36 minute read
CARMEL WYNNE
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS
CARMEL WYNNE WHEN FEELINGS OF LOVE WEAR OFF
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It’s said that the search for romantic love and the perfect relationship has filled the space where religion used to be. We live in a secular society. Fewer couples who marry opt for a church wedding. Couples getting married today are more likely to have the wedding and reception in the same venue.
It's not uncommon for people to co-habit, to live together for a trial period to see if they are compatible before they consider getting married. The belief that it is easy to move on from a couple relationship that doesn't work out is a fallacy.
Nobody walks away unscarred when a couple relationship ends. Whether it's a bad marriage that lasted decades or a student romance that ended before graduation, break-ups are painful. The perception that people move on with their lives and find other loves needs to be challenged.
It is not unusual for young adults to have more than one long-term monogamous relationship before they feel ready to get married. Statistics from the CSO (Central Statistics Office) in Ireland show that the average man is 36.8 years old when getting married while the average woman is 34.1 years old. The age is higher for same-sex marriage.
Studies show that couples
who marry from their late 20s onwards have a better chance of making the marriage work. With maturity, people recognise how easy it is to believe they are in love when, in reality, they are experiencing a passing physical attraction, which they mistake for true love.
Two people can see each other across a crowded room and fall instantly in love at any age. By its very nature, the belief that you have found your soulmate generates very powerful and real emotions. In that magical moment of instant attraction, there is a dramatic intuitive knowing. Fate has intervened. This is going to be 'the one,' the soulmate of your dreams.
Being newly in love is a blissful experience. Nearly always, there is a strong element of fantasy involved. Those who believe in the myth of romantic love are more likely to fall in love at first sight. Someone who is in love is completely besotted by the other person, experiencing an intoxicating, exclusive and exciting oneness. These exhilarating feelings are temporary, lose their intensity and inevitably fade.
Teenagers who fall passionately in love for the first time believe this is 'the real thing.' 'In love' feelings are incredibly intense. Usually, first romances don't last but dealing with the heartbreak when a relationship ends is an important life lesson.
A break-up is inevitable when the couple has differences of opinion and either person discovers that their beloved cannot give them what they want, value and need in a couple relationship. It's amazing how quickly the wonderful explosion of excitement and exhilaration can burn itself out like a magnificent firework.
As soon as the 'in love' feelings wear off, the bliss of being in love wanes. Once the romantic energy is lost, disillusionment sets in, and the couple must decide how committed they are to making the relationship work. To remain in a happy, fulfilling, committed relationship with another person is challenging and demands a lot of hard work. Marriages are probably the toughest and most rewarding of all relationships to keep emotionally healthy, happy and mutually satisfying.
Happiness in a relationship
does not depend on harmony. Conflict is inevitable when two people live together. Rows have the potential to either strengthen the relationship or end it. 'Partner' is the word journalists use when they don't want to specify whether they are talking about a couple who is married or living together. It's a fitting word for the creative developing partnership that keeps a marriage vibrant and alive.
There is a widespread belief that living together before marriage will show whether two people will be compatible and enjoy deeper intimacy after marriage, but this isn't necessarily so. Some people need to be in a relationship so much that they are hardly ever not in one. Serial monogamy is the practice of having one exclusive sexual relationship after another. Many serial monogamists start each new relationship optimistically with great expectations of how their partner is or will be. When the partner doesn't measure up, they gradually lose their attraction and liking, fall out of love and set out to find someone more handsome, beautiful or sexy, only to meet disappointment again.
Romantic energy wanes, and problems, differences and disagreements arise in every couple relationship. The legacy of pain, heartache and emotional damage after a passionate relationship ends always leaves a scar.
