AS I WAS SAYING......

I have drawn more than once on the writings of Canadian priest and author Ronald Rolheiser. He has written extensively on matters of the spirit, while retaining a delightful interest in matters of the flesh! He is a great enthusiast of THE NOW, grounding all in the present. Because, he argues, the present is where God wants us to be. He doesn’t want us to be 1950s Catholics, or 2050s Catholics. He wants us to struggle with the reality in which we are now enmeshed, to confront it, to redeem it, and to be redeemed by it. In short, Rolheiser is a refreshing realist!

So three of his books, “Forgotten Among the Lilies”, “The Restless Heart” and “The Shattered Lantern” all struggle towards an understanding of our present, broken reality. He has inspected a whole ‘gallery’ of disaffected, disillusioned Catholics in an effort to illustrate the puzzling complexity of current Catholic reality. For example, he draws a very clear distinction between those who are ‘alienated’ and those who are merely ‘apathetic’, those who shake the fist in anger, those who shrug the shoulders in indifference. While both categories are ‘lapsed’, we are dealing with two entirely different entities.

Rolheiser believes strongly in the old adage: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic”. The indelible mark of baptism is not just a theological construct. He quotes an American Catholic writer, to support his case:

As its Latin root suggests, the word ‘religion’ is linked to the words ligature and ligament, words having both negative and positive connotations, offering both bondage and freedom of movement. For me, religion is the ligament that connects me to my grandmothers, who, representing so clearly the negative and positive aspects of the Christian tradition, made it impossible for me to either reject or accept the religion wholesale. They made it unlikely that I would settle for either the easy answers of fundamentalism or the over-intellectualised banalities of a conventional liberal faith. Instead, the more deeply I’ve reclaimed what was good in their faith, the more they set me free to find my own way.”

That’s an excellent insight, given the struggle that many have today with their own religious upbringing. I meet quite a few sane and apparently healthy people who have revolted bitterly against their Catholic background. They view their tradition as warped, unhealthy, and positively harmful. Yet, curiously, those same people generally find themselves incapable of simply walking away. What happened to them in terms of religion and church has a grip on them, even as they deeply resent a lot of it.

Thus religion is indeed a ligament, offering bondage and freedom at the same time. Where does that leave us? Where any free, adult church or family member should want to be, stamped indelibly with the DNA of the family, yet free enough to offer criticism in the face of the family’s faults and history.

-Dick Lyng

MATTERS OF SOME INTEREST

• Tomorrow, Monday, Sepetmber 10th is the feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, patron of the Holy Souls. As is customary, St. Nicholas’ Breads will be blessed and distributed after the 11.00 Mass.
• The local parish priest will be absent on rigorous pilgrimage for the next couple of weeks. The ‘pastoral can’ will be carried in the meantime by Ben O’Brien
• Work on renovating the church will probably begin on the second week of October. If we are able to accommodate the workers adequately, it should be a quick job enough.
• Perhaps we should think of holding a meeting of the full Steering Committee on Monday, October 1st?

MASSES TODAY

6.30: Free

9.00: Fr. Joseph Curtis, OSA (Anniv)

11.00: Mary Doyle (late choir memeber) (Anniv)

12.15: People of the Parish.

6.30: Free (Anniv)

• Remember in your prayers the late Mario Ward, late of High Street, who died this week.
• Pray also for the sick: Joe Coyne (Whitehall), Gerry Madden (Cross Street), Phyllis Dolan (Bowling Green).
• There is a special collection today for CURA. This is a confidential support service for women, their families and all those distressed by an unwanted pregnancy. It offers support, counselling, ante-natal and post-natal care, as well as after-care for mothers and babies. It is a free service offered to everyone, irrespective of marital status or religious persuasion. While the protection of the unborn child is the first concern of CURA, the life and well-being of the mother is of equal importance. It operates a 24 hour telephone service, seven days a week. (091-562558). Advice can be obtained on a wide range of services:
• Pregnancy Testing
• Social Welfare Entitlements
• Medical Facilities
• Accommodation
• Foster Care
• Adoption
• Help with keeping babies
• Post-abortion Counselling

EAGLE HAS LANDED......!

Sunday, September 2nd

Dear Dick,

I arrived in France Friday night. This morning, at Mass here, the congregation was essentially composed of old women. It was a long, long mass...We would need to take example from Auggi in Galway: a Sunday Letter, a short cut duration, a more playful choral, a cup of tea or coffee at the end...I miss the Auggie people very much! I have just finished to unpack my bags: it was not easy at all, my mind is still in Ireland. I hope for you the holiday will be all right ...and that passport!!

Good bye!

Anne-Emmanuelle.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Congratulations to Paddy and May Melia from New Docks. This is a very special day for them. Sixty years ago to the day, on Tuesday, September 9, 1941 at 7.00 am, Paddy Melia and May Naughton ‘tied the knot’ in the old St. Patrick’s Church on Forster Street. The ceremony was conducted by Archdeacon Glynn and eight guests attended. As Paddy and Mary were plying their troth, Allied troops were landing on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitzbergen. War was of course raging in Europe (through no fault of either Paddy or May!), Cork had hammered Dublin in the hurling final on the previous Sunday, and Galway were preparing for a joust with Kerry in the Football final. (Don’t dare look up the outcome!)

The Archdeacon must have been a liturgically snappy chap, since the happy couple were sitting down to a hearty breakfast at 7.30 in the Great Southern Hotel, no less!! (Paddy claims the Dean paid for it!!) The happy couple then caught the 8.00 am train for a fortnights Honeymoon in Dublin.

Glad that May is recovering very well after a recent accident and, of course, Paddy, at the tender age of 91, is as healthy as a trout!

I know you will both have a delightful day, surrounded by your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Savour every minute of it, and we will be thinking of you both.

FOOTNOTES.....

Yesterday you told me
your feet were made of clay.
I coughed and lit a cigarette
And tried to look away.

Today I woke to find you gone,
A note pinned to the door.
Clay feet can travel pretty fast
Across a bedroom floor.

Went down to the chiropodist,
Said, ‘Take a look at these.
I want them changing into clay.
Be quick about it please.’

Feeling much better now, must say.
I guess it’s just because
Real feet get in the way, but that
was yesterday, that was.

-Jonathan Taylor

QUOTABLE QUOTES

• “ I can sympathise with people’s pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about someone else’s happiness.” -Aldous Huxley.
• “ Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.” -Luigi Barbarito.
• “ Many years ago I chased a woman for almost two years, only to discover that her tastes were exactly like mine: we both were crazy about girls.” -Groucho Marx.
• “ I have never understood this liking for war. It panders to instincts already well catered for within the scope of any domestic establishment.” -Alan Bennett.

QUOTABLE

When we pray for the dead, we do not pray for their relief from punishments meted out by a just and vengeful God. . We pray, rather, that they will be given the courage to move towards the fullness of friendship which God offered them when he created and redeemed them. But, for all our Christian rhetoric, genuinely to accept the friendship which God offers is something which we are rather reluctant to do. We are reluctant precisely because we know it will change us. Because all genuine love is transforming.