Events This Week
- RENOVATIONS COMMITTEE: Please note that we have changed the normal routine for this group: we will meet now in the front parlour immediately after the 11.00 o'clock Sunday Mass. (OK, grab your cup of coffee and bring it in with you!) If it doesn't work out, we can revert to our original pattern. But the Sunday meeting does seem to be a more practical way of addressing our task.
- THE TROUBLE WITH WARDENS: The next reading of our Summer Play 'The Trouble with Wardens', will take place in the Priory tomorrow night, Monday May 19th at 8.00pm. The play will be staged on the nights of 14th, 15th and 16th of July as a fringe event to the Galway Arts Festival. Anyone who wishes to help in any way is welcome at the reading.
- LOURDES PILGRIMAGE (1-6 JULY): There are still many places available on the annual diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes. If interested, contact the local parish priest, Fahy Travel, or Fr. Martin Moran, Merlin Park.
- KNOCK PILGRIMAGE: The Galway diocesan pilgrimage will take place on Sunday next, May 25th. It will begin with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick at 2.30.
- GALWAY PASTORAL CENTRE: You will recall that, on many occasions, we have discussed the possibility of involving children and teenagers more in our Liturgies. (At the moment, we seem to confine our efforts to the Advent Jesse Tree!). Many would like to see their involvement being an ongoing feature rather than a once-off event. Now personnel from the diocesan Pastoral Centre have offered to help out in whatever way they can. Maeve Heaney-O'Neill will act as our contact person. If interested, talk to her please.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Last Tuesday was the 22nd anniversary of the attempt on the life of John Paul II. He was shot down in St. Peter's Square by a Turkish terrorist, Mehmet Ali Agca, on May 13th 1981. The various investigations into the atrocity were inconclusive. Some pointed to a conspiracy; others concluded that the gunman acted alone. Not since early medieval times had an attempt been made on the life of a reigning pope. The assassination attempt was dramatised further by the fact that it was conducted while the pope was 'on stage', being driven in a jeep through Peter's Square as the TV cameras of the world were trained on him. The images of the fallen pope were transmitted into every living room. They were as powerful as they were shocking: he folded like a rag-doll into the arms of his assistants.
But, to me, a more powerful image still was the same visibly weaker white-clad figure embracing his would-be murderer in his Roman prison cell. The pope referred to Agca warmly as 'my brother'. This was a powerful gesture, a clear example of what forgiveness really means. The fact that 'my brother' in this case was a Muslim made the gesture all the more powerful.
It becomes increasingly obvious today that the relationship between Christianity and Islam is being undermined by a growing fanaticism. Nowhere has that fanaticism been more obvious than in the birthplace of St. Augustine himself, today's Algeria. Some of you may recall the murder of seven French Trappist monks there in 1996, among them Fr. Christian de Chergé. On his body was found his Last Will & Testament, 'to be opened in the event of my meeting death through violence'. Three years after the document was penned, de Chergé and his six companions had their throats cut by Islamic fanatics in the Algerian desert.
France was shocked. On Pentecost Sunday, 1996 their bodies were returned to Paris for a funeral service. Over 10,000 Christians and Muslims assembled in Notre Dame Cathedral. The existence of the Will was revealed there for the first time and its contents read aloud at the congregation. Having thanked God for the adventure that was life, de Chergé went on to address his killer:
In my prayer of thanks I include you also, my killer, but yet the friend of this my final moment, who would not be aware of what you are doing. Yes, for you also I wish this 'thank you' and this 'adieu'. I now commend you to the God whose face I see in yours. And may we some day find each other, happy 'good thieves' in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of both of us. Amen.Like the pope's gesture, this document was a disarming olive branch shaken in the face of naked hatred.
-Dick Lyng.
THE CHURCH'S URGENT CHALLENGE:
HEALING AND RECONCILIATION CONFERENCE IN BELMONT HOTEL KNOCK
27-29 MAY, 2003The need for healing and reconciliation in both Church and society is a great need of our time. This conference is an attempt, with the aid of contributions from experts, to reflect on issues as they impact particularly on the Church in contemporary Ireland.
Speakers include:
Bishop Willie Walsh
Nuala O'Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland.
Ruth Patterson, first Irish Presbyterian woman minister.
Marie Collins & Ken O'Reilly, prominent campaigners for the rights of child abuse victims.
For more information, contact Western Theological Institute, University Road, Galway.
Phone: 581711.
(Brochures with further details are available in sacristy)
A PASTOR'S PROGRAMME
-Fr. Donal O'Leary, Diocese of Leeds.
- My main concern is not to fill the church; it is to fill your hearts.
- My concern is not just to make the Catholic Church stronger; it is to make you stronger.
- My main concern is not to get you to heaven when you die; it is to get you vibrantly alive before you die.
- It is to make your hearts big for things, not keeping them small by wasting energy on trivial pursuits about the trappings of religion.
- My main concern is not to contemplate the angels in heaven but to be angels to those around us - and to reveal within them the angels they already are.
- My main concern is not to provide God's forgiveness for your sins (Jesus has already taken care of that); it is to enable you to forgive each other, and especially to forgive your self for the things you have done in the past - that is the only forgiveness not to worry about - because with guilt, shame and anxiety we only destroy ourselves.
- What I want to enable you to do is, not to draw black and white lines around your lives, but to paint each other in your true colours, because you are God's rainbow; the painting is done with the brush-strokes of compassion.
- At the end of the day there are two things; one is that we can say or do nothing to make God love us one tiny bit more or one tiny bit less: the other is that we are called only to be authentic, truthful, courageous; in other words, because we are God's work of art, because God lives in our deepest souls, we are called to be true to ourselves.
DIVINE MERCY DEVOTIONS
Correspondence on the Divine Mercy devotions continue.
(You may recall that three weeks ago I claimed here that the introduction of this particular devotion smacked of futile efforts to 'turn back the clock', a claim that went down like a lead balloon in some quarters!)
The following letter arrived during the week. It was very neatly typed but carried an illegible (intentional?) signature:
Dear Fr. Lyng,There is NOT a special beads required for the recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. It may be prayed on the beads of the Holy Rosary.
Concerned Catholics have, over the years, observed unauthorised liturgies in their parish churches -the outward semblance of the offering of the Holy Mass, as some priests no longer believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord. Christ can never be a witness to such deceit.
Consequently, His Divine Mercy must be dispensed to our sinful world by some other supernatural means - The Divine Mercy Chaplet. We are sustained by His promise that he will not leave us orphans.
Sincerely, (Signature illegible)
The letter was accompanied by a 'poem' containing this verse:His priesthood was expendable
With lectors moving in,
And Eucharistic ministers
Who were mainly feminine.So the Divine Mercy devotees have no agenda but prayer and reconciliation? No problems with the Church's Liturgy?!
Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan wrote the following in the Irish Catholic this week:"The Divine Mercy Devotion, inspired by the messages to Sr. Faustina in Cracow in the nineteen thirties, had run into trouble because of certain exaggerated claims made by some of its promoters. In 1959, as a measure of pastoral prudence, the Holy See acted to prohibit the spread of the Devotion. The Devotion was restored in 1978 due chiefly to the intervention of the then Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. Six months later he was elected Pope John Paul II."
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