Carmel Wynne is a life and work skills coach and lives in Dublin. For more information, visit www.carmelwynne.org
A delicate balancing act
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
BY DR DAITHÍ Ó CORRÁIN
The Catholic clergy and their episcopal leaders were not immune from the radicalisation of political opinion between the 1916 Rising and the 1918 general election, which saw home rule jettisoned in favour of a popular demand for an Irish republic. Championed by Sinn Féin, that goal was pursued politically and militarily during the War of Independence. An underground counterstate in the form of Dáil Éireann challenged British rule and claimed public allegiance. At the same time, the IRA engaged in guerrilla warfare, principally against the overwhelmingly Catholic Royal Irish Constabulary. Responding to these developments posed a dilemma for the institutional church, which traditionally abjured political violence and respected the authority of the legally constituted government. The bishops and clergy were nationalist and supported Irish self-government, but during the 1916-21 period, there was a variety of political stances among them. Some retained their loyalty to the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and home rule and were never reconciled to the separatism of Sinn Féin. Believing a republic unobtainable, Cardinal Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh, favoured dominion status. Others travelled at different speeds towards Sinn Féin. After 1916, the church consistently opposed political violence but not the goal of Irish independence. This required considerable political dexterity, not to mention moral and theological ambiguity on the matter of rebellion. Bishops and clergy were sensitive to the shifting political landscape, the transformation of public opinion occasioned by coercive British policy, and a paramount desire not to alienate the laity.
A further preoccupation for the church, particularly in Ulster, was the spectre of partition and the danger this posed to Catholic education in the north-east. This was ever-present during the third home rule crisis of 1912-14, but after 1916 it contributed directly to a breach between church figures and the IPP. A tipping point was reached with Lloyd George's ill-fated attempt in the summer of 1916 to introduce a home rule settlement based on partition. All of the northern bishops, with the exception of Patrick O'Donnell of Raphoe, a confidante of the IPP leadership and a party trustee, publicly disavowed the proposals. Famously, Cardinal Logue declared that it would be "infinitely better to remain as we are for fifty years to come under English rule than to accept these proposals."
APPEAL AGAINST PARTITION
Loss of confidence in the IPP and a growing distaste for home rule did not translate into automatic or swift clerical support for Sinn Féin. Over an 18-month period from early
1917, the new party was transformed from a loose coalition into the dominant political force. Many churchmen were initially uncertain and remained aloof. Significantly, Archbishop William J. Walsh of Dublin, the preeminent prelate, did not. Neither did junior clergy who actively participated in a series of by-election contests in 1917. Walsh was cautiously supportive of Sinn Féin moderates, many of whom were staunch Catholics.
In May 1917, an appeal against partition was organised by Bishop Charles McHugh of Derry and signed by 16 Catholic (including Walsh) and three Church of Ireland bishops. This coincided with the South Longford by-election campaign, during which Walsh made a spectacular intervention when he suggested in a letter to the press that those not alive to the dangers of partition were "living in a fool's paradise" and added his belief that "the country is practically sold." The timing of the letter had the effect of linking the partition issue to the Sinn Féin cause and contributed to Joe McGuinness' narrow victory. This was followed by a victory in East Clare for a largely unknown senior surviving Irish Volunteer and political novice named Éamon de Valera. His campaign was aided immeasurably by the endorsement of Bishop Michael Fogarty of Killaloe and the majority of younger clergy in that diocese. In September 1917, Fogarty celebrated the funeral Mass for republican hunger-striker Thomas Ashe and bestowed on him the status of martyr. The Irish Catholic Directory noted that a large body of priests marched in the funeral procession behind the honour guard of Irish Volunteers. Fogarty, Walsh, and the late Bishop Edward O'Dwyer of Limerick represented one end of the political spectrum. At the opposite end were prelates such as Patrick Foley of Kildare and Leighlin, who, following Ashe's funeral, warned adherents of Sinn Féin that "rebellion … was absolutely unjustifiable from the point of view of Divine Law."
CONSCRIPTION PROTEST
The massive protest campaign against conscription in April 1918 witnessed the alignment of church and majority nationalist opinion. The hierarchy issued a statement declaring conscription "against the will of the Irish nation" and calling on Catholics to resist "by all means that are consonant with the law of God." An anti-conscription pledge was taken after Mass on April 21, 1918, and clergy were actively involved in raising an anticonscription fund of which Archbishop Walsh was a trustee. The wholehearted involvement of the church prevented widespread disorder, but, as the authorities quickly realised, the clericalnationalist collaboration ended any prospect of conscription being applied in Ireland.
Sinn Féin took the credit for averting conscription. Its network of branches developed rapidly in advance of the 1918 general election. Priests regularly chaired Sinn Féin public meetings and sat on local constituency executives. Others were prominently involved at a national level. Fr Tomas Wall, one of the two priests at the centre of the post-Rising duel between Bishop O'Dwyer and General Sir John Maxwell, was a member of the Sinn Féin national executive. Fr Michael O'Flanagan was a vice-president and key propagandist. His clerical status contributed to his renown, but his political activism led to a number of suspensions by his bishop.
