Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Joan Murphy, (RIP).
11.00: Kathleen & John Walsh, (Anniv).
6.30: Pierce Murray, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Englishman Malcolm Pointon was a talented pianist and lecturer. He got Alzheimer's Disease at 51. This is a progressive disease of the brain that is debilitating and terminal. It is not merely a symptom of old age. As it progresses victims need high levels of care. Film-maker Paul Watson spent 11 years with Malcolm and his wife Barbara making a documentary from the first diagnosis to the final moments. In the television documentary, shown on Wednesday last, his wife Barbara said of Malcolm: "These are the hands that once flew over the piano keys. And the hands that once caressed."

The documentary was quite disturbing. We saw his painfully slow deterioration from a gentle and talented musician to a drooling non-person. We saw the impact all this had on Barbara too. It was disturbing both for what it told us about Alzheimer's and also for what it says about modern culture.

For the past thirty years we have been fundamentally altering our relationship to both birth and death. On the one hand, children can now be created independently of what was once the natural rhythm of life, fertilised now in vitro, born to postmenopausal women.

On the other hand, the modern miracles of stem cell reproduction and genetic engineering seem to hold out the possibility of our endlessly re-making ourselves. We seem to have fulfilled the prophetic words of William E. Henley by becoming the 'masters of my fate, the captains of our souls', on the brink of postponing death perhaps indefinitely.

But just when we become giddy with the possibility of extending our human lives yet further we are confronted with a shocking statistic. According to the Alzheimer's Society, one in three older people will fall victim to a form of dementia. The dream of cheating death seems itself to be cheated, for what is the point of living longer if the quality of life is so impaired?

Today we are no longer willing to be the passive victims of whatever chance and circumstance put our way. We want to know how the world works, to tame nature, overcome disease, prolong life.

Nothing wrong with this; but in the process we have lost one key element of living - learning how to live with limitations, how to give thanks for the fragmentary, the broken, the less than perfect, and how to empathise with those who suffer the indignities of disintegrating minds and bodies, and those who have to patiently watch and wait. An over-activist culture of doers will find those who suffer dementia disturbing, and will struggle to relate to them and those who care for them.

We need to recover the sense that having things happen to us, is also part of life. We need to hear again those wonderful verses in the Book of Job that encapsulate this, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.'

-Dick Lyng

Items of Some Interest

Marriage Law Changes

Irish Marriage Law changes on 5th November 2007. These are civil, legal requirements, binding on all couples. From the state's point of view, it will no longer be sufficient to notify the Church (or to send Mammy in with the notification!). The main changes in relation to religious marriages are as follows:-

  1. The requirement that all couples attend in person at the Registrar's office to give their notification, establish their identity and freedom to marry and sign declarations of no impediment.
  2. All couples must now present in person to a Registrar to give their three months' notice. As registration districts are being abolished, they may do so at any office in the country, not necessarily in the area where they intend getting married.
  3. Those intending to marry must present the following documents in person to the Registrar:
    1. Photo ID (preferably a passport or driving licence)
    2. If one or both or them is divorced, the original divorce decrees in respect of any previous divorces they may have
    3. If one of them is widowed, the death certificate of their previous spouse
    4. Name and address of the person they wish to solemnise the marriage
    5. Names and dates of birth of their witnesses.

An idea for Galway Arts Festival?

Novelties abound at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A local Catholic church is offering one of its own to visitors. St Patrick's, Cowgate, wants people of all faiths and none to come and confess their sins. Three Redemptorist priests are making themselves available for four days from 20 August between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. (or longer if necessary) to hear confessions.

Flyers proclaim that "Confession is good for the soul" and suggest that anyone "burdened by guilt" will benefit from the opportunity to confess to an experienced Catholic priest. Parish priest Fr Edward Hone told us that, where appropriate, the priest will suggest that the penitent contact a priest, minister or religious leader of their own tradition or a counsellor.

"Any follow-up is entirely up to the penitent. This is to enable penitents to unburden, to ask advice in a safe environment, to move forward, to grow spiritually and to become more fully human," he said.

As for penance, there will be none for non-religious people but Fr Hone says that he will suggest a charitable donation or other good deed. Perhaps they can buy tickets for the biggest flop on the Fringe.

-The Tablet, August 11, 2007.

Pope goes Home

Is there really such a thing as a pope-themed mobile ringtone? The Austrians certainly think so, and have introduced them as part of the huge build-up to Benedict XVI's three-day visit starting on 7 September. From next week mobiles will be playing hymns from the Pope's services, music from choirs associated with him and the sound of bells at the basilica he will visit. He already looks down from some 2,000 giant billboards on major highways through the country. Who said the political 'cult of personality' died with Communism?

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