- Next Sunday's Masses (December 26th): 11.00: Brigid Arnold.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Today is children's day in the Augustinian. I find it the most magical day of the year. To the child, Christmas is magic. Paradoxically, the smaller the child, the greater the imagination. And Christmas provides so much material to feed the youthful imagination: darkness: twinkling lights, snow-filled scenes, glowing, romanticised cribs, and stories of a portly, jolly figure whose generosity or mobility knows no bounds. This is all grist to the many mills of the infant imagination. Just watch their eyes pop as they greet Santa on the Priory stairway this morning! Christmas provides children with memories that will sustain them for a lifetime. We should be conscious of this reality: we adults create Christmas for children. It is an awesome responsibility. The children's Mass is an effort to live up to that responsibility.
In the context of Christmas today, a few obvious questions arise: has consumerism diminished (if not destroyed) Christmas for children? If toys are available every day of the year, how special is Christmas Day? How much of our giving is motivated by our guilt? Do we secretly fear that our children will measure our love for them by the size of the presents we shower on them? Without wishing to be a spoil-sport, I do believe these questions merit some attention! Obviously, Christmas is not the preserve of children only. The whole family is drawn into the preparations. It is a fabulous festival in that everyone makes a special effort to make it to their own 'Bethlehem'for Christmas Day at least. But the festival makes high demands, especially on those who provide and prepare the fare. Christmas as we celebrate it today was the creation of our middle class Victorians ancestors. Of course the Victorians had servants in abundance, so the preparation of the Christmas dinner was no big deal. The Christmas dinner remains as part of their legacy. The servants, however, have gone! So the greater part of the burden tends to fall on two shoulders!
Christmas tends to idealise the nuclear family: Mammy, Daddy and the 2.4 children, with the well-fed purring cat thrown in for good measure! However, there are many, many people in Ireland today who have been failed by the nuclear family. Others still find themselves in second relationships of varying degrees of 'irregularity'. At the more extreme end of the scale are those without a roof over their heads. Because, within the Christian tradition, Christmas is seen as centred on the nuclear family, all of those just mentioned will feel excluded to one extent or another from the feast. It is rather ironic that the homeless should feel excluded from the birthday of one who was born homeless!
Christmas is such a busy time; so many people to be catered for, so many chores to be done. And the coming week will be the busiest of all. Yet it can be such a marvellous time, such a happy time. People are at their most generous, at their most humane. And I don't mean that materially. Generosity of spirit is in the air around Christmas. This is entirely appropriate since the event we are commemorating merits such a response: the generosity of God in sending his Son as a vulnerable baby, born to a couple of homeless paupers who were bonded together in a seemingly 'irregular union'. That baby would grow up to show us how to live, how to love, and how to die. No one like him ever appeared before, or since. Have a lovely Christmas.
-Dick Lyng.
CHRISTMAS AND SO ON....
- COMMUNION TO THE SICK: We will take Holy Communion to the sick and the house-bound on the morning of Christmas Eve. If you are aware of anyone in your neighbourhood in the parish of St. Augustine who is house-bound, please contact us.
- MASS OF GIVING: Thanks very much to all of you who contributed to the Giving Tree this year. This project seems to bring out the best in people. €2080.00 was contributed in the shape of vouchers and naked cash! This was used to purchased items of food, clothing, household goods, toys and small 'luxury items'for adults, like books. Apart from that, a great amount of essential household goods, like items of bedding and clothing was donated. All of the items donated had of course been requested and 'flagged'through the labels on the Giving Tree beforehand. As promised, all the 'merchandise'was distributed to the recipients by Friday last.
- CAROL SERVICE AT ST NICHOLAS: Don't forget the annual Carol Service in the Collegiate Church this afternoon at 4.00pm. Note well that they have changed back again from Christmas Eve to the Sunday before Christmas.
- THE CAROL SERVICE: Thanks to the boys from St. Joseph's College ('The Bish') for their Carol Service on Thursday night last. It's great to see a crowd of young fellows gather together and devote their time, talents and effort to preparing for the feast.
- CHRISTMAS DUES: I have bombarded the lot of you with Christmas Dues envelopes. I sent out 230 packages (Dues envelope, a 'back-scratching'letter and a very elaborate, expensive Christmas card!) on Thursday night last. If it hasn't arrived, complain immediately.
ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS
- THE CHRISTMAS AMNESTY: Don't forget the two Penitential Services pending this week: Wednesday night at 7.30 and Christmas Eve at 4.30. Experience tells us that these are the times most suitable for people generally. Would you please inform your friends (or, better still, hand them the Augustinian 'Programme of Events' for Christmas). These services have grown steadily in popularity over the years. Both services will last about 45 minutes.
- OUR CHILDREN'S MASS: As you know, today's 11.00 Mass will be very different. The children are looking after the Liturgy of the Word. In plain language, a Nativity Play will replace the normal readings. Hour upon hour of work has gone into the rehearsals for this. (As well as many of our tea towels. I have seen shepherds running around the place looking suspiciously like a young Yasser Arafat!) After the Mass then, the 'Man in Red' will come calling at the Priory. Don't miss it! It will be a lovely morning.
- ST. AUGUSTINE: As you will know, we devoted three nights of Advent to the study of St. Augustine. Each session, lasting about an hour and a half, consisted of reading an essay, discussing its content in small groups, and drawing the material together in a final summery. It was a very worthwhile and satisfactory venture. Our numbers for the three nights never dipped below 20. Thank you all for your presence and your interest. We may attempt something along the same lines next year.
- HUNGER AWARENESS: Don't forget Cathal's suggestion concerning 'Christmas gifts'! The Hunger Awareness group have 'adopted' a couple of projects in Ethiopia and they have made available Christmas 'Gift Certificates'. The idea is that, instead of sending a present to a friend, you would donate the money to alleviate hunger in Ethiopia. In exchange you will receive a Gift Certificate. The Certificates and more information is available in the Priory Office.
FULL CHRISTMAS PROGRAMME
Sunday, 12th at 11.00: Christmas Mass of Giving. Sunday 12th at 8.00: Galway Gospel Choir. Thursday 16th at 7.30: Carol Service by boys from St. Joseph's College (The Bish'). Sunday 19th at 11.00: Children's Nativity Play & Mass. CONFESSIONS: Tuesday, 21st: 12.00-12.45; Wednesday 22nd: 12.00-12.45; 3.30-4.30; Thursday 23rd: 11.30-12.30; 3.30-5.30; Friday, 24th: 11.30-1.00; 3.00-4.00. PENITENTIAL SERVICES: Saturday, 18th: 4.30pm; Wednesday, 22nd: 7.30pm Christmas Eve, 24th: 4.30pm. CHRISTMAS MASSES: 12.00 Midnight. 11.00am. Sunday, 26th: 11.00 & 6.30 Monday, 27th December to Monday, January 3rd: 11.00am (One Mass daily) SUNDAY, 2nd January: Usual Sunday Programme PRIORY OFFICE The Priory Office will close at 3.00pm on Christmas Eve. Normal life will resume again on Tuesday, January 4th.
CHRISTMAS VARIES
"There are lots of Christmases. There's the quiet one, which seems to occur for most people every year, and yet always seems to be spoken of as if it arrived as a mighty surprise: 'Wasn't it a very quite Christmas this year?', 'Oh indeed sure it's over before you know it, after all the preparation.'
Then of course there's the child's Christmas, and not quiet at all, but a Christmas of glistening eyes, and lit faces, and hopes, and excitement that turns to tiredness and crying, and overeating that satiates or sickens children of all ages. There's the drinking Christmas too, excuse for some, tiring round for others, 'habitually cited as exhausting and rarely as satisfying,' as an American writer put it.
There's the homecoming Christmas too which touches in its way the Christmas that God began. At this time above all, Christ achieves some sign of his promise to the world."
Tom Waldron.
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