- The collection last Sunday for Dafur was almost € 2000.00.
- Next Sunday's Masses (September 5th): 11.00: Larry Carter (Anniv); 6.30 Sabina Cooke (Anniv)
AS I WAS SAYING...
The Tuam priest and theologian, Enda McDonagh, has been a prophetic voice in the Irish Church for the past 30 years. Like all prophets, he has experienced the ecclesiastical cold shoulder more than once! Three times he was the first choice of the Tuam priests for their Archbishop. In a relatively recent "The Splintered Heart", he has formulated the following ten questions that need to be addressed before meaningful debate begins:
- Could the whole Irish Catholic Church recognise clearly and persistently its responsibility to the financial, political and broader social moral standards of its members as well as to their sexual moral standards? The overall moral ethos of the country, as well as recent events, suggests a much greater preoccupation with sexual morality than with truth or justice.
- How should the Irish Catholic bishops acknowledge their shared responsibility with priests, religious and laity in analysing and responding to the present crisis?
- Can the regular meetings of Irish Catholic bishops ever hope to understand properly, and respond effectively to, the challenges the Irish Catholic Church without real participation by a range of consultors, lay, religious and clerical; theological, professional and pastoral?
- Can issues of financial morality be addressed by the whole Irish Catholic Church without complete openness about church finances?
- Can the issues of political morality be addressed without openness about the politics within the church structures in regard to the appointment of bishops and to the making of Episcopal decisions which directly affect the people?
- How can issues of sexual morality be addressed without the participation of laity (married and single), priests, sisters and brothers, theologians, psychologists, therapists and other experts? How the present gap between teaching and practice in regard, for example, to contraception, to be honestly handled?
- How far is obligatory rather than optional celibacy necessary or helpful for the diocesan clergy in the fulfilment of its mission today? How far is it possible for many? Meantime, what of friendships between priests and women? Meantime, what of friendships between priests and women?
- How are women to be integrated fully into the membership and the mission of the Irish Catholic Church? How far are they related to the question of ordination? How is this question to be properly debated in the whole church?
- How is the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached and lived in Irish society today in face of the diminishing credibility of message and messenger?
- Can the Irish Catholic Church take up this challenge effectively without humbly seeking the help of its Christian sisters and brothers in other churches?
And that's only for starters!!
-Dick Lyng.
EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST
- CURA COLLECTION:
The collection next weekend, September 4-5th, is for CURA. This voluntary organisation, under the direciton of the Irish Catholic hierarchy, is a confidential support service for women, their families and all those distressed by an unwanted pregnancy. While the organisation is staffed by volunteers, they do call on the services of professionals when necessary.
CURA offers support, counselling, ante-natal and post natal care as well as after care for mothers and babies. It is a free service offered to everyone, irrespective of marital status or religious persuasion. While the protection and support of the unborn child is the first concern of CURA, the life and well-being of the mother is of equal importance. In establishing CURA, the Church was trying to make present to the women of our time, the mercy and compassion that Christ extended to all who met Him during his life on earth.
CURA - GALWAY operates a 24 hour telephone service, seven days a week: 091-562558. The office is open from 9.30 am - 5 pm Monday - Friday.
- A TERRIBLE MIMIMALISM:
In medieval times, most unseemly of all, there crept into Catholic practice a terrible minimalism, the key issue being what was the minimum that the priest and participants had to do for the sacrament to be effective ex opere operato. This minimalism leads even today to the most questionable pastoral practices such as an overwhelming emphasis on the priest in the sacramental gathering to the near exclusion of all others, utterly impoverished celebrations which are rushed through because they are valid anyway, very poor preparation and, most objectionably of all, the wandering cleric who will perform any sacrament any place any time.
-MICHAEL DRUMM, Passage to Pasch (Dublin: Columba Press) p.64.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
A secret intelligence briefing done on the state of the earth by somebody from another planet would make interesting reading. The section on 'Motivation of the People' would have questions about how they spend their time and how they're rewarded. The report would reveal that the earthlings measure the value of everything and everyone by something called 'money'.
You can imagine the conversation as the Head of Joint Intelligence briefs the Head of Planet Omega who asks 'Do they give everybody the same amount? 'No' comes the answer. 'Well,' she asks, 'who do they give most to?' 'Judging by our latest reports', the chief spook replies 'they're thinking of giving millions of it to someone who trains 11 earthlings to kick a ball into a net'. 'Does this make them happy?' asks the Head. 'The Ball or the money, Ma'am?' 'Either' 'The Ball, not very often. The money, hardly ever.'
'And who do they give the least to?' 'Latest reports reveal that the vast majority - almost 80 per cent of earthlings have little or no money.' 'That's strange', says his Leader 'Your report says that democracy has come to this planet. That's a contradiction. How do you explain this inconsistency?' At which point the Head of Intelligence changes colour, even a lighter shade of scarlet!
-BBC Radio 4, 'Thought for the Day'.
MORTAL SIN
Mortal sin is one's deep personal commitment to evil, a profound choice of selfishness, or, as many theologians today would say, a fundamental option for evil. Such a basic choice is difficult to make. One has to have a real appreciation of the values and evils involved, one must gather one's personal resources and then commit oneself to evil in and from one's heart, at one's deepest level. Mortal sin, then, cannot happen by accident or on the spur of the moment. It takes effort and time and will usually involve a process, as one moves towards committing oneself in one's heart to evil.
Lesser, more superficial choices (venial sins) may well be part of this process. The result of a mortal sin is that one enters the state of mortal sinfulness, i.e., one is now a basically selfish, unloving person, who has broken his/her relationship with God and with other people and so has lost the state of grace. Such a sin will shape the sinner profoundly: it causes him/her to adopt a basic stance or direction towards evil or selfishness and away from other people and God. And, as was noted earlier, mortal sin, because of its very nature, will be hard to identify, even in oneself. Mortal sin would seem to come about in one of two ways. Firstly, one can commit oneself to a specific major evil wholeheartedly, e.g., murder, adultery. But it can also happen that mortal sin is not so dramatic a choice but one that develops over a quite lengthy period as the person sinks gradually into profound selfishness.
Mortal sin thus understood will be a rare phenomenon in the average Christian's life, precisely because it is so difficult to commit. On the other hand, it is hard to get out of mortal sin once one has got into it. Such a profound choice is not easily reversed and the longer one remains in mortal sin (or in basic goodness) the more difficult it becomes to change. So falling into mortal sin after a lifetime of virtue is highly unlikely but no more unlikely than a death-bed conversion after a life of sin. It is important to note also that mortal sin is an adult reality, not something a child is capable of committing.
-Fr Bill Cosgrove (Ferns)
MOYNE PARK
i.m. George Macbeth
Cad a dheanfaimid feasta gan adhmad?
Ta deireadh na gcoillte ar lar;
-Cill Cais
The heart is still in the great house.
You graced it with an interval of decency.
Fine-plumed to the end like the doomed swan
beating its way through a blinding storm
to crash against the quivering glass
you sat, beating out your last breath
in sonnets, silent in a golden morning room,
avoiding nothing; your marriage of manners and rage.But the life, George! We who were dispossessed
made free in borrowed elegance, made an entrance
and silently I exulted. From those high cold rooms
any of us could have ridden forth, sleek with assurance.
When you left, the house died. I will not mourn it.
Thanks to you, I would no longer burn it.-Mary O'Malley.
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