Week ending 24th November 2015
Purple is the colour I and other clergy will be wearing in church most of the time between now and Christmas. It is not that we have suddenly been bitten by the style-bug, or have watched too many fashion programmes on TV. We belong to an older and more enduring fashion, the purple vestments of Lent and Advent. The Advent season begins next weekend, a sure sign that we are within four weeks of Christmas. It 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, who gave us those two love commandments about God and neighbour..
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of nChristmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Maybe it is that I have not been in a position to visit Galway or other shopping towns. When I came to Carna five and a half years ago I missed the easy access I had to Ballinrobe, Castlebar and Westport while in the middle of that particular shopping triangle during the time I was based in Tourmakeady. Here in southwest Conamara we are well provided for as regards food, drink, fuel for the fire, petrol, etc by local shops, and it may be just as well that we do not have the distractions of the big stores from which to buy all the things we don’t need.
The depth of the recession in recent years has led me welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas 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 their 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 of Bethlehem was to become.
In my lifetime I have known a priest who went into a bog to beat a man who was footing turf on a Sunday, fifty or so years ago. Another made himself famous by doing the same in a hayfield. ‘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.’ The zealot beating somebody in field or bog hardly added 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 has to be doled out as sparingly as if from their own pocket, the person with the same attitude to religious commandments about the Sabbath 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. During Advent it might be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. As we contemplate what Jesus brought us it might be worthwhile to consider his fairly relaxed attitude to law and life.
There was a time in which I might have complained about the commercial side of nChristmas starting too early, even though I have not noticed that this has happened in recent weeks. Maybe it is that I have not been in a position to visit Galway or other shopping towns. When I came to Carna five and a half years ago I missed the easy access I had to Ballinrobe, Castlebar and Westport while in the middle of that particular shopping triangle during the time I was based in Tourmakeady. Here in southwest Conamara we are well provided for as regards food, drink, fuel for the fire, petrol, etc by local shops, and it may be just as well that we do not have the distractions of the big stores from which to buy all the things we don’t need.
The depth of the recession in recent years has led me welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas 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 their 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 of Bethlehem was to become.
In my lifetime I have known a priest who went into a bog to beat a man who was footing turf on a Sunday, fifty or so years ago. Another made himself famous by doing the same in a hayfield. ‘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.’ The zealot beating somebody in field or bog hardly added 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 has to be doled out as sparingly as if from their own pocket, the person with the same attitude to religious commandments about the Sabbath 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. During Advent it might be worth our while to learn more of the non-fundamentalist Jesus who believed in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. As we contemplate what Jesus brought us it might be worthwhile to consider his fairly relaxed attitude to law and life.
Week ending 17th November 2015
When the Mayo County football final popped up on TG4 one Sunday afternoon recently, I wondered for a moment why my support was instinctively with Breaffy rather than Castlebar Mitchells. Was it the country village against the town or because Castlebar had won a hatful of championships already? No. It was because a quarter of my roots are in Breaffy. One of my grandmothers left Breaffy to get married in Rathduff by the railway east of Balla a little over a hundred years ago. “What’s another year?” was the title of a Euroision winning song written by Shay Healy and sung by Johnny Logan in 1980. What’s a hundred years when blood ties are involved? It was not a great day for one of my ancestral villages. Good luck to the champions. There will be another year for the vanquished.
I realise the depth of blood ties when the families of people who left Carna or Cill Chiarain a century and a half ago come to my door seeking their roots. Although there are excellent facilities in many places to provide such information, taking into their hands the very book in which a priest wrote their ancestor’s names after christening a child in the 1850s can bring tears to people’s eyes. At that time, and to the present day our people were the people we now see boarding the coffin dingies or walking across Europe (America mainly in their cases) in search of better lives. By comparison the results of football finals, while hurting a bit of pride, are not the end of the world. Hype can be overdone, as in the case of the Irish rugby team, but as Sonia O’Sullivan’s father remarked after one of the few races she didn’t win: “Nobody died out there.”
One of the excitements of my young life in the fifties of the last century was the day the hunt from what is now Breaffy House came charging across the small holdings of our village of Ballydavock. The yelping of hounds, the thunder of horses hooves, the red jackets and black hats brought a rush of colour to the neighbourhood. It was like a cycle race nowadays, gone as soon as it arrived. I never got to see what if anything they were chasing, a fox surely, as Oscar Wilde remarked brilliantly: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.” We paid for the bit of excitement when we had to go out and rebuild stone walls knocked by the horses. This left a bit of resentment in its wake, but the day came in which we sat around tables of what we considered a home of the gentry to enjoy wedding and other receptions. The beggars had not quite got on horseback but we had a sense of comeuppance.
My Breaffy grandmother, Mary Barrett, died relatively young and I barely remember her. I am told she had strong republican views while her husband, Michael Stephens supported W T Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedhail in this State’s first government. He did make a gesture to democracy the night Eamon De Valera’s railway carriage headed west after his stunning election victory in 1932. May grandfather lit a bonfire in sight of the railway line to salute the victor, though he didn’t change the colour of his coat. To the victor the spoils in sport or poitics. You can’t win them all.
