EVENTS THIS WEEK
Saturday next, November 2nd, Feast of All Souls. We held a meeting with the Liturgy Committee on Thursday night to review our celebration of this Season of Commemoration in recent years. We decided, with one addition, to continue on the pattern of the recent past. (Incidentally, the Mass for the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed on Saturday at 6.30 will also serve as the Vigil Mass for the following day). So our Commemoration will consist of 5 related elements:
- The 'ordinary' morning Masses of the Feast of All Souls.
- A little Calvary shrine near the sanctuary; you may place photographs, mortuary cards, rosary beads, or Prayer Books of your late relatives at this shrine.
- A "Tree of Remembrance" near the sanctuary. We will make labels available on which you will write the names of those family members whom you wished to have remembered. You will then attach the label to the "Tree of Remembrance."
- A Mass and "Service of Remembrance" on the night of the 2nd of November itself. The central focus of this Mass remained on the parishioners and patrons of St. Augustine's who died in the course of the last year. (See list below).
- This year we will broaden out our Commemoration Service to embrace the tragedy throughout the world. We will highlight locations where people have died and continue to endure unspeakable suffering, whether through oppression, terrorism, disease, famine and natural disasters. So we will lift our minds and hearts beyond our own personal disasters to the sufferings of our less fortunate brothers and sisters.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Times of testing force us back to fundamentals, to fundamental questions in particular. Like, what do young parents expect from the Church? What brings them to Mass? They are in church now through their own choice, not through peer pressure. In fact, social pressure may now operate in the opposite direction! So what deep needs are being addressed by the Church?
The primary concern of every parent is the welfare of their children. Christianity provided the parents in their time with both a map and a compass. The map was mankind ('everyman'), the compass was the charity mandated by the gospels (' As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner.'). If properly intemalised, the compass served you for as long as you lived and worked equally well on whatever part of the map you found yourself.
It was by no means a perfect instrument. For instance, instructions in its use may have been defective. Or the prejudice of the user may have obscured its directions. But it was the most obvious instrument available. In hindsight, the journey could have been far more hazardous without it. Perhaps Christianity, in time, may also provide today's children with similar stability and guidance. Hence the determination of today's parents to keep up connections with the Church through Sunday Mass.
Ever since the 5th century, Christianity has provided western civilisation with its 'Rites of Passage', inherited agents through which difficult journeys are negotiated. Successive generations are not expected to sit down and reinvent the wheel, anthropologically speaking. Birth, adolescence, marriage, sex and death are all 'managed' through Christian ritual. Even from a 'mere' cultural point of view, this is a major inheritance. At times when the human being or community undergoes experiences of profound shock or change, ritual comes into play as it imposes some shape on an experience that would be confusing and shapeless otherwise. Many of you will remember how well ritual functioned on September 11 last. Hundreds of Americans were stranded here in Galway, cut off from their own families and people at a time of such profound national tragedy. Many (including non-Catholics) found great comfort and solace in Catholic ritual. Imperceptibly, it gave shape to an otherwise meaningless, devastating experience.
All Catholic parents will have experienced ritual within the less dramatic context of their own families. The joy they experienced at the birth of their children will have been brought to expression and given shape through the ritual of baptism; their love will have been given ritual expression in the Marriage rite. And the devastating death of loved ones will have been softened through the consoling rituals of the Church..
Ultimately, the Church's credibility will stand or fall on its effectiveness in presenting Jesus Christ as 'the Way, the Truth and the Life'. If it covers up or conceals the truth, it conceals him. "The truth will set you free!" he assured us. Every parent deserves the truth, and freedom.
-Dick Lyng.
OUR FAITHFUL DEPARTED
As mentioned last weekend, our Faithful Departed will be prayerfully remembered at a special "Service of Remembrance" and Mass in the Augustinian Church here on the night of All Souls, Saturday night, November 2nd at 6.30pm. (This will also serve as the Vigil Mass of Sunday). All who were connected with the Augustinian, and who died in the course of the last 12 months will be commemorated in a special way by lighting a candle bearing their names. If possible, we would like a family member to light that candle in the course of the service, and then take it to their homes afterwards.
Below is listed the names of those who died during the last 12 months. Inevitably, there will be names omitted. If you are aware of any name that should be there and is not, please contact us before Friday next.
Name Address Death Date Tony Boyle The Office December 3 Thomas Folan Quay St December 29 Jean Byrne Organist January 3 Kathleen Brennan Shop St February 6 Joe Dolan Bowling Gn. February 13 Katherine Faherty Shantalla February 23 Edward Lynskey Shantalla. February 24 Martin J. Coffey Late Flood St February 27 Etta O'Sullivan Rockbarton March 6 Emmet Fitzgerald Renmore Park March 8 Walter Joyce Castle Park March 10 Mary Kelly Late High St. March 14 Mgs. Louis Naughton High St. March 14 Peggy Tierney Bowling Gn May 2 John Buckley Mervue June 6 Joe McDonagh Emerson Ave June 12 John Foley Highfield Park June 13 Teddy Molloy Riverside July 14 Martin Ryan Lr Abbeygate St July 14 Sadie Joyce Castle Park June 16 Sean Wynne Oranmore July 28 Larry Carter Long Walk September 11 Joe O'Halloran Renmore Pk October 12
CEMETERY SUNDAY
Next Sunday, November 3rd, is Cemetery Sunday in Forthill. Mass will be celebrated there at 12.30, followed by the Blessing of the Graves. I notice that a goodly number of families have made a special effort to clean their graves for that event. Thank you very much. There is really an urgent need for some young pople to volunteer their service in the maintenance of Forthill. We no longer hold an afternoon service in the Cemetery. But the 'morning service' incorporates all elements.
NOVEMBER DEAD LIST
Just to remind you again that the November Dead List envelopes are now available beside the sacristy door. Just write down the names of the faithful departed and they will be remembered at the 11.00 Mass each day during the month of November.
MIGHT I SUGGEST
Dear Father,
Thank you for so many beautiful liturgies and so many innovations over recent years. An integral part of all those celebrations, and especially your 500 year anniversary, was the beautiful choir. Their selected mixture of "trad" church pieces together with Plain Chant are always a great source of joy and add so much to the solemnity and devotion of the Liturgy.
I had hoped that one of the legacies left by the Augustinians after all those 500 years would be a recording/CD of those wonderful Church pieces which have died a death with most Church Choirs. No doubt as time goes on even these pieces will be but a memory, even in the Augie! Is there any chance that on an odd Sunday we could have one congregational piece -even if one of the more "difficult"? The 'musical murmurs' coming from the pews would amaze you!
Finally, may I suggest that a concert or two by your choir of those joyous and well loved sacred and devout pieces (and 'that kind of stuff' as you might say yourself) could be a successful and entirely appropriate way to raise funds for your Church renovations.
Once again, thanks to all for so much joy,
May God direct you all,
-An Eleven o'clock Mass regular.
REFLECTIONS
- "Youth is not properly definable by age. It is a spirit of daring, creating, asserting life, and openly relating to the world." -Malcolm Boyd.
- "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much: it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." -Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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