GENERATIONAL DIVIDE
While there were exceptions, a generational divide was evident, with parish priests tending to support the IPP but younger clergy more inclined towards Sinn Féin. The archdiocese of Dublin offered a fascinating perspective on the differing stances within the hierarchy. Bishops Brownrigg of Ossory, Codd of Ferns and Foley of Kildare and Leighlin published letters in support of the IPP. The latter had "no faith in Sinn Féinism as a policy nor in abstention from parliament as a means of political salvation." Walsh differed from his suffragan bishops and openly backed Sinn Féin, which swept to victory on the promise of establishing a parliament in Dublin, abstaining from Westminster, and bringing the case of Ireland to the Versailles Peace Conference.
Ireland was not suddenly plunged into warfare. For two years before 1919, there had been a steady increase in drilling, arms raids, and defiance of the authorities. The shooting of two Catholic policemen on January 21, 1919 in Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, caused outrage. The archbishop of Cashel denounced the shootings as cold-blooded murder, while a local curate suggested that to invoke the name of patriotism to cover such a deed was to desecrate that sacred name. The coincidence of Soloheadbeg with the meeting of the first Dáil cemented its place, in retrospect at least, as the opening scene of the War of Independence. In the escalating campaign to come, that clerical condemnation did not dissuade the IRA.
FEARFUL
During the War of Independence, the hierarchy feared lending moral sanction to either side in the deepening conflict. In their public statements, the bishops stopped short of formally recognising the Dáil while affirming the right of Irish people to selfdetermination. The attendance of most of the hierarchy at a reception in the Irish College in Rome in May 1920, hosted by Seán T. O'Kelly, to mark the beatification of Oliver Plunkett, was widely interpreted as semiformal recognition of O'Kelly's position as representative of the Irish Republic. Some prelates made clear their support for the Dáil. Fogarty, for example, acted as a trustee of the Dáil loan, while at a parish level, many priests acted as collectors.
Steadily, the scale of violence increased: 18 policemen were killed in 1919 but 22 in the first four months of 1920 alone and
almost 200 by the end of that year. No statement was issued on the state of the country by the hierarchy at its meeting in October 1919. By January 1920, however, its position was more settled. On January 27, the bishops denounced violence, blamed failed British policy for the disturbed state of the country, and called for an undivided Ireland to be allowed to choose its own form of government. The British government viewed its Irish problem as a policing one. When sufficient police recruits could not be found in Ireland, unemployed veterans
of the First World War were deployed to form the infamous Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division, which was recruited from former officers. They neither looked nor acted like policemen and quickly alienated Irish and later British public opinion on account of their ill-discipline, drunkenness, indiscriminate shooting, brutality, and casual violence.
BRUTAL PHASE
The War of Independence entered a more brutal phase after the implementation of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act in August 1920. An unofficial system of reprisals was tolerated in response to IRA attacks. Homes and businesses were burned or looted; parochial houses, seminaries, and religious houses were attacked, including the home of Bishop Fogarty in Ennis; beatings and mock executions became commonplace, as did extra judicial killings. While bishops and clergy condemned republican violence, there was an increasing emphasis on the excesses of the Crown forces and the terror this engendered. This was evident in a joint pastoral in October 1920, which counselled self-restraint among Irish Catholics.
The killing of priests during the War of Independence was rare, but the impact of the deaths of three clerics in 1920/21 at the hands of the Crown forces was profound. The murder of Fr Michael Griffin in Galway in mid-November 1920 stands out for its gruesomeness and for the universal outrage that it occasioned. The killing generated headlines at home and abroad. It epitomised the breakdown of law and order. In midDecember 1920, Canon Thomas Magner, parish priest of Dunmanway in Cork, was shot on the roadside by a member of the Auxiliary Division who was later deemed insane. In May 1921, Fr James O'Callaghan was fatally wounded during a raid on the home of Liam de Róiste TD, where he rented rooms. Many nationalists concluded that if priests were not safe, then no one was.
