Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil) Annie Conneely, (Anniv).
11.00 Mary Margetts, (Anniv).
6.30: Sarah Duggan; Paddy & Una Glynn, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

'May you live in interesting times.' This phrase is quoted today as a 'Chinese blessing'. But it originated as a curse. Our times are surely interesting, and cursed! The financial indicators are in free-fall. The dole queue grows longer by the week. For the moment, most of us are still spectators. But the days are coming, I fear, when we will all be cordially invited to participate fully! This fight could well go the full distance. Our invitation to the first found will arrive in the form of Tuesday's budget. "Interesting times times demand extraordinary measures", we will be told with some solemnity.

Have you ever in your life heard such wall-to-wall coverage of economic affairs? Financial pundits are taking over the airwaves. (Am I the only one to detect a hint of ill-concealed glee in their reporting?) There's no shortage of advice to the Minister for Finance, even from church leaders. Diarmuid Martin of Dublin threw in his cent-worth during the week:

Uncontrolled growth has rarely produced sustainability. If I were asked for my description of uncontrolled economic growth I would turn to the biblical insight of the Tower of Babel. The biblical story talks about people who felt that they now had the ability to build a tower which would link heaven and earth. When people think that they can have uncontrolled growth, very often what happens is what happened at Babel -- the tower collapses and the people become divided.

It is less than twenty years now since we all rejoiced at the fall of an equally symbolic structure, the Berlin Wall. But this fall represented the unification of a people. In fact the gates of a great political prison were thrown open with the liberation of millions. It also represented the triumph of free market forces over the stiflingly repressive economies of the former Soviet Union. Today we have the capitalist world nationalising banks to avert an even greater economic collapse. Meanwhile, irony of ironies, dodgy billionaire Russian oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich flaunt their new found capitalist wealth by purchasing 'trophy clubs' like Chelsea just for the hell of it!

Greed is not new, but our world is smaller now, and thoroughly interdependent. We blame greedy speculators. But there would have been no irresponsible lending without irresponsible borrowing. It now seems that this two-sided coin (irresponsible lending and irresponsible borrowing) had become common currency, the norm rather than the exception.

Will we learn from experience? I doubt it. We have all met the fellow who claims, 'I have twenty years experience' but what he really means is that he has one year's experience repeated twenty times. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian, pointed out the big problem with life: we understand it backwards, but we have to live it forwards. And if experience is what we learn from our mistakes, mistakes in life come at a high price. How then can we prepare ourselves for whatever the future may bring? This is surely a key function of religious faith.

To live well we need not so much experience as coherence around a basic unselfish orientation. If we have that forged in us - which is what religion does - it will give shape to our lives and there is every chance we shall come to the end of our lives with hearts content. Interesting times indeed!

-Dick Lyng

"Budget in Quotes..."

Pending Events

Choir CD Launched

Pictured in the PDF version of the newsletter is our own maestro, Sonny Molloy, in Kenny's Gallery on Thursday night last. He was there of course for the launch of the Augustinian Choir's new CD "Those who Sing Pray Twice".

An amazing crowd (I refer to quantity only, of course) showed up for the launch, indicative of the esteem in which the choir is held in this city.

The wine flowed freely, quickly transforming a dour, ill-humoured, rain-sodden herd into a most convivial, receptive, appreciative and (dare I say it!) pleasant congregation. Anne McDonagh, chair of the Choir Committee, introduced proceedings by pointing to the fact that 'the Auggie choir' has provided the people of Galway with many treasured memories, both joyful and sorrowful. There are thousands of Galway people, she stated, who would find it impossible to imagine a Christmas without the Augustinian choir. 'More than any other choir in the city', Ms. McDonagh continued, 'this choir is deeply embedded in the cultural life of this town'.

She then provided a brief sketch of the efforts involved in making the CD and she acknowledged the massive contribution of the people involved. Understandably, she isolated for special mention the unique contributions of Sonny, the conductor, and Pat, the organist. With the making of this CD, Anne pointed out, a long and cherished ambition of the choir and its many admirers had been fulfilled. She expressed a wish that it would be enjoyed, not only in Galway, but wherever Galwegians find themselves. She concluded by introducing The Rev. Patrick Towers, Rector of Galway and Provost of Tuam, who performed the official launch.

The Rector was his usual eloquent self, only more so. In fact he spoke with such uplifting passion that he would not have been out of place either in Cape Canaveral, or atop Mount Sinai! 'We express our faith through music', the Rector stated, suggesting this medium remains the most numinous of the arts. 'It is not only a means of connecting with the sacred, but also shows how to be human in a dehumanised world' he added (almost to himself). His frequent references to Angels betrayed an embarrassing familiarity. He remains delightfully naive, or else he has a foot (the right, I presume) within the Roman camp.

Patrick stated that the Augustinian choir was founded in 1955, the year of the Suez Crisis. However, he made no attempt to establish a causal connection between both events. He paid tribute to the vision of one Father Bernard White who headhunted Mr. Molloy from the pro-Cathedral. It is due largely to Sonny that the choir remains 'a class act' to this day, the Rector concluded as he subsided into a chair provided for that purpose.

The Parish Priest spoke a few cumbersome words in response. He turned a deaf ear to matters aesthetic and concentrated instead on a sordid world with which he is all too familiar, commerce. He pointed out that the CD, containing 20 sacred pieces, can be purchased for a mere €15. It is now available in the Priory Office. Appropriately, the evening concluded with the choir singing a selection of 'favourites'.

Top

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict