AS I WAS SAYING...
I always find it daunting to negotiate my way through a large town with which I am not familiar. But as I approached the city I found a clear sign directing me to the road I sought, and a stern "get in lane" message a few meters later. I promptly obeyed. Around the corner there were further directions and instructions to get in lane. By the time I approached the outskirts of the city I was in complete obedience mode and complimenting the Corporation on its clear (if somewhat authoritarian) sign-posting.
As I crossed the county border the clarity of the city faded. The roads were poorly lit and there were no signs that mentioned the county town where I was heading. It was scary and confusing not knowing where I was going. I had an idea that I was on the right road, but I wasn't too sure. I had begun to yearn for the clarity of the city, when suddenly a sign appeared and directed me to the town that was my goal. I would soon arrive safely at my destination and I had time to relax and think as I drove the last few miles.
There was once a time when life and spirituality were a bit like travelling uncertain roads. Great mystics and writers often spoke of how the quest for what is good involves dark periods of unknowing and doubt. But almost every part of human life was guided by trust, providence and adventure - the uncertain values that gave us the strength to keep going. These were the hopes that drove us forward.
Yet in latter years we seem to have sacrificed these skills of yesteryear for the comfortable clarity of the well signposted city. The comfort of clear directive has become ingrained in our psyche and has perhaps destroyed too much of our human taste for adventure and discovery. Experts, studies and other scientific authorities have taken hold of the joyful wanderer and forced him to walk along a pre-defined path.
Nietzsche is dead! The growing tendency to rely on experts, counsellors, tribunals, psychologists and psychics to interpret and direct our life experiences is tragic. While these services are designed to help us see our situation, we often treat them as final diagnoses and use them as an excuse to stop. Once I can be labelled as depressive, bereaved, caring, intelligent, guilty or wandering, I can leave it at that. I am successfully categorised. I can simply get in lane and keep going on a path designed by somebody else, relinquishing responsibility and freedom in one fell swoop. It is very often convenient to forget that we are more than the labels we apply to ourselves.
But for all our analysis we are only trying to do what European communism failed to achieve in the past. The human spirit isn't something that thrives on linear paths. It yearns for the unlit roads and the sense of adventure that is the substance of our dreams, our hopes, our fantasies and our prayers. Our aspirations are muted by this god of clarity that wants to shepherd us into an assembly-line society that even Thomas More didn't envisage in Utopia. The Lord is my shepherd, but I was created with an intellect and a free will, with the ability to pace an unknown route in confidence and trust. The soul wanders unfettered into the desert to meet her maker; the lesser her burden the greater their union. Let's not make the paths through it too straight!
-F. MacE. (Irish Times, Saturday, January 19th, 2002)
- Please remember in your prayers our parishioners who are ill: Teddy Molloy, ( Riverside) Joe Dolan, (Bowling Green), Noel Heaney, (Bohermore), Paddy Flynn, baby Thomas Kavanagh, and Fr. Willie Cummins (Mervue).
- Thanks to all of you who were such a great support to the Lyng family at the time of Paddy's death. The Augustinian choir made his funeral Mass a very sacred event indeed. Eileen, Lizzie and Patrick will draw strength from that Liturgy for the bleak weeks, and months and years to come. The presence of so many of you in the little Church in The Rower was truly humbling. I'm glad you eventually linked up with the gentle, honest and fun-loving people down there. He was 'of them', and they were -with much justification- so proud of him. Needless to say, so were we. His agony over, he now rests with God.
EVENTS THIS WEEK
- The Church Renovation Project subcommittee will hold a further workshop in the front parlour on Monday night next at 5.30. The findings of the pre-Christmas 'brain-storming' session in the 'Bish' have been analysed, collated and committed to paper. They will soon made available to the general congregation.. This project is proceeding very smoothly, by the way, thanks to the professionalism of our project manager, Finn Garvey.
- A full meeting of the Church Steering Committee will be held on Monday night also, but at 8.00pm in the dining room. The agenda for the meeting is a very full and important one, so the presence of as many as possible would be much appreciated.
