- Next Sunday's Masses (October 3rd): 6.30: Tom Giblin; 11.00: Thomas Hynes; 6.30: Frank Barrett.
- Last Sunday's collection was €899.00.
- The collection today is the annual diocesan collection for COPE. This organisation attempts to respond to the social difficulties of some of the people of Galway. Among the services provided are: crisis accommodation for homeless men, women and children, Simon Community shelter, meals-on-wheels and so on.
- The church gate collection this weekend is for St Patrick's Band. As you know, this is a voluntary organisation and relies entirely on the generosity of the public for financial support.
AS I WAS SAYING...
Twenty five years ago, the Pope came calling. (You would need to be on another planet not to be aware of this!) The jubilee has and will generate a torrent of words and images. The comments, I guess, will run along three main lines:
- nostalgia: efforts will be made to recapture (and perhaps regenerate) the sheer magical feelings that dominated those three magical days in 1979. The entire nation united around a common project in a way that never happened before, and certainly never happened since.
- contrasting eras: Many words will be devoted to measuring the extent to which Ireland and the Catholic Church have changed in that 25 years.
- The Pope in person: The energetic, even ebullient John Paul of 1979 will contrasted with the frail, sick old man that the Holy Father is today. He now painfully personifies the ravages of time and sickness: there is only one lesson to be drawn: 'Time and tide awaits no man', not even a pope!
Nostalgia is a very enjoyable exercise. Through it, the human spirit filters out the unpleasant aspects of reality, allowing the memory to glow unhindered. However, nostalgia, while very pleasant, is ultimately fruitless. In fact, it can be detrimental to our welfare if we use it as a vehicle to escape the present or to dodge the future. It has obvious temptations for religious people. 'Restoring the past' is a futile exercise. Yet how often have we heard people call for such a restoration.
I presume that the vast majority of commentators will concentrate on analysing the major changes that have taken place both in the Church and in society during the intervening twenty five years. Of course it is virtually impossible to treat the Church and society as separate entities in Ireland. They overlap at so many junctures! Nevertheless, the hacks will have enough material there to keep them going for a long, long time! The changes that have taken place within the Church will be regarded as negative, those within society as positive. The social and political changes can easily be itemised: contraception and divorce have been introduced; homosexuality has been decriminalised. (Most of the 'moral dangers' that the Pope warned us against while he was here have now been introduced).
In reality though, Ireland has simply brought its social legislation into line with that of its European counterparts. These changes will be regarded by all the commentators as positive. There will be very few dissenting voices here. (Has the widespread availability of contraception solved the teenage pregnancy problem? This is a question you will not hear asked!) Economically, we have changed utterly. We were poor in 1979. As a country, we are now rich beyond what we could ever have imagined in 1979. But again, lest our hymn of praise to progress grow too melodic, let me introduce a sour note: there were 22 murders in Ireland in 1979, as against 52 in 2003.
I presume the various church scandals will be revisited, and in certain quarters with ill-concealed glee! The utter collapse of vocations in the intervening period could not possibly escape anyone's attention. However, the gains should not be ignored either. I believe we have a more mature, balanced Catholic in the pew today. Those who left because of scandals must have had a rather tenuous hold on the faith originally. Those who remained know that sin and scandal has always been, and will always be, part of the human project, and therefore part of the Church. If it were not so, we would all be in real trouble!
-Dick Lyng.
EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST
- HARVEST FESTIVAL: Thanks to the 25+ people who attended our parish meeting on Tuesday night last. It was great to see a few new faces appearing too. The main (but not the sole) purpose of the meeting was to organise our Harvest Festival. We settled for the weekend of October 10th. A group of eight people volunteered to look after the liturgy and related matters. They will meet in the Priory on Monday night next, September 27th at 8.45 to begin the task
- CHILDREN'S LITURGY: The subject of the children's Sunday Liturgy came up for discussion at our meeting also. Two closely related issues emerged: (a) We need more helpers/leaders. We would particularly welcome the help of teenagers, boys and girls. (b) Recent 'Child Protection' regulations require gender balance among leaders and helpers. In other words, we badly need more men to take their turn in looking after the kids on Sunday mornings. There will be a meeting of the leaders in the front parlour after the 11.00 Mass today. If there are new people willing to help out, why not join them for that meeting? The children' s Liturgies will resume on Sunday next, October 3rd.
