- Next Sunday's Masses (October 24th): 6.30: Gerard Colleran; 11.00: Thomas Lenihan; 6.30: Kathleen Lynott.
- Last Sunday's Harvest collection was €1,132.00.
- Next Sunday is Mission Sunday throughout the Catholic world. There will be a special diocesan collection to fund missionary work abroad.
AS I WAS SAYING...
The actor, director and activist Christopher Reeve died this week. He played Superman on the silver screen. But he filled that role much more convincingly in real life. Paralysed since a horse-riding accident in 1995, he battled throughout on behalf of fellow human beings who found themselves in similar tragic circumstances. In fact 'Superman' was not an image he either pursued or cultivated. Very wary of typecasting, he had taken his acting career in a different direction long before the accident which stole almost all his physical powers.
He was also uncomfortable, though, with people regarding him as a superman because of the way he handled his disabilities. Paraphrasing Groucho Marx, he stated, "I'm a member of a club I didn't want to join." He continued, "I've learned to embrace it. But I don't want it to define me."
His experience will resonate, I suspect, with many who much less traumatically find themselves members of 'clubs' they never wished to join. The familiar teenage outburst, "I didn't ask to be born into this family" might be echoed by anyone who finds themselves living in a neighbourhood they loathe but can't escape, landed with relatives who are a trial, coping with stresses, hardships, disappointments which seem to blight everything they attempt. The Travelling community in particular will share similar 'misgivings' this week. The vast majority of that 'club' would hate to be defined by some of the highly publicised incidents attributed to some from their midst this week.
Learning to embrace membership of those particular clubs might indeed be a very painful exercise. It can be a necessary one, though - not as a matter of grim resignation to an inevitable fate, but as a way of converting potential bitterness into creative possibility. Human dignity and nobility can salvaged from the most unpromising circumstances.
Christopher Reeve appears to have done this with every fibre of energy remaining from the sheer struggle to stay alive - campaigning often very controversially for stem cell research, encouraging scientists, refusing to stay silent. As he did so, he rejected the labels well-meaning admirers placed on him: courageous sufferer, megastar quadriplegic. Like anyone who senses their whole life being shaped by forces beyond their control, an illness, or an accident, he was insisting, "I don't want to be defined just by that. I want to be seen as the person I am, not simply as an object of admiration or pity."
Hollywood has never been regarded as the source of wisdom and fortitude! Indeed, we have come to associate it with mere escapism, with everything that is superficial and hollow. Throughout his nine years imprisonment in his own broken body, Reeve demonstrated unselfishness, fortitude and a freedom of spirit that is rare not just for Hollywood, but for anywhere else for that matter. His autobiography, published in 1998, spent 11 weeks on the Times bestseller list. Pointedly, he named it "Still Me." And so he remained, Christopher Reeve, director and writer to the end. Tragedy rarely has had such an uplifting conclusion.
-Dick Lyng.
EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST
- HARVEST HELPERS: Thanks to all who helped with the post-Harvest Festival clean-up in the church here on Wednesday last. We got as much of the 'produce' as possible out to the needy and we returned materials we had borrowed. The various displays evoked very favourable reactions, especially from the many visitors to the church during subsequent days. Once again, thanks to all who contributed.
- STEERING COMMITTEE: A few members of the Steering Committee gathered informally on Friday night to review church and parochial matters in general. All agreed that we seriously need to revamp the Steering Committee personnel and, if at all possible, to draw in new blood. We will hold a general meeting of all our patrons and parishioners on Tuesday night, November 2nd at 8.30, immediately after the 7.30 Commemoration of All Souls in the Church. The intention is that, at that meeting, a new Steering Committee with be constituted. Each person attending the meeting will be asked to submit in writing the names of three people they would like to see on the committee. Strictly speaking, this is not an election. But it will establish clearly the way people are thinking and we will act upon it. So you have two weeks now to be thinking of the names.
- ALTAR SERVERS: The hunt is still on for Altar Servers. We received four 'applications', three girls and one boy. We had hoped to have assembled a group of ten or so before we started our training sessions. We will make another effort this weekend and we will then arrange a date for training that will suit all involved.
