Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Mary & Michael Forde, (Anniv).
11.00 Tony Sugrue, (Anniv).
6.30: Anne & James Sharkey, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

In the world in which I grew up, All Souls Night was enormously important. On that night, the 'gaining of plenary indulgences' dominated all. The regulation was that you visited your local church, recited three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, and three Glorias for the Pope's intentions, and a Plenary Indulgence was gained. When applied to an individual soul, that soul was propelled immediately heaven-wards! But only one indulgence was permitted per visit. Consequently, when you had completed the mandatory prayers, you have to vacate the Church before returning again to gain another indulgence and to liberate another soul! The church was as busy as a bee-hive and, for that one night at least, we all served our time as benevolent Porters at the Pearly Gates!

In retrospect, such naive literalism was astounding. How on earth did we believe it? However, perhaps in reaction to that crude literalism, that naivety has now given way to a vague skepticism concerning the traditional Christian belief in 'the resurrection of the body and life everlasting'. I strongly believe that this is potentially bad for our well-being because our emotional response to death is inseparable from how we make sense of it. If we struggle intellectually, we flounder emotionally. Perhaps this is why we now seem to need an army of grief counsellors to see us through?

So what is happening? It's not that we cannot talk about death as the Victorians were alleged not to talk about sex. Ever since C.S.Lewis wrote about his reactions to the death of his wife, Joy Gresham, in the 1960s, magazines and newspapers have regularly carried accounts of death and bereavement.

As a priest I have seen many bereavements. I know that losing someone you love is an intense experience for which we can scarcely prepare ourselves. Those who talk too quickly about 'letting go loved ones' or 'moving on' empty that experience of its meaning and make it sound like a mere interruption.

The mistake we make is perhaps this. We think of the death of a loved one as a kind of wound - a blow to our emotional self. And as the bodily wound heals naturally, so the emotional wound will heal. Time being the great healer.

There is clearly some truth in that. But it is not all. The death of a loved one is not just a blow from which we recover. It also throws our life into the sharpest relief, exposing our own fragilities to ourselves. The loss of one on whom we leaned, behind whom we sheltered, behind whom we hid, exposes us now to our lack of security. We miss them. We miss also the sense of safety and permanence they gave to our life. We have to find our way into the future wounded by that knowledge - but that is not a wound that heals with the passage of time.

Nevertheless, we can bear a great deal of grief provided we can make sense of it. The Christian understanding of death begins by recognising that we cannot find our security in those we love - the word for that is idolatry. We find it in God. For if God troubled to seek us out by becoming one with us - incarnation - he will not allow death to make a nonsense of that - which is where we come back to resurrection. It is with that understanding that Christians across the world commemorate the faithful departed today. It does not change the reality of loss but it can make it more bearable.

-Dick Lyng

Remembering our Dead

As announced here last week, we will hold our Ecumenical Service in St. Nicholas' tomorrow night, Monday, November 3rd, at 7.30. It will consist of scripture readings, hymns, together with a 'Procession of Crosses', and a Blessing of the Tree of Remembrance. People from both our Churches have come together to create an appropriate Liturgy for the occasion. The Augustinian choir will provide the music.

The 38 people named below, who died in the course of the last 12 months, had connection with our respective churches, and will have a candle lighted in their memory and their names inscribed on individual white crosses. These crosses will be carried in procession in the course of the Service.

If you notice any omissions from the above list, please let us know in good time.

-Dick Lyng.

Blessed Martin Novena

This Novena will begin in the Claddagh on Monday next, November 3rd and continue until Tuesday November 11th. It will consist of Rosary, Mass and Sermon each weekday at 7.15. On Sunday November 9th, the novena session will be held at 3.00pm and it will include the Sacrament of the Sick. Novena Director and Preacher for the week will be Fr. Luis Enrique, OP from Peru.

Memory in quotes...

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