Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Tom & Josephine McNamara, Market St., (Anniv).
11.00: Anne & James Sharkey, (Anniv).
6.30: Thomas Duffy, (RIP).

As I Was Saying...

Many old Galway families will gather at Forthill today to remember with reverence their departed ancestors. That hallowed spot has functioned as a cemetery for over 500 years now! In many ways it contains the 'official memory' of the city of Galway'. Without Forthill, Galway wouldn't make sense to itself!

"Remember" is a sturdy Anglo-Saxon word that means the opposite of "dis-member." That is, it means, at its most basic, "to put together." My dictionary offers the following definitions: "to recall to the mind through an act of memory; to call to the mind with effort or determination." These 'acts of memory', these deliberate efforts to connect with our past, helps us to fill out our story and to make sense of ourselves - to ourselves. This present generation is but the latest chapter of a very bulky book indeed! Our storyline will make no sense if we are unable to connect to what has gone before. And that is the central theme of November: making connections with the past so as to make sense of the present.

In Transpersonal Psychology today, much is made of the healing potential of 'recovered memory', apparently. It seems to be a variant on what Carl Jung saw as the necessity of recovering 'the Shadow Side' of our personality if we are to achieve individuation or maturity. Unless this process is successfully negotiated, according to Jung, then our personal history will be experienced as a burden rather than as a blessing.

I believe this model of 'the Shadow Side' is a promising one in the area of inter-Church relations. We have spent centuries 'tip-toeing' around each other for fear of confronting 'the Shadow Side' of our respective traditions. Because, if we want to, we will have no problem in finding excuses for avoiding each other: different understandings of Eucharist, Priesthood, authority, women priests, gay bishops, and so on.

However, the picture is bigger than this. We post- Vatican II Catholics are now obsessed with the Mass. Our devotional practices largely collapsed in the wake of Vatican II. 'Evening Devotions' such as the Rosary, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the Stations of the Cross are no longer practiced communally to any significant degree. It seems then that Mass was pressed into service to fill the glaring gaps. Mass came to be seen by many priests as 'a filler'. If a priest is confronted by his parishioners with marking an event, the temptation is to take the easy way out and 'put on a Mass'. Consequently, the Mass has been unintentionally 'inflated', and thereby devalued.

The same thinking spills over into inter-church relations: 'if we can't do Mass with them, there's no point in doing anything!' Our common 'Service of Remembrance' in St. Nicholas' on All Souls Night demonstrated one thing clearly: the Eucharist is not at all essential to a satisfying, enriching liturgical celebration. It does demand work, of course, because a great deal of the riches of our respective traditions have been largely forgotten. And it now takes time, and memory, to retrieve them. But we were rewarded with a wonderful night.

-Dick Lyng

Events of Some Interest

Autumn Psalm of Fearlessness

I am surrounded by a peaceful ebbing,
as creation bows to the mystery of life;
all that grows and lives must give up life,
yet it does not really die.

As plants surrender their life,
bending, brown and wrinkled,
and yellow leaves of trees
float to my lawn like parachute troops,
they do so in a sea of serenity.

I hear no fearful cries from creation,
no screams of terror,
as death daily devours
once-green and growing life.

Peaceful and calm is autumn's swan song,
for she understands
that hidden in winter's death-grip
is spring's open-handed,
full-brimmed breath of life.

It is not a death rattle that sounds
over fields and backyard fences;
rather I hear a lullaby
softly swaying upon the autumn wind.

Sleep in peace, all that lives;
slumber secure, all that is dying,
for in every fall there is the rise
whose sister's name is spring.

-Edward Hays.

Quotes on Memory

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