Reality Magazine November 2019

MARRIAGE: AN IRISH PERSPECTIVE

NOVEMBER 2019

ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND IRELAND

CINEMA OF CONTEMPLATION: PAUL SCHRADER’S FIRST REFORMED

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

PURGATORY IN IRISH FOLKLORE

RE-VISITING THE FUNERAL MASS

AND REMEMBERING OUR DEAD

MIRACLE AT KNOCK?

A MIRACULOUS CURE IS OFFICIALLY RECOGNISED

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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12 PURGATORY IN IRISH FOLKLORE A collection of folklore shows how belief in purgatory permeated the lives of believers at every level – in the landscape, in the home and even in children’s games.

By Prof Salvador Ryan

20 RE-VISITING THE FUNERAL MASS November is a special time for praying for the faithful departed. It is also a time for taking a fresh look at the funeral Mass.

By Maria Hall

23 MIRACLE AT KNOCK? One hundred and forty years after the apparitions, Knock Shrine has officially recognised a cure as miraculous for the first time.

By Dr John Scally

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26 ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND IRELAND One of the most difficult periods in the life of St John Henry Newman was associated with the proposed foundation of a Catholic University in Dublin. It did however produce one of the classics of education, The Idea of a University.

By Rev Dr Thomas Norris

28 WHAT MUST THEY DO TO BE BAPTISED? Baptism in a mountain barrio chapel provokes some uncomfortable questions for the celebrant.

By Fr Colm Meaney CSsR

32 THE WOMEN’S CONFRATERNITY, CLONARD A sketch of more than 120 years of the women’s confraternity in Belfast

By Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR

36 CINEMA OF CONTEMPLATION A struggling pastor of a declining church joins the gallery of struggling priest-figures like Bresson’s Country Priest and Scorsese’s Jesuit missionary of Silence.

By Dr Paul Clogher

23

32

OPINION

REGULARS

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY

04 REALITY BITES 07 POPE MONITOR 08 SAINT OF THE MONTH 09 REFLECTIONS 40 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 42 TRÓCAIRE 45 GOD’S WORD

19 JIM DEEDS 31 CARMEL WYNNE 44 PETER McVERRY SJ

REALITY BITES ACCORD TO PROVIDE SAME-SEX COUNSELLING DUBLIN

4

REGARDLESS OF ORIENTATION

In order to retain state funding, Accord, the Irish Catholic marriage care service, will offer counselling to same-sex couples. Earlier this year, the government threatened to remove state funding from counselling services which did not accept same-sex couples. “Accord Catholic Marriage Care Service CLG has assured Tusla (the Child and Family Agency) they will provide counselling services regardless of sexual orientation and comply with the agreement,” said a spokeswomen for Tusla.

"Tusla will monitor services to ensure they comply with the terms of their service level agreement.”

Accord receives the largest amount of public funding among counselling services in the Republic of Ireland. It has 55 counselling centres in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It also teaches relationship and sex education classes in schools, where it does not teach about contraception or same-sex relationships.

CATHEDRAL CENTENARY COBH

The Cathedral of St Coleman, Cobh

REALITY NOVEMBERR 2019

THE MOST FAMOUS LANDMARK IN COBH

Bishop William Crean of Cloyne presided at a special Mass to mark the centenary of the consecration of the Cathedral of St Coleman in Cobh on August 25. The Mass included music and hymns specially composed for the occasion by noted Irish composer Bernard Sexton.

The cathedral was built over a 47-year period from the laying of the foundation stone in 1868 to its completion in 1915, at the cost of €235,000. In neo-Gothic style, it was designed by architects E. W. Pugin, and G. E. Ashlin who later partnered with T. A. Coleman for the completion of the cathedral. The consecration in 1919 was presided over by the then primate, Cardinal Logue.

It has a carillion of 49 bells, the largest number in Ireland and Britain. It also houses a Telford & Telford pipe organ, which had undergone major restoration over the past three years in Padua, Italy and has been returned just in time for the centenary celebrations. In preparation for the centenary, the whole cathedral has undergone a major cleaning of its stone work, carvings and mosaics. When Cobh was the major departure point for Irish emigrants to the US, the great cathedral was the last building in Ireland to be seen and also the first to be seen on their return.

N E WS

FIRES DESTROY RAIN FOREST AFRICA

FALLING BIRTH-RATE SPAIN

THE SECOND GREEN LUNG

Much attention was given during the summer to the forest fires that raged through the Amazon region of Brazil and other parts of South America. Less attention has been given to the forest fires in Central Africa. The Congo Basin forest is commonly referred to as the 'second green lung' of the planet after the Amazon. The forests cover an area of 3.3 million square kilometres in several countries, including about a third in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the rest in Gabon, Cameroon and Central Africa. Just like the Amazon, the forests of the Congo Basin absorb tons of carbon dioxide in trees and peat marshes – seen by experts as a key way to combat climate change. They are also sanctuaries for many endangered species of birds and animals. Many of the fires are outside sensitive rainforest areas, analysts say, and drawing comparisons to the Amazon is also complex. Though less publicised than the Amazon, the Congo Basin forests still face dangers. In the Amazon, the forest burns mainly because of drought and climate

change, but in central Africa, it is mainly due to agricultural techniques. Many farmers use the ancient 'slash-and-burn' technique to clear forest. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, only 9 per cent of the population has access to electricity, and the use of wood for cooking and energy is normal. The president, Félix Tshisekedi, has warned that the rainforests are in danger if the country does not improve its hydro-electric capacity.

Deforestation is also a risk in Gabon and elsewhere as well as damage from mining and oil projects. Some of the states have begun to act. Gabon, for example, has declared about 11 per cent of its national territory as a series of 13 national parks. DR Congo has declared a moratorium on new industrial logging licences but that has not stopped artisanal cutting, which industrial loggers can exploit. “We need to protect the forests that are still largely intact and stop degradation,” said a spokesperson for Greenpeace. “The forests that are still intact remain an important buffer for future climate change.”

PRIEST CHARGED WITH THEFT PHILADELPHIA

HIDDEN STASH

Police have arrested a 56-year old Philadelphia monsignor and charged him with “theft by unlawful taking and related offences”.

Msgr Joseph McLoone was the pastor of St Joseph's Church in Downington, Pennsylvania. It is alleged that he took $98,405 in parish funds to pay for “a beach house, travel, dining and spending on adult men with whom he maintained sexual relationships”.

The district attorney’s office said Msgr McLoone diverted funds into a secret account, including fees for weddings and funerals as well as the entire collection from All Souls Day Masses. Msgr McLoone denies the charges.

Msgr Joesph McLoone

A DESOLATE PANORAMA

The Bishop of San Sebastián in Spain wrote in a newspaper article of the problems facing Spain as its birth rate falls well below replacement level. He was commenting on data published in June by Spain's National Institute for Statistics, which he said show a “desolate panorama in terms of the birthrate”. According to the article “fertility stands at 1.25 children, and births have fallen 6% compared to the previous year. We have accumulated a decrease of 30% in the last decade; if we had not benefited from the birth-rate of immigrants, this decrease in Spain would have reached 44%.” In Spain “more people are dying than are being born, and while the over-65 population exceeds 9 million people, those under 15 are not more than 7 million.” These figures raise concern “for the sustainability of the pension system” but the bishop said it would be very sad if the only questions raised by this demographic crisis were fear of the weakening of our pensions or of the arrival of foreigners. The dearth of children in our families and in our society impoverishes much more than we suppose, the bishop said. “Fatherhood and motherhood require 'giving your life.'

But life is something that is greater than us.

It's a 'miracle' that we have received gratis and we are called to transmit it generously; that is why believers speak of procreation rather than of reproduction, because parents cooperate with God the creator to give life to the world.” continued on page 6

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REALITY BITES PRIZE FOR FORMER PRESIDENT

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The former President of Ireland, Dr Mary McAleese, has said she was “surprised and thrilled” when the prestigious Catholic Faculty of Theology of Tübingen University awarded her the 2019 Alfons Auer Ethics Prize for her work on children’s rights in canon law. This award, the richest in Europe, honours the memory of the late Rev Professor Alfons Auer, who died in 2005. He was a professor of moral theology, and together with Hans Küng and Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, he dominated the theology department of Tübingen in the l960s and l970s. Valued at €25,000, the prize has been presented biannually since 2015 when it was first awarded to Canadian philosopher and political scientist Professor Charles Taylor. The award will be presented to Dr McAleese, a canon lawyer, at a ceremony at the University of Tübingen in Germany on October 30.

CATHOLIC HOSPITAL FORCED TO DELIVER EUTHANASIA St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, Nova Scotia will now be required to offer assisted suicide and euthanasia, after an assisted suicide advocacy group threatened legal action in January. The Canadian Senate legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia in June 2016 and they are fully funded in the Canadian healthcare system. St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, formerly run by the Sisters of St. Martha, signed an agreement in 1996 with the provincial health authority when it took control of the facility which was intended to ensure that the hospital’s Catholic identity and values would be preserved. Last August, the Nova Scotia Health Authority quietly instituted a policy change to require St. Martha’s to offer assisted suicide. Dying With Dignity Canada, an advocacy group for euthanasia, hoped that Nova Scotia’s "proactive approach" could serve as a model for other jurisdictions.

REALITY NOVEMBERR 2019

PRIESTS CALL FOR MORE HELP FOR BEREAVED People are struggling to pay for funerals, according to Glasgow priests. While welcoming a new Scottish benefit to tackle funeral poverty for low-income families, they insisted more needs to be done to solve the problem and challenged the government to do more to tackle the issue which "can plunge people into debt overnight". According to the Scottish government up to 2,000 more applicants will be eligible for the new benefit.

Fr Liam McMahon, parish priest of St Michael’s Church, Parkhead, said he

welcomed "any government support for the most vulnerable", but said the reported allowance hardly compares to the average cost of a funeral in Scotland today. “Many people in the lowest income bracket have little or nothing in the way of savings,” he said. “We know death doesn’t come by appointment so such people can be plunged into debt overnight, which can have a profound effect on their lives for years to come, to say nothing of the bereavement itself.”

CONCENTRATION CAMP PRIEST BEATIFIED Another priest-inmate of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, has been beatified. Blessed Richard Henkes, a German Pallottine priest, was denounced by the Nazis for his outspoken preaching. He died in Dachau concentration camp in 1945 while caring for prisoners sick with typhus. In the pulpit and the classroom, Fr Henkes spoke out against the Nazi ideology and condemned its crimes against human dignity, especially the killing of the disabled.

He was finally arrested by the Gestapo in May 1943 and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, where he lived in the priests’ barracks, did compulsory labour, and secretly studied Czech with the future archbishop of Prague, Servant of God Cardinal Josef Beran. When a typhus epidemic broke out in block 17, Fr Henkes volunteered to be locked up with the sick prisoners, so that he could continue to minister to them and care for the dying. In the end, he died from the disease.

More than 2,500 Catholic priests and seminarians were imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp under the Nazi regime: 1,034 died in the camp. Some of them have already been beatified. Blessed Michal

Portrait of Fr Henkes by Beate Heinen, 1995

Kozal, a Polish bishop, was killed by lethal injection in Dachau in 1943 and beatified

by St John Paul II in Warsaw in 1987. Blessed Karl Leisner was secretly ordained a priest while imprisoned in Dachau in 1944, by a French bishop also held within the camp.

Fr Leisner died of tuberculosis shortly after celebrating his first Mass: he was beatified, along with Fr Bernhard Lichtenberg, by St John Paul II during his visit to Berlin in 1996.

Blessed Engelmar Unzeitig, who also died in Dachau while caring for sick prisoners infected with typhus in 1945, was beatified in Germany in 2016.

N E WS

POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS POPE FRANCIS REPLIES TO HIS CRITICS

SYNOD ON THE AMAZON

On the flight to his African pastoral visit, Pope Francis gave his usual press conference to the journalists accompanying him. It lasted over an hour and a half and touched on many topics including the environment, peace and the current situation of Africa. The correspondent for the New York Times asked how he felt being under attack from a segment of the American Church and noted how some Catholic television stations and websites are very critical.

“Are you afraid of a schism in the American Church?” he asked, “and if so, is there something that you could do – a dialogue – to keep it from happening?

The pope began by noting that criticism always helps and that he benefits from it; even though “sometimes it makes you angry, there are advantages.” He noted that criticism is coming not just from America but even from the Roman curia. “I do not like it when criticism stays under the table: they smile at you letting you see their teeth and then they stab you in the back. That is not fair, it is not human,” he said. Regarding schism, he recalled that it was always the people of God who saved the church from schisms. He told the story of the Council of Ephesus, how when the bishops were on the verge of rejecting the title of Mother of God or Theotokos, the people gathered at the entrance of the cathedral as the bishops entered. “They were there with clubs. They made the bishops see them as they shouted, ‘Mother of God! Mother of God!’, as if to say: if you do not do this, this is what you can expect…

The people of God always correct and helpful. A schism is always an elitist separation stemming from an ideology detached from doctrine. I pray that schisms do not happen, but I am not afraid of them,” he said. “When you see rigid Christians, bishops, priests, there are problems behind that, not Gospel holiness. So, we need to be gentle with those who are tempted by these attacks, they are going through a tough time, we must accompany them gently.”

The Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazonian region began on October 6 and continued until October 27. The participants were due to discuss issues of concern to the church in the Amazon region, including a lack of priestly vocations, ecological challenges, and obstacles to evangelisation.

In his opening remarks for the Amazon synod, Pope Francis said that its working document is meant to be “destroyed” since it is the Holy Spirit who will guide the work of the assembly. “Synod means to walk together under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the main actor of the synod. Please, let’s not throw it out of the room.” The working document, instrumentum laboris, is the result of two years of consultation within the bishops' conferences of the region The pope’s remarks were clearly aimed at some figures, including cardinals and theologians who are not part of the synod, but who have criticised the inclusion of certain topics in the working document, such as the possible ordination of married men. He invited those present at the opening “to pray a lot” to ensure the work of the Holy Spirit is fruitful and to “reflect, dialogue, listen with humility".

TREE-PLANTING CEREMONY WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE Pope Francis joined church workers and indigenous people from the Amazon countries on October 4, the feast of St Francis of Assisi, to plant a tree in the Vatican Gardens. About 20 delegates performed the ritual, singing and dancing with Amazonian symbols. They brought soil from different places, including the Amazon, India, countries where people are trafficked or forced to migrate, places where young people participate in climate change demonstrations, and from the shrine of St Francis in

Assisi. Two people from Brazil joined the pope and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a Brazilian Franciscan, to spread the soil around a small holm oak brought from Assisi and sprinkle it with water. The pope appeared tired during the ritual. He greeted the delegates and put the first shovel of soil around the tree, but he omitted the short speech he was due to give and instead invited everyone to join in reciting the Lord’s Prayer before he drove back to the papal residence.

7

REDEMPTORIST SAINT OF THE MONTH THE SPANISH REDEMPTORIST MARTYRS

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During the Spanish Civil War which ran from 1936 until 1939, the church suffered much persecution at the hands of the Republicans or ‘Reds'. One estimate is that 680 priests and male religious and 283 sisters were killed. Many lay people were also killed or tortured.

To date, 1915 Spanish martyrs have been beatified and a further 11 have been canonised.

Six Redemptorists, five priests and one brother, were beatified on October 13, 2013.

They are known collectively as the Redemptorist Martyrs of Cuenca.

1.

José Javier Gorosterrazu Jaunarena was a 59-year-old priest. As a professor and missionary in both the Spanish and Basque languages, he combined the proclamation of the Gospel with philosophical scholarship and research. He preached many retreats and spiritual exercise to nuns, especially to the Redemptoristines. On August 10, 1936, he was arrested by the militia of the Popular Front and shot in the cemetery of Cuenca.

Before he died, he forgave his killers. He died together with Brother Victoriano (see below).

2.

Ciriaco Olarte Pérez de Mendiguren was a 43-year-old priest. He had worked in Mexico, and then he returned to Spain. A friendly and outgoing person, he attracted people by the warmth of his personality. He had left Mexico when persecution of the church broke out during the presidency of Plutarco Calles. In Spain he preached missions and retreats. On July 31, 1936, he was arrested, taken to the place called 'Las Angustias' (Sorrows), severely wounded, and left to die. He died along with his confrère Fr Miguel Goñi. They gave each other absolution.

3.

Miguel Goñi Áriz was a 34-year-old priest. Despite delicate health and a rather timid character, he was a preacher of popular missions and a kind confessor. He was a valuable man both for preaching and for liturgical services in the church. He was always available to do whatever was necessary. He was ordained a priest on September 27, 1925. In 1932, he was transferred to Cuenca. He was arrested by the militia, shot, and left to bleed to death on August 31, 1936.

4.

Julián Pozo Ruiz de Samaniego was a 33-year-old priest. He was an extremely good man who enchanted everyone with his smile. Before ordination, he had fallen ill with tuberculosis, but his human qualities and spiritual depth matured through this illness. Everything about him, and especially his smile even in illness, spoke of God. On August 9, 1936, he was arrested while praying the rosary. He was shot and killed along the road from Cuenca to Tragacete.

5.

Victoriano Calvo Lozano was a 40-year-old brother, and is the second Redemptorist brother since St Gerard Majella to be beatified. Despite a very basic educational background, he was a man of great natural wisdom and appreciation of the ways of God. He did the simple everyday work of the Redemptorist brother-- porter-receptionist, sacristan, tailor or working in the orchard or garden. He spent much time in silence and prayer. He was also a natural spiritual director. On August 10, 1936, he was arrested and shot in the Cuenca cemetery along with Fr Gorosterrazu.

6.

Pedro Romero Espejo was a 65-year-old priest. He had served as a parish missioner for many years, but little by little, he had to leave this work behind because of personal difficulties. He more or less lived a contemplative life in Cuenca. When the persecution broke out, in order to live faithfully his missionary life, he lived as a beggar in the streets of Cuenca. He was able in this way to offer pastoral care to anyone who asked for it. He was arrested in May 1938 and died of dysentery in prison on May 29.

Brendan McConvery CSsR

REALITY NOVEMBERR 2019

Reality Volume 84. No. 9 November 2019 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, St Joseph's Monastery, St Alphonsus Road, Dundalk County Louth A91 F3FC Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Web: www.redcoms.org Email: sales@redcoms.org (With permission of C.Ss.R.)

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REFLECTIONS It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

2 MACCABEES 12:46

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

I am ready to meet my Maker.

Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

SAMUEL JOHNSON

I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure! but you, If you shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.

WASHINGTON IRVING

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

GEORGE ELIOT

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a ride!”

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

PETER PAN

Death never takes the wise person by surprise, they are always ready to go.

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.

THORNTON WILDER

JEAN DE LA FONTAINE

HELEN KELLER

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more; neither sighing, but life everlasting.

You only are immortal, the Creator and Maker of man; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return; for so you ordained when you created me: 'Dust you are, and unto dust shalt you return.'

All we go down to the dust, and, weeping o'er the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.

ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS

Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they are seventy-five.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

ORTHODOX KONTAKION FOR THE

Let us endeavour so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

DEPARTED

MARK TWAIN

9

Redemptorist Communications Presents

A DOSE OF REALITY

By Fr Peter McVerry SJ

“There is something profoundly wrong when, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we have a record number of people homeless, children going to school hungry, and many, many people struggling to make ends meet and provide even basic necessities for their children.”

For the past 40 years, Fr Peter McVerry SJ has lived and worked with some of the most vulnerable people in Irish society. His experience with those who are homeless, poor and marginalised has given him a unique perspective on the issues facing Irish society, and their underlying political, economic and social roots.

This book contains a selection of articles from Fr McVerry’s monthly column in the Redemptorist magazine, Reality. They offer a reflection on issues from homelessness and drugs to justice and faith, as seen from the perspective of the poor.

Inspired by the Gospel and the Catholic Church’s social teaching, Fr McVerry challenges us all, from politicians to ordinary citizens, to listen with compassion, to examine our attitudes, and to attack the causes of inequality.

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EDI TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

I

attended the Down and Connor Faith and Life Convention in late September. The keynote speaker was Michel Camdessus, a distinguished economist, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund and honorary governor of the Bank of France.

In a provocative presentation, he outlined several megatrends or major long-term forces that are making an impact on society, human cultures and the lives of individual human beings, and so shaping our world’s direction as it moves into the future. Camdessus is a man of faith, as well as a front-line economist, and while many of these trends could be disturbing, he nevertheless held out an optimistic future but one that will only be available if we are able to shape it ourselves.

The first of these trends recognises that Africa will emerge as the continent of youth, doubling its population in 35 years, while the population growth elsewhere stagnates or, in the case of Europe, drastically declines. How will Europe handle its relationship with Africa, which after all is only 16 miles off its shore at its nearest point (as close to it as Northern Ireland is to Scotland), and especially after having played for so long the colonial power?

There will be continued growth in the world economy, but it will grow more in what we today term the 'developing world' than in Europe. There will be more integrated global finances, but the global financial world may still be dangerously unstable, as relatively few lessons were learned from the last financial crisis. There are also signs of a massive shift in economic power from west (Europe and America) to the east (Asia, including India and China). By 2050, the seven largest world economies, the G7, will represent only 25 per cent of the world’s wealth, half of what it claimed to control in the 1980s. Europe is in danger of losing its place, especially if the partner-states allow the European Union to disintegrate further.

Our natural resources cannot be endlessly stretched. Necessities, such as water, energy and land for growing produce crops are gradually being worn down. What will happen when, what we call ‘developing nations’ have reached the point when they want to claim what they believed were the prerogatives that went with wealth and a place in the leadership of the world?

The move towards urban living is relentless.

By 2050, 65 per cent of the world’s population will be dwelling in large cities, including 800 million in Africa. Our experience of relatively small cities in Ireland has taught us that urbanisation brings massive problems in its wake. Is there any way in which the megacities of the future can become anything other than centres of violence and alienation?

We have scarcely begun to wake up to the challenge of climate change: indeed, some world leaders are in the deniers’ club. We are far off the targets that were set for controlling global warming to a maximum of 2⁰ C. Finally, there is the persistence of violence, especially in its varied forms of terrorism and war, that overshadows so much of our common home.

Is there then a future for Planet Earth?

According to Michel Camdessus, there is, but it is a challenging one. Its point of departure must be the eradication of extreme poverty and the adoption of new attitudes towards developing nations. It will need to put finance at the service of the economy, which requires learning a moral message from the virtual collapse of the financial system in 2007-8 and recognising the need for fundamental change in how investment is determined. It also requires what he terms "a new government for a multipolar world". The most serious threats that face us – pollution, pandemics of serious disease, climate, new forms of violence – are without borders and will only be properly contained if the responses of

individual nations are part of a larger global strategy. It will also entail radical changes in our patterns of consumption of the world’s resources in ways that respect the truth that these are shared resources that need to be carefully husbanded for the good of all.

Fundamentally, this is a call to change at a profoundly human level but who are more qualified to advocate it than Christians, for whom conversion is a way of life? As Camdessus says, “we must recognise that the culture of yesterday still holds us in its claws, as Franz Kafka said. It leads in all human realities to a work of desperation, fear and even hatred, the radical opposite of the culture that our future calls for and needs.”

Our vision is often too narrow, he suggests, limited to our towns and villages, or at most, our own national borders. Quoting the late Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, on the need to dialogue with others for the common good, he said: “These dialogues are part of our mission, but they are not a kind of picnic with each of the friends dumping his basket on the blanket. What these dialogues require is an armful of humility, a little bit of boldness, a pinch of tact, a heart of the poor rather than of the wealthy, adopting the attitude of someone asking for hospitality, rather than offering it.” And that is good advice on how to live the Gospel.

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

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C OVE R STO RY

12

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

Purg

rgatory IN IRISH FOLKLORE

A COLLECTION OF FOLKLORE ON THE AFTERLIFE SHOWS HOW BELIEF IN PURGATORY PERMEATED THE LIVES OF BELIEVERS AT EVERY LEVEL – IN THE LANDSCAPE, IN THE HOME AND EVEN IN 13 THE GAMES CHILDREN PLAYED.

BY SALVADOR RYAN

I

remember well a story my late father used to tell when I was growing up. It concerned a young man who joined the army, but after a period of time found that he wasn’t cut out for its demands. “At that time,” my father would say, “you could buy someone out of the army, and the young man wrote to his father to ask him if he’d pay to get him released early.” His father wasn’t impressed. “Let him stick it out; it’ll make a man of him!” he declared. Many years later, a few months after his father had died, the parish priest approached the son, saying: “wouldn’t you think you’d get a Mass said for your father?” “Well”, the son replied, “if he’s in heaven, he doesn’t need it, and if he’s in hell, it’s no good to him; and, if he’s in purgatory, let him stick it out – it’ll make a man of him!”

I have had cause to think of my father’s story again, as it turns up in various versions in a body of folklore called the 'Schools’ Collection', gathered from over 5,000 schools across the country in 1937-38 in a scheme devised by the fledgling Irish Folklore Commission and the Department of Education (www.duchas.ie). My father grew up in a world where such stories were commonplace. Indeed, belief in purgatory played an important part in people’s lives, not least in giving them a mental framework through which some sense might be made of the phenomenon of ghosts and other supernatural visitations. And, of all months, November was the time when such beliefs intensified; it was the month of the Holy Souls.

C OVE R STO RY

ALL SOULS NIGHT It was believed that on All Souls Night (November 1-2) the dead were released from purgatory and were free to revisit their old family homes. Mrs J. Creedon from Mahoonagh in Limerick recalls how “the poor souls come and stay up in the rafters listening to see which of their relatives would say a prayer for them. When the people say a prayer for the poor souls, the poor souls go away quite satisfied”. No-one would be seen out that night, but preparations would be made for the visitation of one’s dead relatives.

An account from County Donegal recalls that “the old people leave the door on the latch, a bright fire on the hearth, the house is tidy, and clean, a pipe, and tobacco, and a box

of snuff, all ready to welcome any poor soul who should choose to visit the house that night”. Another account, from County Clare, notes that: “On this night the woman of the house never throws out water after dark.

'Is it to drown a poor soul?' she would say."

Thomas O’Rourke from Ballyhogue in County Wexford recalls how holy water was “sprinkled round the bedrooms at night, sometimes into the four corners of the room in honour of the souls in purgatory”.

Although purgatory was understood to be a transitory phase after death, it certainly wasn’t one in which you would be inclined to linger. Many stories grapple with what the pains associated with purgatory might be like.

Thomas Griffin from County Galway recalls

14

Belief in purgatory played an important part in people’s lives, not least in giving them a mental framework through which some sense might be made of the phenomenon of ghosts and other supernatural visitations REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

how one “very cross” school teacher made the children in her class “put their finger in the fire to remind them of purgatory”.

