Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Joe Keville, (Anniv).
11.00 John & Margaret O'Mahony, (Anniv).
6.30: Coleman Cooke, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Two double tragedies grabbed headlines this week: the double murder of the young Polish men in Dublin, and the apparent double suicide of the two young friends in Westport. Only last weekend I wrote here of the mindboggling phenomenon of 'clustersuicides' among young males. I was making the point that killing is always wrong; and this includes killing of oneself. Victims of suicide are not confined to the individual perpetrator. Their families suffer intense, unrequited grief for years afterwards. There must be some way of conveying this message publicly and sensitively without being seen to reopen the raw wounds of grief.

Objectively, suicide is as morally grave as murder. But, perhaps out of a sense of misguided compassion, society seems to have lost sight of that moral principle. If a young fellow shoots himself, society reasons, it is on an altogether lower level of moral gravity than if he shoots another person. While I see how 'compassion' might inspire this stance, we should not lose sight of the fact that all human life is sacred, and the taking of life is always wrong. It is utterly unfair to young people themselves to rush in immediately with 'mitigating factors' as soon as a discussion on suicide is introduced.

Meanwhile in Dublin two hardworking exiles were dispatched by a gang of vicious thugs. The level of violence used was absolutely shocking: physically, the murderers drove a screwdriver through the brains of the unfortunate young men!

We have become somewhat blasé about the level of violence and antisocial behaviour in our midst. And it shouldn't take the two double tragedies mentioned above to bring this home to us. We have had some (thankfully) less spectacular examples nearer home in recent times. The high jinks of Rag Week could be dismissed as just that: 'High Jinks'. However, some of the antics I witnessed on Newcastle Road were frightening for both the passing motorists and the residents, and downright dangerous for the students involved. What I saw was very drunken students playing 'chicken' with passing motorists.

I know that the episode was reported to the Gardai while the exercise was in progress. I don't know what response, if any, there was from that quarter.

If we are to judge by the calls to the local radio, the drink-driven recklessness reached a new intensity this year. Unfortunately, a young man disappeared 'while socialising with friends' during Rag Week. Yet the Gardai are reported to have described the week as 'relatively incident-free'. Tell that to the people of Newcastle Road, or to the parents of the unfortunate young man who is missing!

If the Gardai have become so blasé about such a blatant level of antisocial behaviour, what message does this give to the young people involved, or to the general public? Does anyone make the connection between the happenings in all three places: Dublin, Westport, and Galway? The problem is not a lack of Gardai but an absence of values. Gardai are no substitute for values. To me, that 'values vacuum' was as blatant here locally as it was in Drimnagh.

-Dick Lyng

Mothers' Day

Mothering Sunday goes from strength to strength annually. I wonder why? Writing about motherhood in today's world is a highly dangerous exercise. It has all the attractions (and pit-falls) of waving de Valera's Constitution at a gathering of ardent feminists! So I will paddle instead in the harmless waters of history.

I suspected all along that Mothers' Day, like St. Valentine's Day, was the brainchild of a few enterprising commercial minds. Without denying some obvious pagan roots, a little research revealed that Mothers' Day it is anchored securely in Church history. For example, during Lent, 1644, an Englishman named Richard Symonds made the following entry in his Diary:

Every mid-Lent Sunday is a great day at Worcester, when all the children and god-children meet at the head of the family and have a feast. They call it Mothering-day.

At least in medieval England, Mothers' Day fell on the fourth Sunday of Lent, just as it does in our day. During those days, apprentices, farm labourers, serfs of various kinds, and girls in service all worked away from their own homes, obviously. (It was quite common in those days for children to leave home for work once they were ten years old.) So throughout the year they worshipped at their nearest parish or "Daughter Church". Once a year they were expected to return to their home or "Mother Church".

So each year in the middle of Lent, everyone would visit their "Mother Church", or the main church or Cathedral of the area. Inevitably, families took advantage of this annual return to celebrate the reunion of their own kith and kin. And most historians think that it was the return to the "Mother" church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

The American version, "Mothers' Day" (or 'Mothering Sunday', as it is more commonly known in the States), had quite a separate and a far more recent beginning. (It is also celebrated on a different day, the second Sunday of May). It was introduced by a neurotic Methodist teacher, Anna M. Jarvis, who seems to have been guilt-ridden and griefstricken at the death of her mother in 1905. She launched a campaign in 1907 to have Mothers' Day recognised as a National Holiday. This idea did not gain general popularity until after World War II, for obvious reasons.

A mid-Lent Mothers' Day didn't feature in Irish tradition at all. (But perhaps January 6th, 'Nollaig na mBan', or 'Womens' Christmas', served a similar function in our culture?) While Mothering Sunday did indeed predate modern commercialism, commerce is no doubt responsible for merging three distinctive 'mothering elements' (pagan, Christian and pathological) into one western celebration. Regardless of its origins, have a lovely, lazy Mothering Sunday!

Lenten Programme: 2008

Over thirty people attended our second session on St. Paul. We looked closely at his three Missionary Expeditions. Through the marvels of Internet Shopping we managed to secure a good set of DVDs. These are quite effective in presenting the life and times of Paul and his contemporaries.

The night was quite lively and almost enjoyable! Incidentally, I stress again that you can join in on the sessions at any point. You don't have to have completed Session No. 1 and 2 to take Session No. 3! The remaining sessions are:

Each session will last from 8.00 to 9.30.

Seder Meal

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