AS I WAS SAYING...
The nation is preoccupied. It is pointless speaking about anything else but the obvious today. Sunday last I made this prediction here: "It does now look as if the current National Euphoria will survive the assaults of the Saudis and endure right up to 2.05pm on Sunday week, June 16th. By then eleven members of the Spanish nation will be doing their utmost to turn the Irish dream into a nightmare. And I fear they are well capable of same." I did note that, where Irish-Spanish relations are concerned, history offered very, very few consoling straws!
However meagre be the straws of consolation from the past, the future appears to be entirely bereft of them. For example, as and from Sunday July 14th, there will be only three Masses in the Augustinian at weekends. On the surface, that may appear as bad news. But not necessarily. It may well be good news if it signifies that a problem is being addressed. This is of course part of a response to the decline in Vocations. No grouping or Order in the western Church is immune.
Least of all ourselves, the Irish Augustinians. Regardless of what happens in Korea this afternoon, the Augustinians will keep a sad date with destiny: the curtain will come down on the Augustinian presence in Ballyhaunis. That presence stretches back to 1432, if we are to believe the documents, or 1348 if we are to rely on local lore. Whether or which, that's a very long time to have a presence in a place. Obviously, the departure of the friars from Ballyhaunis will leave a huge gap in that landscape. It is a painful experience, both for the people of the town itself, and for the friars who served there. The trend is regrettable, but was inevitable. Given our high age profile, and our diminishing numbers, closures of religious houses, amalgamations of parishes will accelerate rapidly over the next ten years. Nobody likes to see this happening. But happen it has. And happen it will! And we had better get used to it. Ignoring the reality, and the burial of heads in the sand would be bad news indeed. And quite a few clamoured for the burial of reality.
The other Religious Orders too are enduring a similar testing. We are actually threatened with extinction, no less. It has happened before in history. The names of the Religious Orders (Oratories, Theatines, Ursuline Fathers, to name but three) represented at the 16th century Council of Trent now sound like the names of long dead exotic birds. These Orders arose in response to a particular need in the Church at a particular time. Two possibilities: either the need was successfully addressed, and they died out because their mission was accomplished. Or else, the need changed with time, and, unable to recognise this, they simply faded from the scene as irrelevancies!
A crisis forces us to ask pertinent questions of ourselves, regarding the way we live our lives, and the work we do. We can too glibly presume that we have a role of significance in today's Church. If so, what is it? Or, as was asked of an unrenowned politician in another context, "What are Augustinians for?" What services do we provide that are not provided by the local diocese? Are we there to simply plug gaps in the diocesan system? Or are we there to rival it? We will return to this troubling question later.
Now back to matters of real importance! Enjoy the match and have a really marvellous day. Because an experience such as this doesn't come our way that often! Carpe diem!
-Dick Lyng.
LETTER TO JESUS, SON OF JOSEPH
Ace Management Consultants
Dear Jesus Bar-Joseph,
XXV Via Romana,
Jerusalem
Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men that you have picked for managerial positions in your new organisation. All of them have taken our battery of tests. We have run the results through our computer and arranged personal interviews for each of them with our team of psychologists and vocational aptitude consultants.It is the staff opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background education and vocational aptitude for your enterprise. They have no team concept. Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper. Andrew has no qualities of leadership. The two brothers, James and John, placed personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas shows a sceptical attitude that would tend to undermine morale. Matthew has been blacklisted by the Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus definitely have radical leanings and registered a high score on the manic-depressive scale. One of the candidates, however, shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness, meets people well, has a keen business mind and has contacts in high places. He is highly motivated, ambitious and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your controller and right hand man.
Sincerely,
Nehemiah Bar-Juzubbel, (Director.)
Ace Management Consultants.
Mid Summer Festival
Don't forget our Mid Summer Festival is coming up on the last weekend of this month
See last weeks Newsletter for details
Memorable Quotes
- "My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please. And I am to do what I please." -Frederick the Great.
- "We have to believe in Free Will. We've got no choice." -Isaac B. Singer.
- "Food is not necessarily essential just because you child hates it.." -Katherine Whitehorn.
- "A gentleman is any man who wouldn't hit a woman with his hat on.." -Fred Allen.
- "You don't set a fox to watching the chickens just because he has a lot of experience in the hen house." - Harry S. Truman, referring to Nixon's nomination for President.
- "No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had the money as well.." -Margaret Thatcher.
- "We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." -Lord Macaulay.
- "Love your neighbour, yet pull not down your hedge!- Japanese Proverb.
- "Such another victory and we are ruined." -Eamon Dunphy (no actually, but Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, commenting on the cost of his victory at the battle of Asculum, 279 bc!
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