Sunday Newsletter
Masses Today
6.30: (Vigil): Fr. Gerard Garvey, Market St. (Anniv).
11.00: Colleran Family members, (RIP).
6.30: Frank Barrett, (Anniv).
- Masses for Sunday, October 11th: 6.30 (Vigil): Paddy & Una Glynn; 11.00: Sean, Coleman and Bina Cooke; 6.30: Martin & Bridget Murray.
- RECENT DEATH: Pray for the late Mae Lynott, sister of Pat, who died peacefully on Wednesday last. Mae's funeral Mass is celebrated today (Sunday) in The Claddagh at 10.00. May she rest in peace.
- COLLECTION: The collection last Sunday amounted to €1,362.00. Thank you very much for your support.
- BISHOPS' PASTORAL: This little leaflet is produced to mark 'Day for Life', 2009. The particular focus this year is on suicide. The leaflet is available at the back of the Church.
- PRIORY OFFICE & SHOP: As you know, the Priory Office and Shop has caused problems from the outset: first, it is too small; second, it is too draughty. Work will begin within two weeks to rectify this matter. We have received permission to punch a door into what was formerly 'The Children's Liturgy Room' and to incorporate that room into an enlarged office. The work will be completed by early November. Meanwhile, the children will revert to using the large dining room as their Sunday liturgy 'space'.
- HARVEST FESTIVAL: Today we celebrate our annual Harvest Festival. As I write this (on Friday evening) much is already in place for the festival. The Church is looking beautifully autumnal, thanks to the good work of Margaret Cunnane, Margaret Cunningham and Mary O h-Ici. Thanks to all invovled.
- CHRIST AND CULTURE: I informed you last week of the lectures in Horse and Jockey Hotel, Thurles, on the 29-30 October 2009. These are intended for Augustinians and their co-workers. The speaker is Fr. Michael Drumm. There are two or three places still available.
As I Was Saying...
Once more, the human race is left in a state of universal mourning. Disaster has struck again in the shape of this week's earthquake and tidal waves around the South Pacific. For Christians, the immediate question is, how do we respond to the terrible plight of the victims? But there's a further question for all thinking Christians: what is the relationship between this devastation and the Creator loving God we believe in?
This isn't an academic issue, in a point-scoring debate about the existence or non-existence of God. It's a burning question affecting millions of people this very hour.
Of course, the question needs to be kept in perspective. Many calamities are clearly the result of human sin. During the twentieth century hundreds of millions of people, about one in every twenty, died through atrocities which human beings inflicted on each other. By comparison these creation calamities are small, perhaps by a factor of ten thousand. We can't hold God accountable for human sin, even though God takes responsibility for its solution.
But who is accountable for natural disasters? Some people have always rushed to see them as signs of God's judgment on sin. Earthquakes, storms and floods come from God's disapproval of human behaviour, specifically punishing wrongdoers. Yet the innocent also perish. The poor and vulnerable suffer. And when Jesus himself faced a question in these terms he dismissed the idea. This is not punishment. God's rain falls, and God's sun shines on the just and unjust, on good and evil alike. God seeks human repentance, not human suffering.
Why then would an all-powerful, all-loving God create a world in which so much suffering is possible? The Christian answer lies in both the freedom which God gives creation and the cosmic nature of human sin. The colossal power which is there in every glass of water, produces untold creative possibilities for our universe, some of them destructive. And the entry of sin into the world also has consequences way beyond human actions. In the biblical narrative it disturbs the very harmony of creation.
The New Testament pictures creation as struggling with frustration, in bondage to decay, groaning, as in the pangs of childbirth. The same Bible that speaks of God's love and power, also speaks of the inevitability of tempests and earthquakes. There will be movements of tectonic plates, there will be serious earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault and with devastating effects. This is not a limitation on God's power or love but a description of the world we live in: a world not yet fully delivered and longing for cosmic redemption.