During 1920 and 1921, episcopal statements addressed the Government of Ireland Act, which made partition and a Northern Ireland government a reality. Bishop McHugh deemed it a "perpetual Coercion Act." Widespread inter-communal violence, particularly in Belfast, led the hierarchy in April 1921 to rank the rule of the Northern government "more nearly with the government of the Turk in his worst days than with anything to be found anywhere in a Christian state." Joseph MacRory, bishop of Down and Connor, helped instigate the Belfast boycott to hurt unionists financially and economically and thereby compel them to re-admit expelled Catholic workers. It failed completely. MacRory was in the invidious position of seeking to end sectarian violence while at the same time being unwilling to give formal recognition to the Northern Ireland government.
In December 1920, the Tablet demanded
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The 'Black and Tans'
that Cardinal Logue excommunicate members of Sinn Féin and those who associated with it. Only Bishop Daniel Cohalan of Cork took such an unpopular and ineffectual step against the IRA in his diocese. Yet, the same bishop presided at the funeral of Terence MacSwiney in October 1920 after his death on hunger strike in Brixton Prison. In his February 1921 Lenten pastoral, Cohalan sought to refute theological justifications for the IRA campaign. His brother bishops were more circumspect. They condemned the reprisals of the Crown forces while supporting the people, in the words of Bishop Coyne of Elphin, "in their desperate attempt to recover their political rights as a nation."
DAILY CHALLENGES
In a brilliant study of parish clergy during the War of Independence, Brian Heffernan has captured in vivid detail the daily challenges that they faced. The majority of priests of a republican disposition supported Sinn Féin rather than the IRA. Some clergy served as judges in the Sinn Féin or Dáil courts, a key aspect of the Dáil counter-state, and proved a useful means of bolstering Sinn Féin propaganda around reprisals by the Crown forces. Heffernan lists 61 priests who gave material support to the IRA. Others provided spiritual assistance in the form of hearing the confessions of IRA men or celebrating Mass, and in effect ignoring the direction of their bishops. Dr Michael Louis Henry, a former World War I chaplain and curate at Curry in Sligo, was a rare exception. He supported the IRA in the Tubbercurry area in Sligo spiritually and with advice on military matters; he was believed to have taken part in at least one ambush. As Heffernan demonstrates, the majority of clergy tried to avoid involvement in the War of Independence.
At the end of 1920, Archbishop Thomas Gilmartin of Tuam lamented bitterly that instead of peace, there was war, murder, and reprisals; instead of order, there was disorder, vengeance and destruction; instead of content, there was grave fear, insecurity and heartbreak. This was even more apparent during 1921 until a truce brought the War of Independence to an end in July. The cessation of violence allowed a relieved Catholic hierarchy to bestow moral sanction on Sinn Féin as the representatives of Catholic Ireland. This was a pragmatic move ahead of peace negotiations. Unsurprisingly, the bishops welcomed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and favoured its ratification. Even those closest to the republican movement backed it. In his Lenten pastoral in February 1922, Bishop Fogarty declared: "The terror is gone and with it the foreign power that held our country in destructive grip for seven hundred years. It is gone and let us hope gone forever. Even though we have not achieved all that we should wish to reach, we have established this supreme thing at all events – Ireland is now the sovereign mistress of her own life."
Dr Daithí Ó Corráin teaches in the School of History and Geography, Dublin City University.
36 MISSION POSSIBLE
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY 2021
Sr Veronica Onyeanisi and Rahila Goodwin
MISSION SUNDAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL TO SUPPORT MISSIONARIES' INCREDIBLE, LIFE-CHANGING WORK
BY JULIEANN MORAN
WHAT IS WORLD MISSION SUNDAY?
World Mission Sunday is the Holy Father's annual appeal to continue the life-giving work of overseas mission. Similar to the Good Friday collection for the Holy Land and Peter's Pence, it is one of three yearly universal church collections. It takes place in every single parish where the church is present. This includes not just Ireland and other Western countries but also parishes in the so-called developing world.
World Mission Sunday is far more than an appeal for financial help. Missionaries also need spiritual support. Being on mission can be incredibly isolating, intimidating and at times dangerous. On World Mission Sunday, missionaries take great strength in knowing that the faithful throughout the world are keeping them in their thoughts and prayers. This is what makes it such a special day – it is a moment of universal solidarity when each member of the church family, regardless of location or background, can do their part to support and celebrate missionaries' incredible, life-changing impact.
WHY IS WORLD MISSION SUNDAY IMPORTANT?
All offerings and donations made for World Mission Sunday become part of the Holy Father's Universal Solidarity Fund. This fund offers a lifeline for missionaries and the communities they serve across Africa, Asia and Latin America, where more than 1,100 mission dioceses are found. Often these young dioceses are in remote areas devastated by war and natural disasters or where suppressed communities are just opening up to the life-saving message of Jesus Christ. As they grow, so do their needs. World Mission Sunday gives missionaries the financial and spiritual assistance they require to provide these communities with the skills and tools to develop and thrive.
WHAT DOES WORLD MISSION SUNDAY SUPPORT?
The Holy Father's Universal Solidarity Fund allows missionaries to continue to go where others fear to tread to serve some of the world's most marginalised people. Missionaries like Sr Veronica Onyeanisi, a Missionary Sister of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA), and people like Rahila Goodwin.
After an attack on her village in Nigeria, Rahila thought she would never see her little daughter Peace smile again. Rahilia survived the attack but with horrific injuries and emotional scars that will last a lifetime. She lost part of her arm. Her daughter Peace lost her laughter.
Rahila sought help from Sr Veronica, who is involved with the 'Mothers for Peace' initiative in Kaduna, north-western Nigeria. 'Mothers for Peace' provide more than just practical help for victims like Rahila. They also offer psychological support to help overcome trauma. Sr Veronica organised safe shelter and a prosthetic arm for Rahila. With her support and encouragement, Rahila set up a stall where she now earns a small income. Today Peace goes to school to learn and play with other children. Rahila is filled with joy because her little girl's laughter has returned.
Rahila is just one of endless others who suffer horrific atrocities due to violence and conflict. Thankfully, missionaries like Sr Veronica mean that they have somewhere to turn.
WHO ORGANISES WORLD MISSION SUNDAY?
Missio Ireland coordinates World Mission Sunday on behalf of the church in Ireland. You may be familiar with Missio Ireland under its previous name 'The Pontifical Mission Societies.' It is the Holy Father's official charity for overseas mission, and is part of a global network serving the church in more than 120 countries. Through the generosity of ordinary people, they can continue to support overseas missionaries while also helping the faithful in Ireland understand and respond to the call of mission.
WHEN IS WORLD MISSION SUNDAY?
World Mission Sunday always falls on the second last Sunday in October, meaning it is celebrated this year over the weekend of October 24, 2021. This year's theme, 'We Cannot Remain Silent – We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard' (Acts 4:20), is twofold.
It is a message of hope: Jesus Christ is risen, and we cannot keep his compassion, love and mercy to ourselves. It also challenges us to stand up and speak out on behalf of those whose voices are too small to be heard. Jesus needs willing hearts that will go to places where others may fear to tread. But this isn't the sole responsibility of overseas missionaries. Each of us has the potential to be champions for those who are weaker. We cannot remain silent.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Last year, health guidelines meant that congregations could not meet to celebrate Mass on World Mission Sunday. A repetition of this situation in 2021 would have a devastating impact on the collection for a second year in a row. However, if the plea of our overseas missionaries resonates with you, you can still help: Please remember that World Mission Sunday is more than an appeal for financial support. If you're not in a position to give financially, you can still help by keeping missionaries in your prayers and by bringing the meaning of World Mission Sunday to others. You can make a donation by calling Fiona on 01 497 2035 or online at www.missio.ie You can also donate €4 by texting the word MISSION to 50300 (Missio Ireland will receive a minimum of €3.60. Service provider Like Charity. Helpline 076 680 5278. Republic of Ireland only)
Julieann Moran is national secretary of the Society of Missionary Children, World Missions Ireland, 64 Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin, DO6 N2H1
The Legend of a Saint
THE STORY OF GERARD MAJELLA
IN THE YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH IN OCTOBER 1755, THE LEGEND OF GERARD MAJELLA DISPLACED THE LIFE STORY OF A YOUNG MAN WHO WAS SHAPED BY THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED. IT WOULD BE SOME TIME BEFORE IT BECAME POSSIBLE TO PUT GERARD BACK INTO THAT WORLD AGAIN, TO SEE HIM AGAINST ITS BACKGROUND OF POVERTY, PIETY AND FAITH BY BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR
It was more than half a century after Gerard's death before the first printed account of his life appeared. Not that he had been forgotten for those 56 years. Indeed, within a few months of his death, Fr Gaspar Caione had put together an outline of Gerard's life, noting the things he wanted to check up on or develop in greater detail. He worked on it for another ten years or so, for a longer work was incorporated into the manuscript of another Redemptorist, Fr Giuseppe Landi. Fr Landi was writing a history of the Redemptorists and dedicated chapter 42 to Gerard. This book was never published, but the manuscript was probably completed about 1783.