- HUNGER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN: This project was 'parked' for the Summer. It will resume again with a meeting in the Priory on Tuesday night next, September 28th, at 8pm.
- BALLYBRIT MASS: A letter from the bishop's office arrived here on Thursday morning, so, obviously, we were in no position to discuss its content at our Tuesday night meeting. He hopes to have 8 stewards from each of the city parishes, and three from outlying parishes. The city parishes are asked to provide six eucharistic ministers each. There will be a practice for stewards and eucharistic ministers at 6.30pm on Thursday, September 30th at the Racecourse. The bishop asked us to bring the following assurances to your attention:
There will be ample room for parking: all three entrances to the racecourse will be open.
Rain will not be a problem since the stands will provide adequate shelter.
Special provisions are in place for wheelchairs and the elderly.
There will be light refreshments on sale at the rear of the stand.
Again, sorry I hadn't this information at my disposal on Tuesday night last. But that was no fault of mine! If you wish to travel to Ballybrit, or to act as a steward or eucharistic minister, would you please give your name to the parish priest.
ALTAR SERVERS
"In 1994, with cruel irony and within a few days of the precise anniversary of the imposition of the New Mass, the Pope surrendered on altar girls, the one instance on which many conservative Catholics were confident that he would not back down. There could hardly have been a more appropriate commemoration of a quarter of a century of liturgical anarchy than this humiliating capitulation of the Holy See to the strident harridans of the feminist movement."
So wrote Fr Michael Davies in a very helpful and temperate little work titled 'The Liturgical Shipwreck: 25 Years of the New Mass'. Well, ten years after he first wrote those words, Fr. Davies can still have no quarrel with the Augustinian here in Galway. Not alone have we no altar girls, we have no altar servers at all! (Sorry Pierce, I exaggerate only slightly!).
So from this very day forward, we are launching an energetic campaign to recruit new alter servers, both male and female (pace Fr Davies!). Don't worry about uniforms and outfits. We have enough altar servers' gear here to dress a small army. If you would like to serve Mass in the Augustinian, approach Fr Lyng before he approaches you! We can then arrange rehearsals.
Incidentally, qualification certificates from other inferior churches will be duly recognised here.
BLIND TERROR
Still we await news of the fate of Kenneth Bigley, the British hostage in Iraq, and our thoughts are with him and his family today. But the violence and terror continues. Earlier we heard of the shocking murder of his two American companions; and hardly a day passes without some new tragedy.
Too often religious justification is given for terror, which is why we must never forget that there is no excuse for terror. No society was ever built on it. It's an evil means to an evil end. In the short run, terror destroys its victims, but in the long run it destroys its perpetrators.
Look at the societies that give rise to terror and you'll find all too few with human rights, free speech, the rule of law, a democratically elected or accountable government. Often, they're rich with natural resources, yet they have widespread poverty, illiteracy and disease. What they lack is freedom, and terror can never lead to freedom because it's built on its denial.
Terror is not the weapon of the weak against the strong. It's the weapon of the ruthless against the vulnerable. And when terrorists use the language of religion it's as if they're trying to hold religion itself hostage, because that is not the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, who speaks of justice and compassion, respect for the vulnerable and the sanctity of life.
Terror has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with contempt for the political process. Terrorists are people who have no time for the laborious challenge of making your case, winning support, allowing your opponents a respectful hearing, accepting compromise, and respecting the rights of your opponents. Which is why, almost 2000 years ago, the rabbis said: "Pray for the welfare of the government, because without it men would eat one another alive." Politics doesn't create perfection but it does allow us to live peaceably together. It doesn't offer certainty but it does ensure that my freedom is not won at the cost of yours.
And yes, it's slow. We tend to forget, in the West, how many centuries it took, and how many battles had to be fought, before a free society could emerge. Today the people being held hostage are the ordinary men and women of Iraq. Right now they need our help, our patience, and our prayers.
-British Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.
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