Masses Today

6.30: Patrick & Nora Lardner, (Anniv)
11.00 Stephen Concannon, (Anniv)
6.30 Brian Flaherty, (Anniv)



Events This Week






AS I WAS SAYING...

If you were asked to select one word that would best characterise humanity in our age, what would it be? Communications? Sex? Drugs? Science? Space? Travel? However, all nouns are somewhat narrow for our purposes. We need a word with 'broader' possibilities, capable of being stretched along a wider spectrum of human behaviour. 'Excess' is a word that comes to mind. The Oxford Dictionary defines 'excess' in the following terms:

"noun & adj. exceeding the accepted limits of moderation, esp. intemperance in eating or drinking. (in pl.) outrageous or immoderate behaviour."

Today 'excess' is associated with almost every field of human endeavour, whether 'work, rest or play'. In all areas, a great many people feel that they have to run in order to stand still. More people are at work now than ever before, and working longer hours at that. Many households require both salaries to meet mortgage demands. Even from the cradle our children are exposed to an insidious consumerism. They imbibe the Brand Names with their mothers' milk! 'Excessive' is too mild a term to describe the demands of some children.

If we work hard, we sure play hard too. Drugs have wreaked havoc in our larger inner cities. The numbers presenting at hospitals and health clinics with sexually transmitted diseases have increased dramatically, by an alarming factor of four in some places. Our general culture is steeped in alcohol, literally. Recently, public concern has concentrated on excessive drinking among our young people. That infamous Prime Time programme told a sad tale. The Accident & Emergency Units in the major hospitals closely resembled a battlefield: the only difference being that, in this case, the prone, retching victims were invariably young women. But, within the adult population, there is much denial. Sooner or later, we will have to face the fact that excessive drinking is neither an infection or a virus.

In recent months also, medical experts and dieticians have been alerting us to increasing obesity among our children. Excessive consumption of unhealthy foods results in unhealthy children. Once again the truth of the old adage is borne out: "You are what you eat."

So, as already stated, excess marks almost every area of human endeavour today. Up to the recent introduction of penalty points, excessive speeding was a real problem. If our behaviour is marked by excess, the price to be paid is more excessive still: alcoholism, road death, burn-out, broken relationships, and general bad health.

It has been observed more than once that, as soon as the Church abandons a practice, the world embraces it with renewed enthusiasm. Lent was a season of fast, abstinence and self-denial. Meat was forbidden. Daily diet was confined to 'one full meal and two collations'. Black and sugarless tea was common. Even hardened drinkers and smokers voluntarily abandoned their vices for the forty days. No weddings or dances were allowed. And the bishop's Lenten Pastoral read like a Press Release from the local Health Board!

-Dick Lyng.




LENTEN SESSION IN PRIORY

You will recall that, at the beginning of Lent last year, we had three sessions in the Priory on the Eucharist. We looked at the Eucharist in Scripture, traced how the doctrine developed down the ages, and we explored some of the 'blind alleys' it entered. All three were very well attended and all participants seemed to enjoy the lively discussions that ensured.

Purpose
What was glaringly obvious last year was a great appetite among you for a greater understanding and knowledge of the faith. Gone are the days when the religious knowledge we gleaned in the National School would sustain us for a lifetime! We now live in a more complex world, obviously, and the understanding of our faith must respond to that complexity.
Content
We concentrated on doctrinal matters last year in confining our explorations to the Eucharist. We will attempt to dip a toe or two into more turbulent waters this year: we will turn our attention to matters moral. I am working on a few themes at the moment and I would welcome any suggestions that you may have regarding topics that we might profitably attend to. A Marist priest named Seán Fagan wrote an excellent book in the mid-1980s called 'Has Sin Changed?' A seriously revised edition was published in the early 1990s. If I can lay my hands on that book I will use it as the basis of the four sessions. As the title suggests, the emphasis throughout the book is on the manner in which our human understanding of sin and morality alters under certain historical influences.
Format
The 'informal atmosphere' that characterised last year's session shall again prevail! Each session will begin with a short talk or presentation. In the unlikely event of there being confusion, 'points of clarification' will be taken. The participants will then disperse to form small groups in which issues raised in the original presentation will be discussed informally. Participants will then return for a Plenary Session and (I hope) general heated discussion on related matters! The evening will conclude with a five minute summary of the of the evenings developments!
When?
At 8.00 in the Priory on Monday, March, 10th; Monday March 24th; Monday March 31st and Monday, April 7th. (We will give the week of St. Patrick's Day a skip).



THE EXAMINATION

'Well doctor, what do you think?'
He took the poem and examined it.
'Mmmm ...'
The clock ticked nervously.
'This will have to come out for a start.'
He stabbed a cold finger into its heart.
'Needs cutting here as well.
This can go.
And this is weak. Needs building up.'
He paused ...
'But it's the Caesura I'm afraid,
Can't do much about that.'
My palms sweated.
'Throw it away and start again, that's my advice.
And on the way out, send in the next patient, will you?'

I buttoned up my manuscript and left.
Outside, it was raining odes and stanzas.
I caught a crowded anthology and went directly home.

Realizing finally that I would never be published.
That I was to remain one of the all-time great unknown poets,
My work rejected by even the vanity presses,
I decided to end it all.

Taking an overdose of Lyricism
I awaited the final peace
When into the room burst the Verse Squad
Followed by the Poetry Police.

-Roger McGough.





LIFE IS A CIRCLE

"We tend to look at life as though it were a straight line from birth to death. The longer the line, the more we imagine that we have lived. But life isn't like that. In the Native American culture, for example, life is seen not as linear, but rather as circular, and once the circle has been completed, at puberty, the person is whole, and the circle continues to expand outwards. In the Native American wisdom, wholeness is not seen as the duration one has lived, but the fullness with which one enters each complete moment."

-Sr. Stan.




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