I realise the depth of blood ties when the families of people who left Carna or Cill Chiarain a century and a half ago come to my door seeking their roots. Although there are excellent facilities in many places to provide such information, taking into their hands the very book in which a priest wrote their ancestor’s names after christening a child in the 1850s can bring tears to people’s eyes. At that time, and to the present day our people were the people we now see boarding the coffin dingies or walking across Europe (America mainly in their cases) in search of better lives. By comparison the results of football finals, while hurting a bit of pride, are not the end of the world. Hype can be overdone, as in the case of the Irish rugby team, but as Sonia O’Sullivan’s father remarked after one of the few races she didn’t win: “Nobody died out there.”
One of the excitements of my young life in the fifties of the last century was the day the hunt from what is now Breaffy House came charging across the small holdings of our village of Ballydavock. The yelping of hounds, the thunder of horses hooves, the red jackets and black hats brought a rush of colour to the neighbourhood. It was like a cycle race nowadays, gone as soon as it arrived. I never got to see what if anything they were chasing, a fox surely, as Oscar Wilde remarked brilliantly: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.” We paid for the bit of excitement when we had to go out and rebuild stone walls knocked by the horses. This left a bit of resentment in its wake, but the day came in which we sat around tables of what we considered a home of the gentry to enjoy wedding and other receptions. The beggars had not quite got on horseback but we had a sense of comeuppance.
My Breaffy grandmother, Mary Barrett, died relatively young and I barely remember her. I am told she had strong republican views while her husband, Michael Stephens supported W T Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedhail in this State’s first government. He did make a gesture to democracy the night Eamon De Valera’s railway carriage headed west after his stunning election victory in 1932. May grandfather lit a bonfire in sight of the railway line to salute the victor, though he didn’t change the colour of his coat. To the victor the spoils in sport or poitics. You can’t win them all.
Week ending 10th November 2015
The second week in November has a certain resonance for me for the past forty-four years, because this is the week I sailed out in the Naomh Éanna for the first time as curate in the Aran Islands of Inis Oirr and Inis Meáin. 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.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was not too difficult 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 problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down they might be recognised, but were just a blur when put together. But people were patient. They assured me that they 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. It is a method I recommended to my barber recently as he is trying to learn Irish to help his children with their homework. It is no use trying to cram everything at once, or you won’t remember anything.
I have three Saturday evening Masses now and only two on Sunday, at 10.30 in Cill Chiaráin and 11.30 in Carna. When I was only covering one half of the parish I didn’t know what to do with myself on a Sunday morning until Masstime. I usually found myself walking the dog on one of the beautiful sandy beaches, or down a bog road with a magnificent view of the Twelve Bens. As I look out at the Atlantic ocean on my way to Cill Chiaráin and back nowadays, I remember those hectic mornings travelling by currach between the islands. My enduring image of the waves is seeing them coming towards us like rows of two-storey houses.
I am still amazed by the skill and courage of the men on the oars. A deft flick by all three men together would take us out of trouble, but the danger was very real. People risked their lives so that their communities could worship. It was as corageous as previous generations risking their lives around Mass-rocks in penal times. My abiding image of the currach on its ‘missionary;’ journey was of the shoe of Christ walking on the water.
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.
The most difficult aspect of the change was the language. Currachs and boats were easily adapted to by comparison. Saying Mass was not too difficult 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 problem, as everyone seemed to speak so fast. If the words were written down they might be recognised, but were just a blur when put together. But people were patient. They assured me that they 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. It is a method I recommended to my barber recently as he is trying to learn Irish to help his children with their homework. It is no use trying to cram everything at once, or you won’t remember anything.
I have three Saturday evening Masses now and only two on Sunday, at 10.30 in Cill Chiaráin and 11.30 in Carna. When I was only covering one half of the parish I didn’t know what to do with myself on a Sunday morning until Masstime. I usually found myself walking the dog on one of the beautiful sandy beaches, or down a bog road with a magnificent view of the Twelve Bens. As I look out at the Atlantic ocean on my way to Cill Chiaráin and back nowadays, I remember those hectic mornings travelling by currach between the islands. My enduring image of the waves is seeing them coming towards us like rows of two-storey houses.
I am still amazed by the skill and courage of the men on the oars. A deft flick by all three men together would take us out of trouble, but the danger was very real. People risked their lives so that their communities could worship. It was as corageous as previous generations risking their lives around Mass-rocks in penal times. My abiding image of the currach on its ‘missionary;’ journey was of the shoe of Christ walking on the water.
Week ending 3rd November 2015
Sunday last was 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, but then heard it in almost every confession: “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-five 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. As a curate in An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) I was at the Clifden meeting. 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 celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day on November’s Day: “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating, as is the feast of all the saints of Ireland on the sixth of November..
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, but then heard it in almost every confession: “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-five 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. As a curate in An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) I was at the Clifden meeting. 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 celebrated. Many countries have memorials to ‘The Unknown Soldier” The church has its memorial day on November’s Day: “To The Unknown Saints.” It is worth celebrating, as is the feast of all the saints of Ireland on the sixth of November..