This is theology. A shorter answer comes from the millions caught up in the depths of such suffering, yet still believe in a loving, powerful God. For they show us where the rubber hits the road; where theory ends and real faith begins.
-Dick Lyng
Country=Economy?
We should have realised the true extent of our national crisis in October 2008, when the Minister for Finance invoked 'patriotism'. For about thirty years, our country had been discussed as 'an economy'; politicians spoke of what was 'best for the economy,' invoked 'the needs of the economy' and established Social Partnership between employers and trade unions 'for the good of the economy.'
The economy and the country were synonymous. Most of us were lulled into the belief that there was money for all, and no foreseeable shortage of it.
Our government has shown itself to be inept and inadequate. Serious mismanagement of government finances has left the country deeply in debt and facing misery. There is a possibility of social unrest, as we move into a grim autumn and winter. It is not surprising, therefore, that some trade union figures see themselves as national figures, competent to decide on national policy, rather than representatives of their union membership and of nobody else.
Our current mind-set forbids any explicit appeal to Christian values, but we might follow them implicitly, by appealing to social solidarity and the common good. We could help each other through the coming hard times by remembering that a higher Gross Domestic Product is not the only guarantee of the quality of our lives. An emphasis on solidarity might awaken many of our politicians from their torpidity, reconfigure our politics and revitalise our national life.
-Fergus O'Donoghue, S.J. in 'Studies', Autumn 2009.
An Early Christmas Treat
The Choir will be recording the Christmas music for their forthcoming CD during the 11 o'clock Mass next Sunday, October 11th, and also afterwards from 12.00 to 2.00 pm approximately, in the church. They would like to invite you and your friends to attend, particularly from 12.00 to 2.00 pm, to enjoy their singing and enhance the atmosphere for the recording. Light refreshments will be provided afterwards.
Prayer Book
As preparation for our 'Readers and Leaders' day on Saturday week, I secured a number of copies of a publication called Magnificat. This is lavishly printed, easy-to-read pocket-sized 'aid-to-worship'.
It contains prayers for both morning and evening, drawn from the Church's Liturgy of the Hours. Above all, it contains the official texts of the daily Mass, meditations written by the renowned Fathers of the Church, and a great variety of spiritual writings, essays on the lives of the saints.
Ten copies of the October 2009 edition were surplus to requirement and are now available in the sacristy, free of charge.
Abbey Fundraiser
A Fundraiser in aid of The Abbey Church will take place on Saturday next, October 10th in the Mercy Primary School, St. Francis Street. It begins at 11.00 and concludes at 3.00.
Double Standards?
It's revealing to observe reactions to Roman Polanski's arrest, after more than 30 years, on a charge of seducing a 13- year-old girl: "Politicians and stars call for Polanski's release" ran one banner headline.
Had he been a cleric, rather than a fashionable movie director, stigma and condemnation would have followed him to the grave.
-Mary Kenny in The Irish Catholic.
Meeting on Wednesday at 8.00
We had our day for 'Readers & Leaders' on Saturday week last. Twenty five parishioners attended. The Director, Fr. Michael Gilroy from Killala Diocese, was very practical, but excellent. He showed a familiarity with our circumstances here that smelled of unscrupulous research! He had much to say about the way we celebrate Mass and the other sacraments. These thoughts were offered as 'observations rather than judgments'.
So, while the matter is still fresh in our minds, we should get together and see what we could salvage from what Michael had to say to us. If those who were present on the day itself, together with the Steering Committee and Liturgy Group, could meet here on Wednesday night, we might go over the stuff and sift out what might be of value to us? See you there!
The Recession and God
Public Lecture
Fr. Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, Acting Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, will give a talk on "the Recession and God", in Coláiste Iognáid, Sea Road, Galway at 7.30pm on Tuesday, 13 October 2009.
This will be a different account of the recession in Ireland and worldwide, drawing as it does on the Christian tradition and Catholic Social Teaching, and presenting a message of hope.