When purgatory was not being mentioned in the schoolroom, it featured in the games that children played. One such game was entitled 'Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory'. An account from Mullaun, County Leitrim, explains it involves two getting together and picking three places which represent Hell, Heaven, and purgatory. “All those who are playing pass under their joined hands and the last one is held and asked whether she would prefer to go to A, B, or C. This is continued until, in the end, all have gone to either A, B, or C” after which they are told which eternal destination they have chosen.

The old people leave the door on the latch, a bright fire on the hearth, the house is tidy, and clean, a pipe, and tobacco, and a box of snuff, all ready to welcome any poor soul who should choose to visit the house that night BACK FROM THE DEAD People were reminded of how the pains of earth could not equate with those of purgatory as time was different there. Kate Lovett from Lixnaw in County Kerry told of two men who made a pact that whichever one of them would die first would return to tell the other of the afterlife. A week after the younger man died, he returned to his friend “and told him that he had three minutes to spend in purgatory, and the sufferings were so great that he thought he spent three hundred years there”.

Reminders of the “poor souls” were a constant feature of daily life. The landscape itself brought the dead to mind. Dennis McMorrow from Dromahair in County Leitrim, speaks of “many bushes growing

around here called 'lonely' bushes” and that these are usually shunned by the people on account of the belief that “these bushes are sometimes the haunts of departed souls and hence should not be interfered with”.

The reason for this was that, before death, a person was transferred to a bed with a straw mattress. After death, the mattress was removed and the straw deposited on the eastern side of one of these bushes and was allowed to rot. It was often believed that the person who died was allowed to pass their purgatory there. An account from Windgap, County Kilkenny states that “the falling leaves used to remind the old people of the Poor Souls and in parts of the country a person would pray for the Holy Souls when a leaf fell on his or her head”.

There were reminders, too, in domestic life.

Mrs Brien from Donore, County Meath recalls how “when the lamp was being lighted, people used to say ‘May this light give light to the world and to the poor souls in purgatory’”, while Mrs Murphy from Roscommon states “that sparks flying from the red iron in the forge represents souls going from purgatory to heaven”. These souls could also be helped on their way by less orthodox means. An account from Dysart in County Louth informs us that “there is a long black insect called a jet and it is said to be very unlucky insect and if you can kill it before it turns its tail at you can take seven souls out of purgatory”.

This unfortunate insect had long got a bad reputation for giving directions to the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus.

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When the lamp was being lighted, people used to say ‘May this light give light to the world and to the poor souls in purgatory'

16

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

PRAYING FOR THE DEAD Consciousness of the plight of the “poor souls” also came through physical experiences. In Cloondrohid, County Cork, “the old people say that singing in your ears means that a poor soul in purgatory is reminding you that he needs your prayers and they say that if you pray the singing will go. The old people always say that when that singing is heard we should pray for the poor soul who has called us”.

The most effective means for releasing souls from purgatory was, of course, having Masses said for them. They were often understood to work incrementally, and often required further Masses to be said. In a humorous tale from Cloonmorris, County Leitrim, Patrick Reynolds recounts how a priest told a boy, whose father had recently died, that he was in purgatory and was in need of Masses.

“The boy got Masses said for him. After a while he met the priest and asked him was he nearly out. The priest said he had his head and shoulders out, and then the boy said "Any place my father gets his head out of, the ‘devil himself’ wouldn’t keep him back”.

Getting Masses said for the dead could be rewarded in this life too. A story is told about a servant girl in Pettigo in County Donegal who was always in the habit of having masses said for the “poor souls”. When her time was up in the job, she had only a few shillings left. This she decided, against what might be called prudent judgment, to give to the priest as another Mass offering for those in purgatory. As she was walking back from the priest’s house, she met a man on the road who pointed to a house where, he said, she might find a new position. When she turned to thank the man, he had disappeared. Going to the house she was offered a job, and “when she opened the door of the parlour, the girl saw on the mantelpiece a photograph of the man she had met on the road. ‘Oh’, said she to the woman. ‘Whose picture is that’. ‘That’s the picture of my son’, said the woman. ‘He is just six months dead.’”

OUT OF PURGATORY Many accounts relate stories of individuals who visit churches late at night and encounter a ghostly priest figure who asks them to serve his Mass. The usual explanation is that he was given money to celebrate a Mass for someone during his life, but either forgot about it, or delayed the celebration, and then died before he could fulfil his duty.

A story from Cappoquin tells of a woman who was up late sewing one night and was visited by three women long since dead.

They sat down by the fire and one woman took out a box of snuff and offered a pinch of snuff to the woman of the house. “God bless ye," she replied instinctively; it was this exclamation that saved the three from their purgatorial stay.

A story from Revenagh, County Kilkenny tells of an old lady who came in to her maid servant one morning in great distress. When asked what the matter was, she explained "the postman is outside, and he has got a letter for me from purgatory, and I know it's from my auld mother who's been there ten years, and it’s all about me not paying for the masses I said I would”. When the maid servant went out to the postman he was in fits of laughter and proceeded to show her a letter addressed to Mrs Ann Brady from the Dead Office. “Nothing could induce her to touch it; dead to her meaning purgatory and nothing else”.

The stories which appear in the Schools' folklore collection of 1937-38 present a belief system in which the veil between this world and the next was very thin indeed, and the traffic between the living and the dead was a constant feature of everyday life.

Belief in purgatory was not confined to what happened in the church, but permeated the lives of believers at numerous levels. It was in the landscape, the home, the classroom; it featured in the games children played, and, ultimately, in the hopes and expectations people had of each other in their communal quest to reach eternal life.

The most effective means for releasing souls from purgatory was, of course, having Masses said for them

Dr Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Partners in Peace Two men of God – Intrinsic to the Irish Peace Process – Convinced of their path – Spurred on by their faith

For the first time, the personal stories and political struggles of Redemptorists Alec Reid and Gerry Reynolds are told, highlighting their underlying influence in gaining peace on this island

ONE MAN, ONE GOD

UNITY PILGRIM

Fr Alec Reid made an extraordinary contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. As a member of the Clonard community for over 40 years, Fr Alec’s peace ministry emerged from a religious community deeply rooted in west Belfast.

Fr Alec saw himself as a servant of Christ in a situation of political conflict. He felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to reach out and work for peace. His contribution to peace in Ireland is immeasurable, and there would not have been a peace process without his hard work and determination.

This unique book by Fr Martin McKeever CSsR. explores the extraordinary work of this good and simple priest.

When Limerick-born Redemptorist priest Fr Gerry Reynolds first arrived in Belfast in August 1983, it was to a city starkly divided by conflict and violence. His instinct to reach out to those who were suffering, on both sides of the community, would develop into a lifelong devotion to the cause of peace and Christian unity – a pilgrim of peace.

He believed the church could be ‘God’s peace process in human history’, and that dialogue and friendship would open hearts to the mutual understanding and trust that are the foundations of true peace.

Above all, Gerry was a pilgrim, struggling in his faith, always striving towards the goal of Christian unity, one small step at a time. This book by Gladys Ganiel draws on Gerry’s own words and writings, and the recollections of his family and friends, to uncover the story of this gentle priest, pilgrim and peacemaker.

AN AMAZING DEAL: THE TWO BOOKS FOR JUST

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COM M E N T WITH EYES WIDE OPEN JIM DEEDS

A TALE OF TWO CEMETERIES

HAVE OUR CEMETERIES BECOME PLACES FOR DRINKING AND VANDALISM RATHER THAN FOR REMEMBERING THE DEAD?

From

the time I was a little boy, I have had a routine of visiting the graves of my deceased relatives.

This came from my grandfather, who took me most Sundays to visit my grandmother’s grave. He had been visiting that grave for many years before I was even born. You see, his wife died in 1950, four short years after they had married. She was called Agnes and she was only 25. She died from an illness that today is treatable. Tragic. Jimmy never married again. Agnes was to be his only love. And as a faithful husband would do, Jimmy visited Agnes’ grave often. As years went by, I began to accompany my granda. The visit to my granny’s grave was a special thing for me.

I think I knew that the moments that we stood at her grave were sacred, as was this quiet place of prayerful reflection itself.

Part of the legacy of this time in my life is that it made ‘visiting’ my dead relatives feel very normal and very soothing as I talked with my deceased loved ones in prayer and in my general conversation. My understanding of the existence of an afterlife assured me that as I spoke, they heard. And so, most days now I am to be found walking in the Belfast City Cemetery near my home.

However, of late, I’ve noticed that Belfast City Cemetery is not one but two cemeteries...

The first is a cemetery where people tend to the graves of their loved ones to the best of their ability, out of respect for the dead; something that Irish people are

really hard as well. And then the police are often called in and face the brunt of the anger that young people feel when cornered as well.

widely known for. We see graves planted up with beautifully coloured flowers, adorned with messages of love and obviously respected as the most sacred of places.

PARTYING IN THE CEMETERY? So, the first cemetery is one where graves old and new are tended to as best they can be and where the dead who have gone before us are respected, remembered, visited and cherished.

The second cemetery is a different one. This one is a place where people – not exclusively, but usually, young people – go to party and have a good time. It is a place of recreation which often (but not always) spills over into vandalism, fires, graffiti, litter, alcohol and drugs. And so, we often see at the foot of the graves with lovely flowers that someone has felt it okay to leave empty tins of cider. Not to mention that there is always a bin less that 50 metres away.

Still, why drink cider in a cemetery??

Where have we got to and what do we have to ask ourselves in order

to understand why young people congregate in a cemetery to have a good time? What sorts of problems are these young people storing up for themselves and society in their use of alcohol and drugs at such a young age? What respect do these young people have for themselves if they cannot see beyond their behaviour to see the importance of respecting the dead? And of course, what role do adults play in all of this? What have we taught our young people?

WHAT CAN BE DONE? There is tremendous work going on in relation to this issue in my community, undertaken by committed youth workers and their teams. From a church perspective, the local parish priest, Fr Martin Magill, works hard with those teams, face to face with the young people involved. They do outreach work into the cemetery and things would be a lot worse, both for the cemetery and for young people themselves, were they not so committed. I know that local councillors are working

PARENTS? I wonder what role parents have in resolving this issue? Parents often get the blame for the behaviour of their children and, while that’s too simplistic, there is still work to be done in helping parents to parent in a way that is good for them, their children and the rest of us too.

Another approach I’ve heard is to label the young people as ‘scum’ or ‘hoods’ or a ‘disgrace’ and, while much of what we see brings disgrace upon us as a community, to label kids without getting out there and trying to work out why this is happening will be counterproductive. Also, I wonder if we found out that one of our daughters, sons, nephews, nieces or grandchildren were involved would we be so quick to label? I don’t know. It’s a very complex issue.

But my tendency is to try to reach beyond the behaviours and see the story about the individual as a way of understanding, not excusing, what is happening. Messy and all as it is, these are all children of God, deserving of our love and compassion.

We need leadership and creative thinking from our local political reps and civic and church leaders.

We need cool heads and steely determination. We need both prayers and meaningful action in order to reclaim our cemeteries as sacred places.

Belfast man Jim Deeds is a poet, author, pastoral worker and retreat-giver working across Ireland.

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RE-VISITING THE FUNERAL MASS NOVEMBER IS A SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR THE CHURCH TO PRAY FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. WE CAN BE INSPIRED AND RENEWED IN OUR PRAYERS FROM THE LITURGIES AND CUSTOMS OF THE PAST AND BY TAKING A FRESH LOOK AT ELEMENTS OF TODAY’S MASS.

BY MARIA HALL

Nothing 20

defines a culture more than how it marks death. Dating back thousands of years, burial customs can be fascinating and bizarre!

Greek and Roman burials involved elements that are familiar to us – family gatherings, processions, music, flowers and wreaths, a eulogy, burial of mortal remains and a shared meal. As the early Christian Church grew, it moulded local pagan customs into more appropriate Christian liturgies.

EARLIEST PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD Graffiti prayers in the Roman catacombs show that the dead buried there were remembered.

They are some of the earliest petitions for the dead and are familiar phrases; Pax [Peace]: Tibi cum Angelis [To you with the angels]; In Pace [in peace} In the third century Tertullian makes one of the first known references to publicly praying for the dead. He says that the widow who does not pray for her departed husband has good as divorced him!

The writings of Egyptian bishop, Serapion, around the middle of the fourth century, include a Eucharistic Prayer in which the dead are remembered and the ‘Prayer for a dead person’ which forms part of an early Liturgical Office is beautiful; O God, who possess power over life and death...

You create man’s spirit in him; you gather and give rest to the souls of the saints; We pray you for the sleep and repose of this man(or woman), your servant.

Refresh his soul and his spirit in the places of pasture and in the dwellings of rest with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the saints.

As for his body, raise it on the day you have appointed according to your sure promises.

Grant it, in your holy pastures the share of the inheritance that belongs to it.

Do not remember his faults and sins.

Grant that his death be peaceful and blessed.

Heal the sadness of those who live on through your consoling Spirit.

Grant us all a happy end.

One of the most beautiful accounts of a funeral is from St Augustine on the death of his mother, Monica. He writes very openly

In the 11th century St Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, declared that November 2 would be set aside to remember and pray for all the Faithful Departed In the Apostolic Constitutions (fourth century) the deacon prays for "those who have fallen asleep in the faith".

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

about the necessity of showing his own feelings of grief; So, when the body was carried forth, we both went and returned without tears.

For neither in those prayers which we poured forth unto Thee when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered up unto Thee for her (Eucharist) —the dead body being now placed by the side of the grave, as the custom there is, prior to its being laid therein,—neither in their prayers did I shed tears; yet was I most grievously sad in secret all the day…

He even took a bath and a sleep in order to

A hymn becomes you, O God, in Zion, and to you shall a vow be repaid in Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer; to you shall all flesh come.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

It originates in the fourth Book of Ezra which some churches included among the books of the Old Testament. It may have been used as early as the fifth century.

