Masses Today

6.30: Michael Folan, (Anniv)
11.00: Patrick & Winifred O'Connor; (Anniv)
6.30: Mary Anne Daly, (Anniv)

AS I WAS SAYING...

Almost two years ago now this lowly publication took the city clampers to task for what we judged to be their heavy-handed ruthlessness. The tirade was provoked by the clamping of a parishioner's car during the 11.00 Mass on what was the worst Sunday of the year, weather-wise. The confrontation attracted the attention of the national media, you may recall. As a result, a variety of civil and ecclesiastical instruments were trained menacingly on yours truly! James Joyce got that right at least: in Ireland, 'Christ and Caesar walks hand-in-glove'! Around that time, I would have considered it a poor day indeed that at least one solicitor's letter did not end up in my accommodating pocket!

Every reasonable person will agree that some level of traffic management is essential in any urban area. Traffic has to flow as freely as possible or city life becomes intolerable. That issue was never in dispute. But how is the free flow of traffic facilitated by clamping cars parked outside the Augustinian on a Sunday morning? Cars causing no obstruction whatsoever? This practice served no purpose whatsoever, beyond bringing the entire practice of traffic management into disrepute. The image of our elected representatives also suffered a bashing. They were perceived to have lost control of the 'hired hands'. The tail was wagging the dog and the councillors seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Until now, that is! Two years on, Galway Corporation has at last done the decent thing and reasserted its authority by insisting on a thorough revision of the clamping regulations. The new arrangements, already in effect apparently, will be of great interest to the patrons of St. Augustine's here. It should make the visit to St. Augustine's for Sunday Mass a more relaxed experience. It may be worth spelling out the more important and relevant revisions:

The city centre churches have suffered a very noticeable fall-off in attendance since the introduction of clamping. The practice struck fear into the hearts of our patrons. It really is an awful experience to leave Mass, rush to your car and find it immobilised. And, on top of all that, having to pay an €80 release fee as well! Not a pleasant Sunday morning at all! If it happened to me personally, I don't think I would be going back to that church for a long time again! Hopefully now, all that is in the past. Spread the good news! Herod is dead! The Augustinian is now a clamper-free zone on Sunday.

-Dick Lyng.

EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST

ELIZABETH KUBLER ROSS

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-born psychiatrist and author who gained international fame in 1969 for her landmark work "On Death and Dying," died herself on August 25th last. She was 78. She had been in poor health after suffering a series of strokes over the last 9 years. She was an extraordinary woman. Even today, her trail-blazing book is required reading in most major medical, nursing, pastoral care and psychology programs.

A 1969 Life Magazine article outlining her work gave further mainstream credibility and awareness to this new way of dealing with dying patients, although her conclusions were quite revolutionary at the time. The whole hospice movement looked to her as its inspiration. She was an intellectual and medical revolutionary. During her five-decade career, she would establish herself as an expert in the field with more than 20 books, countless lectures and workshops on terminal illness and death. But it was her outline of the five stages of death - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - that would make her a household name.

"Elisabeth was a dynamic, passionate woman who initiated discussion, debate and a better understanding of how death affects us," said J. Donald Schumacher, president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Born in Zurich as one of triplets, she wrote in her autobiography "The Wheel of Life" that her eyes were opened by a visit to a former Nazi concentration camp in 1945, immediately after liberation. She saw the corpses, and she met the survivors. For a long time she considered the former to be the fortunate ones. There a 17 year old innocent young woman confronted death and evil in the raw. This experience would shape the future course of her life. There and then she decided to make medicine her life' s work.

In 1957, she graduated from medical school at the University of Zurich and moved to New York after marrying Manny Ross, who was a doctor. There she would start her life's work with terminally ill patients "They were shunned and abused, nobody was honest with them," she once said. Unlike her colleagues, she made it a point to sit with terminal patients, listening intently.

While raising two small children, she began giving lectures featuring dying patients who talked about their most intimate dying experiences. "My goal was to break through the layer of professional denial that prohibited patients from airing their inner-most concerns," she wrote.

A deeply spiritual woman, Kubler-Ross lectured throughout the 1970s on life after death. In a 1997 interview, she spoke about her approach to life and living. "There are many, many ways of helping someone, even without a cure. And you never, ever take hope away from a patient. Without hope nobody can live. So you don't 'drown' your patient in truth!" she said. Asked if she had regrets, she said: "I'm sorry I don't play an instrument. I would love to play and sing. (When I die) I'm going to play and dance and sing." In 1999 Time Magazine named her one of "The Century's Greatest Minds." She made an enormous contribution to humanity.

"Quote, Unquote........ "

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