Sunday Newsletter
Masses Today
6.30: Pattie & Catherine Flaherty, (Anniv).
11.00: Tom Tierney, (Anniv).
6.30: Sarah & Josie O'Toole, (Anniv)
- Masses for Sunday, March 1st: 6.30: (Vigil) Deceased members of the Sisodia family; 11.00: Michael Naughton. 6.30: Andy McGinley.
- COLLECTION LAST SUNDAY: €1,388.00.
- GENERAL MEETING: The meeting tomorrow night at 7.30 is very important to the life of the Church and parish. We will meet either in the Priory or in the Church, depending upon numbers present. We drew up a tentative agenda for it at our recent Steering Committee meeting. But of course 'new' items may be introduced on the night itself under the A.O.B. Heading. (1) Update on Augustinian Project. (2) Financial Report. (3) Child Protection Report. (4) Recession: how can the Church help? (5) Parish Groups. (6) Young people: can we do something for them? (6) St. Nicholas's - the future. (7) Appeal for more helpers. (8) Ongoing maintenance. (9) A.O.B. Items for the agenda are still welcome.
- ASH WEDNESDAY: Lent begins on Wednesday next, February 25th. Ashes will be blessed during -and distributed after - all Masses. There will be an extra Mass on that day, at 1.10. But on that day only! {See below for our planned Lenten Programme}.
- TROCAIRE BOX: Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It was set up by the Irish Catholic Bishops in 1973 to express the concern of the Irish Church for the suffering of the world's poorest and most oppressed people. Its main annual campaign is conducted during Lent through the Trocaire Family Box. These are available as you leave the Church (or Priory) on Sunday next, the first Sunday of Lent. Return them on Easter morning.
As I Was Saying...
We have heard of little else over the last six months but the need for all 'to cut back and cut down'. 'Excess' marked every field of human endeavour, whether 'work, rest or play'. Many people felt that they had to run in order to stand still. Many households required both salaries to meet mortgage demands. Even from the cradle our children were exposed to an insidious consumerism. They imbibe the Brand Names with their mothers' milk! 'Excessive' is too mild a term to describe the demands of some children.
However, as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said recently, " I am not one of those who hold that a little bit of depression and recession will do us all good and we will repent our superficiality and get back to living more serious, sober and more spiritual lives. It does not work out that way." This recession will be an awful disaster for a great number of people. And anyone who welcomes a disaster, whatever the motivation, is crazy. Anyone who welcomes it in the name of religion should be certified!
However, boom or bust, life goes on and the religious rhythms of the year continue. The meaning of Lent is constant. It has at its core the notion of discipline, the discipline that is necessary to acquire any art or skill. This discipline was taken far more seriously in our parents and grandparent's time. How many of you still remember the 'one full meal and two collations' permitted daily during Lent? The 'collation' consisted of a meat-free meal, of not more than a specified weight! The people were at liberty to eat whatever amount they liked for the 'full meal' (except on 'Days of Abstinence' when meat was forbidden).
But human ingenuity was adept at finding pathways around the rules, if not right through them! For example, what was to prevent a person placing the limitless 'full meal' on the table at 11.00 and returning for a nibble throughout the day? A good meal can go on forever! But the Church rushed in to plug this particular loop-hole: To interrupt the principal meal for more than half an hour without good reason would be a venial sin; should the interruption last more than an hour it would be seriously sinful.
For a proportionately good reason (e.g. to assist the dying) one may interrupt his dinner for several hours!
These were serious times! Cigarettes and drink were common casualties. Children abandoned sweets. All that was a long time ago, of course. Fasting has now all but disappeared from Church practice. But have 'fast and abstinence' gone forever? You must be joking! If a fellow said 20 years ago, for example, that a day would come when cigarette-smoking in public would be banned, he would be laughed out of court! And of course fasting itself has been secularised as 'dieting', and the secular practitioners can be as fussy as their religious predecessors. In addition, those who successfully follow the strict regime are objects of much envy. The motivation, of course, has changed. But the practice is very much alive and well.
Vegetables and fish were once Lenten fare, symbols of fast and deprivation. Today, fish is perhaps the most expensive dish in the most expensive restaurants and, of course, vegetarians are to be found under every cabbage leaf. In truth, the more things change, the more they remain the same! Hang in there!
-Dick Lyng
Lenten Programme
- LENTEN PROGRAMME: The Augustinians at Orlagh
have been working with a web-based programme in their
teaching of theology and scripture for some years now. We
used them here in preparation for
Advent last year. It was really a
worthwhile exercise. What happens
is as follows: a local parish group
(here in Galway, for example) will
gather and listen via broadband to a
30 minute talk on some aspect of
Mark's Gospel (see below for
details). The group will then discuss
the content of the talk for another 30
minutes. The group will then participate for another 30
minutes in a Q & A session with the presenters via a
telephone conference. We already have all the technical
requirements for taking up on this: a computer, broadband
access, a projector and a phone line. If we were to give this
a go here in Galway for Lent, how many takers would we
have? We will attempt to find this out over the next few
weeks. The programme is as follows:
Module 1: Tues 10th March What is a Gospel? Why did Mark Write?
Module 2: Tues 24th March: Jesus and the Kingdom Metaphor and Meaning
Module 3: Tues 7th April: Jesus and the Disciples The Way of the Cross - Seder Meal For the last couple of years we have got together with the Church of Ireland community for a celebration of the Jewish Seder Meal. We will continue this custom this year. We have yet to decide on a date, but it will probably take place in the week prior to Holy Week. (Palm Sunday falls on April 5th). As you know, the Seder Meal is the Jewish celebration of the liberation of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, the Exodus.
Help Required
Accord, based at Newtownsmith, provides pre-marriage courses for Catholic couples, as well as ongoing counselling services for those going through difficult times in their relationships. At the moment, they are really in dire need of new members if this valuable service is continue. If you have been married for a few years, and you are interested in working at this level with couples, why not offer your services? They are badly in need of pre-marriage course facilitators. All training will be provided. The burden is falling on a very limited number of shoulders at the moment. They are especially short of men. Why not give it a try? Contact Newtownsmith (091- 562331) directly and find out more about the position.
Lent
Blacked again with ash of palm
smudged as one remembering death
dust thou art and dust you're from
soon, too soon, the final breath!
Contrite, humble, feel your sin!
Millions sick and millions dead.
Repent! and once again begin;
leave heart of stone and feet of lead.
If you would know the truth for me
Lent can last the whole year long!
It's AIDs, the flu or H-I-V -
each night to misery belongs.
This time I shall make others work,
finance their staffs
and let the lengthening Lent
light up life's little laughs.
-Harold Macdonald.
Quote, unquote...
- "My definition of marriage: it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them." -Sydney Smith.
- "It takes a woman 20 years to make a man of her son, and another woman 20 minutes to make a fool of him." -Helen Rowland.
- "We have learned the answers, all the answers. Unfortunately, it is the questions we do not know." -Archibald MacLeish.
- "Jealousy is no more than feeling alone among smiling enemies." -Elizabeth Bowen.
- "Blood sport is brought to its ultimate refinement in the gossip columns." -Bernard Ingham.
- "Observe diners arriving at any restaurant and you will see them make a bee-line for the wall-seats. No one ever voluntarily selects a centre table in an open space.This dates back to a primeval feeding practice of avoiding sudden attack during the deep concentration involved in consuming food." -Desmond Morris.