Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Patrick & Nellie Keirns, (Anniv).
11.00: Jeanne & Dick Byrne, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

This is a special weekend. The Provincial, Gerry Horan will be main celebrant at the 11.00 Mass today. In the course of this Mass he will officially install the 'new' Augustinian community here. This ritual, and its peculiar timing, demands an explanation. The 'Rite of Installation' is a recent innovation. In fact it was only proposed at our Chapter this Summer for the first time, voted on by the assembly, and accepted by a large majority. The object of the exercise is, apparently, three-fold: (i) to stress the centrality of 'community' in the Augustinian vision of the world; (ii) to alert the wider community to the fact that this is now a NEW community, and that life is starting afresh here; in this way, the wider community will be alerted to the presence of new faces, and challenged to work with new people; (iii) to provide the Provincial with an opportunity to meet with the wider local community, and vice versa. That at least is the intention behind today's function; whether it works out in practice or not is another matter entirely!

The timing, doesn't help matters. We are the last community in the country to be installed. In reality, the community has been in place since September last! On another level, however, we have not been a community: we have lived as isolated nomads, with various members commuting between Salthill, The Long Walk, Ozanam House and St. Augustine's respectively. Consequently, it made sense to postpone the installation until the renovated Church was 'up and running'. Then the celebration of 'new beginnings' means something!

Today then is the celebration of 'a new beginning', and it is also the Feast the Baptism of Our Lord, the ritual beginning of his public life. It is the first Sunday of 'normal time' too, with the Church returning to ordinary existence again after the excitement of Christmas. This sense of 'recent excitement' and a desire to return to the ordinary is accentuated here this year for obvious reasons. Our people are recovering from the excitement of the 'new' church and are settling down to treating it as primarily a place of prayer and devotion. There is still a lot of talk and chatter around the place, but that too 'goes with the territory' in a building such as this. It does provoke discussion and stimulate debate almost spontaneously.

But there are some teething problems, naturally. The statues could be located and arranged in a more satisfactory manner. The Mother of Good Counsel altar now looks comparatively drab. The 'private Prayer Space' behind the altar screen awaits its own furnishings. However, it's great to be back on familiar ground -yet very different territory. T.S. Eliot, in his marvelous 'Four Quartets', expressed well the ambiguities of all new beginnings:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

May you get to know this place for the first time!

-Dick Lyng

Gerry Horan, Provincial

We welcome our Provincial, Gerry Horan to Galway on his first 'official' visit. Gerry was born 49 years ago in Limerick city to Philip and Catherine Horan, the middle child of seven, three boys and four girls. His father worked with CIE, but died some years ago. His mother, still lives in the family home. He was educated at the famous Christian Brothers school in Sexton Street and has fond memories of his years there. It was there that he picked up his great passion for sports of all kinds, and an inexplicable attachment to Derby County Football Club!

Gerry first came into contact with the Augustinians at the tender age of ten when he began serving Mass at their church in Limerick. He joined the Order with eight colleagues in 1974, studied for three years in Dublin and three more in Rome. He returned to Ireland in 1980 and was appointed Housemaster at one of the Order's two boarding schools, in St. Augustine's College, Dungarvan. He was ordained in 1981, and he was to remain in the College for the next 20 years. During his time there, he taught Religion, Business Studies, and RE. "I loved teaching, it was chaotic at times but I loved it. It took me back to a time when I was at school myself," he said. His heart remains in the school system, and he has kept his position on St. Augustine's board of management.

In 2001, as the Augustinian Provincial Bursar, he moved to Fethard in Tipperary. This involved monitoring the finances of the Order. He remained in that capacity until his own election as Provincial in 2005. While there are upsides to being Provincial, Gerry says that there are also negatives. "One thing I cannot abide is meetings, and I have had to endure a lot of them as part of this job". The troubled Church must now return to basics: "We must now focus on the manner in which the gospel can be most effectively lived and shared. We must secure a foundation and put it in place so that people can live the Gospel, that is what it is all about," he said.

Welcome to Galway, Gerry.

Other items of Interest

Baptism today?

How would you handle these problems, if you were a priest? There's a couple living together. They have a baby and they want it chris- tened, What do you do? Refuse? Say 'sure'?

They are married but don't go to church. They are well disposed, back parish projects but, outside Christmas and funerals, they don't show. Now, they have a new baby. Is this your chance: no church, no christening? Married or living together, either way, they make no secret of the fact that they think church and all this lark is for the birds. But one of the grannies has them haunted to have the poor child christened. For peace sake, they come to fix a date. You can smell the hostility but they want an answer.

Babies change everything. Their arrival stirs deep emotions. Their weakness connects with our adult fragility. They invite ritual. Like death, birth demands a rite of passage. Womb and tomb are doors to mystery and they call for ritual.

Which is a complicated way of saying that the vast majority of Christians will want baptism for their child. Irrespective of their own lifestyle. And they'll be contused and hurt if they are refused. The fact that they ask - even the most reluctant - is significant. There is mystery here and rules are clumsy keys when it comes to unlocking it.

For Catholics. no matter how young the couple. there is always the danger that traces of Limbo may be still in their blood. Fears of what might happen if the child dies, unbaptised. Limbo has been etched into folklore for generations. Limbo is off the books for some time but the space where it was in the Catholic mind is still dark and untidy. No mother will want to risk her child left standing on heaven's threshold. We must respect the legacy we created and not blame those scarred by it.

If a couple has these views of baptism and they meet refusal because of their lifestyle, they will be full of fear and anger. They will think the baptismal font is being used as a weapon of war. An instrument of power.

They'll be looking for one thing when they want baptism and the priest will be refusing something else. He'll be full of 'baptismal theology'! But even the most committed of Christians will often see it as little more than a chance for family and friends to celebrate a new birth. What's the big deal, they'll wonder?

But it is a big deal and that's the problem. Seven times in the ceremony the parents are asked about their own faith. They make promises. Baptism depends on the home to sustain it.

A couple living together can range from a casual relationship to a deep and loving care for each other. Who can tell? Circumstances may decide the kind of lifestyle but only their hearts - and God - can know how much commitment is there. Or how much faith. Do you deny this couple? Why?

I suggest it comes to this. The very fact that a couple look for baptism is itself a big step - even if granny is sitting outside in the car. The request is worth exploring and the stories behind the asking will often outshine the lifestyle. Babies open up mysteries and hearts, Baptism, done with good grace, is a moment of innocence and love. It is a celebration of whatever is good in the struggle. God lurks around the font. We should be slow to deny his people the chance to meet him there.

-Fr.Colm Kilcoyne.

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