Sunday Newsletter
Masses Today
6.30 (Vigil) James Gibbons, (Anniv).11.00: Maura Heaney, (Anniv).
6.30: Kathleen, Nellie & Sylvester O'Sullivan, (Anniv).
- Masses Sunday next, June 29th: 6.30 (Vigil): James Cogavin, (Anniv); 11.00: Bridget Gibbons, (Anniv); 6.30: Bridget Lenihan, (Bowling Green), (Anniv).
- COLLECTION: Last Sunday's was €1,319.00.
- THE DEAD: Pray for the late Michael Donnellan, late of Shantalla, who died this week in California. Michael was brother of Frank and Larry, both patrons of the Augustinian. Remember also Tom O'Mahoney, College Road who died also this week. Pray too for Michael Brennan whose anniversary occurs.
- THE SICK: Remember in your prayers two parishioners who are hospitalised: Peggy Carter, Long Walk, who is recovering after a fall, and Anne McGrath, Merchant's Road, who is in for tests in Merlin Park. We wish them both a speedy recovery.
- YOUTH PILGRIMAGE: As we announced here a couple of months ago, the Irish Augustinians are planning a pilgrimage for 18 to 25 year olds to Italy. Thirty-five young people have already signed up. The plan is to travel to places of Augustinian interest, like where the Order was founded in Tuscany, and on down to Rome. It will take place during the October 2008 midterm. You will appreciate that loads of planning is required for ventures such as this. Consequently, we do really need to know the numbers interested real soon. So contact Fr. Niall Coghlan or leave your name and number in the Priory office with Gearoidin.
- GALWAY ROWING CLUB: The Galway Rowing Club are hosting a traditional Irish music concert in the Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday, July 1st as a fundraiser for the reroofing of the Abbey Church. Tickets for this worthy cause are €25, available at the Town Hall and will also include a 'Joe Dolan Theme Night' in the Galway Rowing Club after the show. Your support will be greatly appreciated.
As I Was Saying...
"Do this in memory of me" is the core command of our faith. Like most of our other blessings, we take memory for granted. St. Augustine derided this thoughtlessness. He described memory as 'a spreading limitless room within me': "Yet there are men going afar to marvel at the heights of the mountains, at the mighty waves of the sea, at the long courses of great rivers, at the vastness of the ocean, at the movements of the stars, yet leaving themselves, and not seeing it as marvellous that when I spoke of all these things, I did not see them with my eyes, yet I could not have spoken of them unless these mountains and waves and rivers and stars which I have seen, and the ocean which I have heard, had been inwardly present to my sight: in my memory, yet with the same vast spaces between them as if I was looking at them outside me." (Confessions, Book X).
History separates humans from machines. Machines are manufactured whole, but humans develop. Memory of their past shapes the present, determining behavior and response to immediate circumstances. Thus memory is more than the simple record. Our memory is a running narrative of experience, the palpable passage of time. Our personal history and the recollection of that history is what makes us unique individuals.
Experience organises by rules built in to the anatomy of the brain. Memory is us. (That is why we need not worry about human genetic clones producing identical humans. What really makes you the unique person you are is your own memory store, experience.)
On one level, we live in the golden age of memory. The computer, our faithful data manager, stores, organizes and regurgitates billions of bits of information. Given imperfections in the brain, human beings have always depended upon devices to recall facts. The advance of civilization is traced through the writing of hieroglyphs, to alphabetic script, eventually!
All scientific and artistic creativity derives from the process of reaching down into the recesses of memory and making new relationships, drawing disparate ideas and images together. We have more tools at our disposal for recording data. But only the brain can draw this information together. As we grow more dependent on external recording devices, we will lose the ability to form mental connections, to think creatively. Learning by rote is derided by contemporary 'educationalists', 'mental arithmetic' is rendered obsolete by the calculator.
Memory loss on a personal level is a terrible disaster. It is no less disastrous at a communal level. Tradition is to a community what memory is to an individual. "Do this in memory of me" has echoed down the ages. This tradition has created and sustained our community. An alarming number of young brains are today disengaged. Let us hope and pray that this memory loss is merely temporary.