- Thanks to all the new readers who presented themselves for a Training Session in the Church on Tuesday night last. Thanks to Dolores, who put them through their hoops, and to 'sound (in every sense!) supervisor' Gearoid, who ironed out technical difficulties. Our Liturgy group meets weekly on Wednesday nights in the front parlour at 8.00pm. This is now a very active group and they seem to knock a bit of fun out of working together. (Fun should be banned!) They have now begun preparing the Liturgy for Lent and Easter. The Liturgy Group would of course warmly welcome new members.
- Fr. Scanlan, a Kiltegan Missionary Priest, will be promoting the work of his congregation at all the Masses in this church today. Hear him out!
- Jackie Ferguson, Menlo, has an interesting Art Exhibition across the road in the County Library. It is unusual, and well worth a visit.
- Calling all past-pupils of the Bish and the Mon: A special Mass will be held next Sunday at 3PM. To acknowledge the work of the Patricians in Galway, there will be a dramatic presentation of the history of the Brothers in Galway since 1826.
POETS PASSING
By a perverted act of will
the poet injects limelight in his veins
till what was exhilaration
has become the poet's opium.
Soon in some public place
he must explain and must reshape
the very gift he has
as if the public were the giver,
refine his accent, modify his speech,
must jingle literary cap and bells
and end with insulted brain and liver
far from Wales on a mortuary slab
or with an exhausted heart
in a New York taxi-cab
or out of human reach
in the last of his self-inflicted hells,
by the Mississippi river.
-Michael Hartnett.
THE AUGUSTINIAN PRIORY
This time a hundred years ago (in May, 1839) the Galway fathers were completing their first year of residence in the new convent in Back St., now better known as St. Augustine's Street. Preparations for the building were begun in 1833. The architect was a Mr. William Brady, who designed it on the lines of a country house-Blake's of Cregg- a kind family with whom the fathers found refuge in their homeless days. The masons were Bolger and Nugent : the stone-cutter was Leonard: the " sawyer were Molloy and Rochford. And so on : we have the names of all the tradesmen. The fathers paid them weekly. In 1836 more than £1,300 had been expended, the full amount having been realised by a sale of old landed property of the fathers.
In 1837 a double flight of steps in limestone-the work of Leonard-was erected at the hall-door. Then came a railing from the foundry of John Stephens and externally the new convent was complete.
On May 15th, 1839, workmen were engaged removing furniture, etc., from the old house in Middle St. to the new house in Back St.
At a Chapter of the Irish Province held in July, 1839, the Galway community were congratulated on having a worthy new convent-the first provided for the fathers since the destruction of Forthill monastery in 1645 A.D.
Following the Chapter of 1839, the Galway community consisted of :
Dr. Austin Killeen, O.S.A., Prior
Fr. Austen McDermott, O.S.A. (late Prior)
Father John Lean, O.S.A. Procurator.
As a book-keeper of the convent, Father Lean recorded the following for 1839:
"In Sept.-The old house in Middle St. was repaired for leasing to a tenant.
Nov. 3rd.-The collection of this Sunday was given to the Funds for clothing the children of the Catechetical society.
Dec. 8th-0bsequies for Sister Mary Kelly, O.S.A. (one of the Augustinian nuns of Market St.)"
The Catechetical society is worthy of special attention. It is more fully described by Dr. Austin Killeen in a note dated October 26th, 1834:
"The collection of this Sunday was given to the Funds for clothing the catechism girls-The society being under care of the Fathers of this House."The founder of this society was Father Nicholas Clayton, O.S.A., who was prior of Galway for the years 1819-1822. Its object was the care of destitute girls in danger of the agents of proselytism. In this charitable work he was helped, not only by his own community, but by devoted lay-people who gladly acted as catechists, and had at heart all the interests of the society. Two years after its inception, Father Clayton died (in October, 1822), but his work was continued by the Augustinian fathers down to the year 1844.
In a spacious house in High Street, Galway, Nicholas Clayton was born in 1790. His father, John Clayton, was a wine merchant. His brother Matthew, of different taste, traded in musical instruments. A handsome old arch, that is still a striking feature of High St., was the entrance to their home.
Taken from Good Counsel Magazine, July, 1939
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