Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Patrick Tyrell, (Anniv)
12.00: Martin & Bridget Murray, (Anniv).
6.30: Frank Barrett, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

President George W Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, according to a new BBC series on the Middle East 'peace quest'. Nabil Shaath reports: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ..." And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

George Bush believes God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. His avid, evangelical followers will cry, "Amen!" But I guess the rest of the world will cringe noticeably!

Whatever we may think of the president's words, we dismiss them at our peril. For they're not just the deluded rantings of a religious nutter, or even the insincere blather of a silver-tongued con-man. Instead, the Commander in Chief calmly believes what he says to be true, what he hears to be right, and what he does to be justified.

In fact, millions of people across the world would claim that God speaks to them, through the beauty of creation, through the needs of others, through the teachings of religious authority, or through the bible. God 'speaking' to his creatures is, in itself, nothing new.

But the real problem comes when we hijack God for our own cause. It's easier, on one level, to hear God say "Treat yourself to a new car" than "Sell your second car and give the cash to the poor." That's why anything we think we hear from 'above' should be treated with great circumspection (and large pinches of salt)! In the case of George Bush, alarm bells ring when he takes the words of Jesus - 'If you are not for me, you are against me' - and applies them to himself and his 'war' on terror. He's turned the battle between good and evil into one between 'US and them'. "The gospel teaches that the line separating good and evil runs not between nations, but inside every human heart" wrote Solzhenitzyn. Both atheist and believer should be wary of the person who claims to hear God speaking most loudly and clearly. When that person is the most powerful leader in the world, we should be wary AND afraid!

Yet still: I sense God's love, and hear him speak through the life-giving actions of others; through sun-rise and sunset; through the life and death of Christ. And, most recently, from the message on a T-shirt, which asked, quite simply, 'Who would Jesus bomb?'!

-Dick Lyng.

By the way.......

Bono Sings the Praises of Jesus!

Bono has said the person he admires most is Jesus Christ and that "there are very few musicians who don't believe in God." He has also said he would be very disappointed if there was not an afterlife and loved "the idea of hell as a flame that will burn away all the crap and only the precious stones will remain. I think that's where things get evened out . . ." He was speaking in an interview with Zoë Sallis published in the current issue of The Dubliner magazine.

"The idea that there is love and logic behind the universe is something I hold dear," he said. "The idea that it should express itself as a child born in dirt-and-straw poverty is one that gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. It's just mind-blowing to me," he continued.

He recalled coming home from tour one Christmas and attending a carol service at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. "I was tired and I was just doing this romantic thing, not really thinking about it as an act of worship or anything . . . so, to stop falling asleep, as I hadn't been to bed in days, I concentrated on the sheet in front of me, and it really dawned on me how perfect it was that this thing we call God would choose to express itself as a child 'born in a barn', as we say here in Dublin.

"That's the most striking idea we have of God. I think that whatever you look for in God you'll still have to pass through that door of humility and that door of complete vulnerability that a child has." He felt he had "a lot of faith. When you hear one note in your head, you have to have faith that there's another one round the corner."

-Patsy McGarry in The Irish Times.

A Locked Door

Often, when a young person meets with sadness they retreat into a room of darkness and bolt the doors of their lives from the inside so that even those who might have the keys to unlocking their sadness cannot get in. In my experience of parents and families who lose a loved one in the tragic circumstances of suicide, I find that they carry with them so many unresolved questions. They wonder why they didn't see it coming, how they could have prevented it, why their son or daughter could not feel their love.

But I think that in this context the image of the door is a helpful one. Once a child or a teenager locks their pain and hurt in a room and bolts the door of that room from inside, then not even the unconditional love of a parent can unlock the door of sadness from outside. There is less stability for children and teenagers than there was in the past and so it is even more important that we search for ways of shining light into their lives, if only to keep the darkness from becoming complete.

-GARY WADE, A Fragile Kingdom (Dublin: Veritas) p. 105