Reality Magazine April 2022

OPEN TO THE CALL OF THE SPIRIT

CHANGING RELIGIOUS LIFE IN IRELAND

VERONICA AND THE SCREEN

CINEMA AND THE CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION

SHARING GOD’S WORD WITH CHILDREN

DELIGHTING AND WONDERING TOGETHER

IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE

�� OPEN TO THE CALL OF THE SPIRIT

Religious orders are finding ways to adapt to the changing needs of society

By Ann Marie Foley

18 VERONICA AND THE SCREEN

Cinema and its key role in reimagining the Christian story

By Paul Clogher

22 SHARING GOD’S WORD WITH CHILDREN

How can we support children to engage with bible stories?

By Jessie Rogers

24 NANO NAGLE AND DISCOVERING OUR “-NESS”

Living authentically and discerning our purpose

By Michelle Jones

28 THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

Rediscovering our most common form of prayer

By Maria Hall

32 LETTER FROM THE PHILIPPINES

Olympic feats of strength and bravery

By Colm Meaney CSsR

34 HAVEN’T WE BEEN HERE BEFORE?

Learning from the debates of the German Church

By Christina Malone

38 FROM DEATH TO NEW LIFE

The origins of baptism in the New Testament

By Mary T. Brien PBVM

40 EXPOSING IRELAND’S UNSAVOURY PAST

The unique voice of author Edna O’Brien

By Eamon Maher

SHELTER FOR VICTIMS OF WAR IN UKRAINE

Redemptorists in war-torn Ukraine are “remaining close to the people among whom we serve,” according to Fr Michael Brehl CSsR, Superior General of the Redemptorists.

Fr Brehl confirmed on February 25 that he had heard from several confrères in Ukraine and from the Missionary Sisters of the Most Holy Redeemer (Gars). “Fr Andriy Rak CSsR, the Superior of the Province of Lviv, has told me that so far, all are safe,” said Fr Brehl.

“In fact, they are welcoming refugees into our homes and churches to share what we can with them. These refugees include children as well as older persons.

“We continue to pray for them and for the many people who have been displaced by the bombs and airstrikes.”

In a letter addressed to Redemptorist Confrères, Sisters, and Partners in Mission, Fr Brehl called for prayer for peace, in solidarity with Ukraine.

“Pope Francis has continued to invite all of us to join in prayerful communion and

solidarity with all the victims of war and violence.

“I make a heartfelt appeal… to participate in a united prayer for peace, especially in Ukraine. Please dedicate time in each of our churches, monasteries, convents, communities and homes for this time of prayer, and invite the people of God to join with us. This prayer for peace is an expression of our communion and

solidarity with our Redemptorist Brothers and Sisters in both Ukraine and in Russia, as well as with all people.

“This prayer will embrace and express our deepest longing for peace in every part of our wounded world, among all peoples, on every continent.”

BISHOP MICHAEL DUIGNAN TO MINISTER TWO DIOCESES

The Bishop of Clonfert, Michael Duignan, has been appointed to “minister simultaneously” as Bishop of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora. The two dioceses (Galway and Clonfert), though pastorally administered by one bishop, will retain their respective rights, obligations and juridical autonomy.

The event was marked by a Mass in Galway Cathedral on Friday February 11. The papal nuncio Archbishop Jude Okolo was the chief celebrant, with the retiring Bishop of Galway Brendan Kelly concelebrating.

Speaking at the occasion, Bishop Michael

said it was a historic day for both dioceses, and for the Catholic Church in Ireland. “Under the guidance of St Peter himself, in the person of Pope Francis, we have been nudged together to do something genuinely new. To paraphrase the words of that great poet from the Aran Islands Máirtín Ó Díreáin, we are being called to bring about a new An tEarrach Thiar – a ‘Western Spring’,” he said.

“We begin a new stage in our journey, a stage that I hope will be, in the best sense of the term, deeply ‘synodal’… It will mean both listening to each other and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. In the process,

we are called to prayerfully discern how we, as a people of faith, are to walk together into the future.”

A native of Athlone, Co. Roscommon, Bishop Michael was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Elphin in 1994. In 2014, he was appointed Chancellor of the Diocese of Elphin and Episcopal Vicar for Education and Formation, and also served as national director of the Permanent Diaconate. In 2019, he succeeded Bishop John Kirby as Bishop of Clonfert.

Images from a Redemptorist house in northeast Ukraine

REDEMPTORIST COMMUNITY TO LEAVE ESKER

The Redemptorist Community in Galway have confirmed that they are to end their presence in Esker, Athenry after more than 120 years.