-Dick Lyng
Straight Talking
Catholicism will evolve; it always has. In the past, missionary efforts, charismatic figures, dynamic leadership, global population shifts, new discoveries, and even catastrophes have led to renewed religious vitality. What will eventually stem the current decline cannot be known yet. In the meantime, we must learn to be a different kind of church.
We've made progress in overcoming our pretensions to being a triumphal, all-knowing, sinless church. But more progress remains to be made; and paradoxically, it begins with acknowledging the decline of western Catholicism.
My archbishop likes to say that we are in the hope business, but we must not be in the false-hope business. Acknowledging reality will lower my expectations of my bishops, brother priests, and my parishioners. So, I'll be pleasantly surprised by the faithfulness of the Catholics who remain - and ecstatic when bishops do things right. I'll learn to say "no" when my bishop asks me to take a third, fourth, or fifth parish. I'm not advocating apathy in the face of decline. I'm merely recognizing that the decline began before me and will continue after me. Even Pope John Paul II, for all his tenacity, was unable to return the masses to the church.
And so I anticipate ministering to a shrinking Catholic flock as I grow old. This does not mean that the work and mission of the priesthood will be increasingly irrelevant. On the contrary, it will be all the more pressing and challenging. Embracing this reality decreases my anxiety, sharpens my vision, makes my expectations more realistic. It leads me to care for my health, so that I will be able to care for those entrusted to me. To restore health to our pastoral function, we priests first need to admit our own disorientation in a foundering church.
We priests know we are in trouble, even if bishops are reluctant to admit it. The problems are embodied in the worn, torn, aging, and overweight colleagues I observed at my diocese's assembly of priests. The crisis is right there in front of us, and the forced optimism of those afraid of appearing insufficiently orthodox-or disloyal to Rome-strikes me as a failure of perception, honesty, and faith. Overcoming such denial will be the beginning of a renewal in the church and in the morale of its priests.
-Fr.Paul Stansoz (Archdiocese of Milwaukee).
MID SUMMER FESTIVAL
- MEETING AGAIN THIS MORNING: A few of us gathered on Thursday night last to finalise matters. However, a few loose end still remain to be tied. So we had better gather for a very brief meeting after the 11.00 Mass this morning in the front parlour. I guarantee you that this meeting will last a mere 15 minutes.
- FLORAL DISPLAY: Traditionally, a central (and much admired) feature of our Summer Festival has been the floral display in the Church. Margaret Cunnane, Margaret Cunningham and Mary O-hIci will do the needful again this year. Thanks ladies.
- TICKETS: Tickets are on sale again this morning at the back of the Church (€15 family and €10 for individual tickets). They will of course be available also from the Priory Office during the week.
- CHILDREN'S ART: Don't forget the Children's Art Work should be with the panel of judges by Thursday night. (They will sit in judgment throughout the night if necessary!) There are prizes in abundance.
- BARBEQUE: As usual, a barbecue will follow in the Priory Car Park afterwards. Thanks to Peter O'Neill for taking charge of this once again. Ross Jenkins managed to secure a device for keeping our food warm. So, let the party begin!
THRESHOLD SUMMER CONCERT
Threshold is holding its Annual Mid Summer Concert to raise funds for its work with the homeless. The performers at the concert this year will be renowned traditional musicians, The Kane Sisters, David Grealy, award winning organist on Piano, The Baytones, the Galway Boy Singers, who need no introduction, and The Carousel String Quartet, apprentice quartet to ConTempo.
It takes place on Thursday 26th June. The venue is the Aula Maxima at NUI, Galway. Tickets (€75 including supper and wine) can be pre-booked at 563080 or email thresholdgalway@eircom.net.
Summer Quotes...
- "A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."-James Dent.
- "Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."-Sam Keen.
- "Do what we can, summer will have its flies."-Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- "Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jewelled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."-Ada Louise Huxtable.
- "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time."-John Lubbock.