It was left to a third Redemptorist, Antonio Tannoia, to prepare Gerard's story for publication. He tells us he did it in thanksgiving for recovery from a severe illness, which he believed was due to Gerard's prayers. Tannoia took Caione's and Landi's manuscripts as his primary sources and expanded on them by talking to others who had known Gerard during his lifetime. Unfortunately, Fr Tannoia died before his book was published.
The Life of the Servant of God, Gerard Majella, Lay Brother of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer finally appeared in 1811. The superior general of the Redemptorists, Peter Paul Blasucci, had ordered that it be published without further delay. Peter Paul's older brother, Dominic, who had died at 19, had been a close friend of Gerard's. The Blasucci boys were natives of Muro, Gerard's home town. Besides, a piece of folklore was circulating among the Redemptorists that Gerard had predicted that Peter Paul would one day be the superior general.
Gerard had died with the reputation of a saint. Yet 88 years were to pass before the process of collecting the evidence for his beatification would begin. There are several reasons for this. While Gerard was probably more popular among the ordinary people than Alphonsus, it was considered more appropriate to start with the canonisation of the founder. Alphonsus had died in 1787. His cause began within a few months of his death but was delayed by the widespread unrest throughout Europe after the French Revolution. He was declared blessed in 1816 and a saint in 1839. The way for Gerard's cause for canonisation was now clear, and it was introduced in 1843.
COMPLEX LEGAL PROCESS
A cause for canonisation is a complex legal process that seeks to establish that a person's reputation for holiness is well-founded and that they have practised virtue to a heroic degree. It is carried out in the places where the candidate lived. It begins with a close examination by theologians of everything that they wrote. In Gerard's case, this didn't amount to very much.
The next stage was taking evidence from those who knew the candidate during their lifetime. By the time the process for Gerard's canonisation began, most of those who knew him were dead. The majority of witnesses were passing on what they had heard from others who had known him – a grandmother, an uncle, the older sisters in a convent.
More difficult still was the weighing of claims of having received miracles through Gerard's intercession. The first stage in Gerard's cause closed almost 50 years later with his beatification by Pope Leo XIII in 1893. His canonisation followed in 1904.
The word 'legend' comes from a Latin word meaning 'something that is read.' It was applied originally to
the lives of saints that were to be read in the divine office of the church for the edification of the faithful. In time, the legends tended to adopt certain common features. The most important of these was to show how the saint had been a perfect disciple by following the way Jesus had mapped out for his followers in the Gospel. A saint was someone who had practised love of God and neighbour to a high degree. Including miracle stories was a way of proving that the candidate for canonisation was someone approved by God and who continued, even after death, to pray for the faithful.
There is little doubt that unaccountable things happened in response to Gerard Majella's prayers during his lifetime and in response to prayers addressed to God through his intercession after his death.
The official way the story of the saint is transmitted is through the preached word. Preachers are not the only transmitters of the stories of the saints. They are passed on also by their devotees, by those who have a story to tell of how such a saint helped them 'when they were sick,' as Chaucer's pilgrims tell of St Thomas à Becket. Young mothers today (and young fathers) probably learn about Gerard Majella through their mothers and grandmothers, their aunts and their sisters.
WORD OF MOUTH
Passing on the story of a saint by word of mouth happens especially in a society where few people can read or write. This was the case in Gerard's rural Italy. Stories passed on by word of mouth usually contain few details one might expect to find in a newspaper or a book. Storytellers are not very interested in exact dates or places. A modern Redemptorist historian, Fr Francisco Chiovaro, who has taken an interest in St Gerard, reminds us that the process to gather the evidence for Gerard's canonisation lasted almost 13 years. Gerard's devotees were avidly interested in its outcome. Many volunteered to give testimony, but, as one of the leading officials (the so-called 'devil's advocate') remarked, none contributed much by way of eyewitness testimony to the events they were describing. What they were testifying to was how deeply the story of Gerard Majella had entered into the soul and the imagination of ordinary people.
