Masses Today

6.30: Vincent & Paddy Cunnane, (Anniv)
11.00: Nora & John Joyce, (Anniv)
6.30: Walter & Sarah Joyce, (Anniv)





Events This Week






AS I WAS SAYING...

God be with the Bishops' Lenten Pastorals! From the 1920s until the 1960s, The Irish Independent carried all 26 Pastorals annually without complaint. How times have changed! (The Irish Independent, I mean, not the bishops!) I took an amusing excursion through some of these documents during the week. It is instructive to observe the episcopal concerns (obsessions?) in the early days of the State. Pessimism and fatalism is everywhere. In the years after the Civil War, despite occasional tributes to the continuing piety of their people, the stress is on the falling off of moral standards. The Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Logue, warned clerical students at Maynooth in 1924 that they would 'have to meet a divided people. . . who had lost much of their reverence for religion and the Church'. Bishop Hoare of Ardagh spoke in the same year of 'the very low level of degeneracy' reached in Ireland. Bishop Foley of Kildare and Leighin said in 1925 that it would be uphill work to restore the standards that had been lost. Archbishop Byrne of Dublin, in his Lenten Pastoral of 1926, wrote of the lower moral fibre of the people. Many pastoral letters deplored the growing craze for pleasure, and the slackening of parental control. (Where did we hear that before?)

The bishops found cause for dismay in many different areas. Their pastorals abound in denunciations of intemperance, gambling, perjury, crimes of violence and many other evils. But there was one sphere in particular which aroused their alarm. By far the most prominent topic in their published statements was the decline in sexual morality (in the 1920s!). The bishops evidently believed that the traditional standards of their people were under unprecedented pressure. New mass media-the cinema, the radio, and above all the English sensational newspapers were bringing unfamiliar values to the attention of their flocks. Bishop McNamee of Ardagh was reported as drawing attention to this in 1927: 'In many respects the danger to our national characteristics was greater now than ever. The foreign press was more widely diffused amongst us; the cinema brought very vivid representations of foreign manners and customs; and the radio would bring foreign music and the propagation of foreign ideals.' Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam drew a similar picture about the same date:
In recent years the dangerous occasions of sin had been multiplied. The old Irish dances had been discarded for foreign importations which, according to all accounts, lent themselves not so much to rhythm as to low sensuality. The actual hours of sleep had been turned into hours of debasing pleasure. Company-keeping under the stars of night had succeeded in too many places to the good old Irish custom of visiting, chatting and story-telling from one house to another, with the Rosary to bring all home in due time. Parental control had been relaxed, and fashions bordering on indecency had become a commonplace; while bad books, papers and pictures were finding their way into remote country places.

And this at a time when emigration was in the order of 50,000 per annum! Emigration as a phenomenon escaped censure. Not a finger was pointed at politician or policy-maker. Condemnation was reserved for those who took the decision to emigrate, (turning their backs on their country), or for their destinations (English dens of moral iniquity!). Despite everything, the Irish Catholic Church today is, comparatively speaking, in a very healthy condition.

-Dick Lyng.




SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION

In speaking to parent representatives of the First Communion classes I was surprised to discover that their experience of First Confession was pretty much the same as my own, even though they were all a good bit less that half my age: dark box, fear, not a happy memory.

When I came to Bray in 1974 hearing confessions accounted for much of my work as a priest. Every Saturday we were kept busy in the confession box - two hours in the morning, one hour in the afternoon and two hours again at night. I had many positive experiences. After all, confession is good for the soul. However. after some time I came to realize that for many people going to confession was anything but a joyful experience: feelings of anxiety, guilt, scruples and fear. At that time. talking to parents of First Communions children I heard funny stories (making up sins, swapping sins, confessing to a deaf priest and so on) and horror stories (priests who frightened the life out of children because the children forgot the words of the act of contrition).

So, in 1980 at Christmas the priests in Holy Redeemer made the following announcement: 'Any person who finds confession a severe ordeal (in case of misinterpretation, notice I use the words "severe ordeal") and comes to confession in this church need only say "I am sorry for my sins and I want forgiveness."' All the priests have been consulted and will give absolution on the basis of that formula. After all, in the story of the prodigal son, the Father was satisfied with the simple statement: 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, I no longer deserve to be called your son.' The response was amazing. People came out of the woodwork to avail themselves of what one person described as 'that special Christmas offer'.

-John O'Connell is a priest of the archdiocese of Dublin.
Address: Church of the Holy Redeemer, Bray, Co. Wicklow.
This is the text of his talk to the parents of First Reconciliation children in the parish church.




COLUMBAN SISTERS: "THANK YOU"

Dear Father,

It gives me great joy to write this little letter to thank you most sincerely for the wonderful welcome I received from your parishioners on my recent visit there. I was so grateful for your words of introduction, and for the tremendous response of your people. The attention with which they listened to what I had to say made it so much easier for me to speak.

I'm sure you will be very pleased to know that the collection for the Columban Sisters' Missions was as follows:
€2,450.00.00.
$25.00

Please thank your parishioners for their generosity and assure them that the Columban Sisters will remember them and all their Intentions in the daily prayers of the Community.

We are praying God' s blessing on all the activities of St. Augustine's Parish,

Very sincerely,
Sr. Elizabeth Doyle, Crumlin, Dublin 12.




LENTEN PROGRAMME AT SUAIMHNEAS, BALLYLOUGHAUN ROAD, RENMORE






PARTICIPATION IN THE LITURGY

It was a Month's Mind Mass and the parish priest expected the farmer in the sacristy to hand him an envelope with the usual stipend and thank him before departing. However, the man appeared a little uncertain. Instead of an envelope he held Euro notes rolled up in his fist and he looked quizzically at the priest. "How much do we owe you for the Mass, Father?" he asked; then, after a slight pause, he added, "we did the readings ourselves."







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