Events This Week
- RENOVATIONS COMMITTEE: We will meet again in the front room after the 11.00 Mass today.
- GENERAL MEETING: We have many issues to deal with before the Summer engulfs us in a serious way! With a view to addressing some of these, we will hold a kind of General Meeting on tomorrow, Monday night, May 26th at 8.00. The following items will feature:
(1) From the very beginning, we decided to move location during renovations. This would speed up the work considerably, for obvious reasons. Two questions need to be looked at here (a) From the information we have at our disposal at the moment, are we yet in a position to say when we should move? The second question is obviously connected: (b) where do we move to? Some people may have ideas on that!
(2) We have discussed before the need for a Charter or Constitution for the Augustinian here in Galway. Since our future (such as it is!) rests in working every more closely with lay people here, we would need to draft a Constitution giving our present arrangements some legal standing within the Order. (In other words, to ensure that the next incumbents are not able to undo what has been done. This idea actually came from the Provincial and his Council.) This tedious work would best be done by a small group. We will begin that selection process on Monday night.
(3) Our annual Mid Summer Festival begins on Friday, June 27th. That is a mere five weeks away. We would really need to sit down together and to decide what we want to do this year. Do we want the same format for celebration as in other years: Poetry and music in the Church on Friday; Mid Summer Liturgy (whatever that may consist of), followed by Barbecue (?) in the car park. We will discuss all this on Monday.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Hurt is a universal human experience. Healing is a universal human need. People are damaged socially, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, even politically! We must not be surprised when the excluded fight back! How can the homeless make sense of life, for example? Of course they feel hurt and diminished. All of our big cities contain significant pockets of neglected and damaged people. Some retaliate through anti-social behaviour. Others seek oblivion through drugs alcohol. Society criminalises the poor.
Those who were sexually abused as children had their innocence ripped from them, their lives destroyed. Nothing on this earth can compensate them for this destruction. As Pozzo remarks in Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot', "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops." Hurt, too, is a constant quantity. It gnaws its way into every dimension of human experience, into the experience of every human being.
How do we deal with hurt? With alienation? We would expect some wisdom and guidance from the Christian Churches. However, in recent times the Christian Churches have not distinguished themselves in the field of reconciliation. Thirty years ago, we naively assumed that the union of the Churches was but a matter of time. However, the Ecumenical Movement has lost its way. The annual prayer gathering for Christian unity is now reduced to a holy charade.
Significantly, ecumenism seems to fare better where our own Church, the Roman Catholic Church, is in the minority. This is certainly true of England and northern Europe. And a generosity given from a position of strength is far more impressive than a generosity emanating from a position of weakness. What generous gesture of reconciliation can the majority Church offer the minority in an Irish context?
Within the Catholic itself, hurt and alienation are major problems. The Sacrament of Reconciliation has all but collapsed. People have walked away from the 'Confession Box'. Perhaps this is no bad thing. The weakness of the Confession Box is conveyed through an old but still funny story. On her way home from a 'good confession', a woman encounters an old adversary. Feeling constrained by the pristine condition of her soul, she shook her fist at her enemy, reminding her: "Thanks be to God, I will not always be in the state of grace!"
The 'Confession Box' was largely a mechanism for shedding guilt rather than an effective instrument of reconciliation. Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy insisted the social nature of sin, and the social nature of the ritual of Reconciliation is stressed. One of the four forms made available after the renewal by Vatican II provided for communal ritual with general absolution. Yet this 'preferred form' is prohibited. Rome insists that the Confession Box is mandatory. The people are being denied the full richness of the ritual. The people are responding 'no thank you' to the impoverished form on offer!
The Catholic Church should revisit this matter. When conducted effectively, the Communal Rite can 'bring good news to the poor and bind up hearts that are broken.' Incidentally, why not offer this treasure to our Reformed brothers and sisters?
-Dick Lyng.
WE STILL GO TO MASS EACH WEEK
(This appeared in The Irish Times on Monday last).
-Fr. Donal O'Leary, Diocese of Leeds.
- Not just to fulfil an obligation so as to avoid mortal sin, but to be convinced that the ups and downs of our days and nights, the bits and pieces of our weeks and fortnights are, indeed, the Body of Christ, that nothing is wasted and that all is harvest.
- Not just to get more holy, but to grow more compassionate towards the victims of exploitation and greed (often as a result of our own carelessness and selfishness).
- Not to become more religious and better Catholics, but to become more spiritual (a different thing altogether) so as to feel a deep compassion for our sisters and brothers who are painfully dying as we read now.
- Not just to save our souls for Jesus, but to save the minds and bodies of our children who are so threatened and victimised by powerful advertising, by drugs and false role-models, by sex abuse even from the most trusted members and family and Church.
- Not just to gather into an inward-looking holy huddle, but to increase the raw power and energy of our minds, bodies and souls so as to encounter together the known and unknown challenges facing our children's lives and the future of our universe.
IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE
On leaving the house you'd best say a prayer
Take my advice and don't travel by train
As Tarzan said to Jane, 'It's a jungle out there.'
I'm not a man who will easily scare
But I'd rather lick maggots than get on a plane.
On leaving the house you'd best say a prayer.
Skateboards are lethal on top of a stair
A broken back means you'll not walk again
As Tarzan said to Jane, 'It's a jungle out there.'
When the sky turns purple better beware
Bacillus on the breeze and acid in the rain
On leaving the house you'd best say a prayer
Avoid beef like the plague or your plague will be rare
Alcopops slowly eat away the brain
As Tarzan said to Jane, 'It's a jungle out there.'
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air
For the sake of the children repeat the refrain:
On leaving the house you'd best say a prayer
As Tarzan said to Jane, 'It's a jungle out there.'
-Roger McGough.
DIOCESAN AFFAIRS
- GALWAY LOURDES INVALID TRUST: This group will depart for Lourdes on June 16th, 2003 and will remain there for five days. At the moment there are still a number of vacancies on this pilgrimage. Seats may be secured by contacting Helena at Fahy Travel, Bridge Street.
- 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 Annual Galway Diocesan Pilgrimage to Knock will take place today, Sunday, May 25th. It begins with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick at 2.30.
- KNOCKNACARRA NOVENA: The Annual Novena in honour of Our Lady will begin on tomorrow night, Monday May 26th and will conclude on Tuesday week, June 3rd. The celebration will begin at 8.00 each evening. An impressive array of speakers have been lined up, including the Governor of Mountjoy, John Lonergan, Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert, and the young (well, relatively!) MEP, Brian Crowley. For a complete list of speakers, see notice in Church porch.
- HEALING AND RECONCILIATION: (27-29 MAY): This conference is an attempt to reflect on issues as they impact particularly on the Catholic Church in contemporary Ireland. Some interesting speakers will address the conference, among them Nuala O'Loan (Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland) and Bishop Willie Walsh. The Conference will be held in the Belmont Hotel, Knock.
For more information, contact Western Theological Institute, University Road, Galway. Phone: 581711.
(Brochures with further details are available in sacristy)
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