- The collection last Sunday was € 1,088.00.
KATHLEEN BARRETT, RIP
Kathleen Barrett was born Kathleen Natton in Ballymahon, Co. Longford in 1908. She was to outlive a century that would see changes occur with a rapidity never before witnessed. The psalmist tells us that 'our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong'. Kathleen was, obviously, stronger than most. At 96, she had outlived the psalmists optimistic prognosis.
She began her working life in Griffin's bakery. She met Edward Barrett whom she married in 1937. With him she had two sons, Paddy and Gerry, and, through them, five grandchildren, and one great grand-daughter. She was enormously proud of them and she spoke about them freely and frequently. They returned the complement. Edward died 40 years ago, in 1965. Kathleen still had a lot of work before her.
It would be easy now to underestimate the struggle which she and many women like her had in making ends meet. Economic depression and repressed markets dominated. So Kathleen embarked on an activity that would connect her with successive generations of Galwegians: she made and iced their wedding cakes. And an amazing number of people kept up that contact over the years. Even in her 80s and 90s, Kathleen drew her friends from every generation. She was a calm, pleasant lady in whose company people found it easy to relax and be at home. I never remember her being in a rush. Kathleen certainly had achieved serenity, understanding and, above all, compassion.
Central to Kathleen's life was her Catholic faith. Like many of her generation, she had the gift of faith in abundance. She made this church her second home. For the last 60 or 70 years she was in this church twice a day, for Mass in the morning and rosary in the evening. And she attended Mass right up to the day before she died. That surely was a great blessing, to have such health, such interest, and so many friends right up to the end. Old age did bring the inevitable infirmities and disabilities. However, all the time, she was the focus of great care and attention, from her family, and from her friends, Ann and Lydia. Kathleen was a realist. She knew she was failing and she said so. She will not have been surprised by death, or by God. She knew him well!
AS I WAS SAYING...
It has been a bad week for America. It has been a bad week for the Geneva Convention that purports to govern the treatment of prisoners, be the warring parties 'civilised' or 'uncivilised'! The Convention specifically outlaws 'Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.' If what we saw this week doesn't qualify under this category of prohibition, I don't know what does!
It has been a bad week for God too, but through no fault of his own! Ironically, a 'National Day of Prayer' was observed this week in America. Apparently it's an annual affair. President George Bush attended a ceremony commemorating the event. He was on familiar territory. George Bush 'does' religion very big, if not very well: "God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice," he assured his fellow Americans, "our finest moments as a nation have come when we have faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands." The cause of God is neatly twinned with the cause of America. And, of course, when the good name of America is sullied by the outrageous behaviour of loutish Americans, then the good name of God suffers collateral damage also!
I wonder what the people of Iraq, or indeed the Muslim world in general, would have made of those pious Christian sentiments this week, a week that saw even more horrific pictures emerge of the humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison? The torture was terrible. Nakedness in the Muslim context is really taboo. Obviously, the American soldiers knew full well what they were doing. They knew the intensity of the shame they were visiting on those unfortunate prisoners.
Bush went in there carrying the flag for Western 'civilisation'. And, from the point of view of Bush and the American Right, the Christian God was a central part of that civilising package. Bush is the type of politician who gives religion a bad name. We know right well from our own tradition that faith, without doubt, leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pitfall of the religiously convinced. A similar arrogance landed Irish Catholicism in deep waters in recent years. And, with time, we learned that the only saving straw to clutch at was humility. Bush has a long way to go yet. It will probably take an electoral defeat to teach him fully.
However, some of his erstwhile supporters are losing faith rapidly. Bush was convinced he would nurture the democratic plant from the rubble of a terrible dictatorship. "On the very site where Saddam drilled holes in prisoners' hands and dipped them in acid, the American guards, instead of planting new values, harvested the ones already there" wrote Nancy Gibbs in Time Magazine. "But democracy doesn't easily lend itself to evangelism; it requires more than faith. It requires a solid, educated middle class and a sophisticated understanding of law, transparency and minority rights. It certainly can't be imposed by outsiders."
But, the democratic lesson will most surely be lost on even a sophisticated middle class if the teachers are themselves barbarians!
Must try harder!
-Dick Lyng.
