Sunday Newsletter

As I Was Saying...

These short days between Christmas and New Year are days when normal time seems suspended - I'm not very sure what day of the week it is. Without the usual routines life becomes a round of visits, sales and leftovers. This is what anthropologists call 'liminal time', a time of transition. 'The year is going - let it go!' wrote Tennyson of 1833, in which his friend Arthur Hallam had died.

There might well be a few today who feel much the same about 2007. For most of us, the ordinary pleasures of day to day life have been marred by the constant shadows cast by human evil and violence. Many Galwegians will associate 2007 with the Swiss student Manuela Riedo and her brutal murder. What an awful thing! There will of course be good things to recall - a wedding, perhaps, or a baby born, or a new home or a new friend. Yet if there are 'good' and 'bad' years, this one probably falls for most of us in the latter category - right to its last grisly moments with the bloody assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

All the same, and whatever the weather, tomorrow night will see vast crowds on the streets in our great cities, celebrating. So - what are they celebrating? Not, probably, the memories of 2007, nor, one would think, the remorseless tread of time which takes us from one year to the next - one year nearer heaven, I suppose. Or one year nearer the Free Travel! It's probably not 2007 they have in mind at all, but the new one, 2008, in which case the cheers are based on hope rather than experience. Who knows, perhaps next year will be better than the last one. Let's turn over the page, as it were, and move quickly on. Time flies.

The Old Preacher in the Bible reminds us that :
for everything there is a season,
a time for every matter under heaven,
- a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time for war and a time for peace.

He sees all this as part of the way the Creation works - 'God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into our minds'. Humans, in other words, have an understanding of past, present, future: we live in a world with tenses. And God has done this, says the Preacher, 'so that all should stand in awe before him'.

Time, like space, is awesome, almost beyond understanding. But, unlike space, we can largely decide what we do with 'our' time. That decision has consequences, of course, whether it's myself or George Bush. Time, a gift of God, is too precious to abuse or to waste. Increasingly I hear it said that the chief need of our children was our time. Time to care, time to talk, time to build relationships, time to listen. No end of gadgets and gifts can compete with that.

No reason, then, not to mark the passing of the old year and the birth of the new one, but every reason to recognise that we too are part of the process, carried along by time's tide but not helpless to make choices. Some of those choices will surely change us, or our families, or our neighbours. Some may eventually change the world! It could well be as simple as that.

Happy New Year, and waste no time!

-Dick Lyng

This and that....

A Christmas Song

Why is the baby crying
On this, his special day,
When we have brought him lovely gifts
And laid them on the hay?

He's crying for the people
Who greet this day with dread
Because somebody dear to them
Is far away or dead,

For all the men and women
Whose love affairs went wrong,
Who try their best at merriment
When Christmas comes along,

For separated parents
Whose turn it is to grieve
While children hang their stockings up
Elsewhere on Christmas Eve,

For everyone whose burden
Carried through the year,
Is heavier at Christmastime,
The season of good cheer.

That's why the baby's crying
There in the cattle stall:
He's crying for those people.
He's crying for them all.

-Wendy Cope.

"New Year Quotes...."

A Progress Report!

So Christmas came and went, but not without effort and tears! (I jest!). Our Communal Penitential Services (The Amnesties) seem to grow in popularity as the years progress. The Service at 4.30 on Saturday 22nd was particularly well attended. The 4.30 Christmas Eve Service clashed with St. Nicholas' 4.00 'Carols Around the Crib'. I attended St. Nicholas' for the beginning of their Crib Service. I was amazed. The Church was packed to the rafters. Many of those present were Augustinian regulars. Perhaps we should move our Service back 30 minutes next year, to 5.00. In that way, those who wish to attend the Carol Service (of whom there are many, obviously!) would be facilitated?

Our 'Giving Tree' was spectacularly successful this year. We seem to have got double the gifts of previous years. And all were distributed a full six days before Christmas Day.

The Nativity Play was really wonderful, thanks to Pat and Feena. In my book, that is the highlight of the Christmas Festival. As is obvious from the photograph, Santa did his duty in the Priory after Mass.

While Tommy Hayes was obviously happy with his lot, the scowl on his brother Diarmuid's face indicates that Santa's efforts left a lot to be desired! There's always next year, Diarmuid!

The Christmas Masses, at Midnight and 11.00, were the full festive celebrations we have now come to expect. The choir excelled itself as usual. A special word of thanks to Pat's daughter Jessica who put her hands to the plough once again! Well done to all!

The Christmas collections have not yet been counted since our Tellers are still on holidays. (No tales out of school!) Finally, wasn't it great to see Dolores Glynn back in the church on Christmas morning. We hope to see much more of you this year Lolo. Happy 2008 to all!

The Late Sid Geraghty

Sid Geraghty, University Road, passed away at Coral Haven Nursing Home on Friday morning last, aged 81. He had been ailing for almost four years. He is survived by his three daughters, Cathy, Margaret and Barbara, and by his two sisters, Eimear and Niamh. Sadly, his only son, Mike, predeceased him by twelve years.

Sid was an interesting man. He was born in Mayoralty House, Augustine Street, eighty one years ago. At various times his family owned shops on St. Augustine Street and on The Docks. He himself was an engineer by profession but an adventurer by instinct. He spent a great part of his life working as an engineer in Malawi.

Malawi is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa bordered by Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. It is among the poorest countries in the world. Today, a combination of drought and Aids has crippled its mainly agrarian economy, leaving the majority of its population of almost 12 million living below the poverty line.

Even before the AIDS epidemic wrought such devastation, Malawi was a tough station. But Sid loved the place and, even in advanced retirement, he spoke with great affection of the country and its people. In fact he imparted to his children a great fondness for Africa and a commitment to its people. In 2004 his daughters Cathy and Margaret, and her daughter Sian, were among a group of Galway volunteers who, in response to a famine and drought in Malawi, collected, transported, and assembled on site 100 water pumps, capable of pumping a minimum of 5,000 litres of water per hour.

A journalist, who accompanied the volunteers, wrote at the time: "The road to Zomba reminded me of the Curragh Line. Interestingly Sid Geraghty, father of Margaret and Cathy was a supervising engineer during the construction of this road many years ago."

Sid was a man of great integrity. He was a highly committed environmentalist long before that stand was popular or profitable! He cared deeply about Galway's waterways, its general heritage and its conservation. At the time of the Forthill restoration project, he was a staunch supporter, both morally and financially. He remained altruistic to the very end, donating his body to medical research. He served well.

His funeral Mass was celebrated in St. Augustine's on Saturday morning. May he rest in peace.

Top

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict