Sunday Newsletter
Masses Today
6.30: (Vigil) Maureen Kenny, (Anniv).
11.00: Patrick & Nellie Leydon, (Anniv).
6.30: Gerry Gilmore, (Anniv).
- Masses for Sunday, April 5th: 6.30: (Vigil) Desmond Donovan; 11.00: Mary & John Lovett, Eva Daly; 6.30: Philip Carberry.
- COLLECTION LAST SUNDAY: €1,453.00.
- SEDER MEAL TICKETS: We celebrate our Seder Meal on Thursday next, April 2nd at 7.30. Tickets (€20 each) are available after Masses this weekend and, throughout the week, in the Priory office. A committee met to prepare the feast on Wednesday night last. You may recall that, last year, in order to accommodate as many as possible, we held the Seder Meal in the Church. However, many felt that some of the 'domestic atmosphere' of previous years was lost as a result. Consequently, we decided to revert back to the Priory this year. As a result, we are reducing our numbers to 40 maximum. But there are some tickets still available. The Rev'd Patrick Towers will preside.
- HOLY WEEK MEETING: Ten people offered to assist with the Liturgy at our annual general meeting. You will appreciate that we have a very busy week coming up (see Holy Week and Easter programme below). We will gather on Tuesday night next in the Priory at 8.00 to address the Easter Programme. Please note that the meeting is not only for the ten people who put their names down. If you wish to come along to the meeting you would be most welcome. There is more than enough for all to do.
- BAPTISM AND RECEPTION: The Easter Vigil on Easter Saturday night is built around the sacrament of Baptism. A vigil without a baptism is as flat as a wedding without a Bride (well, let's not exaggerate - like a wedding without a groom then!) We are twice blessed this year as we have a baby for baptism and an adult for reception into the Church and for Confirmation during the vigil. The baby is Luke McGrath, son of Fergal and Anne. The young woman for reception and Confirmation is Sue Stanbury who has been preparing for this day for the last 10 months.
As I Was Saying...
Back in 2005, it was Pope John Paul II who was 'on celebrity death watch'. His progressive bodily decay dominated the headlines. Who would have thought that an old pope would be treated in a similar way to a reality TV star? In recent weeks, it was Jade Goody who was on a media death watch. The relentless camera followed her to the grave, literally. This was voyeuristic car-crash stuff. Many were distinctly uncomfortable, but didn't quite know why.
Before Jade, there was the televised assisted suicide of Craig Ewart, a motor neurone disease sufferer, at the Swiss Dignitas clinic. His death was shown on satellite TV three months ago. When the furore over his death had diminished, the news of Goody's cancer took centre stage. Goody, in turn, will soon be replaced by someone else.
Defending the extensive media interest in Jade's plight, an editorial in the Guardian argued that Goody did us all a service: 'In the long run we are all dead, yet modern life is increasingly shielded from that reality.' Jade's public display 'brought death into everyday life at a time when we are encouraged to believe that youth and beauty are all that matter and dying is an unpleasant subject that had become far more of a taboo than sex'.
When hardly a day goes by without death and dying being portrayed graphically in the news headlines, how can high-profile interest in death be promoted as 'breaking a taboo'?
In reality, there is no such taboo about discussing and displaying death in the public realm - nor has there been for some time. In fact ours is a society obsessed with death, not one that denies it.
The central problem today lies with society's struggle to give meaning to life, and to find ways in which we might collectively mourn our dead. Social fragmentation, and the erosion of religion, has left people isolated in their grieving. In a culture in which the self is the sole authority, in which such great store is set on 'self-expression', the power of formal religious ritual is neglected. The recent clamouring of our own people for the 'eulogy' at the funeral is part of this development. Rituals help to demonstrate respect for those who have gone, and they help to assuage the loss and fears of those who remain. When a friend dies, it throws up unsettling questions about our purpose in life. In the face of such traumatic loss, we desperately need to have life loudly and clearly affirmed.
Affirming the value of human life, however, is quite different to parading the terminally ill in front of the cameras. Exposing one's grief on television is not the same as giving private loss cultural recognition. There is something obscene in the demand that we all lament in full view of the media. The demands that death should dominate our public sphere, the campaigns that call for assisted suicide, seem just a little too close to cheering loudly as we head into that good night!
Are we are on the verge of elevating the value of death at the expense of life? Relishing dying, exploiting peoples' pain , or drooling over their decay, is no way to affirm the significance of our lives or those of our loved ones. And it is not the way to deal with death either. But, I fear, we will see more of this, not less. In life and in death, 'celebrities' consume us.
