Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil): James Cogavin & Margaret Lesley Cogavin, (Anniv).
11.00: Nora Duggan & Mario Thomas Ward, (Anniv).
6.30: Agnes Kilkelly and deceased family members, (Anniv).

Masses for Sunday, September 27th: 6.30 (Vigil): Pat Barden; 11.00: Esther Tierney; 6.30: Mike Folan.
OUTDOOR COLLECTION: Today's church gate collection (outdoor) is for St. Patrick's Band. St. Patrick's is the 'Town Band' and it has provided musical tuition and instruments for Galway's young people down the years. In addition, the Bandroom, near the Railway Station, is also a centre for many musical and cultural groups, including the Diocesan Youth Services who use it for after-school study and play activities. They deserve your wholehearted support.
INDOOR COLLECTION: As flagged here last Sunday, today's indoor collection is for COPE, formerly called Galway Social Service Council. Among the services provided by them are: Meals on Wheels service for the city; a Day Centre for the older people in Francis St; a Refuge for women in violent relationships; and a hostel for Homeless Men. Please be generous.
HARVEST FESTIVAL: We will celebrate our Harvest Festival on Sunday week, October 4th. At this festival we give thanks for 'fruit of the earth and the work of human hands'. It is customary for members of the congregation to participate in the Liturgy by bringing along to the service tokens of the harvest: apples, potatoes, jam, bread, or whatever. The church will be suitably and seasonally decorated. (These will later be distributed to the poor). If you are in a position to help out with the celebration your assistance would be very welcome indeed.

As I Was Saying...

As I write, eleven teams (of an eventual 33) have already qualified for the World Cup in South Africa which kicks off on June 11th next. The host team qualifies as of right. Most interesting and surprising among the qualifiers so far is North Korea (or, officially, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea). Their footballers' success is already causing their autocratic regime several major headaches. Whilst officially a socialist republic, North Korea is a totalitarian, paranoid Stalinist dictatorship. There is a pronounced cult of personality organized around Kim Il-sung (the founder of North Korea and the country's first and only president) and his son and heir, Kim Jong-il. Following Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, he was not replaced but instead received the designation of "Eternal President", and was entombed in the vast Memorial Palace in central Pyongyang. It's a strange set-up indeed!

The players, even when in South Africa, will be heavily controlled. Few fans will be allowed travel. As of now, there are no plans to televise the matches for the fans at home! They will have to rely on text messages for results!

Football (or at least footballers) are not always as politically neutral as their masters would wish. Remember the Iranian footballers taking the field in Seoul last June in green wristbands, the campaign colour of the 'defeated' (cheated?) presidential candidate? That overt political gesture was probably more important than the result of the game itself.

Sport frequently manages to provide an arena for international dilemmas to be seen in the cold light of day. It's often the case: one tournament - different continents, many nations - but what a varied backdrop is provided by the lives and experiences of each of the participating teams.

Indeed, the qualification of North Korea highlights how absolutely different life can be for people taking part in exactly the same event. Contrast the reality of life for a North Korean footballer with that of Cristiano Ronaldo who is paid €200,000 per week? We are dealing with the 'parallel universe' syndrome in a big way here: how can that be?

North Korean footballers will get their first taste of freedom in South Africa. How ironic, given that country's history! So, how will they react? Athletes from oppressed societies have a long history of defections. Soviet athletes were famous for it. And athletes from Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan 'did a runner' in Atlanta in 1996. They realised that the level playing field that was the Olympic Games was merely a temporary reprieve from the minefield that was home.

Modern communications expose dictators to intense scrutiny. It is impossible to suppress awkward questions forever. Who is to say what is right? Who can define what real freedom is? Human beings crave the opportunity to be free. As we saw, not even the Berlin Wall could snuff out the quest for freedom.

Having faith in any such reality means believing sometimes in that which is not tangible: St Augustine of Hippo said that real faith consists of believing what you do not yet see: "But if you have such faith and persist, then one day you will see what you believe." Even an "Eternal President" should be quaking in his coffin at such thoughts!

-Dick Lyng

The Dark Ages?

Remember the the inquisitor, Bernardo Gui in "The Name of the Rose"? A recent study of the real-life Bernardo Gui has tallied up all 633 sentences he imposed between 1308 and 1323. During that time, 307 people were imprisoned for life (over half of these sentences were later commuted), and 41 people were handed over to be executed by the state. Other sentences included performing pilgrimages and going on crusade. Not a single witch was burned by Bernardo, despite Hollywood's claim. Now, Bernardo was hardly an amiable, humane sort of chap, and the Inquisition was something more than a Carnival that got slightly out of hand. Yet with over 500 executions in the United States since 1990, and 3,670 people now on death row, one sometimes wonders which period is more deserving of the epithet "The Dark Ages".

Positive Ageing Week

September 29 - October 1st

HSE West in Galway, together with local agencies and groups, are providing the following activities to mark Positive Ageing Week this year:

On Sept 29th: 'Go for Life' (exercise workshop).
Organic Garden workshop.
'Positive Eating for Positive Ageing.'
Stress Management Workshop.
Oct 1st - Supermarket Tour.'
'Cooking for One' session.

Further information, contact (091) 548321/548437.

READERS AND LEADERS!!

If you haven't done so already, please give your names to Fr. Des or Cathal Cunningham. It is important that we have exact numbers because we have arranged to have lunch in the Ardilaun for those attending. So, here is the relevant information again:

The Sacred Heart Retreat and Conference Centre, Rosary Lane, Taylor's Hill.

Saturday, September 26th, from 10.00 to 4.00.

Quote, Unquote....

"We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry. To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics." -Rev. Tony Campolo.
"If horses had Gods, they would look like horses!" Xenophanes, an ancient Greek philosopher.
"I screamed at God for all the starving children, and then I realized that all of the starving children were God screaming at me." -Dag Hammarskjöld.
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." -Albert Einstein.
"God seems to have left the receiver off the hook and time is running out." -Arthur Koestler.

PARISH LIFE

"For many, the parish is similar to a petrol station. People attend service on Sunday, and what happens in the parish during the week is none of their business. Of course, the parish is much more than a petrol station. If the influence of the parish is confined to the parish, it then becomes inward-looking and boring. The parish has to be a place where its members are trained, supported and nourished 'outwardly, for service towards others'. John Wesley once said, 'The world is my parish; the parish is not my world.'"

-Michael Ruane, The Furrow, April, 2004, Page 247.

DOGGIE HEAVEN

Dear Editor,

May I respond to Ann Wroe's column (15 August) about the death of her dog? In 1998, at the World Dog Show in Helsinki, an Augustinian brother (in a white habit dazzling enough to cause snow-blindness) was exercising two magnificent St Bernard dogs. An elderly German-speaking lady, with an anxious expression, asked him: "Brother, do dogs go to heaven?" The brother answered: "Without dogs, would it be Heaven?"

Ernest H. Simon
Merstham,
Surrey

-The Tablet, September 5, 2009, P. 20.

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midland town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they name their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

-Carol-Ann Duffy.

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