Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30 (Vigil) Thomas Linihan, Bowling Green, (Anniv.)
11.00: Nora Duggan & Raymond Maloney, (Anniv)
6.30: Michael Folan, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Once, she and her pearls and her designer dresses were everywhere that was anywhere in New York society: this benefit, that party, this lunch, that dedication. At her 90th birthday party, she danced the first dance with the mayor of New York. At her 100th, 100 well-connected friends toasted her with champagne. Then Brooke Russell Kuser Marshall Astor, doyenne of New York society by night, philanthropist by day, faded from view. Already, she had closed down her charity, having given away not quite $195 million to charities. Now an incredible 104 years old, she is suffering dreadful indignity. According to an affidavit lodged at court this Summer by her grandson who is seeking to remove her from his father's care, she is living off a diet of porridge and peas and is dressed in rags.

Age is no respecter of riches, or beauty, or standing in society. All Brooke Astor's money has counted for nothing as, increasingly infirm, she has become dependent on others for her welfare. While the shocking case of Brooke Astor is an extreme one, a lack of compassion for the elderly seems to be growing. In the heatwave of 2003 for instance, hundreds of elderly people died in Paris left behind by their families who went away on holiday. With similar high temperatures being reached in Europe this summer, it has probably happened again.

Even in countries where there was once enormous respect for older people, changes in society mean that old people are left isolated.

In Japan, for example, there used to be strict rules about who looked after parents but this tradition is breaking down. Now one of Japan's biggest sellers is apparently a fluffy, cartoon-like doll that says to its elderly owners "Hug me" and "Goodnight" and "I love you" - not much of a substitute for the touch of another human being.

For too many, old age has become a time that is precarious and lonely, rather than an opportunity for the indulging of pleasures and more measured reflection about past years. It should be a time when instead of being part of the rat-race we come to terms with disappointments, or even relish new challenges. We want to be like Simeon who felt his life was complete. When in extreme old age he encountered Jesus in the temple, he could say: 'Lord let thou servant depart in peace.'

We all feel an instinctive desire to protect children and react fiercely to their ill-treatment, a response that is in part biological, to do with the need for our species to survive. But the care of older, frailer people requires something more than a utilitarian response.

The Old Testament perceives it as a duty of gratitude, a thankfulness for the gift of life we have been given by our parents. "When you walk", says the book of Proverbs of our parents, "they will lead you, when you lie down they will watch over you." The time comes when it is our turn to watch over them. Relishing that moment is a mark of whether we belong to a truly civilised society.

-Dick Lyng

Events of Some Interest

The Feast of Tabernacles

The Jewish community will celebrate its seven-day festival of Succot, or Tabernacles, during October. And it seems to me that the ancient idea of a Tabernacle contains an answer to one of the prickliest problems facing western society today. How do you create, in a society as diverse as ours, a sense of shared identity, collective belonging?

In recent Western European history, there have been two models of society. The first I call the country house model. Imagine a group of asylum seekers turning up at the gate of an enormous country house. The owner comes out to greet them with a broad smile. Welcome, he says, I have hundreds of rooms. Please stay here for as long as you like. What a wonderful gesture. The only trouble is that however kind the owner is, he is the host and you are a guest. That's how nation states were until recently. If you had a different colour or culture or creed, you didn't, couldn't feel fully at home.

So people tried another model. Society isn't like a country house but like a hotel. You pay your money. In return, you receive services. And it doesn't matter what you do in your own room so long as you don't disturb the other guests. The only trouble with a hotel is that it never generates a sense of identity. It is where you happen to be staying, not where you belong.

Which brings us back to the Bible. Moses was faced with a problem not unlike ours. How do you turn a group of liberated slaves into a nation with a collective identity? His answer - God's answer - was beautiful and unexpected: You get them to build something together. What they built was the Tabernacle, a portable sanctuary. The best way of making people feel "I belong" is to enlist them in a shared project so they can say: "I helped build this".

The Tabernacle is a symbol of society, made out of the contributions of many individuals. What they gave was unimportant; that they gave was essential. Society is the home we build together - and the more different types of people there are, the more complex and beautiful will be the structure we create.

The important thing is that we build together. A nation is made by contributions, not claims; active citizenship, not rights; what we give, not what we demand. A national identity can be made out of the contributions of many cultures, many faiths. What matters is that together we build something none of us could make alone.

-Jonathan Sacks, (British Chief Rabbi)

Agnes Kilkelly, R.I.P.

Agnes Kilkelly (84), Bowling Green , was buried in the New Cemetery on Tuesday last after her funeral Mass here in the Augustinian. For 46 years Aggie managed the family drapery shop in Upper Abbeygate Street, just opposite Lynch's Castle. A very accomplished dressmaker, she knitted and made much of the material sold in the shop. Her monthly trips to Dublin supplemented her stock.

She was a woman of strong faith and a great fan of the Augustinian. That faith was severely tested by some terrible personal tragedies: her children Martin, Patricia and Marcella died tragically as young adults. Aggie is survived by three children, Michael, Mary and Geraldine. May she rest in peace.

Wise Quotes on Wisdom

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