Striking, too, Chiovaro continues, was the social makeup of the witnesses. As might be expected, clergy and Redemptorists came out in force to give evidence but the number of women, religious and lay, who did so also was striking, as was the number of people from the lower middle-classes, from the trades and the farming community. Chiovaro concludes that Gerard would seem, above all, to be the saint of nuns and women in general, of small farmers, country folk and tradespeople. This would confirm what we know already from the main lines of his life – and people like these remained the first beneficiaries of his miracles. Many of Gerard's miracles are about the things that bring grief to such people – controlling an infestation of mice or rats, stopping wine from going bad in the cask, recovery from illness, and especially protection in a difficult childbirth.
When we try to write the life of Gerard, the dates for things only become relatively clear once he entered the Redemptorist order. It
isn't hard to see why. In a religious congregation, certain things need to be recorded – the dates when new members enter, receive the religious habit and make their profession. Before that, it is hard to track down specific facts of Gerard's life with any precision. When did his father die? How long did he attend school? When did he enter the bishop's service? Much of that is vague, and the best we can do is guess. But for Gerard's Redemptorist years – 1749 to 1755 – we are on firmer ground. It is the same with places. When an edifying story is told of a saint, for example, the people of one place or another may claim its glory for themselves. Some accounts of Gerard going into ecstasy are associated with certain places, but did they always happen there? Or could the same story be told in several places as though it had happened 'over there' or 'in the church nearby'?
It is also true that the same story can be told about different saints. If one saint can be in two places at once, then it seems almost to be a rule that so can every other saint. There are a few examples of this in St Gerard's life. Fr Tannoia says he heard it said that Gerard was seen one day in Muro. He was also seen in ecstasy before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel of the Franciscans in Caposele, although on neither occasion had Gerard left Materdomini. Unfortunately, Fr Tannoia doesn't say who saw him in these places, so the evidence isn't convincing.
CLOSE EXAMINATION
One of Gerard's modern biographers, the Italian Redemptorist Fr Nicola Ferrante, has closely examined many of the stories about Gerard. Sometimes, for example, the same story might be told in several versions of his life, but it can grow in the telling. Here is one example. Gerard was travelling one day when he came across a crowd of people dragging a large log to build a new church. Fr Caione gives us the earliest version of the story,
St Gerard's hometown, Muro
written just a few months after Gerard's death. Despite being weakened by the onset of his final illness, Gerard helped drag the beam until they reached the church. Fr Caione's point was that Gerard was always willing to do something for the glory of God, no matter how poorly he felt.
The second version gives more attention to the details. It stresses the size of the beam and the impression Gerard made on the people by the energy he put into the operation. By the time we reach Fr Tannoia's account 50 years later, we begin to find the miraculous. Now there is not one beam but several. Gerard selected the largest one that even the oxen couldn't move, tied a rope around it and dragged it to the church as if it were a wisp of straw. A witness at the beatification process, an old man of 90 who had heard the story through local folklore, claimed Gerard fastened his handkerchief to the largest of the beams and dragged it after him as though it were a stick. Which is the true account? Fr Caione was closest to the event. The elderly witness was probably telling a version that had been embellished by many retellings, an earlier form of which may have even reached the ears of Fr Tannoia.
One of the witnesses at the beatification process, Antonio di Cosimo, recounted many miracle stories about Gerard. Antonio had been a Redemptorist brother, then left the congregation and entered a Benedictine monastery. He seems to have had a vivid imagination. He claimed to be 89 years old, but, in reality, he was only 62. He told, for example, how during the pilgrimage to Monte Gargano, Gerard had cured the chaplain's mother and, like Peter's mother-in-law in the Gospel story, she rose immediately from her sickbed and waited on them. But there is no mention of the chaplain's mother in the earliest accounts of the pilgrimage. Antonio would have known nothing about the pilgrimage first-hand as he only entered the Redemptorists half a century after it had taken place.