Therefore I say to you, O nations that hear and understand, 'Await your shepherd; he will give you everlasting rest, because he who will come at the end of the age is close at hand.

Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, because the eternal light will shine upon you for evermore.' 4:34-35 Paying to have a Mass said for your loved one was a very popular Middle-Age practice.

The many side altars of abbey churches were kept busy as relatives tried to ensure their loved one was safely in paradise. If you could afford them, the more Masses, the better!

In the 11th century St Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, declared that November 2 would be set aside to remember and pray for all the Faithful Departed. (He also recommended that people should give alms to the poor as well as make a Mass offering.) His idea spread through the church and the date was added to the liturgical year.

relax but neither worked. In the end, simply pondering on memories of her tenderness and love for him "set free" his tears. His prayer for Monica can be prayed as a prayer for any deceased mother (See resources).

THE REQUIEM MASS Texts for a specific Mass for the dead took centuries to develop. The Introit is probably the oldest of these. It gives us our most wellknown prayer for the dead, and the word Requiem.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

REFLECTIONS ON TEXTS OF THE MASS FOR THE DEAD THE COLLECT Even though the liturgies of the church are, by definition, collective, they provide moments for individual prayer and are a reminder of our own journey to the Lord. Before the Liturgy of the Word begins, the Collect is spoken on our behalf by the priest and begins with the invitation "Let us pray."

The General Instruction on the Roman Missal says; "All, together with the priest, observe a brief silence so that they may be conscious of the fact that they are in God’s presence and

RESOURCES For links, videos, liturgy resources and downloadable PDFs suitable for this time of year, go to: www.mariahall.org / November and Masses for the Dead

may formulate their intentions mentally." (It’s a purposeful silence for everyone in the church!)

During the Month of the Holy Souls, at a Requiem Mass or an anniversary Mass, this is a particularly wonderful prayer opportunity to bring to mind those souls, known and unknown. Many of the Collects for regular Sunday Masses (and also the prayers after Communion) make beautiful references to eternal life, everlasting reward, eternal gladness, fruit that lasts for ever and gifts that are eternal.

The Collect for the 31st Sunday this year reads: "grant we pray, that we may hasten without stumbling to receive the things you have promised." It’s a phrase worthy of reflection. Take a look at the video on the Collect from ‘Elements of the Mass’. It’s a helpful and refreshing explanation (See resources).

THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER Ever y Eucharistic Prayer after the Consecration and having prayed for the living, commemorates the dead.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER II: Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy; welcome them all into the light of your face.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER III; To our departed brothers and sisters, too, and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom.

We hear them so often that sometimes the words don’t sink in. But in November we have a particular reason to focus and reflect on them.

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PRAYERS OF THE FAITHFUL ‘Bidding prayers’ or Prayers of the Faithful are very versatile and not just for Mass!

They are spoken on our behalf and so should begin with "We pray for…that…" (never "Dear Lord"!)

They end with something like "Lord in your mercy" or "Lord hear us" as an invitation to the congregation to respond.

In between they need only be short; We pray for the souls of those who die alone.

That God may give them eternal peace and welcome them into the glories of His heavenly kingdom.

Lord in your mercy.

Other suggestions: For all those in our families who have gone before us… …those in our parish who have died in the past year… …those people we know who have died…

…those who have died alone and have no one to pray for them… …those who have died as a result of conflict… ...for children who have died… …those parents whose child has died.. …all who are mourning a loved one… …all of us assembled here as we prepare for the hour of our death…

And finally; maybe we can consider following Abbot Odilo’s custom and give to the poor as well as giving a Mass offering!

Maria Hall is music director at St Wilfrid's Church, Preston. A qualified teacher, she has a master’s in liturgical theology from the Liturgy Centre, Maynooth and is a consultant on matters liturgical for schools and parishes.

FURTHER RESOURCES DioceseofKerry.ie:

Funeral Ministry resources LimerickDiocese.org:

Role of Music in the

Catholic Funeral saltwaterandhoney.org:

Liturgy of a loss galwaydiocese.ie:

A Liturgy of Remembrance

for November usccb.org:

prayer-and-worship / Bereavement and funerals/blessing of parents after a miscarriage or stillbirth Elements of the Mass.com

Episode 13, The Collect

When a loved one dies...

Preparing and planning the funeral of a loved one can add to the grief and trauma of bereavement.

A Celebration of Life provides a gentle, clear outline to all the planning and preparation in a clear and undemanding fashion. A full selection of readings are included along with a key to planning the liturgy. The Question & Answer section provides further information on both practical and spiritual issues raised.

Price: €4.50 / £3.50

(plus p & p)

To order:

Just call Redemptorist Communications at 00353-1-4922488 or go to our website

www.redcoms.org

F E AT U R E

Miracle at Knock?

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS AFTER THE APPARITIONS, KNOCK SHRINE HAS OFFICIALLY RECOGNISED A CURE AS MIRACULOUS FOR THE FIRST TIME.

BY JOHN SCALLY

Pope

John Paul II visited Knock on its centenary in 1979, giving the pilgrim town the ultimate seal of approval from the church. Although many cures have been associated with the shrine at Knock over the years, it had never had an officially proclaimed miracle.

In 1984 a new Knock Shrine Medical Bureau was set up to establish whether cures claimed in Knock, County Mayo, are medically explicable or miraculous. It was immediately described as a ‘miracle bureau’ but it had been set up with the objective of rigorously examining claims of cures. The bureau consisted of a team of doctors and scientists headed by Fr Michael Casey, a retired professor of chemistry at Maynooth University and Dominican priest.

In Knock Shrine on September 1, 2019 a bishop announced that a seriously ill woman had been "healed" during a pilgrimage to Knock 30 years previously. It is the first time the Catholic Church has said officially that a pilgrim was cured at the Marian Shrine. Bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh and Clonmacnois described the healing of Marion Carroll as something which "defies medical explanation".

THE STORY OF MARION CARROLL Marion, from Athlone, County Westmeath, was aged in her late 30s, wheelchair-bound, incontinent, blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other when she went to Knock in September 1989.

She describes her condition on that day of amazing grace. "My muscles were wasted, my

throat and speech were severely affected, and I was attending the Anointing of the Sick in the Basilica in Knock against medical advice, but after receiving a blessing, I stepped, pain free, from my stretcher. I got this beautiful, magnificent feeling telling me that if the stretcher was opened I could get up and walk."

Speaking in Knock in September, Bishop Duffy said, "I recognise that Marion was healed from her long-standing illness while on pilgrimage in this sacred place. Marion's healing is life-changing. Many have attested to the dramatic change that came about in Marion here and on her return to Athlone in 1989. It is also a healing for which there is no medical explanation at present, it is definite and yet defies medical explanation."

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WHY THE WAIT? Speaking on the same occasion, Dr Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam, said: "Today the Church formally acknowledges that this healing does not admit of any medical explanation and joins in prayer, praise and thanksgiving to God. In these situations the Church must always be very cautious. This is illustrated by the fact that 30 years have elapsed since this took place, during which time the examination by the Medical Bureau (at the Knock shrine) testifies that there is no medical explanation for this healing."

The head of the Medical Bureau at the Knock shrine, Dr Diarmuid Murray, stated that no definite diagnosis of her condition was available, leading her diocesan authorities to adopt a wait-and-see attitude to her claim. The file on her case was reviewed in her presence last January by the doctor along with her local bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam in whose diocese Knock is located, two priests and Marion's husband, Jimmy. Minutes of the meeting record Dr Murray quoting from a letter from a consultant gastroenterologist stating that having reviewed Marion's medical file, "regardless of whether her condition is organic or psychological, the dramatic improvement from the time of her visit to Knock is unexplained".

The consultant added, "My feeling is that her improvement is very unlikely to be explained by conventional medical wisdom." A consultant neurologist who reviewed the file wrote to Dr Murray and stated that "it would be fair to say she has been cured of neurological symptoms but not of MS. It seems to me that Mrs Carroll had medically unexplained symptoms which have now (thankfully) resolved."

Leading his diocese’s annual pilgrimage to Knock Basilica, Bishop Duffy announced to a congregation that included Marion, her husband, their children and other relatives, that he does not doubt that "there was a healing, a cure of the illness that beset Marion for several years.

"Marion came here on that September day (in 1989) with a bleak future. Marion describes her words to Our Lady that morning: 'You are a mother too and you know how I feel about leaving my husband and children.' It wasn’t a prayer, it wasn’t a statement, it was one woman chatting to another.

I recognise that Marion was healed from her long

Marion meeting Knock pilgrims

standing illness while on pilgrimage in this sacred place. Marion’s healing is good news for her, for her husband Jimmy, for her family and friends. Marion’s healing is life changing.

"Many have attested to the dramatic change that came about in Marion here and on her return to Athlone in 1989. Without doubt there was a healing, a cure of the illness that beset Marion for several years. Marion was liberated from sickness and its impact on her and on her family."

MARION’S MEMORY Marion recalls the day of her cure vividly.

"When we got to Knock they brought me into the nurse and she settled all the things you do with an invalid. I was too sick to be brought to the Basilica immediately, so I was taken to the rest and care centre. Eventually, just before Mass, we went over to the Basilica and they put me under the statue of Our Lady of Knock and when I looked up at the statue, that's the statue they carry in the procession, I thought she was the most beautiful and friendliest statue I had ever seen in my life.

"The rosarywasrecited, and Benedictionimparted, and when the Bishop walked down with the Eucharist during the blessing of the sick and came to the front of my stretcher, I heard the words: 'the lame shall walk’'. When the ceremonies started my Bishop anointed me. After I was anointed I got restless. I can't explain it. It was really my mind that was restless. When it came to the consecration of Mass, I can't really explain this, I wasn't afraid but all of a sudden I wanted someone I knew. I received Holy Communion after which I got a tremendous pain in both my heels which was very unusual. Then the pain disappeared and so did all the other pains in my body."

Marion's mind was a tangle of thoughts, confused and inexpressible.

"I tried to cop myself on and remind myself that

I was going to die. I knew if I said to anybody to open the stretcher that they would get a nurse and I knew the nurse would say 'no she's too sick, just pacify her'. So I said I would tell nobody and that I would go home and tell Jimmy because Jimmy always sorted things out for me. I was last out of the Basilica and I looked up at the Statue of Our Lady and I said to her 'well if you did do anything for me in Knock and I didn't tell anybody, maybe by the time I got to Roscommon you might take it back.' I was trying to laugh it off.

"Would you think I was stupid if I said to you that if the stretcher was opened that I could get up and walk?’ I said to my friend Nuala. She called a nurse who opened the stretcher and my two legs swung out and I stood up straight. It was the first time in three years I had been able to do so. I wasn't a bit stiff even after all those years, also I was strapped into the stretcher since a quarter to nine that morning and this was 4.30pm and you know even because of that I would have expected to be stiff.

I got a lovely warm feeling and it has stayed with me constantly. I am absolutely convinced it was a miracle. My speech was perfect and my hands and arms were perfect. I was standing unaided on my own two feet. I had spoken normally to Nuala and was holding my head up straight without support.

"Standing there that moment I saw my own heart right in front of me. And it was so full of joy and peace and a love without end and it was shining like looking directly into the sun and then the rays came towards me and I got all these gifts of joy and peace and love and a lot of other things.

"I sat up straight the whole way home in the ambulance. I wouldn't even lean back. I was walking down the steps of the ambulance and Jimmy was bringing the wheelchair around and he said: 'Well Marion how was Knock?' I said: ‘’Ah it was all right Jim sure why would anybody bother going down there.' He hadn't realised that I was walking. So, I got into the wheelchair and I went into our home and I sat down and I stood up at the patio doors and said: 'Look Jim I can walk.'"

John Scally teaches theology at Trinity College, Dublin. He has a special interest in the areas of ethics and history.

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SAI N T H O O D

SAINT JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND IRELAND

ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT PERIODS IN THE LIFE OF ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN WAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PROPOSED FOUNDATION OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY IN DUBLIN. IT DID HOWEVER PRODUCE ONE OF THE CLASSICS OF EDUCATION, THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY.

BY THOMAS NORRIS

In

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1852 the Irish Bishops invited the Oxford scholar and leader of the Oxford Movement, John Henry Newman, to set up a Catholic University in Dublin.

According to his biographer, Stephen Dessain, It was a great opportunity to provide for the education of the laity, which to Newman was of such importance…One of the weaknesses of the Church was its clericalisation and the consequent inferior position of the laity. He hoped it would be a meeting ground for clergy and laity, and enable them to work together.

(C. S. Dessain, John Henry Newman, London 1966, 102) Newman continued on as rector of the recently opened Oratory in Birmingham.

This meant that he had to alternate between Dublin and Birmingham for the next five years. He crossed the Irish Sea an estimated 57 times between 1852 and 1857 to keep up the work in founding and guiding the fledgling university. Daniel O’Connell had won Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and Newman hoped that the new university would serve Catholics, not only in Ireland but throughout the English-speaking world.

THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY As rector, he delivered a series of conferences in Dublin, which were published later as Discourses on the Nature and Scope of University Education. In fact, during the May REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

of 1852 he composed the first five. With some nervousness he took the stage to give the first lecture in what is now the Ambassador Theatre, at the corner of O’Connell Street and Parnell Square in Dublin. The lecture was a ringing success. The following day he wrote to one of the priests in the Oratory in Birmingham, expressing appreciation for the response: "The very ticket takers in the room followed my arguments and gave an analysis of the Discourse afterwards." These and other discourse went on to become The Idea of a University.

