Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Michael Folan, (Anniv)
12.00: Winifred & Patrick O'Connor, (Anniv).
6.30: John & Pauline Ryan, Lr. Abbeygate St.. (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

'National Science Week' was staged here in Ireland two weeks ago. The object of the exercise was to view science as a 'community activity' rather than the exclusive preserve of a few erratic eccentrics. The man who has done so much to popularise the subject, Leo Enright, has been regaling the country every morning with extraordinary reports from the scientific world.

An article by the Irish Times science correspondent, Dr. William Reville, on the relationship between science and religion provoked a veritable flood of letters to the editor of that paper. It's eight years since the first stem cells were taken from a human embryo. Not surprisingly this was hailed as a great breakthrough. Against those who had moral qualms, this embryonic tissue was proclaimed as a miracle panacea for a range of illnesses and disabilities. At a recent scientific conference in Dublin, the fertility expert Lord Winston warned biologists in this field not to hype the importance of their work. It's a mistake, he said, to play on the hopes of desperate people by exaggerating the benefits of this research. His warning should alert us to the danger of elevating the science of medicine to the practice of magic! It all sounds so wonderful - here are these master cells which can turn into anything and therefore can re-grow any kind of damaged tissue, making new organs, or nerves or limbs.

One is left wondering whether it is the demise of religious belief, or simply that religion has become so simplistic lately, that has made us vulnerable to magical claims when they are made by scientists. Now that we no longer pray to God do we think science will answer our prayers? If so, then we may have a long wait. Prayer is not magic, nor is science either. True, both often begin in the hope that we can exert special powers to make the world a better place.

Yet the more we try to understand what science is all about, and the longer we try to pray, we may well reflect on the striking parallels between both activities. Prayer works by patience, by practice, by discipline and humility. The practice of the presence of God is more important than getting the result you want. And a similar pattern is true of good science. It's not all about instant discoveries and breakthrough cures and headlines, but about a slow expansion of knowledge, understanding and method. That means hours and hours of study and thought and observation. Relentless patience, and, perhaps most important of all, being prepared to accept you're wrong. Just the same qualities, in fact as those needed for spiritual development. Scientists too have to cultivate the spiritual virtue of detachment, to forego their own prejudices and desires. It's when they refuse to do that that they start exaggerating the results, rounding up a figure here and there, claiming too much from a too small sample, winding up the media with premature claims. When religion claims to know everything it provokes a backlash of angry disappointment. And so with science, if it claims too much, we all lose faith.

-Dick Lyng.

By the way.......

BUILDING AND RENOVATING PLACES OF WORSHIP

The design of a place of worship is a strong indicator of our understanding of our relationship with our God. The plan reflects what kind of liturgical practice occurs there. It expresses how the gathered assembly understands itself and its responsibility for the enactment of the rituals. Does the plan suggest that worship is directed to a remote intangible God living in some glorious heavenly city? Or does it say that worship is about discovering God in the midst of our own dwelling places, however ugly they might be?

Where we pray shapes our prayer, and how we pray will shape the way we live. If the entire church membership is called to take up the responsibility of the Gospel mission, the environment of worship should say so. A place of worship that gathers the whole body of Christ around its ritual focal points and draws the entire membership into the ritual action says there is a partner- ship in everything the church does. On the other hand, a building plan that creates distances between clergy and laity could suggest that the church is comprised of some members who are more important than others and that the liturgy (and everything the church does) is something to stand by and watch while someone else does all the work for you. This kind of arrangement in a place of worship works against the universal call to holiness.

Finally, our environments for worship should express with clarity the essence of Catholicism-a unique and diverse body of clergy and laity that continues to evolve, balancing the strengths of its traditions with the promises of its vision. It is not only about art and archi- tecture.

-Rev. Richard Vosco Diocese of Albany, in America, November 3, 2003.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Belated congratulations to Paddy and May Melia from New Docks. Sixty four years ago this month, on September 9th, 1941 at the ungodly hour of 7.00am to be exact, Paddy Melia and May Naughton 'tied the knot' in the old St. Patrick's Church on Forster Street. The ceremony was conducted by that formidable figure, Archdeacon Glynn, and eight guests attended. As Paddy and May were plying their troth, Allied troops were landing on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitzbergen. War was of course raging in Europe (through no fault of either Paddy or May!), Cork had hammered Dublin in the Hurling Final on the previous Sunday (What's new?!), and Galway were preparing for a joust with Kerry in the Football Final. (Don't dare look up the outcome!)

The Archdeacon must have been a liturgically snappy chap for his day, since the happy couple were already sitting down to a hearty breakfast by 7.30am, in the Railway Hotel (Great Southern) no less. According to Paddy, the Dean paid for it! The happy couple then caught the 8.00am train to Dublin where they spent two weeks on Honeymoon.

GOOD LITURGY

One of the most important pastoral challenges I have faced as a parish priest over the past 30 years has been helping the faithful overcome a legacy of passivity and the notion that it's "Father's Mass, not ours."

Certainly progress has been made since the Second Vati- can Council, but a survey of the current liturgical landscape reveals mixed results. Catholics have a solid, well-articulated theology of the assembly's role at the Eucharist, a vision backed by numerous official pronouncements stretching back to Pius X in the early 20th century. But many people in the pews are unaware of that theology, and they continue to strug- gle with a deeply entrenched clericalism and disenfranchise- ment of the laity at Mass, conditions passed on from generation to generation through subtle attitudes and behaviours that continue to communicate the message that it really is "Father's Mass!"

Robert Duggan, P.P.