was a theologian who was down to earth and told things as he saw them.
There was a sharp intake of breath from priests the age I am now when the Monsignor mentioned that he saw no point in people running to confession when they had nothing to confess. One senior clergyman even went so far as to say: “You don’t really mean that, Monsignor.” He did. Catholics worldwide saw the sense in that too, and drifted away from frequent confession. There was nothing to tell. Most were and in fact are saints in the sense that All Saint’s Day is being celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day on November 1st : “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating.
It is a day set aside for the people who will never make the bigtime, never be canonised or considered as official saints, but they are saints nonetheless, all the more saintly in many cases because they have gone unnoticed, earned their sainthood in the ordinary and everyday, the giving of themselves for others that so many people do for their families and those living with them or near them. We used to think that the statement thet there is no greater love than to lay down your life for others referrred to martyrdom or war, when it is in fact far more applicable to daily living.
I was thinking recently of a story I heard many years ago in the Aran Islands about a young priest who was sent there, like most of us, with very little Irish. He was hearing confession at one side of a church in Inis Mór on his first Saturday there, while the Parish Priest was in the box opposite. When they were finished the young curate referred to the Irish word for cursing – eascaine, which he had heard in the box for the first time: “I don’t know what this eascaine is,” he told the Parish Priest, “but there are an awful lot of them at it.”
They were innocent times when so many people felt the need to invent ‘sins’ to have something to tell in confession, because in fact most of them had no sin on them at all. About thirty years ago when confession was being rebranded as ‘The Sacrament of Reconciliation’ I remember the day that Archbishop Joseph Cunnane brought Monsignor Gerard Mitchell, a former Professor and President of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth around to Diocesan Priest’s Conferences to speak on the subject in Clifden. Monsignor Mitchell was a theologian who was down to earth and told things as he saw them.
There was a sharp intake of breath from priests the age I am now when the Monsignor mentioned that he saw no point in people running to confession when they had nothing to confess. One senior clergyman even went so far as to say: “You don’t really mean that, Monsignor.” He did. Catholics worldwide saw the sense in that too, and drifted away from frequent confession. There was nothing to tell. Most were and in fact are saints in the sense that All Saint’s Day is being celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day on November 1st : “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating.