AMERICAN CATHOLICS DIVIDED
With the American election only two weeks away a number of conservative bishops are throwing their weight into the contest, and all but explicitly endorsing the re-election of George W. Bush.
Archbishop Burke of St Louis, who continues to be the most outspoken of this group, is emphatic: " One cannot justify a vote for a candidate who promotes intrinsically evil acts which erode the very foundation of the common good, such as abortion and same-sex 'marriage' , by appealing to that same candidate's opposition to war or capital punishment."
Meanwhile, a smaller number of Catholics are attempting to rally their co-religionists to their traditional Democratic allegiance. Until Ronald Reagan' s presidency in the 1980s, Catholics overwhelmingly supported the Democrats. But Bush captured half the Catholic vote in 2000, and he has been zealous in courting Catholics over the last four years. Catholics, who make up a quarter of the American electorate, happen to be concentrated in a number of the swing states, such as Florida, Missouri and Wisconsin, where the election will be decided.
The American hierarchy, which has usually managed to seem neutral, has become publicly divided. At each election, the American Bishops' Conference (USCCB) submits a questionnaire to both presidential candidates on a large range of issues, and then circulates the results to parishes. This year the USCCB bureaucracy, which conservatives often perceive to have a liberal bias, produced a 2004 questionnaire that seemed to give equal weight to issues on which the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, dissents from church teaching - abortion, stem-cell research and homosexual marriage - and questions on which Bush is the deviant: war in Iraq, capital punishment, and "social justice". The questionnaire was subsequently abandoned!
The guidance Catholics are now receiving depends on the convictions of their priests or bishops. In March, the bishops' Conference warned Catholics that a priest urging parishioners to vote for one candidate would "constitute political campaign intervention attributable to the Church", which could therefore be stripped of its tax-exempt status. Consequently, bishops have taken pains to avoid endorsing any candidate by name.
In recent debates, Kerry appealed for Catholic votes, saying: "I was an altar boy, but I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever." Others differ radically. One group, Pax Christi, has placed advertisements in the newspapers of swing states, declaring: "Life Does Not End at Birth". Its president, Bishop Zavala of Los Angeles, argues: "If you look at the totality of issues as a matter of conscience, someone could come to the decision to vote for either candidate." It remains to be seen whether this liberal counter-argument will sway more Catholics than the conservative case against voting for Kerry, and whether the 2004 election will have produced permanent and open divisions within the American Catholic Church.
(The Tablet)
PLEASE TAKE NOTE
- NO MASSES: On Thursday week next, October 28th, the Augustinian community here (consisting of the grand total of three at last count!) will be attending a Conference in Kilkenny. Consequently, there will be no Masses in the Church on that day. We will probably organise a Liturgy of the Word and arrange to have Holy Communion distributed in place of the Mass. We will give you the full story on Sunday next!
- ALL SOULS: All Souls Day is just two weeks away from Tuesday next. We are in the process of preparing a "Service of Remembrance" and Mass for Tuesday night, the Feast of All Souls at 7.30. It will follow the pattern of last year. A Calvary shrine will be placed near the sanctuary. You are invited to bring along reminders of your dead relatives, like photographs and mortuary cards, Rosary Beads, or whatever, and place them at this shrine. The "Service of Remembrance" will also include the lighting of candles in memory of the dead. Those of your relatives and fellow parishioners who died in the course of the year will be remembered in a special way at that service.
- REMEMBRANCE TREE: There will be a 'Remembrance Tree' in place at the top of the church, near the sanctuary. Paper will be provided on which you may enter the names of those you wish to be remembered in the prayers of those who visit the church. This ritual works very well and we will leave the tree in place for the month of November.
- NOVEMBER DEAD LIST: The November Dead List envelopes (a separate matter to the above!) are now available beside the sacristy door or in the priory office. Just write down the names of the faithful departed and they will be remembered at the 11.00 Mass each day during the month of November.
- CEMETERY SUNDAY: Sunday, November 7th, is Cemetery Sunday in Forthill this year. Mass will be celebrated there around 12.00 noon and the graves will be blessed immediately afterwards. Please note that there will be NO afternoon ceremonies there. But, regardless of how often we announce this, people still insist on turning up there at 4.00!
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