Masses Today

6.30: John Burke, (Anniv)
11.00 Eva Daly, (Anniv)
6.30 Michael & Una Beatty, (Anniv)
Remember also Dorothy Traynor whose anniversary occurs at this time.



Events This Week






AS I WAS SAYING...

Holy Week is upon us. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. As will be obvious from notices in this week's Newsletter, the preparation for the Easter Triduum is very demanding. But of course the more people involve themselves, the lighter the load. We would really love to see more people coming forward to offer their services during the week. Because this is a very special time for all Christians. From the Church's point of view, Holy Week is the most important week of the year, since the central mystery of our faith -the death and resurrection of Christ- is celebrated liturgically. To paraphrase St. Paul, 'were it not for this week, our faith would be in vain and we would be the most wretched of all creatures'.

Yet it is almost impossible to convey the importance of Holy Week to our Catholic people, even to our church-going Catholics. Easter never gripped the popular imagination in the same way as Christmas does. Easter hasn't at all the same popular cultural attractions of Christmas. Apart from the Celebration of the Lord's Passion at 3.00 on Good Friday afternoon, the Easter Ceremonies are very poorly attended. We get a congregation of about 100 people for the most majestic night of the Church's year, the celebration of the Easter Vigil. Christmas night, on the other hand, attracts over up to 1,000 people. Why is that, I wonder?

Some people suggested moving the Easter Vigil back from its present 9.00 slot to an earlier hour. But, if we did that we would remove the central symbolic hub of the ceremony: the Light versus Darkness contrast. Besides (on a more practical level) if people are not prepared to come out at 9.00, I doubt very much if they will come out at 8.00.

However, in liturgical terms, Christmas would not hold a candle to Holy Week, if you please pardon the poor pun! The celebration of Holy Week is a far, far richer expression of our beliefs, a far more imaginative and dramatic meditation on the mystery of our faith. The liturgical rituals celebrated during those three days range over the full gamut of human experience and emotion, from the sombre darkness of Good Friday to the exuberant, poetic strains of the triumphant Exultet, the hymn of praise to the Paschal Candle.

Whether we are aware of it or not, the human being stands in need of ritual and symbol. It connects us to the basic elements of our world (fire, water, air, earth), and, at the same time, it opens us the possibility of transcending that world. It helps us negotiate key events (birth, marriage, death) by holding out to us the hope of our readjusting to changed circumstances. It provides traumatised experience with a structure. (Could you imagine the vacuum left by the 'ritual-free' burial of a close friend?). We need ritual because we are human; we are humanised too by ritual. We tend to trivialise ritual today, to dismiss it as 'mumbo-junibo'. How often have we all heard the Marriage Certificate dismissed as 'just a piece of paper'? I have yet to hear a lotto ticket, or a cheque for that matter, dismissed with similar contempt! Or the national flag dismissed as 'a few feet of multi-coloured synthetic fabric'? In subscribing to such unthinking minimalism, we run the risk of severing our links with saving wisdom. The ritual which we will see enacted in our churches during Holy Week is the product of the cumulative reflection of two thousand years. Entering fully into that ritual can be an enlightening and a liberating experience. Why not get involved?

-Dick Lyng.




CHURCH AND COHABITATION

The (London) Times runs a weekly Discussion Page (debate@thetimes.co.uk). The editor proposes a topic for debate and invites comments. Last week a Southwark Diocese (Anglican) Report suggested the Church should 'revisit' its stance on cohabitation. (They are 'against it' at the moment, apparently!) The Times proposed ''The Church and Cohabitation' as a topic for debate. It provoked responses from a broad spectrum, ranging from the outright opposition of evangelical fundamentalists to the more laid-back indifferentism of 'infrequent Anglicans'. The following contributions may give you a flavour of the debate:

As a 30-year-old evangelical Christian, I am very disappointed by the suggestions of the Southwark Diocese report.

I acknowledge the public's loss of faith in t the Church as a central pillar of life. This is sad, but I don't think it is unreasonable. The public's knowledge of the Church results from a combination occasional attendance of a formal wedding, and the endless media scandals of priests involved in child abuse, gay priests and various radical clergy suggesting the Christ condone whatever sin they most enjoy.

I believe my generation is becoming sick of the moral vacuum of the "anything goes" culture. We are engulfed in a sea of single-parents families, with divorce a near-certain consequence of marriage. The responsibility of the Church is to stand above this moral decline and shout: "Here is the Way!" It should lead people in the tough but liberating truths of Christ.

Toby Cosh, Bedford.

The stance of the Church on cohabitation is as relevant to society as was the medieval debate about "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

Paul Francis, Carina, Australia.

We should look at this positively. Cohabitation is commitment by stealth. Before the two become one and are each other's better halves, they first need to share each other's quarters.

Chris Bester, Quinton, Birmingham.
{Many of you will be aware that Fr Chris Bester was the Birmingham priest who generously helped out here in the Summer of 2000. He was the ferocious Cromwell in the Augustinian play to mark Augustinian 500 years in Galway}.




BISH WALK FOR SPECIAL OLYMPICS

This afternoon (Sunday, Appril 6) all St Joseph's College (the Bish) present and past pupils and their families are invited to walk the "country fresh" routte to raise funds for the Special Olympics.

The walk will start at 3.00pm from the school. It is hoped light refreshments will be served in the gym. The school traditional and rock bands will provide musical entertainment.





A COMMON HUMANITY

Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from dust, subject to the same laws and destined for the same end. With this compassion you can say, "In the face of the oppressed I recognise my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognise my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh; their blood is my blood; their pain is my pain; their smile is my smile. Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself: There is nothing in me that does not belong to them, too. There is nothing in them that does not belong to me too."

-Henri Nouwen



CEASEFIRE

I
Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears
Achilles took. him by the hand and pushed the old king
Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and
Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.

II
Taking Hector's corpse into his own hands Achilles
Made sure it was washed and, for the old king's sake,
Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry
Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.

III
When they had eaten together, it pleased them both
To stare at each other's beauty as lovers might,
Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still
And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:

IV
I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.'


-Michael Longley.





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