Sunday Newsletter
Masses Today
11.00: Eva Daly, John & Mary Lovett, (Anniv).
6.30: Bernard & Elizabeth Coyne, (Anniv).
- Masses for next Sunday, April 11th: 6.30: William Mitchell; 11.00: Marie Moten & Michael Mac Namara; 6.30: Gerry Gilmore.
- ANNIVERSARIES: Remember in your prayers the late Dolores Jenkins (nee McDonagh) and Rosaleen Keaveney whose anniversaries occur at this time.
- COLLECTION: The collection last Sunday was €1,700.
- PUBLIC HOLIDAY & MASS TIMES: Since tomorrow is a public holiday, there will be no 8.30 or 10.00 Mass in this Church and the Priory Office will remain closed all day. The only Mass tomorrow, Monday, will be at 11.00. We will also omit the 10.00 Mass for all of Easter week. In other words, from Tuesday through Saturday, there will be just two morning Masses in the Augustinian: 8.30 and 11.00.
- EASTER DUES: A big 'thank you' to all those who have already handed in your Easter Dues. Those still 'shy in the pot' can hand them in at the Priory Office at any time.
As I Was Saying...
It has been a gloomy week, financially. The whole country feels cheated. There is a distinct feeling abroad that this generation has pawned the family silver, and it will take the sweat and tears of two or three generations to redeem it again!
I heard a BBC economist give a psychological explanation for some gloomy financial forecasts. He said research had shown that once traders have formed a certain view of the economy, they tend to put greater reliance on evidence that supports that understanding and play down, if not overlook, whatever contradicts it. Last week, where Ireland was concerned, traders were fixed on doom and gloom. God knows, they had sufficient evidence to support their dark suspicions!
I'm sure that 'psychological explanation' of the BBC economist is true, and not just for economists. Try telling some people that the Catholic Church has now in place a far more efficient Child Protection Programme than any other organisation in the country, they are likely to shake their heads in disbelief! 'What planet is this fellow on?' they will ask. The present social context has so conditioned a certain mind-set that they will find this claim outlandish. And yet I firmly believe the claim to be irrefutable. In the absence of trust, evidence is largely irrelevant.
You can see the same mechanism at work in the gospel accounts of the first Easter Sunday. The mind-set of the disciples is that everything is now over. The hopes and expectations they had placed on Jesus of Nazareth have all died with his death. So they are deeply resistant to anything that disturbs that settled opinion. (Settled opinions are notoriously difficult to dislodge!)
Perhaps the people of the first century were all credulous, capable of believing anything, however improbable? But what we see in the gospels is the very opposite - a mind-set of deep scepticism. St. Luke tells us that when the women came back from the tomb to tell their story to the men, their words seemed to them 'an idle tale, and they did not believe them.'
Our contemporary mind-set is not dissimilar. We are rightly impressed by the transience of all things. Even when, as at this time of year - and snow apart - we are suffused with joy and hope at the new buds and new birth - the daffodils in the wood, the lambs in the meadow - we know they are but part of the endless cycle of birth, growth, decay and death. The eternal note of sadness is never far way. So we are not very receptive to any aspect of our experience that might suggest otherwise. We are not comfortable with the idea that Christ rose from the dead. We are not comfortable with the idea of our own transformation beyond death. We dismiss intimations of immortality. None of this suits the contemporary mind.
So what are we to make of the Easter claim of the church that Christ is risen? I have often stated that it makes much more sense today to speak about the resurrection of the disciples rather than the resurrection of Jesus. The hard historical evidence is that after Easter Day they become changed people - a radically different mind-set, a psychological resurrection. That is true. And yet even a psychological resurrection needs something to trigger it. Given the deep scepticism of the disciples that all was lost, could that trigger have been anything less than an empty tomb and a mysterious presence?
Happy Easter!
-Dick Lyng
Items of Great Interest
- HOLY WEEK & EASTER: Thanks to everyone involved in the Easter ceremonies: Readers, Ministers of the Eucharist, Altar Servers. (Emma, Emily & Georgia) and our 'behind the scenes' workers. Thanks in particular to Cathal, Gerry, Peter and Margaret, without whose help we would not have got beyond Palm Sunday! And thanks to Sr. Majella for her invaluable help with Tenebrae on Good Friday night, a function that goes from strength to strength every year.
