AN ALTERNATIVE PULPIT....
Here is a reproduction of Orazio Gentilesch's beautiful
painting of the Holy Family, Rest on the Flight into Egypt. A
grey wintry sky lurks with intent in the background. Mary lies on
the ground, tilting her naked breast forward so the child can
feed. Though she is elegant and solemn, Gentileschi suggests,
beneath the grey folds of her dress, the strain placed on her
curved back by the awkward position. And Joseph's head is
lolling backwards towards us, his shoulders slumped over the
big bundle that holds the family's meagre possessions. His body
is limp and lifeless, his eyes shut tight. He is wrecked, frazzled,
at the end of his tether. Except for the baby on the breast,
everything about the picture speaks of tension, foreboding and
nervous exhaustion.Why does this Holy Family seem so much more human and recognisable now than the statuesque Nativity scenes that represent them in more conventional paintings and in cribs? It's not just that the mixture of stress and fatigue probably comes closer to our family Christmases than the calm procession of shepherds and Magi arriving with gifts. It's also that the arrangement of the family tells us that this is no perfect image of respectable domesticity.
The bond between the breast-feeding mother and the well-fed baby excludes the worn-out Joseph, reminding us that he is not in fact the baby's father. The Holy Family is not only a bunch of refugees, it's not actually a conventional nuclear family at all. This weary middle-aged man has taken on a girl pregnant with someone else's child and worn himself out trying to protect them.
Yet they are, of course, a real family, all the more so perhaps for their displaced state and failure to meet the traditional criteria for respectability. And maybe they're a better icon for the Irish Christmas of 2003 than the familiar, perhaps over-familiar family in the crib.
Christmas has become, more than anything, a festival of the family, and perhaps one of the reasons why it has lost much of its religious gloss is that the family no longer matches its conventional religious image. Most of us, for one reason or another, feel a lot more like we're on the Flight to Egypt than in a Nativity scene with angels, shepherds and wise men.
It's true of course, that most of us still live as part of a nuclear family - a married couple with kids. But it's not in fact the old nuclear family - both parents now tend to work outside the home, making the old gender division of labour a lot more problematic. Twelve per cent of two-parent married families, moreover, have children who are older than the marriage - suggesting that their family existed before it became official.
About a third of Irish families are not made up of a married couple with their own kids. Single parenthood, separation, divorce and co-habitation, as well as the old reality of widowhood, have complicated things.
It's easy to feel, if you liked things the way they used to be, that the Irish family is on the skids and that Christmas is a mockery of its former self.
In fact, things are rather less gloomy than that. One of the most interesting and heartening pieces of research published in Ireland this year was "Family Well-Being: What Makes a Difference?", a study by Kieran McKeown consultants for the Ceifin Centre in Shannon.
Combining a survey of 1,500 households with children and an in-depth study of 250 families of different types, it set out to discover what makes a happy family. While it came up with much fascinating explanation for family contentment - principally the quality of the relationships between its members - what was most significant was what it didn't find.
It didn't find any real relationship between family type and family happiness: "The type of family in which one lives - such as a one- or two-parent household and whether the parents are married, cohabiting, single or separated - has virtually no impact on family well-being."
What matters, in other words, is not form but content, not whether the family meets some idealised definition but how the parents behave towards each other and towards their children. The conservative view that everyone would be happier if only we went back to the classic nuclear family is simply wrong.
The family is complicated now, of course, but wasn't it always? Weren't there always, at the Christmas dinner table, mad old aunts who, after a few more sherries, would hint at a dark and scandalous past? Or the confirmed bachelor brother who had to get away early because he had to see a friend? Or the young daughter who married an older man out of the blue and had a suspiciously premature baby? Or the middle-aged man, nodding off in front of the telly like Gentileschi's Joseph, half-wondering what he let himself in for when he married that pregnant young one?
The family, perhaps, has never been holy, but that's never stopped it from being kind of sacred.
-Fintan O'Toole.CHRISTMAS PROGRAMME: 2003
| MASSES: | |
| St. Stephen's Day to January 1st: | One Mass daily: 11.00am |
| except | |
| Today: | Usual Sunday Programme |
| Normal Programme resumes on Friday, January 2nd. | |
| PRIORY OFFICE | |
| 29th, 30th, & 31st: | normal office hours |
| Normal life will resume again on Friday, January 2nd. | |
AUGUSTINIAN HUNGER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
FIGHT HUNGER BY CHANGING YOUR LIFESTYLE
"Christ, who is rich in heaven, chose to be hungry in the poor. Yet in your humanity you hesitate to give to your fellow human being. Don't you realise that, what you give, you give to Christ, from whom you received whatever you have to give in the first place."
-St. Augustine.THANK YOU
Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to prepare the Church and Priory for the Christmas festival. There was a lot of time and effort involved: the trees, the crib, the flowers, the music, the Christmas dinner, and so on. It demanded enormous effort from people who, in addition, had to prepare their own homes for their own families. I do hope you are all enjoying the pleasant rest that you so richly deserve.
FLIGHT TO A STRANGE LAND
Christmas, as I have known it from childhood, has not changed very much. The way I knew it in Uganda is still the same way I know it now in Ireland. To all the people world-wide, it carries the same message, the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is really a great solace that Christmas comes at the end of the year. Christmas has always been a day of celebration. These celebrations vary from the welcoming Jesus Christ our Savour, to looking forward to receiving a gift and to meeting our extended families. Christmas brings happiness to my life and to the lives of many people.
When I was living in Uganda I looked forward to Christmas. My family was very poor; we ate meat and drank milk only at Easter and Christmas. At other times, meat, chicken was considered a luxury and milk was for children when weaning. Chickens were reared to pay for school fees. You can imagine how much I looked forward to Christmas.
For most families there were no gifts but a large meal with chicken and meat, as these are one of the symbols of Christmas. Christmas is when they drank a soda or went out to the beach, cinema or listened to live musicians.
My mother always woke up to attend Mass at 5 a.m. and she came home around 7 a.m. to start the cooking. She then dressed us to attend the 8 a.m. Mass. The church was filled more than usual. I grew up in a war-torn area and I was living in hope and one of my greatest counsellors was Jesus Christ and God his Father. So for me, Christmas meant celebrating my best friend's birthday. Christmas day heals wounds and leads to forgiveness.
I can remember one of our neighbours at home had a troublesome brother and they never got along. These two brothers had been fighting over a piece of land and one of them said the other was bewitching him so that he dies and he takes the land but come Christmas day they could be together eating and drinking the local gin (lira lira) and the children playing together as a harmonious family.
When I came here to Ireland I realised that Christmas meant the same to the people here. People here have more money than in Uganda. They celebrate the birth of Jesus with lots of shopping and give each other presents. Again the Church is busy and it conveys the same spirit.
The other thing I like about Christmas is it comes at the end of the year. Sometimes, the year can be good or bad and it is good to have a day like Christmas where you can meet with your relatives and friends and talk about things. At Christmas I thank God for a good year and for being alive. If it's been a bad one I pray for the birth of Jesus Christ to bring a better one. Christmas brings a lot of comfort.
I do not know much about Christmas in Ireland because this is going to be my second Christmas. I still miss my home, family and friends and Christmas is the time when I thank the new born babe for having giving me the opportunity to begin a new life here in Ireland. God loves us and sent his only Son and therefore on his birth I celebrate it with a deep conviction that Jesus loves me and has remained with me.
-Pauline Ocholla (aged 18)