Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Bernie Mulkerns, (Anniv).
12.00: Gerry Glynn & Fr. Pearse O'Mahoney, (Anniv).
6.30: Rory Comerford, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

Shocking events, or revelations, tend to generate extreme reactions. Anger, even justifiable anger, clouds perspective. The recent Ferns Report is a case in point. The most extreme response came, I suppose, from Liz O'Donnell of the Progressive Democrats. Liz put the boot in with gusto. In the wake of this report, the State should adopt what she called a "no more Mr Nice Guy" approach to the church. There should be no more consultation with it on invitro fertilisation (IVF), abortion services, stem-cell research, Ireland's support for family planning in the Third World, contraception, supports for single mothers, adoption, homosexuality and civil marriage. In addition, she argued, the Church should be thrown out of all schools. Despite the fact that, according to every survey available, over 90 per cent of the parents in this country would wish the Church to play a role in the education of their children.

Within a week of the Ferns Report, a conference was held in West County Hotel, Ennis, inspired by the social activist, Fr Harry Bohan. Among the speakers was Dr Marie Murray, director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. Significantly, she titled her address "Prophets or Profit: Who fills the Vacuum?" Her analysis of contemporary Ireland is interesting, if scathing. As a society, she stated, we have failed our young people in particular:

Truth has been trivialised. Ethics is relative. Choice is coercive. Families are fragmented. Relationships are transitory and commitment is defunct. Goals are replaced by greed. Profit is the only purpose. Beauty is bought. Age is obsolete. Pornography is protected. Rape is minimised and rationalised. Childhood is eroded. Advertising is abusive. Adolescence invaded. Promiscuity is promoted. How did it happen? How did those to whom we wished to give everything, have so much given and so much more taken away? For they are jaded by the deprivation of excess: too much, too soon, too often, they search for new sensations. In the absence of meaning, sensation must suffice. In the excess of sensation, new sensations are needed. In the search for something, any substance may soothe, if only for an hour. They have been deprived of what nurtures the heart, the mind, the soul and the imagination of the young. They have been deprived of inspirational narratives. They have been deprived of tales of heroism, of humanity at its best, youth at its most magnificent, the sanctuary of appropriate controls, role models that motivate, models of behaviour that keep them safe and the scaffolding of spiritual beliefs to support them, to shield them against a harsh world and provide a path towards their higher potential.

If we dispense with the Church, who else will keep alive an ideology to interrogate the culture? Who will provide a vocabulary to discuss this culture, or a mechanisms to confront it? Who will fill this vacuum in the lives of the young? The prophets of profit themselves, Liz O'Donnell's very own Progressive Democrats? O Lord deliver us!

-Dick Lyng

Incidentally....

SUNDAY MASSES AND THEIR HISTORY:

The collection last weekend was €1,444.00. This is the largest amount we ever collected at Mass, with the exception of such 'special collections' as the one for Tsunami Relief. This would seem to reflect the reality of an increased congregation at the 12.00 Mass in St. Nicholas'. Our 'ushers' did a head-count on Sunday last and estimated a congregation of 400. When we did our survey in February 1999, our congregations were as follows: 7.00 Vigil: (186); 9.00: (46); 11.00: (238); 12.15: (103); 6.30: (239). The total amounted to 812. (More correctly, 812 returned the questionnaires. But the response was almost 100% since the exercise was conducted on site, and those who had forgotten their glasses were provided with the necessary assistance in completing the offending document!).

Shortly after that survey, we brought the Saturday evening Mass into line with the Sunday evening one: 6.30. Numbers suggested that people were voting with their feet for that particular time. In July 2002, a more radical decision was taken, but not by ourselves: the bishop and his advisors set about rationalising Masses throughout the diocese. In that particular 'shake-out' St. Augustine's lost two Sunday Masses: the 9.00 and the 12.15. These were our weak ones. Most of us priests supported that decision since there are few experiences so detrimental to the faith as celebrating Mass for a few intrepid souls scattered around the four corners of the church.

But we will certainly have problems accommodating 400 people in the revamped Augustinian. (Oh Happy Fault!). But, of course, were are dealing with some obvious imponderables(!): will the 12 o'clock 400 remain 'faithful' when we transfer from St. Nicholas', and eventually to 11 o'clock? It will take 6 months for things to settle. We may revisit matters then.

Galway Baroque Singers' Concert

On Sunday 27th November in St. Patrick's Church, Forster Street at 8:30pm, there will be a choral concert with the Galway Baroque Singers accompanied by ConTempo String Quartet with Raymond O'Donnell on the Organ conducted by Audrey Corbett. Tickets on sale in Mulligan Records and at the door.

'SONG OF MARK' by Marty Haugen,

A Christian Musical based on Mark's Gospel. To be staged in March 2006 in the Black Box Theatre.

Rehearsals begin Sun. Nov. 27th, 2.30 - 5pm, in the Jesuit Residence, Sea Rd. Galway. All ages welcome from 12 years upwards. No audition or previous experience necessary.

Dee Newell, 087-2050577, email deenewell@hotmail.com
Fr. Frankie Lee, 086-8308865, email franklee1@eircom.net

In An Oxford Studio

Fifty years ago
This light-voiced, confident,
Uppity, arrogant
Person who was me
Intoned for posterity
These verses. Unbelievably,
Years afterwards, much less
Confident, my voice a mess,
I sit back surprisingly
Glad still to be
Able to move about,
Even able to shout
'You smug thug!' To the prig
Who, creepily acting big,
Recorded this deathless verse.
Well, it could have been worse:
This antique disc will pass on,
Scratched as, one by one,
People switch on to the past
And so make it last.
So my poems, spoken by me,
Intoned for posterity,
Fifty-one years ago -----
And I never meant it so -----
Will in some sense survive,
Keeping me alive,
Though in that studio
So many years ago
I never quite meant it so.

-Anthony Thwaite.