NUDGING THE LAITY ASIDE!
{Cardinal Arinze is head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments at the Vatican. He was responsible for the publication of an extraordinary document on the Sacraments during the week, Redemptionis Sacramentum. Here Jeff O'Connell outlines the 'thinking' behind this document. Jeff's article is printed here with the kind permission of the Galway Advertiser.}
Shortly after John Paul II became pope, an article appeared in Time magazine entitled The Gideon Strategy. Quoting sources in the Vatican as well as those close to the new pope, the article was an attempt to predict what kind of pontificate John Paul's might turn out to be. Of course all such articles become almost immediately dated and more often than not turn out to be wildly, sometimes hilariously, wrong, but this one had hold of something that has characterised the reign of John Paul II. And it concerns the so-called Gideon strategy. The story of Gideon is found in the Old Testament book of Judges and tells of the great victory won by Gideon over the Midianites, one of the tribes opposing the Hebrews settling in Palestine. Gideon raised an army of 32,000 men but, after failing several tests set by God, the army was whittled down to 300 men. This was done so that the Hebrews could not boast later they had been victorious as a result of their own strength but only because of God's favour.
The Time article pointed out that Gideon's story could be taken as an analogy for the situation of the Church over which John Paul II had just taken charge - a Church that had witnessed the spread of liberal attitudes as a result of Vatican II, critical questioning of centuries old dogmas and practices, a dramatic fall in vocations to the religious life, and the increased participation of the laity in the life and ordering of the institutional church. According to the Gideon strategy, John Paul II was determined to recall the Church to orthodoxy and reassert papal authority in every area of the Church. Furthermore, the article stated, the new pope was intent on doing all this, even if it meant alienating those who would not accept papal authority.
The pontificate of John Paul II, one of the longest in the long history of the papacy, has been a paradoxical mix of extreme conservatism in matters of faith and practice and extraordinary engagement in the political sphere, especially in Eastern Europe (not so much in South America where Liberation Theology fell foul of the Vatican).
Redemptionis Sacramentum, issued by the Vatican last week, is in line with the Gideon strategy. It is an intensely conservative document designed to stamp out what it regards as "abuses ... rooted in ... an illusory liberty".
And what are the abuses which have called forth this 65 page document? They concern everything from the way the 'sign of peace' is to be given (in a "sober manner") to the lovely practice "whereby spouses administer Holy Communion to each other at a Nuptial Mass". Also condemned is the use "for the celebration of Mass common vessels, or others lacking in quality, or devoid of all artistic merit or which are mere containers, as also other vessels made from glass, earthenware, clay, or other materials that break easily".
Redemptionis Sacramentum also concerns itself with the role of altar servers: "It is altogether laudable to maintain the noble custom by which boys or youths provide service of the altar ... Nor should it be forgotten that a great number of sacred ministers over the course of the centuries have come from among boys such as these." Only one sentence is devoted to the involvement of girls or women in this role: "Girls or women may also be admitted to this service of the altar, at the discretion of the diocesan Bishop [my italics] and in observance of the established norms".
However, the not-so-subtle intention of Redemptionis Sacramentum appears to be the undermining of the increasingly active participation and involvement of the laity in the celebration of the Eucharist. And this is done through the reinterpretation of the position of 'minister of the Eucharist'. The term is to be replaced by "extraordinary minister of Holy Communion". Why? Because "the name "minister of the Eucharist" belongs properly to the Priest alone." Further qualifying the position, the document continues: "Only out of true necessity is there to be recourse to the assistance of extraordinary ministers in the celebration of the Liturgy. Such recourse is not intended for the sake of a fuller participation of the laity but rather, by its very nature, is supplementary and provisional (my italics) Furthermore, when recourse is had out of necessity to the functions of extraordinary ministers, special urgent prayers of intercession should be multiplied that the Lord may soon send a Priest for the service of the community and raise up an abundance of vocations to sacred Orders." In other words, the "extraordinary minister of Holy Communion" is a regrettable and hopefully temporary expedient.
It seems incredible that at a time when many Catholics are convinced the Church needs to reach out to the laity in a way it has rarely done before, especially in light of the drastic fall in vocations to the religious life, that it should issue a document that undermines lay participation and involvement in the central sacrament of the Church.
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