-Dick Lyng
HAPPENINGS
- ST JOSEPH'S CHURCH: St. Joseph's Church reopens today at 12.00 after a major reordering. (Don't we know all about it!) I got a sneak preview of the finished product during the week, and it is very impressive indeed. It is a very striking renovation, and it also has gone for the under-floor heating system just like our own. Well done to all involved.
- LENTEN FAST: Well done to the young people who undertook the Annual Trocaire Lenten Fast. Hand in your 'takings' anytime before Easter Sunday. We usually forward the Fast money with the Trocaire Box money to the Cathedral who will then forward it to Trocaire head office. The money this year goes to help those made homeless by war and terrorism in Somalia and Darfur, a very worthy cause indeed.
- MUSICAL JOURNEY THROUGH LENT: 'Tribal Choral' are a new choir in Galway. They won the national prize in the Limerick Church Music Festival. They are giving a concert of sacred music in Salthill Church on Palm Sunday night at 8pm. Subscription at the door is €10.
- READERS OF THE WORD: The Course for Readers with be an 'in house' course and it will take place in mid-April. I will keep you informed of developments.
- GOOD COUNSEL TRIDUUM: The Triduum will take place this year from the 24th to the 27th of April inclusive. There will be Devotions each evening at 7.30. Each session will consist of Rosary, brief reflection on the mysteries, homily and Benediction. There will be Mass with homily at 11.00 on the Feast day itself, Monday April 27th. The celebration closes that evening, Monday April 27th with Devotions at 7.30. The Triduum will be given by a man familiar to the people of Galway, Father Ned Crosby. Ned is experienced in many fields. He worked for 15 years with the Travelling Community at Hillside. He worked for 10 years on the missions in Peru. He is also of course a published poet. In short, he is very good value for money!
- OSA LENTEN PROGRAMME: Our final session on Mark's Gospel will be held on Tuesday week next, April 7th at 7.45. There was a very good response to this programme (eventually!) and I think all found it a very valuable preparation for Holy Week and Easter. Our final session is titled: "Jesus and the Disciples: The Way of the Cross."
- STATIONS OF THE CROSS: You may recall that, last year, members of the Steering Committee and others took responsibility for this particular ritual. Of course, you don't have to explain the Stations of the Cross to anyone. It is deeply embedded in tradition, and attracts a full church. Last year the organisers opted to present the Stations in a dramatised tableau form. It worked very well indeed and the people were really appreciative of the effort put into it. We will attempt a a similar presentation this year.
Reasons to be Catholic
Surely the odds were against BBC television presenter Adrian Chiles becoming a Catholic. In a recent interview he said his family are totally agnostic or atheist, he gets bored when he goes to church and is "spooked" by confession. In spite of all this, Chiles joined the Catholic Church three years ago. So how does the Brummie-born (well, north Worcestershire, actually) son of a Jewish father and Croatian mother explain his conversion?
"In religion you go to where there are people a bit like yourself and if I go into a Catholic church I see people a bit like myself, and what I mean by that actually - although I wouldn't say that to a priest - is that I see blokes I would quite like to go drinking with, and women I quite fancy in some cases," he told The Times last week.
-The Tablet, 28 March, 2009.
Holy Week and Easter, 2009
Holy Week begins on Sunday next, Palm Sunday. It is of course the busiest week of the entire year. Apart from confessions, we have seven public ceremonies in the Church. So any assistance you can give here will be very welcome indeed. In the list below, I have included the name of the priest leading the particular Service. He would appreciate your offer of assistance.
| Penitential Services: | |
| Spy Wednesday | 8.00 |
| Holy Saturday | 4.00 |
| Confessions: | |
| Holy Thursday | 11-12.30; 4-6.00 |
| Good Friday | 11-12.00; 6.30-8.00 |
| Holy Saturday | 11-1.00; 2-3.30; 5-6.00 |
| Easter Ceremonies | |
| Holy Thursday: | The Lord's Supper: 8.00 (Fr. Coghlan) |
| Good Friday | Stations of the Cross: 12.00. |
| The Lord's Passion: 3.00 (Fr. Whelan) | |
| Tenebrae: 8.00 (Fr. Foley) | |
| Holy Saturday: | Easter Vigil: 9.00. (Fr. Lyng) |
| Easter Sunday: | Easter Mass: 11.00 & 6.30 |
Since Monday, April 13th is a Public Holiday, there will be no 8.30 Mass and the Priory Office will remain closed all day.