EVENTS OF THE WEEK
- FEAST OF ST AUGUSTINE: Thanks to all who helped us out -both in the Church and house- for the Feast of St. Augustine on Wednesday evening last. It was a memorable evening and it would just not have been possible without your generous assistance.
- CHURCH RENOVATIONS: Don't forget the meeting tomorrow night at 8.00 at the Priory for the final drafting of the 'Proposals for the Reordering of the Church.' (See Progress Report below)
- READERS FOR SUNDAY EVENING: We are seriously short of Readers for the 6.30 Sunday evening Mass especially. If you would like to help out, please give your name to one of the priests or phone it in during the week to the Priory Office (562524).
- THE PATRICIAN MUSICAL SOCIETY: This group will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of their foundation this year. The occasion will be marked with a special Mass of Thanksgiving on Wednesday night next, September 4th at 7.30pm in St. Augustine's Church. The Principal Celebrant and preacher for the occasion will be Bishop James McLoughlin.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Our Summer has been dominated by the economic 'prophets of doom'. The Celtic Tiger is terminally ill, we are told. All the arrows point in that direction. Redundancies are growing by the week. Stories of immigration are being replaced by stories of emigration. And, of course, the term 'cut-backs' has made its ugly way back into our daily lexicon.
So, before the Tiger goes 'belly-up' entirely, let's have a quick look at his footprints. Despite the stubborn persistence of some bottle-necks, our roads network has improved greatly. (Athlone no longer brings tears to the eyes, as in days of old!) Many of the small towns of rural Ireland have also been transformed in the last ten years. I am thinking of places like New Ross, Enniscorthy, Carlow, Kilkenny, and of course -most spectacularly of all I guess- Galway itself. Many of these towns had been sleepy back-waters in the early eighties, pockmarked by horribly derelict sites and coming alive only on dole-day. Today these large derelict granaries have been transformed into shopping malls, restaurants and tastefully appointed apartments. Those serving in the restaurants are invariably non-Nationals, holding out the future hope of a deeper and wider Irish gene-pool!
So on many, many levels, Ireland has benefited greatly from the visit of the Celtic Tiger. The material landscape has been changed for the better. But what of people's lives? Has the Celtic Tiger improved the Irish 'quality of life'? But what criteria do we use for measuring such imponderables? Happiness? (The U.S. writer Thomas Szasz once defined happiness as "an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults!" He has a point, surely!)
Such discussion leads inevitably to the murky waters of values and ideals. That which we value, and the ideals to which we aspire, must have a crucial bearing on our well-being. With this in mind one Professor Theodore Zeldin from Oxford visited Dublin this week, according to The Irish Independent. The purpose of his visit here was to address a Forum on the European Social Model, whatever that is. In preparation for the Conference, Zeldin assembled over 100 pupils from three Dublin fee-paying secondary schools. Through this assembly, he hoped to assess "the vision of today's young people about tomorrow's Europe."
The Professor was somewhat taken aback by what he discovered. Not alone had they no 'vision for Europe'; but I got the distinct impression from the report that they couldn't give a rattling damn about Europe or any other place for that matter. "The young people I met this morning only focused on their own lives and had no curiosity about others or about the 'menu of life' which they would acquire through travel" the Professor is reported to have said. He found his audience of young people to be utterly self-centred: "Ireland has created a wealthy class which is both enjoying and suffering from its wealth" he stated. It was inevitable, I suppose, that selfishness would have been one of the more unpleasant spores of the Celtic Tiger. Let's hope the Professor's audience of young people was not entirely representative of their peers. If they were, the future is bleak!
-Dick Lyng.
QUOTABLE QUOTES
- The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators!" -Lord Macaulay.
- "I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles round my neck." -Stanley Baldwin.
- "Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everyone else?" - James Thurber.
- "When dealing with people , let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity." -Dale Carnegie.
- "Look to your health and, if you have it, praise God. and value it next to a good conscience. ; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy." -Izaak Walton.
- "Travel light and you can sing in the robber's face." -Juvenal.
- "If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had." -I. F. Stone.
- "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." -Richard Steele.
- "The best is the enemy of the good." -Voltaire.
CHURCH RENOVATIONS
Some have vented their frustration with the slow progress on the Church Renovation project. That is understandable. However, the manner in which we embarked on the project was necessarily time-consuming. I will attempt to outline here as briefly as possible the 'state of play' to date! You all know that the 'outer phase' (the pointing and silicone coating) has been completed for some time now. What I have to say below refers exclusively to the inner phase of the work.
From the outset, we were determined to consult as widely as possible with our parishioners and congregations. Over 70 people were invited to a gathering in the 'Bish' Secondary School on the Monday before Christmas last. This was an 'Ideas Meeting', or a 'Brain Storming'. All present were afforded an opportunity to contribute. It was a wide-ranging discussion. A document was compiled which -we hope- faithfully reflected all contributions. This document was made available later in the Priory Office and in the Church for public scrutiny. Further submissions were invited through our Parish Website. (In fact one very worthwhile proposal was submitted via this medium)
Our next step was to give these proposals practical shape. With this in mind, over twenty people assembled in the S.M.A. conference centre, Claregalway on Saturday, June 15th. Four groups worked separately on four different aspects of the proposals. We are having our final meeting on tomorrow, Monday night at 8.00 in the Priory.
In effect, what we are preparing is a final submission for the Provincial and his Council. There is a clause built into our Augustinian Constitution stipulating that projects requiring an outlay of €15,000 or over have to be ratified by the Provincial and his Council. Obviously the project we have in min will cost far in excess of that.
When this final draft is in place (tomorrow night, we hope) we will contact the Provincial and invite him down to a meeting and -we hope- secure his approval for the project. Incidentally, the proposals are available for inspection at any time.
I hope that clarifies matters somewhat. So after our meeting with the Provincial, which should take place within the fortnight at most, we should be in the position to invite tenders and that sort of thing. Once again, thanks to the people who worked so hard and so professionally on this project. Money might buy the expertise; but it would never secure the level of commitment that we have had from this group. Once again, thanks very much.
ZERO TOLERANCE
If you thought we were bad here in St. Augustine's with the missing fire fender and cross, spare a thought for one Fr. Enrique Calvo of Pococi in Coast Rica. He has been robbed 22 times in the past three months. To add insult to injury, he has been mugged twelve times. Thieves made off with lamps, water pipes and even the sheets off his bed.
The situation, says Fr. Calvo, has turned him into an insomniac. He claims that the last time he slept properly, thieves made off with the church's emergency lighting system.
However, he has begun to retaliate: "If one of you has been robbing me, then he or she can forget about getting a blessing," he recently told his congregation. When he returned to the sacristy after his bit of 'congregation-bashing', the Holy Water, together with its container, had disappeared.
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