This work may be called ‘Newman’s Dublin Book’. It has had, and continues to have, a huge impact on the theory and practice of education. Some of its key emphases continue to influence the theory and practice of education. They include the following three in a particular way. Education has to aim at the training of the mind to think in a clear, logical and consistent manner.

Underlying that goal is the regard for accuracy and consistency, as well as pattern and system. Next, there is the imperative of the comprehensive view of knowledge. This does not mean the knowledge of many subjects and disciplines. It signifies rather the gradual growth in the perception of the actual interrelation of the many sciences and disciplines.

Today one speaks of ‘interdisciplinarity’. The truly educated mind continues to grow in the perception of the unity of the many. A certain mental architecture results as an antidote to intellectual narrowness.

Finally, there is a fascinating description of what happens when a particular science is omitted. He names three results in particular.

First, there is the ignorance of that science or discipline. Next, that absence will cause a serious deformation of the totality of knowledge. The academic architecture of the university will be seriously damaged.

Finally, its place will not lie there unused and empty. It is certain to be occupied by another discipline. To take a few examples may be interesting. If the discipline and science of ethics is abandoned, it is highly likely that economics shall take over the resultant vacated space. For Newman’s Irish project, that meant what would happen if the ‘Queen of Sciences’, Theology, were discarded as irrelevant? The Queen’s Colleges, which had been instituted by the British Government as new Irish universities in Belfast, Cork and Galway, had forbidden the teaching of theology.

As to the professors of the university, Newman’s policy was to appoint Irishmen whenever possible, but not to hesitate to appoint Englishmen when academic priorities justified it. To exclude English teachers would be self-defeating, as part of Newman’s job was to try and persuade the Irish middle class who would normally send their sons away for an English education to send them instead to the new Catholic University. He made friends with ‘Young Irelanders’ and appointed some of them as professors! He even appointed a Professor of Irish.

A COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP Newman was deeply gratified when he heard that one of the Irish professors described him at a university dinner as "one of the greatest and most enduring benefactors of Ireland." But this was not always his political position. In fact, the young John Henry Newman was politically a great Tory. He subscribed fully to the unity of state and church, and in his youth he had detested the aspirations of Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party in Westminster. He read these as the most pernicious assault on the harmony of kingdom and church. It was this perception among other factors that lead to the Oxford Movement.

He travelled much of the country on the newly constructed railways. He found the Irish people in the 1850s to "be characterised by a love of kindred so tender and faithful, as to lead them on their compulsory expatriation, to send back from their first earnings in another hemisphere incredible sums, with the purpose of bringing over to it those dear ones whom they have left in the old country. And he finds himself received with that warmth of hospitality which has ever been Ireland’s boast." (Historical Sketches, III, 258) John Henry Newman resigned as rector in 1858. The Catholic University was to number among its professors the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ and, among its students, James Joyce who read Newman all his life long for the English prose style. Hopkins was to become one of the greatest poets in the English language.

That poetry, however, was strictly in the service of Hopkins’ theological vision, a fact that the German theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has explored the third volume of his book, The Glory of the Lord. The Medical School flourished, however, as also the review, Atlantis.

Very soon there were evening classes provided for those who could not come during the day.

The Catholic University failed for a number of reasons. First, the richer Irish Catholics continued to send their sons to England for their university education. Second, it did not receive a charter to enable it to award its own degrees. Third, the Irish bishops were not of one mind in regard to the meaning and purpose of the Catholic University.

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Fr Tom Norris was professor of theology for many years in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. More recently, he was a member of the staff of the Irish College, Rome. He is a specialist in the life and work of John Henry Newman.

What must they do to be baptised?

BAPTISM IN A MOUNTAIN BARRIO CHAPEL PROVOKES SOME UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS FOR THE CELEBRANT.

BY COLM MEANEY CSsR

I 28

look at the 20 or 30 people gathered in the chapel in the hills to have their children baptised: all mountainy folk, working the soil, producing children and rearing families, trying to make ends meet with no regular income; enjoying some relief from the everyday realities of rocky ground and being on the lower rungs of the social ladder, through smoking native tobacco and drinking rum and tuba (fermented coconut juice). They know how to make babies, they know all about farming and livestock, but about the Apostle’s Creed they know zero. Most have barely graduated from elementary school and are functionally illiterate. Most have no interest in the worship of the local community, even though, if you ask them, they are definitely 'Catholic'.

CONDITIONS FOR BAPTISM Anyway, I look on those mountainy, soil-marked faces and I baptise their children (and grandchildren and spouses) with, if not wild abandon, then with a freedom from any too-strict ecclesiastical rules and regulations. And the reason for this is mainly because of the policies of the parishes hereabouts and the type of chapel-leader that such policies encourage. Briefly, those policies encourage a narrow-moralistic, Pharisaic type of belief. Chapel and zone leaders are armed with various documents and criteria, the successful fulfilment of which guarantees

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

one’s ticket to baptism: does the candidate attend weekly worship? Were his/her parents married in church? Did he/she get the 'green light' from the local chapel leader?

Could he/she recite from memory the Creed?

All ingredients for disaster! The life-giving, hopeinspiring gifts of our gracious God were now being policed by legalistic hawks with no sense of flexibility, a limited sense of how difficult and complicated life can be, and no sense of humour. Such control and power I consider insufferable. It makes the following of Christ, which even in the Gospels very few were able to do, into an obstacle course. And the obstacles are not, in fact, Gospel-based, but the agendas of various clerics.

Rice terraces in rural Philippines

Regarding baptism, my hunch is that most of those applying to have their child baptised, whether in the hills of Negros or Dublin, haven’t really a clue about the sacrament, its origins or meaning. Nor are they at all familiar with church teaching or creeds, and the seven sacraments or the seven deadly sins are as familiar to them as the seven astral deities of the ancient Babylonian pantheon. What they do have is an inchoate, vague but real, sense that it is important that the child be baptised, become a Christian or 'be saved'.

You can almost sense their relief when they see the water trickling down the baby’s neck or see the oil smeared on the head – and this relief is felt all the more in places where they had been previously made to fulfil so many requirements (and not being able to pass the test, no baptisms ensued).

WHY 'REQUIREMENTS' FOR THE SACRAMENTS? What exactly is the connection or relation between the 'requirements' and the sacrament? What earthly good does it do for a farmer in the hills of Negros to tax his memory so as to memorise the Creed as a prerequisite for baptism or marriage? Illiterate, he struggles to commit to memory words he cannot read, let alone understand. And all for what purpose? To satisfy the canonical scruples of a cleric who expends more time and energy concocting lists of obstacles than in getting to know and understand the lived reality of his parishioners.

Another like-minded cleric in these parts has introduced the draconian and entirely illogical requirement for a church wedding: the prospective spouses have to show signed evidence of attendance of eight consecutive Sunday Masses.

What exactly is such a signed sheet meant to prove? For me

it merely shows the couple's fulfilment of the whims of the priest in question, and tells nothing of their devotion to the Eucharist, etc. Forcing people to attend the Eucharist? It’s like a new Inquisition, for goodness’ sake.

I think at the back of such priests’ minds is the expectation that the candidate for baptism or marriage should be the possessor of something called 'faith', and that this should be visible or concretised in practices like church attendance, awareness of church teaching, etc. All entirely unrealistic! As far as I can tell, most of those who present themselves to me for baptism (themselves or their children) haven’t the slightest interest in returning to the chapel again, and know as much about the Gospels, creeds or church teaching as I know about nuclear physics.

What they do have is a kind of gut-sense that their children be baptised and that, at the other end of the scale, they themselves should be accorded a Christian burial. And in between these two occasions, the dealings they will have with Holy Mother Church will be very few indeed, if at all.

And, as I read things, they are entirely satisfied with this arrangement. It’s scrupulous, canonically-overdosed clerics who provide the problems. Do you really think Farmer Frank is worried if one of the sponsors at his child’s baptism is nonCatholic? Well of course he’s not. He’d be hard-pressed to specify the difference between a Catholic, a Methodist or a born-again neighbour – mainly because all such neighbours lead basically the same kind of life as himself.

A native of Limerick city where he went to school in St Clement’s College, Fr Colm Meaney first went to the Philippines as a student and has spent most of his priestly life there.

29

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COM M E N T FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE

WORDS ARE MAGIC

“WHEN I USE A WORD,” HUMPTY DUMPTY SAID, IN RATHER A SCORNFUL TONE, “IT MEANS JUST WHAT I CHOOSE IT TO MEAN—NEITHER MORE NOR LESS.” IS IT REALLY SO SIMPLE? Since childhood I have loved books. I can’t remember what age I was when I became aware of the magic of making words with the 26 letters in the alphabet. It was beyond amazing that the author of a book with hundreds of pages was able to make up thousands of words to tell a story, using letters from the alphabet. It’s hardly surprising that one of my favourite quotations is: “Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Frank Outlaw It’s widely recognised that our relationships are as good as our communication. Our interpersonal relationships are as good as our ability to talk, to listen and to be aware of what we think and feel. The speed at which our thoughts become words is amazing. The internet is a wonderful resource for research.

Its big drawback is that the information you find may be full of jargon, difficult to understand, inaccurate or not up to date.

How can you watch your words, if it is true that your thoughts travel at the speed of light? One Google answer that was easy to understand was, "nerve impulses travel at approximately 200 miles per hour. They are passed through the synapses by electrical/chemical

(action potential) reactions", and we react faster than we think. A father whose child is in danger will spring into action before he gives a thought to putting his own life in peril.

To become an effective communicator it is essential to have an in-depth understanding of what happens when you communicate.

Miscommunication is inevitable when a person assumes that if we speak the same language we will attach the same meaning to the words we use. We don’t.

There is no universal meaning for words such as ‘angry’ or ‘mad’ or ‘love’. This is a surprise for people who are unaware that effective communication is so complex.

When you speak you select words to represent the information you intend to convey. Listeners respond to the meaning they give to the words they hear. Common complaints from people who are not getting on are, ‘My husband makes me so angry’ or ‘My sister

makes me so mad’. I could tell you that it is not possible for one person to create an emotion in another but it is far more effective for you to discover this for yourself.

Let me show you how a group of people can hear the identical words, understand every word and still end up responding to very different information.

Here is why you shouldn’t complain that another person made you angry or mad. You understand every word in the sentence 'the cat is washing herself on the table’. You have a response to what you think. When I do this exercise in a group, people always have fun with the variety of colours and breed of cats that they picture.

To understand words most of us make pictures in our mind. You probably made an image of a cat as you were reading.

The human brain tends to link similar things together. If I ask, ‘did you picture a cat on a kitchen table?' Almost everyone

in a group will say ’yes’. A person who believes that it is unhygienic to have animals on kitchen tables is likely to react negatively. Who is responsible for that reaction?

It’s not me. My words stimulated a reaction. Negative feelings are generated by the response each person has to their picture of their cat on their kitchen table.

People have a real emotional response to what they believe is true. Perception is reality. It comes as an unwelcome shock when beliefs you have held all your life are questioned. It is challenging to be invited to get over the habit of blaming others for upsetting you.

When you accept the challenge and take responsibility for your reactions you build character.

The internal dialogue when someone is to blame for upsetting another sounds familiar: ‘I’m tired asking him to clean up after himself’; ‘It shouldn’t be hard to put a few dishes away’; ‘He never does what I ask. If he really loved me he wouldn’t leave the kitchen a mess’. People, who learn to watch their words, will learn a lot about their actions and reactions.

Behind most complaints about chores that are not done is the misguided belief that 'you would do what I ask if you loved me'.

A desirable habit to develop is to give and not to count the cost. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”

Carmel Wynne is a life and work skills coach and lives in Dublin. For more information, visit www.carmelwynne.org

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F E AT U R E

THE WOMEN’S CONFRATERNITY CLONARD

AFTER MORE THAN 120 YEARS OF EXISTENCE, THE CLONARD WOMEN’S CONFRATERNITY OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP AND ST ALPHONSUS WILL SHORTLY CEASE ITS MONTHLY MEETINGS. THIS SKETCH RECALLS ITS ORIGINS AND ITS LINKS WITH THE SATURDAY LEAGUE, A CATHOLIC TEMPERANCE ORGANISATION.

BY BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

32

When

the Redemptorists asked for permission to found a house in Belfast in 1896, the Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Henry Henry, expressed the hope that they would found a branch of the Holy Family for men, to be at the service of the growing number of working-class people in the rapidly expanding western part of the

Mass in Kennedy’s! Glory be to God! I remember the days when a Catholic crow would not dare fly over it! city. The Holy Family had been founded in Belgium in 1844 by a group of laymen under the leadership of a layman, Henri Belletable. It was put under the guidance of the Redemptorists who promptly spread it to the industrial towns of continental Europe where they had churches.

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

Two Redemptorists took possession of Clonard House in the parklands of what had been a mill-owner’s residence – Clonard House –at the corner of what would shortly become Clonard Gardens and Oranmore Clonard House

Street on Sunday morning, November 1, 1896. The large ground-floor reception room was set up as a chapel open to the neighbours who came for daily Mass and visits to the Blessed Sacrament. A chapel

Mill workers were the first financial supporters of the Clonard foundation

on their doorstep was wonderful news in the area. Hearing that Mass had been said that morning in Clonard House by the new priests, one elderly lady exclaimed: “Mass in Kennedy’s! Glory be to God! I remember the days when a Catholic crow would not dare fly over it!” The crowds often spilled out into the hallway and the room in the opposite side. By the following Easter Sunday, a temporary church had been hurriedly built and the community had grown to seven, four priests and three brothers. Officially, the church was designed for 740 people, or 800 at a crush, but sometimes the count showed that as many as 1,400 had squeezed into every last bit of space.

