EVENTS THIS WEEK
- ANNUAL HARVEST FESTIVAL: We are celebrating the Annual Harvest Festival on Sunday next, October 13th. We are stressing the importance of participation this year. We would encourage everyone to bring along some home-produced items, like bread, jam, or whatever along to the Mass. We will have organised some method of presenting these 'first-fruits' in an Offertory Procession. We will also decorate the church in an appropriate manner for the occasion. We are aiming at a 'harvest theme', obviously. So if you have any ideas or artefacts for enhancing the church, please feel free to contribute. We will meet on Thursday night next at 8.30 to finalise matters. We will also hold a very short meeting after the 11.00 Mass today.
- CHURCH RENOVATION GROUP: Meeting as usual on Monday evening next at 5.30 in the front room. to finalise the Professional Services Brief and to select a Consultant. This is probably the final meeting devoted to planning the project. The planning is now completed. We have now arrived at the stage where we are trying to secure people to carry out the work.
- EUCHARISTIC MINISTERS: We will commission our six new Eucharistic Ministers in two weeks, at the 11.00 Mass on Sunday October 20th. Any chance of a few new readers for the evening Masses especially?
- MARRIAGE ENRICHMENT DAY: ACCORD has asked us to draw your attention to the following: a one day course designed to help married couples of all ages renew and refresh their marriage will be held in Guillane's Hotel, Main Street, Ballinasloe on Saturday, November 23rd from 10.00am to 5.00pm.
AS I WAS SAYING...
How can we best provide for young children at our Sunday Masses. Since the recent Mass changes, the number of children frequenting the 11.00 has increased greatly. This is a welcome development. It is a practice we should foster at every given opportunity. However, it does present a few minor (or junior?) problems that now require attention.
It is a bit much to expect little children of that age to retain their composure throughout our long, rambling, adult-oriented liturgies. Show me a two-year-old who hasn't yet heckled a preacher and I will show you a child with serious hearing problems! And I suppose too it is a bit much to expect the adults in the immediate vicinity of the young screamers to retain THEIR composure throughout! So it is in all our interests discuss this matter.
This 'problem' is by no means new. Some twenty five years ago now, I was stationed in Drogheda. (The Augustinian church in Drogheda is -for all practical purposes- identical to our church here in Galway. In fact the same architect was responsible for both). For whatever reason, over half the congregation on any given Sunday in Drogheda at that time seemed to be infants. The decibel level was quite impressive! Consequently, the community there decided to construct a 'Crying Room' adjacent to the church in response to the difficulty.
It appeared to be the ideal solution. It was spacious, comfortable, and user-friendly; in addition, a sound-proofed glass partition opened out on to the church itself. A speaker ensured that every word pronounced in the pulpit was heard clearly in the Crying Room.
Despite all this, the room was rarely if ever used. It proved to be a waste of time and money. It was difficult to establish the precise reasons for the 'boycott', if boycott it was. But, from the outset, the project had one glaring weakness: the parents of the children had never been consulted about the construction of the room. Perhaps they regarded the Crying Room as a sort of an 'ecclesiastical ghetto' to which they had no intention of banishing their child? I simply don't know. But we will try to avoid the mistake here.
A couple of simple proposals were made during the week. Essentially, it involved one proposal with minor variations. I will put it to those of you immediately concerned (ie. the parents of the young children). You can then begin to discuss this among yourselves. It runs as follows:
At the beginning of the Mass, the young children would be taken to the Priory dinging room. There they would be 'supervised' by an adult or two. The Liturgy of the Word (the Readings) would be presented to them in a manner appropriate to their years. Drawings and paintings on scriptural themes would also be encouraged. At the Offertory of the Mass (some suggested at Communion) the children would return to the church and offer the 'fruits of their labour' (drawings) within the setting of the Liturgy. Apparently this practice is already in place in other churches. It makes sense to me.
What do you think?
-Dick Lyng.REMEMBER HIM?
Dear Father Lyng,
As an avid reader of your Sunday Message, I observed a reference you made during the Summer to a particular individual's contribution to the Galway Arts Festival. Since you were the only critic who publicised his undoubted 'talents', I thought it only appropriate that you should have this fond reminder of same. I was lucky enough to capture him in the course of what appeared to be his "Master Class". It could therefore transpire that his 'star pupils' may grace next year's event!
While it does seem his repertoire was confined to 'Galway Bay' on this occasion, I have been reliably informed that he hopes to have the full score of "The Rose of Mooncoin" for his next visit!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the memory.
Kindest regards,
Martin.
Ps. The dog is in training too! -M.
GALWAY BOYS' CHOIR
The very successful Galway Boys' Choir will be holding auditions for new members in the next few weeks. All boys (7-14 years) who are interested in music and eager to be part of a winning team are most welcome. For further information please contact Maureen at 087-2308860.
Expensive Lessons...
'Not to put too fine a point on it,'-Roger McGough
Said the Bank Manager, pushing my finger
Into the desk-top pencil-sharpener,
'But you have a larger overdraft
Than I had given you credit for.'
He turned the handle. Turned the screw.
'Sorry, there's nothing we can do.
Business is business, we need our pound of flesh.
Next finger please. Put it in and...........PUSH.'
"Quote, Unquote........ "
- "It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen." -Oliver Wendell Holmes.
- "Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once." -Cyril Connolly.
- "The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is constant, but nowadays the illiterates can write." -Alberto Moravia.
- "To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all." -Randall Jarrell.
- "Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes; in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a bit more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to." -J.R.R. Tolkien.
- "You know very well that, unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true." -Christopher Hampton.
- "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." -George Bernard Shaw.
THE EMPTY PEWS
"The first step is to try to understand what it is that 'lapsed' Catholics are rejecting. One can say with some confidence that it is very unlikely that anyone is out to reject God, or trample on any crucifixes; though it is quite possible to drive them to that! It is important to understand what is actually being said. A certain reaction to an over-religious childhood, or to a sense of having been 'forced to go to Church', especially at an early hour on Sunday morning(!), is frequent and understandable, and sometimes even articulated as atheism. A revulsion at evil in the world, or the darker side of Christians, is almost to be approved, provided that one realises that this is not the end of the story but a beginning of a new growth in faith, often unconscious and frequently slow. The second might be to clarify what one actually wants for them: is it merely a social conformity, or are we alarmed when a son or daughter suddenly starts to think for themselves? It should be said in passing that Catholicism is as well suited to empty, lukewarm conformity as to any other habitual activity: be honest about your own religion."
-Laurence McTaggart, O.S.B. in "Being Catholic Today."