SAINTS, LEGENDS ... AND THE GOSPEL
Around the time of Gerard's beatification and canonisation, and for many years after, his life story began to appear in all the main European languages, including English. Since the purpose of these lives was to increase devotion to Gerard, they tended to stress the miraculous, the heroic nature of his life of penance and the mystical quality of his prayer. In the main, they drew on the life by Fr Tannoia and the stories about Gerard collected during his canonisation process. What was happening was that the legend of Gerard was displacing the life story of a young man who was shaped by the religious and social world in which he lived. It would be some time before it became possible to put him back into that world again, to see him against its background of poverty, piety and faith.
Something similar may have happened in the telling of the life of Jesus. The four Gospels came into existence about 40 or 50 years after the death and resurrection of the Lord. That did not mean the end of the writing of the Christian story. Many other stories about Jesus came into existence. Some were specifically intended to shed light on the 'hidden years' of his childhood. The writers had little information to go on. Instead, they invented the details. If Jesus worked miracles during his public ministry, the reasoning went, then he must have done the same during the 'hidden years.'
Some of these unofficial lives still exist. All without exception stress the miraculous. There are, for example, stories of how Jesus and St Joseph stretched a piece of timber that was too short for the job they were doing. On another occasion, Jesus fashioned clay into a row of little
The legend of Gerard pulling a log
birds and, when he clapped his hands, they came to life and flew away! Another version of this story tells of a naughty little Jesus who struck one of his playmates dead for wrecking his little birds. The irate parents complained to Mary and Joseph, and Jesus was forced to bring the boy back to life, something already familiar from the Gospel stories of raising the dead.
MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL
It is easy to see how such stories emerged in early Christian folklore. In one sense, they are intended to give edification and delight to children and simple people, but they are based on a misunderstanding of what the Gospel means by miracle. Most Gospel miracles stories are short. They stress God's compassion for the human condition. Abundant gifts of bread and wine, of fish, of sight or hearing restored, of release from demonic powers that bind and limit the human condition are all symbols of the abundance of the gift of eternal life and the plenty of the kingdom of God.
Similar stories were told about Gerard, the tailor – how he stretched the cloth he was given to make a veil for a ciborium or for a habit for one of the brethren. There wasn't enough to make one veil or habit, but with prayer and a bit of stretching, Gerard managed to make two! His efforts to feed the poor during the winter famine of the year he died were remembered in the popular tradition of the Caposele region as gift miracles like the multiplication of the loaves in the Gospels. Did it happen like that, or was Gerard simply one of those people whose trust in God's goodness will always find a way and whose kindness was profoundly Christ-like?
Telling miracle stories is not the purpose of the Gospel. At its heart is a narrative of redemption through the ministry and the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the same way, the lives of saints are not displays of miraculous power or of stupendous penance or the ability to rise above the earth in ecstasy while at prayer. The heart of the narrative of their life is how this man or woman of flesh and blood responded to the call to follow Jesus through self-forgetfulness and compassion for his or her brothers and sisters.
Trying to get back to the real Gerard doesn't mean ignoring any of these aspects of his life, but it does mean putting them into context. Gerard's prayer, for example, was probably at its most heartbreakingly intense when he had to live for weeks on end without the Eucharist, and he experienced the dark night of Gethsemane, rather than when his concentration on God came so naturally that he appeared wrapped in ecstasy. His imitation of the crucified Jesus was more real when he suffered false accusations in silence than when he scourged himself even to blood in imitation of the Lord scourged and crowned with thorns.
This is an extract from Saint Gerard Majella: Rediscovering a saint, by Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR, published by Redemptorist Communications.
Saint Gerard Majella Rediscovering a Saint
Gerard Majella’s name is familiar to many Catholics. But sometimes those who pray through Gerard’s intercession know relatively little about him. Even the holy pictures of Gerard, either the larger ones that hung on the wall of so many homes or the smaller ones we slipped into our prayer books, did him no favours. This book is an introduction to Gerard’s life, especially for those who might not be familiar with it. Gerard was born and raised in a poor family in the South of Italy almost 300 years ago. He never travelled more than fifty miles from his home town; he wasn’t a famous theologian or writer or preacher; he died before he was thirty years old. But his outstanding holiness and love of people made this Redemptorist brother not only a saint of his time, but also very much a saint for our time too. This book, by Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR, gets behind the man and the myth to offer a modern take on a saint for mothers, fathers and the rest of us.
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