OUR LADY’S CONFRATERNITY A new altar in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was inaugurated for her feast on June 20, 1897. The copy of the original icon that had been ordered from Rome did not arrive on time. In order not to disappoint the congregation who had been told to expect

the unveiling of a beautiful picture which had touched the original in Rome, one was borrowed from two Limerick ladies, the Misses Kelly, who were wellknown benefactors of the Limerick house and who would later defray much of the cost of the high altar in the new Clonard church. The special preacher, Fr Francis Hall, an English-born Redemptorist, urged his hearers to show their devotion to the Mother of God by signing on for membership of the confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St Alphonsus.

This confraternity had been instituted on May 25, 1871 in the church of Sant'Alfonso, Rome, which held the icon of Our Lady of

Perpetual Help. It was given its official seal of approval by Cardinal Costantino Patrizi, Vicar General of Rome, who administered the diocese of Rome in the name of its nominal head, the pope. Some years later, Pope Pius IX who had given the icon into the care of the Redemptorists, telling them "make her known to the world", raised it to the dignity of an archconfraternity (1876), with the right of affiliating other groups of the faithful and sharing with them the spiritual privileges of membership, including indulgences on certain days and a special share in the Masses, prayers and good works of the Redemptorist Congregation throughout the world.

The people of Clonard needed little encouragement to sign on for the new confraternity. The document affiliating Clonard to the Roman mother confraternity was signed by Bishop Henry on July 14, 1897.

The men’s confraternity opened its books for membership on July 20 and about 60 men gave their names. The following day, the same number of boys enrolled as members of the boys’ confraternity.

The old tin church at Clonard Gardens

33

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F E AT U R E

A monthly meeting of one division of Our Lady's Confraternity

OPEN TO ALL The first register survives in the monastery archives, dated September 5, 1897: some 467 names were enrolled on that day. While Our Lady’s confraternity is later reckoned as the women’s equivalent of the men’s Holy Family, membership was initially open to both women and men. The very first name on the list was Mary Hodgson, a Limerick woman, living in Springfield Terrace. She had known the

Apart from signing on as a member, the confraternity made few demands in its first days. It was recommended to renew the act of consecration to Our Lady once a month and to remind those near Clonard to do so, the prayer was said as part of the evening devotions on the second Sunday of each month.

The first sign of the emergence of a separate confraternity for women is in the monastery chronicle for Easter Monday, 1898. It reads: “a retreat for the female portion of the confraternity of our Mother of Perpetual Succour begins at 9 o’clock Mass. On this day and the following day there is no work in the mills. On this account, Fr Rector thought it well to begin on Monday morning.”

The church notice-book a few weeks later (June 5, 1898) includes the notice: “Next Sunday being the second Sunday of the month [when the act of consecration to Our Lady of Perpetual Help was renewed] monthly communion for the members of the confraternity of Our lady of P Succour at 9 o’clock Mass. In the afternoon, meeting at 3 pm.”

It is estimated that there was at this time one pub in Belfast for every 328 inhabitants Redemptorists in Limerick and had been praying for over 20 years for them to come to her adopted city. She had laid aside a little money annually to be able to present a gift. As soon as the oratory in Clonard House was open, she presented it with a ciborium, or vessel for the communion hosts.

Most of the members came from the immediate Clonard area, but some were from elsewhere in the city or even further afield such as Ballycastle, Bangor or Derry. A group of people who gave their address as the Ulster Hotel in Derry were probably workers in the hotel. Whole families signed up for the confraternity, such as the Flanagans of Lower Clonard Street or the Hayeses of Odessa Street.

Bridget Quinn with an address in Malone Avenue was a domestic servant and a native of Dundalk.

A TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT? There is nothing else in the chronicle to explain why the women’s section of what was an inclusive pious association had been rather suddenly given the same outward form as the men’s confraternity, with regular meetings organised in sections, and with a spiritual director. Why did the Redemptorists

suddenly decide that the women of Clonard deserved, or were in need of, the same intense spiritual treatment as the men?

One clue might be an entry on the same page of the chronicle which describes a new organisation called the Saturday League which had been established for women during the retreat at the request of Bishop Henry. The Saturday League was a voluntary temperance organisation. It invited people to abstain from alcohol from the end of the midday meal on Saturday until the beginning of the midday meal on Sunday in honour of Our Lady of Sorrows. It combined abstinence from drink with prayer for the souls in purgatory.

The Saturday League was affiliated to yet another Roman confraternity for the relief of the souls in purgatory with its headquarters in the Redemptorist Church of S Maria in Monterone.

The Saturday League was another example of many Catholic attempts to respond to the endemic Irish dependence on alcohol. Father Theobald Matthew, the Cork-born Capuchin, had led a successful national campaign against the demon drink from 1838 until his death in 1856. He was followed by others, notably Fr Cullen SJ who established the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart the year following the Saturday League’s foundation in Clonard, and like the Saturday League, its initial members were women.

If the women of Belfast were inclined to take a drink, their drinking time was probably when they had finished the week’s work at midday on Saturday.

A Protestant temperance preacher described Belfast at this time as "a city soaked in liquor". Drink was cheap and freely available. It is estimated that there was at this time one pub in Belfast for every 328 inhabitants, and they were still more frequent in working-class areas. The women of the Clonard area were probably well aware of the human cost of the alcoholic that surrounded them – whether in the drunkenness of the males of their families or even in the dangers of drinking for women. It may have been this awareness of the drink problem that encouraged the Redemptorists to take a role in developing a more active women’s confraternity.

Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR is editor of Reality. He is author of The Redemptorists in Ireland 1851-2011 and of a guide to Clonard Church.

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EN T E RTA I N M E N T

THE CINEMA OF CONTEMPLATION PAUL SCHRADER’S FIRST REFORMED

36

A FILM ABOUT A STRUGGLING PASTOR OF A DECLINING CHURCH JOINS THE GALLERY OF STRUGGLING PRIEST-FIGURES LIKE BRESSON’S COUNTRY PRIEST AND SCORSESE’S JESUIT MISSIONARY OF SILENCE

BY PAUL CLOGHER

Haunted

by guilt, illness, and addiction, the struggling pastor of a declining church decides to record his thoughts in a journal.

Resolving to leave no detail unwritten, he tells us that when "writing about oneself, one should show no mercy". So begins the story of a year in the life of Reverend Ernst Toller, the

REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

wearied pastor of an historic Dutch Calvinist church by the name of First Reformed in the fictional town of Snowbridge, New York.

Directed by Paul Schrader and released in 2018, First Reformed follows Toller, played with ferocious intensity by Ethan Hawke, as he faces an enveloping spiritual and moral crisis – the long walk through a seemingly

unending Gethsemane. In the mould of Robert Bresson’s country curate in Diary of a Country Priest (1951) or Martin Scorsese’s idealistic yet haunted missionaries in Silence (2016), Toller is the latest in a long line of cinematic pastors to feel the absence of God in a cynical world.

Once part of the famous Underground Railroad – a secret network used by fleeing African-American slaves during the 1800s – First Reformed exists as a quaint artefact in the shadow of its parent ‘megachurch’, Abundant Life. While his congregation dwindles, Toller lives an austere and melancholic existence. A former military chaplain, he blames himself for the death of his son in the Iraq War – an adventure Toller himself encouraged. By night, he writes, drinks, and seeks solace in Thomas Merton’s mysticism and The Cloud of Unknowing, while

challenges Toller’s beleaguered faith. Mary is pregnant but her husband has asked her to have an abortion. For Michael, the climate crisis will almost inevitably leave their child in an uninhabitable world. To bring a child into this chaos, he reasons, is immoral. Toller’s attempts to counsel Michael reveal two of the film’s major themes: the environmental crisis and the commercialisation of Christianity. As Toller contemplates the implications of humanity’s failure to care for creation, he questions his own superiors, their relationship with corporate business, and ultimately his own image of God. "Will God forgive us," he asks, "for destroying his creation?"

the age of 17. This late encounter sparked a lifelong exploration of spiritual cinema and, indeed, cinematic spirituality. A prodigious film scholar, his postgraduate work in film theory and theology led to the publication of Transcendental Style in Film in 1972, a text that remains influential within film studies and theology. Arguing for a quasi-

A former military chaplain, he blames himself for the death of his son in the Iraq War – an adventure Toller himself encouraged

CONTEMPLATIVE CINEMA Questions of faith and doubt occupy something of a sacred space in Schrader’s cinematic repertoire to such an extent that it is perhaps impossible to understand his work without the backdrop of his evolving relationship with the Christianity of his youth. Not unlike Ernst Toller, he was raised in a relatively strict Dutch Calvinist household and did not see his first film until his days are spent giving tours of the historic and equally austere church in which he lives and works. Schrader juxtaposes Toller’s intense and minimalist lifestyle with his megachurch landlords who operate a more business-orientated form of Christianity.

His superiors, led by Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyles), treat him with a combination of bemusement and disdain. "You’re always in the garden," Jeffers remarks, "even Jesus wasn’t always in the garden." Neither can his reading list escape derision: "That guy you’re always reading? . . . He didn’t live in the real world either."

This sparse existence is interrupted by Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a parishioner of sorts, who seeks Toller’s counsel for her husband, Michael (Philip Ettinger). A pessimistic figure imbued by a conspiratorial brand of environmental radicalism, he further

Lead actors Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried

sacramental understanding of cinema, he explored the work of Robert Bresson, Carl Dreyer, and Yasujiro Ozu – three of his cinematic heroes – arguing that their distinct approaches exemplified a common cinematic method for expressing the Holy.

Against the backdrop of these admittedly heady influences, his career as a director and screenwriter continues this exploration.

A number of his major collaborations have involved Martin Scorsese, a director profoundly influenced by the Catholicism of

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the troubled antihero of Taxi Driver who wages a self-destructive quest to purge the streets of sin. While Bickle’s rage against a depraved world might leave viewers searching for hope amid a claustrophobic atmosphere of despair, Toller’s struggle leaves some room for redemption. The contrast between these two characters at polar ends of Schrader’s filmic career equally reveals something of the artist’s own spiritual autobiography. Taxi Driver illustrates a harsh anthropology of depravity but First Reformed marks something of a development in Schrader’s understanding of redemption.

Both characters are obsessively introspective.

While Bickle rehearses his aggression by looking in a mirror, a trait famously exemplified by the ‘You talkin’ to me’ scene, Toller’s introspection comes in the form of his diary, where, among many dilemmas, he constantly bemoans his inability to pray. In a nod to the unnamed protagonist of Diary of a Country Priest, Schrader invites viewers to ponder the uncertainty of faith and the threat of despair. Toller’s walk-through Gethsemane is an encounter with that most dangerous of thoughts: that life is meaningless. Read in tandem with his earlier work and influences, the film confronts the implications of despair but also the possibilities of hope.

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Toller’s attempts to counsel Michael reveal two of the film’s major themes: the environmental crisis and the commercialisation of Christianity

Ethan Hawke with director Paul Schrader

his own youth. His screenplay for Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) offers a searing vision of human depravity but also contemplates the possibility of redemption in the midst of suffering. In First Reformed, Schrader continues this tradition of what one might call ‘contemplative’ or ‘slow’ cinema, a space that offers viewers the time to ponder more fundamental questions.

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First Reformed sees Schrader return to a variety of recurring themes in his career while offering an homage, of sorts, to one of his cinematic heroes, the French Catholic filmmaker Robert Bresson. The theme of the struggling pastor echoes Bresson’s adaptation of Georges Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, while the Hawke’s portrayal of Toller mirrors the figure of Travis Bickle,

MIRRORING CONTEMPORARY AMERICA The story of Toller’s spiralling crisis equally offers a not-so-subtle critique of contemporary American Christianity. The Iraq War and the climate crisis, in part at least, exemplify a wider moral and spiritual malaise that has led to the political colonisation of the Gospel. This somewhat polemical tone

Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

contemplates yet another threat to faith.

Toller’s megachurch employers exemplify an idolatrous turn where God is substituted for the twin allures of money and political superiority. They refuse to entertain any sense of moral responsibility toward the environment because they fear the loss of income from wealthy donors, while Toller himself cannot escape, or perhaps refuses to relinquish, his own feelings of culpability for the loss of his son. Here, Schrader grasps something of a more nuanced and authentically Christian understanding of idolatry. Substituting money or politics for God is not bad because it offends God in some abstract sense. Rather, idolatry is destructive because the realisation that these substitutes cannot fulfil what we might invest in them can lead to despair. Idolatry is harmful because it harms us.

First Reformed is in many ways a dramatic thriller but its vehicle is introspection rather than action. The film’s style and structure ask its viewer to contemplate the story’s meaning as it unfolds. Scenes take the form of long, measured takes, placing us in each character’s world as we listen to their conversations, their struggles. Despite its more political or polemical moments, it leaves viewers to discern the story’s implications. In a recent interview, where he reflected on the experience of making First Reformed, Ethan Hawke described good cinema as not unlike

Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016)

a bell that keeps ringing long after the lights go up: "A good movie articulates a question that might be on your mind too . . . a good movie begins as you are walking out of the theatre. A really good movie is like a bell and you ring it and it vibrates inside you after you see it . . ." First Reformed not only represents and interrogates important religious and moral questions, it also shows how cinema itself offers us a space to contemplate such dilemmas.

