AS I WAS SAYING......
Human language is strange, wonderful, and limited. The poet and essayist, T. E. Hulme, once wrote: "Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is it expressed never the exact thing but a compromise - that which is common to you, me and everybody." No seducer ever bored the pants of his or her prey. Physical, emotional and mental tiredness means that we cannot be forever on the alert to what we or others write or say. Boredom, switch-off threatens all human intercourse. Nowhere is this more true than when the subject of our discussion is dry, mathematical economics.
The economy is now central to national debate. A consensus is emerging that the infamous Celtic Tiger is losing his teeth. Even the Governor of the Central Bank, Maurice O'Connell, joined the chorus this week. So, while he is still around, I decided to subject that animal to a cursory inspection during the week! Morgan Stanley, the US merchant bank, published a research report on the Irish economy in 1994. In that report, the cliché 'Celtic Tiger' first saw the light of day. But clichés are, by definition, not new. We are all, at one time or another, second-hand dealers. The central feature of all clichés is dependence. Where do we get our ideas from? (Did I read that somewhere, or did I think it up myself?). Hulme was right. Language is communal and inexact.
The 'Celtic Tiger' cliché is no different. It was borrowed from a number of South East Asian counties experiencing above average growth, such as Indonesia and Thailand. The author of the report, Kevin Gardiner, was one of the first to realise that something similar was happening in Ireland. He subsequently apologised for the Celtic Tiger cliché as a "crime against good taste".
Gardiner's apology was unnecessary. Even the word 'cliché' itself is a convenient shorthand for 'an idea I do not like.' Yet everyone loves bargains, getting things on the cheap, with minimum expense and effort. So the Celtic Tiger became a shorthand tag for a whole cluster of mind-boggling statistics, touching upon economic indices, inflationary spirals, and fluctuating growth rates. When such information is imparted in its undiluted form, the eyes glaze over and the mental regions witness mass emigration. Even less articulate citizens still have a vocabulary for reacting to such an experience: rubbish, tripe, guff, and stronger stuff! Comfortable, communal interchange is made possible only through the humble cliché.
Now to the principal point of this little essay: how much of our religious language is cliché? Lazy substitutions for critical thought, yet essential if humane conversation is to be sustained. If human language is inadequate to convey economic realities, what chance has it when it come to God! Words are utterly unequal to the task in hand. I am entirely sceptical of hard words carved in stone. But the Word became flesh, not stone! And the Word continues to become flesh daily when men and women live, work, suffer and die for each other. In a theological sense too -whether he knew it or not- Hulme was correct: language is communal. As Paul VI pointed out, what we need today is living witnesses to this fact, not preachers peddling religious clichés.
-D.L.
NOEL HESSION WRITES
Dear Dick,Thanks for your message alerting me to the revamped Galway website. That arrived by e-mail obviously. Unfortunately, while my e-mail functions without a hitch, my Internet itself has not worked since I returned here after the Summer. But I make a point of checking in on the Galway site when I visit Portovideo on my monthly shopping trip (monthly only because the journey takes five hours each way!). The site is excellent (I even checked the Forthill records and found to my great relief that I haven't figured there yet!) I noticed Peter Cunnane was on the job.
Things are very busy here at this time. Work is progressing very well on the new Parish Centre. The ground floor of the building has been completed, and we are already planning the upstairs section and the roof. Des Foley is coming out on Provincial Visitation on the 7th November. We will get him to bless the ground floor while he is here.
Now to the real purpose of this letter. Your last report to me on the state of the Augustinian Parish-Ecuador A/C stated that there was about £5,500.00 in that account, I think. The estimated cost of the roof for the new Parish Centre here is $5,500. Could you please withdraw the equivalent of that amount and send it out with Des? If you can send it as an international draft (U.S. dollars) made out to me it would be ideal. I presume that will mean that the credit card account will now be almost empty. But I'll survive!
Once we have the money it should take only two months -or a little longer perhaps- to complete everything. Keep the parishioners in Galway au fait with progress here. I will write a report for the your Sunday Newsletter there, and illustrate developments with some photographs, and I will send the lot home with Des. That should give the people there a better idea of how their money is being spent! The completed Centre will be a huge addition to our facilities here (such as they are!). Regards to all my friends there, and many thanks.
God bless,
Noel
ALL IS CHANGE
Everything changes. Nothing remains the same. And letting go of the way things are, anticipating instead what they might become, frees us to live each moment more fully.
Time marches on and our destiny marches with it. There is a purpose in how our lives unfold; the ups and downs serve our growth. We must neither resent the doldrums or savour too long the elation. Giving too much attention to either state interferes with our awareness of the present. And the present has come to teach us.
-Hazeldine Educational Material, 1991.
A NEW WORLD
We [priests] are pioneers lost in a new world ... Today, the society of Western Europe does not see us as a formidable adversary. Most of the time it does not see us at all: it sees round us and over us but does not look at us. To be ignored as irrelevant is a new experience for the Church. And it calls for a new set of responses. As St Paul found a new way of preaching for the Athenians, who were a completely new proposition when you compared them with his normal audiences, so must we. Because there is no precedent for this, no one can tell us how to do it. No one has been here before. We must feel free to use our native wit and ingenuity, relying always on the power of God: but not to feel the past weighing on us with reproach. We are the first priests to deal with whole populations whose belief muscles have atrophied, where whole societies have devoted themselves to the knee-jerk pursuit of pleasure. In this sense. I believe, we are pioneers, and we are the ones who have to blaze the trail for those who succeed us. And this, in the historical constellation of the Church's ministers, is a position of great honour, not of shame
-TONY PHILPOT, "Priesthood in Reality", p. 54
REFLECTIONS
- "If I were to describe Malebranche's philosophy to you, dear readers, you would find it necessary to lie on your back in the dark for a few days afterwards." -Fergus Finlay in Irish Examiner.
- "It's odd, isn't it, that according to modern prejudice, if a religious philosopher is difficult to understand, it must be because he is irrelevant, and if a secular philosopher is difficult to understand, it must be because he is profound?" -David Quinn in The Irish Catholic.
- "Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees." -Victor Hugo.
- "You may get to the very top of the ladder, and then find it has been leaning against the wrong wall!" -Solomon Schechter.
- "For the ignorant, old age is winter. For the wise, it is harvest, and a blessing." -Jewish proverb.
- "A saint is one who makes goodness attractive." -Lawrence Houseman.