- FLOWERS: The flowers in the church this Easter were magnificent. Thanks to Margaret Cunningham, Mary O-Hici, Margaret Cunnane. Hours of effort went into the display. That is so obvious that I am wasting valuable space stressing it! Thanks very much ladies. Your efforts are very much appreciated.
- EMPTY TOMB: Thanks to Gerry Ferguson, we have a new Easter feature in the Church this year, an 'empty tomb'. In many continental churches, the 'empty tomb' is as central to the Easter festival as the crib is to Christmas.
- EASTER WATER: Traditionally, Catholics replenish domestic Holy Water fonts with Easter Water blessed at the Vigil. Due to the recent Swine Flu scare, of course, we were advised by the HSE to remove the Holy Water from all our fonts some nine months ago. However, we were notified this week that the emergency is now over. So, in the course of the Easter Vigil, we blessed the Holy Water and replenish our fonts. This Easter Water is now available in two vats beside the altar rails. Feel free to take as much of it as you need.
- SEDER MEAL: Thanks to all who prepared the Seder Meal on Monday night last. Forty six people sat down to dine and it really was a very enjoyable and very educational celebration. (And profitable too, I can assure you!) But of course there was a lot of preparation involved. This was done by a group drawn from both churches under the rabbinic leadership of Sister Patricia Dooley.
Papal Challenge
On Saturday last, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a heartfelt apology to the victims of revolting abuse by Irish priests and members of religious orders. His statement was remarkable not just for the power of its language - the pontiff spoke of his own "shame" - but also for its determination to dismantle the culture of buck-passing that has disgraced the Catholic Church in Ireland. The Vatican is planning a Visitation of Irish dioceses. Certain prelates and bureaucrats are rightly terrified of what it will uncover.
Victims' groups have declared themselves unsatisfied by the Pope's apology. To an extent, this is understandable: as Benedict XVI says, no apology can heal wounds caused by child abuse. Victims and families will carry them to the grave. Even so, a few unfashionable points need to be made.
First, these crimes reached their peak in the years between the Second World War and the early 1980s. Many perpetrators are long dead, and so are the clergy who abetted their crimes.
Second, it is important that the legitimate concerns of victims are not drowned out by the synthetic rage of militant secularists who see a chance to advance their agenda.
Third, the Roman Catholic Church is a community of a billion people, most of whom have never suffered or committed abuse. It is largely a force for good in the world. Christianity as a whole will suffer if innocent Catholics are tarred with the brush of paedophilia.
Let guilty men be pursued relentlessly - but only the guilty. The Pope must continue to take calm, decisive action that will prevent his important visit to Britain being overshadowed by this terrible scandal.
-Daily Telegraph Leader, Monday, March 22nd, 2010.
An Easter Blessing
Bless this day the joy of life,
The revelation of the flesh,
The paradise of man and wife
Joined to share the gift of bliss.
Bless this day the pain of life,
The passion that redeems the flesh,
The love between a man and wife
Beyond all agony and bliss.
Bless this day the end of life,
The peace within the dying flesh,
The bond between a man and wife
That long outlasts their bit of bliss.
Bless this day the whole of life,
The grace of being more than flesh,
The voyage of a man and wife
Across the mystery of bliss.
-J.S. Bach.
On Target
So intolerable had Hitler's persecution of the Jews become that two Jews decided to assassinate him. They mounted guard, their guns at the ready, at a spot by which they knew the Fuehrer was to pass. He was long time in coming and a horrible thought occurred to Samuel.
"Joshua," he said, "say a prayer that nothing's happened to the man!"
"Quotable quotes..."
- "Little things affect little minds." -Benjamin Disraeli.
- "To treat your facts with imagination is one thing; to imagine your facts is another." -John Burroughs.
- "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." -Woody Allen.
- "Mother always told me my day would come, but she could never have dreamt that I would end up being the shortest knight of the year." -Jockey Gordon Richards (on being knighted).
- "God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment. But many other things ceased as well. Woman was God's second mistake." -Friedrich Nietzsche.