A really good movie is like a bell and you ring it and it vibrates inside you after you see it THE ABSENCE OF AN ENDING The depths of Toller’s despair are tempered, somewhat, by his developing relationship with Mary, who must eventually face the aftermath of her husband’s suicide. Michael’s pessimism ultimately becomes too great a weight to bear. His radicalisation threatens to become infectious, even causing Toller to contemplate violence as a response to both his own and his church’s failures. As First Reformed prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Toller’s passion enters its final station. How it all ends and what it might mean is best left in the hands, or perhaps eyes, of curious readers who

might wish to investigate. Schrader is himself characteristically ambiguous about the ending, suggesting that there are multiple ways of interpreting its meaning. If any single theme emerges amid the cacophony of ideas, it might be the possibility of love, even divine love, in the face of despair. First Reformed is perhaps most striking for the absence of a definitive ending in the conventional sense of Hollywood cinema and its invitation to contemplation. After the music stops and the screen turns to black, the film, like that bell, keeps ringing.

Dr Paul Clogher lectures in religious studies and theology at the Waterford Institute of Technology

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UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

BOOK REVIEW BY KATE GREEN

MARRIAGE AND THE IRISH

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A COLLECTION OF �� PIECES EXPLORES HOW THE IRISH MARRIED Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.

This I tell you brother, You can't have one without the other.

So

sang Sinatra. However, the idea that romantic love is a pre-requisite for marriage is a very modern one. In this collection of 79 essays compiled by Salvador Ryan, there is evidence in plenty that from the 11th century onwards marriage was a much more prosaic affair. Dowries, land and property were the chief elements required before a couple were united.

In the opening chapter, Sharon Arbuthnot examines the meaning of the Irish words posadh and lanamas. The latter covered a broad range of definitions from lawfully recognised unions to non-consensual encounters. Other Irish words such as corait meant the yoking together of two working animals, while ceangailt could

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also refer to fetters – the implication of such being that marriage was hard work, requiring some level of subservience!

Who would have thought that the moral dilemma facing the stars of Hollywood film Indecent Proposal also exercised the mind of St Augustine in the fourth century? In Chapter 4, read how he dealt with it, and how a group of seventh century clerics produced "one of the most revolutionary books in the history of Church law”. In it, they also wrestled with another problem: was every, or any, occasion of extramarital sex of a woman with a man not her husband, always culpable?

themselves and afterwards consummated. The church sought to regulate such unions (known as clandestine marriages and recognised as valid by both secular and religious authorities).

Canon law aimed to ensure that marriages were free and unforced, and measures were

Up until the 11th century, marriage in Ireland was a private affair, conducted by the parties themselves and afterwards consummated

MARRIAGE, COMMUNITY AND LAW Up until the 11th century, marriage in Ireland was a private affair, conducted by the parties

implemented to enforce this which obtain to our own times.

Proof that there is nothing new under the sun, in chapter 12 we read that in 16th century Ireland, ecclesiastical courts played a central role in resolving marital disharmony in ways

similar to civil courts today. Problems such as bigamy, drunkenness, violence and impotence were as common then as now.

On a happier note, Penelope Woods relates the story of one Wolfe Tone who fell in love with Martha Witherington as she sat by her window in Grafton Street. In his own words: "One beautiful morning in July we ran off together and were married. I carried her off to Maynooth for a few days." It was a loving marriage, and the rest (as they say) is indeed history.

Abduction may well be the subject of Mozart's opera, and a Hollywood film (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), but it was a dark fact of life in 18th and 19th century Ireland. A widespread phenomenon carried out by poor and wealthier classes to obtain dowry and land, it was a violent act usually entailing rape, and for which the perpetrators risked transportation and even execution. There were 900 abductions between 1800 and 1850. Related in newspapers for the delectation of their readers, these stories also served as a warning to (metaphorically) "lock up your daughters."

Humour is also to be found; in Chapter 34 we read of 'A mountains wedding in 1812', and the comedic and bawdy exploits of 'The Midnight Court' are exposed in excerpts in Chapter 25.

And what of those men and women who did not or could not marry, the singletons of yesteryear? In Chapter 45, Clodagh Tait explains the customs of Chalk Sunday, Pus Monday and Salting Tuesday, not to forget the taking of tolls and the tarring of the gates of poor spinsters and bachelors. How did they survive?

MIXED MARRIAGES The perennial problem of the mixed marriage is explored in Chapter 50, where the decrees 'Tametsi' (1563) and 'Ne Temere' (1908) are examined by Oliver Rafferty. In these the Catholic Church stipulated the requirements for a valid marriage. In the volatile atmosphere of the North, it led to the infamous McCann case in Belfast which reinforced the Unionist belief that Home Rule was indeed Rome rule.

couples in 925 marriages. Its story is wittily and warmly told by Stephen Farragher.

Issues such as the Children's Allowance and the effects of migration are covered, as are wise and practical suggestions on having a long and happy marriage. The mixed blessing of being a wedding musician, the emergence of the wedding dress, and what pass as acceptable gifts in modern Ireland are examined.

One of the most attractive elements of these essays is the 'human face' they present to the reader, reminding us that these were real people caught in the marital web of their own time and place. Some are shorter and lighter in content and tone, but all will appeal to a wide range of interest and tastes. It is a great read – add it to your wishlist!

Marriage across the religious and social divide did occur, and in Chapter 57 Clodagh Tait writes of the union of the Honourable Beryl O' Brien (Protestant daughter of Dromoland Castle), and one Pat Gallagher (Catholic doctor) whose father was a grocer and publican. This marriage in particular highlighted the shift in power from the Protestant landed gentry to the Catholic middle class.

A colourful display of the front covers of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland pamphlets (written by a male cleric) reveal the status and expectations of women and marriage in the early 20th century. They would no doubt raise the ire and the mirth of 21st century women.

However, it is a fact that marriage rates between the Famine and the 1960s had dropped and the isolation and loneliness of men and women, particularly in rural Ireland, was a reality. This gave rise to 'lonely hearts' columns such as that of the Irish Farmers' Journal, which lasted until 1998. In it, men and women across the religious divide laid out their marital requirements in plain terms. It was to assuage a similar problem that Fr Michael Keane formed the Knock Marriage Bureau (later the Knock Marriage Introductions) which, until its demise earlier this year (2019), brought together

Marriage and the Irish: A miscellany Salvador Ryan (ed) Wordwell, Dublin 2019 Paperback, 300 pages. €25 ISBN-978-1-9164922-2-6

Kate Green is a former teacher of English and Religious Education in Belfast. She works closely with the Redemptorist Congregation, mainly in Clonard Monastery.

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FREE AT LAST HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD FOR GUATEMALAN ACTIVIST, FREED AFTER TWO YEARS OF WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT 42

BY DAVID O'HARE

Trócaire

has presented their Romero International Award to Guatemalan activist Abelino Chub Caal in Belfast. At the event at Queen’s University Riddell Hall hosted by Monica McWilliams, Trócaire also launched a campaign calling for an international treaty on Business and Human Rights.

Around the world, Trócaire work with over 400 local partners who support communities facing the threat of violence, intimidation and evictions. The Romero award, named in honour of the late Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Romero who was assassinated in 1980 as he was celebrating Mass, is given in recognition of such outstanding efforts.

Working in defence of indigenous Mayan land rights in his native country, 35-yearold Abelino Chub Caal was wrongfully imprisoned for over two years for his efforts to defend local communities.

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CORRUPTION IN GUATAMALA Guatemala is one of the most unequal and violent countries in the world where the largest 2.5 per cent of farms occupy more than 65 per cent of the land. While indigenous communities make up 60 per cent of the Guatemalan population, many are living in fear of their lives as widespread evictions and land grabs from businesses are backed by corrupt authorities.

Land is being stolen for hydro dams, logging, palm oil and sugar cane developments.

Threats, violence, intimidation and murder are the daily reality for these vulnerable farming communities. Human rights defenders working on land, indigenous and environmental rights have been targeted in Central America. Last year, 26 such people were killed in Guatemala.

WHO IS ABELINO? Abelino said: “This award is a recognition for a collective struggle in search of justice and

peace. It vindicates the dignity and human struggle of those who have fallen and have been persecuted or imprisoned by an act of injustice.”

Detained for over 800 days in a Guatemalan jail after his wrongful arrest in February 2017, Abelino’s trial lasted less than five days last April as he was cleared of all charges alleging trespass and damage of land.

A bilingual teacher, he has regularly acted as an intermediary for Maya Q’eqchi’ communities – who do not speak Spanish, the official language of law and the state– in talks with authorities over land rights.

Having worked with Trócaire-supported organisations, the Guillermo Toriello Foundation (FGT) and the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC), Abelino hopes the Romero award will help to highlight the ongoing battle for justice in his native country.

He said: “Justice in Guatemala is equal to snakes, the authorities only bite those who

are barefoot. This prize is not for me – it is for the communities who continue to fight until they are treated humanely by the State of Guatemala. We fight for life and we fight to resist. Long live the memory of Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero Galdamez and long live the memory of the people!”

A FEARLESS DEFENDER Presenting the award, Trócaire CEO Caoimhe de Barra said: “Abelino is a fearless defender of his community and human rights in Guatemala. All of us at Trócaire are tremendously proud of Abelino and his tireless work, and we are delighted to acknowledge his bravery with this award.

“In truth, Abelino was jailed as a result of corruption and unscrupulous business practices in Guatemala. His case is yet another example of the need for an international treaty on Business and Human Rights, which Trócaire is calling for. A treaty will ensure that companies – regardless of where they

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PARISH MISSIONS

are headquartered – are held to account for abuses such as those suffered by Abelino and his community.”

Trócaire directly supported 78,000 people in Guatemala last year, including 17,000 people in the area of Human Rights.

Named in honour of the late Oscar Romero, Trócaire’s Romero Award is given in recognition of outstanding efforts in the area of human rights carried out by one of the Irish development agency’s partners.

The inaugural award was presented to Sister Bridget Tighe of Caritas Jerusalem and the Franciscan Missionaries of Divine Motherhood in 2018.

Opposite page: Trócaire presented their Romero International Award to Guatemalan activist Abelino Chub Caal in Belfast.

Above: Caoimhe de Barra, Trócaire CEO, presented Photos: Justin Kernoghan, Photopress the award to Abelino

To make a donation or find out more about Trócaire’s work visit www. trocaire.org

Breaking the Word in November 2019

Please pray for the Redemptorist Teams who will preach the Word and for God’s People who will hear the Word proclaimed this month in:

Upperchurch, Co. Tipperary (16th – 23rd November 2019) Parish mission preached by Laurence Gallagher CSsR, Derek Meskell CSsR and Helena Connolly

The details above are accurate at the time of printing. If you have any views, comments or even criticisms about Redemptorist preaching, we would love to hear from you. If you are interested in a mission or novena in your parish, please contact us for further information. And please keep all Redemptorist preachers in your prayers.

Fr Laurence Gallagher CSsR, Email: largallagher@gmail.com Tel: +353 61 315099

CO M M E N T REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

BUILDING COMMUNITY – SAVING LIVES

ARE OUR COMMUNITIES IN DANGER OF FALLING APART, WHETHER IN URBAN ESTATES WHERE THERE IS LITTLE SENSE OF COMMUNITY OR IN THE COUNTRY WHERE LOCAL BANKS, GARDA STATIONS AND POST OFFICES ARE NOW MOVING TO THE LOCAL TOWN?

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A schoolboy, standing on a train platform in England, handed his bag and phone to his fellow students, and climbed down onto the tracks just as a train was approaching. He had been bullied online by other students. He must have felt isolated and alone, with no way out.

Today, many people wonder what the meaning of life is, and of their own existence in particular.

Religion often helps to provide meaning for people by allowing them to believe that they are connected to a greater story, namely that there is a plan for the world, and, within that plan, there is a purpose for their own existence – even if the details are very unclear! People can have a sense of being valued by a God who had created them, even if they feel alone!

Today, many people feel disconnected from everything.

Meaninglessness is defined as when a person feels they do not matter in the scheme of things.

Today, a person is often valued, not by who they are, but by what they do – by their achievements, money, and status. If you are useful to society, then you are of value, and you will be rewarded financially accordingly. If you are unemployed, homeless or addicted, then you are of little value and you will be treated as such. This rise in utilitarianism has increased the sense of meaninglessness for many, both for those who are excluded or REALITY NOVEMBER 2019

unwanted by the economy, but also for many in employment who question the value of what they are doing but feel trapped in their job by the need to earn money.

Meaninglessness is born of hopelessness. Most students feel enormous pressure to succeed at school, success defined by the grades they achieve. Some leave school feeling that not only have they failed to achieve, but that, consequently, they, as a person, are a failure. Others, to avoid that feeling, drop out of school early. For many, their future employment will be low-paid, or part-time or contract employment, making it impossible for them to obtain a mortgage. The dream of rearing their family in the security of their own home is a mirage for many who will be consigned to the insecurity of private rented accommodation all their life.

Where is the way forward? People need to feel a sense of belonging, to feel connected to a community

which accepts and values them.

People who attend religious services may experience that sense of community and belonging. But religious practice has declined while, at the same time, the sense of community has been seriously eroded. In urban areas, we build houses, not communities. In rural areas, the priority of economics is eroding communities, with closures of Garda stations and post offices, and the building of large out-of-town shopping centres leading to the closure of many main street shops. When community disintegrates, more people feel alone, insecure and anxious, leading to mental health problems such as depression, and, sometimes, social unrest.

