- Next Sunday's Masses (October 17th): 6.30: Patrick Tyrrell; 11.00: Martin & Bridget Murray; 6.30: Joe Coyne, (Sacristan here and late of Whitehall).
- Last Sunday's collection was €863.00.
- We are delighted to have Ruth Molloy-Dahler's baby for baptism today during our Harvest celebration. The baby is grandchild of Peter and Nora Molly, Corcullen, regular patrons of the 11.00 Sunday Mass here.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Today, of course, we are celebrating our annual 'Harvest Festival'. The 'harvest celebration' (if not the church festival itself) will be familiar to many of our older readers with a rural background. The harvest was a communal effort. When the final sheaf had been saved, the celebrations began. It was a communal celebration, since the harvest had been a communal effort of the 'Meitheal'. The celebrations consisted of dinner, drinks and much barn-dancing! Until recent times, the practice of celebrating it liturgically never entered the Catholic tradition in Ireland. While still relatively rare, the Harvest Festival is gaining ground.
The practice of a ritualised 'harvest celebration' has deep roots in antiquity, predating even Old Testament times. The Old Testament writers, like the prophet Isaiah, associated the harvest festival with 'great rejoicing':
They rejoice before you as at harvest time,
As men make merry when dividing spoils. (9:2b).So why this omission, this great gap in the Irish Catholic tradition? The gap is all the more surprising in a predominantly agricultural society. The English Anglican Church on the other hand, despite its industrial environment, has established the Harvest Festival at the heart of its liturgical calendar. It's Church of Ireland 'sister Church' has followed the same path.
However, the modern Roman Missal does contain a 'Harvest Mass' with its own special prayers and readings. (We will use this at our Mass today). But this is not a 'new-fangled' development. Because the old Tridentine Catholic Missal also contained a Harvest Mass. So, within the Catholic tradition, the Harvest Mass was always recognised and provided for. But, in Ireland at any rate, it has never been promoted or availed of.
There are a number of possible explanations for this strange oversight. I can think of three possibilities: (a) In England, industrialisation threatened to break the bonds between the people and the land. (A satisfactory understanding of sacred scripture is so dependant upon a familiarity with rural and pastoral realities). The Harvest Festival represented an attempt to keep those bonds alive. Industrialisation bypassed Ireland. Hence, the same need for a Harvest Festival was not present. (b) It is also possible that the Harvest Festival fell victim to the good old Catholic principle: if the Protestants are promoting it, it is by definition suspect and best avoided! (c) The 'harvest dance' was an intrinsic feature of the Irish harvest celebration.
This is perhaps where the real problem lay: from the foundation of the state until the 1960s, the Irish bishops had an obsession with dances and dancehalls. For example, they issued a joint pastoral on the evils of dancing in 1925: "The surroundings of the dancing hall, withdrawal from the hall at intervals, and the back ways home have been the destruction of virtue in every part of Ireland."
In this atmosphere, the Irish Catholic clergy may have concluded that the liturgical celebration of the harvest was open to misinterpretation: it could be seen as an endorsement too of the 'abhorrent' harvest dance, where that second great evil of 'modern Ireland', intoxicating liquor, flowed freely! While the Harvest Festival would not be openly condemned, it certainly would not be promoted. The Church of Ireland had the floor to themselves!
-Dick Lyng.
EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST
- HARVEST HELPERS: I sure you will agree that the church has been splendidly decorated for our Harvest Festival. As always, Mgt. Cunnane, Mary O Hicí, Hedi Gibbons and Mgt. Cunningham once again worked wonders with the floral display. They gave many hours to the project and it shows! Gerry, Cathal and Anna Marie Heanue grafted long and hard to get the church ready for the occasion. Corrib Quilters provided the lively patchwork pieces. Various other people provided straw, corn, apples, vegetable, and so on. It was a great team-effort, as is entirely appropriate for a harvest gathering and celebration. A big 'Thank You' to all involved!
- BLESSING OF ANIMALS: The annual blessing of animals will take place this afternoon at 3.00 in the ground of the Poor Clare's Convent, Nun's Island.
- CONCERT FOR ENABLE: DWP Entertainment presents a Variety Concert in aid of Enable Ireland in the Town Hall on Saturday next, October 15th at 8.00pm. Pat Lillis is Musical Director. Tickets available at Theatre Box Office. Admission €20.
- TAYLOR'S HILL GIRLS: Will present The Wizard of Oz in the Rosary Hall, Taylor' s Hill from Thursday to Sunday (Oct. 14-17) at 8.00pm. Adults: €8; Students: €5; Family Ticket: €23.
HARVEST READINGS
(These Readings may replace the regular Sunday readings)
A Reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to scatter, and a time to gather; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Psalm & Response: (As on back of today' s missalette)
The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians:
The point is this: those who sow sparingly will also reap sparingly, and those who sow bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work. As it is written, "He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever."He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Alleluia verse (As on back of today' s missalette)
A reading from the holy gospel according to John:
Just then his disciples arrived. They marvelled that he was talking with a woman, but none dared say, "What do you wish?"or, "Why are you talking with her?"So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?"They went out of the city and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know."So the disciples said to one another, "Has any one brought him food?"Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour; others have done the work; now you are enjoying the fruits of their labour."
This is the gospel of the Lord.
AN AUTUMN INVITATION
A century from now, what shall be said of our journey in these times? And who shall the shapers have been? Who shall have shaped the future more - the hopeful dreamers who were strong enough to suffer for the dream, or the fearful pessimists who were convinced that dreaming and hope are for sleepers only, not for those awake to the age?
A century from now, shall hope have been strong enough to enable living with unanswerable questions? Or shall the pain that a transitional age necessarily brings have caused a retreat to old answers that no longer acknowledge new questions?
A century from now, we shall have indeed journeyed - backward or forward. Direction can no longer be given by circumstances. Real journeyers know the direction is always chosen by those who make the journey. Who shall choose the direction? So the question is still the same. A century from now, what shall be said of our human journey in these times? And who shall the shapers have been?'
The Autumn invitation is to step back and take the long view. Archbishop Oscar Romero gives us a glimpse of what we are about.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything.
And there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may not be complete, but it is a beginning,
A step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter
And do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not Messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.-Dr. Finola Cunnane (Intercom)
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