Community lies wounded on the side of the road. But our decisionmakers are all too busy to notice.

Rebuilding strong communities is a major, but neglected, part of the solution to finding meaning in life. Community is where we find friendship, affirmation, support

in difficult times, and celebration in happy times. But it requires people and resources, such as community centres, summer camps, volunteering centres and a range of other services which each community can easily identify but, which, on its own, it cannot resource. Both church and state have a responsibility to build living communities. The early Christian communities were places where people felt both a sense of belonging and meaning.

Building community is a countercultural activity; it challenges the dominant ideology of our economically-addicted society.

This ideology encourages us to find our happiness and security in our possessions. We can purchase happiness, if we have the money, so we are told. In this ideology, we don’t need community; the ideal person is a free-standing individual who has achieved selfsufficiency through the pursuit of individual gain. Independence from others is the name of the game. Community becomes an optional extra for those idealists who are so inclined.

Those who help to build community save lives, contribute to the well-being of many and are pro-life in the fullest sense of that word.

For more information or to support the Peter McVerry Trust: www.pmvtrust.ie info@pmvtrust.ie +353 (0)1 823 0776

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH SALVATION STARTS TODAY If, like Jesus, you were travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jericho was the last town before the 31ST SUNDAY IN 20-mile climb along the ORDINARY TIME Roman road. Its location in the desert some 500 feet below sea level saved it from the cold damp winters common in Jerusalem. That might be one of the reasons why the hero of today’s Gospel is living there. Skimming off a healthy profit might have enabled Zaccheus to build himself a villa in Jericho.

Zaccheus has one drawback for which money cannot compensate. He is not very tall, and his height prevents him from seeing Jesus as he makes his way through the crowd.

The sight of a wealthy tax collector forced to climb a tree probably provoked wry smiles and smart comments for the people forced to pay his taxes. A smile also crosses the face of Jesus as he looks up into the tree

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and invites himself rather casually to dinner.

Jesus’ decision to accept hospitality from Zaccheus meets with objections. It is usually the Pharisees who complain about Jesus’ dining companions, but now "everyone who saw it began to grumble and said, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'"

Like the woman who gate-crashed the Pharisee’s dinner party to anoint the feet of Jesus, Zacchaeus has undergone an instant conversion in the time it has taken him to clamber out of his tree. He announces that he is going to give half his property to the poor and pay back anyone he has cheated four times. The Law specified that in certain cases four-fold restitution was required: the Pharisees had interpreted more leniently and only required double restitution at most, or more often, just the original amount plus a token supplement. Zaccheus in his enthusiasm is binding himself to the most stringent requirement.

There is one very small word in this story that

is very important. It is the word ‘today’. Jesus says that "today" he must stay with Zaccheus and defends him by not only recalling his Jewish status as "a son of Abraham" but also proclaiming that "salvation has come to his house today." Luke uses the word 'today' at some very important points in his Gospel.

At Christmas the angels announced to the shepherds that "today" a saviour had been born for them. In his first sermon in his home town, Jesus announced that "today" the prophecy of Isaiah was being fulfilled even as they listened. In his dying moments, he offered salvation to a repentant sinner, the thief on the cross, assuring that him that "today" he would be with him in paradise.

Today’s Readings Wis 11:22-12:2; Ps 146; 2 Thess 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10

The Zaccheus Sycamore Tree is one of the top tourist attractions in Jericho

God’s Word continues on page 46

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GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH “HE IS THE GOD, NOT OF THE DEAD, BUT OF THE LIVING” NOVEMBER The opening sentence introduces the opponents in this debate. They are members of the Sadducee 32ND SUNDAY IN party.

Although usually ORDINARY TIME lumped together with the Pharisees, there were very important differences between the two. By the time of Jesus, the Sadducees had become the priestly aristocracy – wealthy, conservative, and power-hungry. The source of their wealth and influence was the temple. Unlike the Pharisees, they had never accepted the ‘new books’ of the scriptures, the Prophets and the Wisdom writings, which appeared after the exile. These writings were the source of the Pharisees' strong belief in the resurrection and the after-life, but this was not a belief the Sadducees shared. The spokesperson for the Sadducee position opens 46 the debate with the technique of making an opponent’s position appear absurd by drawing it out to its most extreme conclusions (reductio

ad absurdum) and so exposing it to ridicule. The starting point is a point of Jewish law. According to the Law (eg Deuteronomy 25:5-6), if a man died childless, one of his brothers was obliged to marry the widow and beget children in the dead man’s name to ensure the survival of his name in the next generation. The example chosen here is an extreme case, but it has the feeling of a ‘just suppose’ kind of argument. A man dies childless: his six remaining brothers marry the widow in turn, but they each die without children. If there is a resurrection, the argument goes, which brother will be considered as her husband in the life to come?

There are two prongs to Jesus’ rebuttal. First, marriage is about ensuring continuity of family name and property in this age. The age to come is about a totally different order. To have entered into life is to share in some way the nature of the angels (also rejected by the Sadducees, but not by the Pharisees, a point Paul uses to his advantage in Acts 23:8: “the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three”). The second

prong suggests that Moses himself believed in the resurrection of the dead. In the account of the appearance of God to him in the burning bush, God calls himself "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob". Why would the God of the living identify himself with people who were long dead? Since the ancestors of Israel believed in this God, they had already passed over into the life of resurrection. We might add this argument suggests that the rather complex marriage arrangements of the patriarchs did not seem to stand in the way of their enjoying the happiness of the resurrection.

In November, our thoughts traditionally turn to the dead members of our families. At the heart of our faith is belief in the resurrection, not simply as a past event, but as something powerful that began with the resurrection of Jesus but will only be complete with the death of every Christian.

SURVIVING IN HARD TIMES Today’s Gospel opens with the disciples’ wonder at the beauty of the temple. For country-folk like them coming 33RD SUNDAY IN up to Jerusalem, it would have ORDINARY TIME truly been a breath-taking piece of architecture. Herod the Great had ordered the reconstruction of the temple along magnificent lines as part of his plan for rebuilding Jerusalem. Work had been going on for more than 20 years by the time Jesus and his disciples reached the city, and it would continue for another 20 or so. No expense had been spared: it was truly, as Herod had expected it to be, one of the new wonders of the world. The work had been so planned that daily worship could be carried on without interruption. Jesus takes a different view: not one of the huge and carefully worked stones will be left standing; everything will be destroyed. Other prophets, particularly Jeremiah, had predicted the destruction of temples when

they had become too allied with the forces of political expedience. Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s destruction would be fulfilled with the dreadful carnage and ruin in 70 AD when the Romans would level Jerusalem to the ground, leaving but the stumps of two of Herod’s towers to remind travellers what a great city had once stood there.

This prompts another question: what signs will precede the end of the temple? Jesus does not give them a timetable for the destruction of the temple but tells them how to live in the end times.

The fall of Jerusalem was, for some Christians, a wake-up call that the last days were at hand. Luke refuses to indulge this excitable kind of thinking.

They should avoid following false claimants to be the messiah or interpreting particular disasters as warnings that the end is coming. There will certainly be wars and revolutions, earthquakes, famines, plagues or maybe even strange signs in the heavens, yet the End is not going to come quite so soon.

What the church should brace itself for is a time of persecution. Because it is out of step with the political ambitions of worldly rulers, the church and its members will face persecution and will be called on to bear witness. Betrayal, even from family members and close friends, may be common. Its witness to the truth will make it highly unpopular, but the simple goodness of the truth that be its strongest defence. Persecuted Christians should not worry unduly about preparing an elaborate defence. The final words of the discourse are consoling. God will take account of every witness given to the truth, for even the hairs of the believer’s head are numbered.

Endurance and patience will be the hall-mark virtues of Christians under persecution.

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Today’s Readings 2 Macc 7:1-2, 9-14; Ps 16; 2 Thess 2:163:5; Luke 20:27-38

Today’s Readings Mal 3:19-20; Ps 95; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 9 NOVEMBER 2019

“REMEMBER ME IN YOUR KINGDOM” The liturgical year closes with a powerful statement of Jesus as the one who brings salvation to nohopers. Today’s Gospel invites us to look lovingly and closely at two moments of Luke’s account of SOLEMNITY OF the death of Jesus. We can distinguish three groups CHRIST THE KING of people in the story. At a distance, stand the ordinary folk, including probably the sorrowing women who accompanied him on the way to Calvary. Luke presents them as standing at a distance, taking no part in the mockery in contrast to those closer to the cross. Under the cross title that proclaims him as King of the Jews, the opponents of Jesus are gathered.

They form two groups, the religious leaders and the soldiers who are part of the execution squad. The religious leaders mock him for blasphemy, for his claim to be God’s Messiah and Chosen One. The soldiers are less religiously motivated: they are determined to have some sport with the dying criminal, toasting him mockingly in cheap wine (vinegar). As non-Jews, Jesus’ religious claims mean nothing to them, so the kingship mockingly proclaimed by the sign on the cross is testimony to a poor deluded mad man whose claims to kingship have led him to the most humiliating form of death available.

Our third group is closer still. It is made up of the three executed men on their crosses, Jesus and the two criminals alongside him.

The first takes up the taunts of those gathered beneath: if you are the Christ, then save yourself and us as well. His companion behaves differently. He is the last of those many people who, throughout the Gospel story, have come to Jesus in the hope of finding pardon and salvation. He admits that he is a sinner who has received a just reward for his deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. He asks for little, just to be remembered when Jesus finally enters his Kingdom.

In a final act of kingly benefaction, Jesus grants this outcast a share in paradise. For the final time, Luke uses his great salvation word ‘today’ – "today you will be with me in paradise".

In the midst of the misery and humiliation of the cross, Luke succeeds in painting a picture of someone who is every inch a king.

He pardons his executioners, he bestows the gift of the kingdom on someone who in human terms has done little to merit it until that moment, and in the act of dying, he will calmly resign his Spirit into the hands of God.

NOVEMBER

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SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 7 ACROSS: Across: 1. Brunei, 5. Author, 10. Hovered, 11. Orpheus, 12. Knox, 13. Ogham, 1.5 Rice, 17. Oak, 19. Aliens, 21. Stoked, 22. Epistle, 23. Phoney, 25. Yellow, 28. Ace, 30. Ogre, 31. Ankle, 32.

Ezra, 35. Plateau, 36. Scourge, 37. Hymnal, 38. Ageism.

DOWN: 2. Ravioli, 3. Nero, 4. Indigo, 5. Anorak, 6. Tips, 7. Obelisk, 8. Chukka, 9. Ascend, 14.

Hassock, 16. Sneer, 18. Steel, 20. Spy, 21. Sly, 23. Prompt, 24. Our Lady, 26. Lazarus, 27. Whales, 28. Annual, 29. Elisha, 33. Mean, 34. Rome.

Winner of Crossword No. 7 Liam Reilly, Belmullet, County Mayo.

ACROSS 1. This South American country has the largest number of Roman Catholics in the world. (6) 5. An early computer. (6) 10. Jar with two vertical handles used for food storage in antiquity. (7) 11. Markets in Middle Eastern countries. (7) 12. It used to be Persia. (4) 13. An evil spirit or devil. (5) 15. Arabic ravine or channel that is dry except in the rainy season. (4) 17. Boy or man in relation to either or both of his parents. (3) 19. This saint was a Roman Empress. (6) 21. Take into custody. (6) 22. Each of the twelve chief disciples of Jesus Christ. (7) 23. A stoat, especially when in its white winter coat. (6) 25. Profession of Lazarus in the Bible. (6) 28. A gigantic mythological bird described in the Arabian Nights. (3) 30. Short-lived crazes. (4) 31. A man-made waterway. (5) 32. Country, and a piece of waste removed from a card by punching. (4) 35. The first book of the Old Testament. (7) 36. Items of additional material added at the end of a book. (7) 37. Small boat commonly used in East Asia, typically with an oar at the stern. (6)

38. Relating to, or resembling monkeys or apes. (6) DOWN 2. Archangel who is the patron of travellers. (7) 3. The easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem. (4) 4. The miracle of the five ... and two fish. (6) 5. Old name for Britain, perfidious perhaps! (6) 6. Cutting tool similar to an axe. (4) 7. Having no knowledge of a situation or fact. (7) 8. Small Christian administrative district. (6) 9. Help someone by doing a share of the work. (6) 14. Prevailing wind brining wet and dry seasons to SE Asia. (7) 16. Silly, lacking sense or meaning. (5) 18. One of the seven deadly sins. (5) 20. Imitate someone in an absurd or unthinking way. (3) 21. A white vestment reaching to the feet worn

by Christian clergy and servers. (3) 23. A sculpture or model of a person. (6) 24. Moan and find the find the Virgin Mary (7) 26. Ancient Jerusalem landfill site seen as a symbolic depiction of Hell (Mark 9:47) (7) 27. Pattern of straight lines drawn from the centre of a circle to points around the edge. (6) 28. A dried grape. (6) 29. Units of mass for measuring gemstones and pearls. (6) 33. Abbreviation requiring immediate attention. (4) 34. The original man. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.9, November 2019 Name:

Today’s Readings

Address: Telephone:

2 Sam 5:1-3: Ps 121; Col 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43 All entries must reach us by November 29, 2019 One €35 prize is offered for the first correct solutions opened. The Editor’s decision on all matters concerning this competition will be final. Do not include correspondence on any other subject with your entry which should be addressed to: Reality Crossword No.9, Redemptorist Communications, St Joseph's Monastery, Dundalk, County Louth A91 F3FC

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