The decision to bring the mission at Esker Monastery to a close later this year was taken with “immense regret and after lengthy consideration,” according to a statement from the Congregation.

“The Redemptorists first came to Esker in 1901 and since then have experienced and valued immense support from the people of the locality and beyond,” said the statement.

“We appointed independent consultants to examine the future direction of the Esker Monastery in 2019, after a decision was taken at a Chapter of the Dublin Province ‘to investigate the pastoral, legal, planning, contractual and all other relevant issues with a view to deciding the future of the Esker site by the end of April 2021’.

“The final outcome of this consultation

process was that we could no longer maintain a presence at Esker, leading to this most difficult announcement.”

The community wished to thank “the staff and all who have gone before for their commitment to our mission, as well as their friendship and support over so many decades”.

“We Redemptorists take such fond memories from Esker, of wonderful times in such a special place, but we regretfully must face the realities of the present day and plan accordingly for the future.”

The withdrawal is planned to take place by the end of November 2022, with decisions on how the property will be disposed of to be taken in the coming months.

Esker has been a monastic settlement since the late 17th century when Dominican friars settled there. The site was given to Clonfert Diocese in August 1893, and in 1901 the diocese sold Esker to the Redemptorists

and the new monastery was built. In 1940, Esker was designated as the novitiate for the Irish Province. In later years the building was converted for use as a retreat centre.

US BISHOPS URGE CLEMENCY FOR WOMAN ON DEATH ROW

The state of Texas should grant clemency to a woman set to be executed in April, a Catholic organisation and two bishops have stated.

“The risk of the state taking an innocent life is especially concerning,” said a statement from Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy of Catholic Mobilizing Network. “Texas must grant clemency to Melissa Lucio – to do anything else would be an irreversible injustice.”

Lucio, 53, was sentenced to death in 2008 for the 2007 death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez. Alvarez was the youngest of Lucio’s 14 children.

Alvarez was discovered at her home in Harlingen, Texas, with damage to her spinal cord, a head injury, an arm that had been

previously broken and healed without proper medical care, and with bruises to her kidneys and lungs. She was declared dead upon arrival in hospital.

In January, Lucio’s execution date was set for April 27, 2022. She is the first woman of Hispanic descent to be sentenced to death in the United States.

“Justice is not suddenly restored because another person dies,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville. Harlingen, where Lucio lived, is located in the Diocese of Brownsville. He added that “executing Melissa will not bring peace to her surviving children,” and that doing so would “only bring more pain and suffering”.

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin said we must

commit to protecting every human being. “People of goodwill understand that an act of violence cannot be overcome with another act of violence. The execution of Melissa Lucio would be a tragedy.” He noted that Lucio’s surviving children “are pleading for Melissa’s life to be spared”.

Lucio’s attorney, A. Richard Ellis, said that Lucio is “a battered woman who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the accidental death of her daughter, who had fallen down the stairs at the family’s home… Her conviction rested on ambiguous statements Melissa made to police in response to a coercive, late-night interrogation by male police officers.”

Photo: Helena Connolly

Photo: Helena Connolly

Promoting better collaboration between women and men in the Catholic Church is not primarily about equality but about allowing the church to fulfil the mission given to it by God, said female speakers at a Vatican conference on priesthood.

“The church needs women and must call them to serve” for the good of all people, said Michelina Tenace, a professor of dogmatic theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and consultant for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“If the church does not make this call, a ministry risks being seen as a right. But serving is not a right, it is a duty,” she said on February 18 in a panel on ‘Women and ministry – the state of investigation’.

Tenace spoke about the work of the commission she was appointed to by Pope Francis in 2016 to study the women referred to as deaconesses in the New Testament and

the role of women deacons in the early church. All the baptised are called to serve humanity, she said, so the question is not about restoring what existed in the past, but “what ministry do the people of God need today?”

“Please,” she said, “let it be not to recognise the dignity of women, but to recognise the true identity of the church.”

Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, an economist and adviser to the governing office of Vatican City State, said “It is not simply and only women who suffer from this situation, but

the church and its mission” when women’s gifts and call to service are underutilised.

Martha Olavarrieta de Gómez Serrano, a mother of nine who was appointed along with her now late-husband to the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 2004, spoke of the ways families cultivate the faith and reach out to serve the larger community.

“Women have always walked alongside Jesus, reaching out to him as mothers, sisters, daughters, and this is how he addressed them,” she said.

CATHOLIC BISHOPS INVITE ORTHODOX LEADERS TO CONTRIBUTE TO SYNODAL PATH

Catholic bishops in the Holy Land have invited their Orthodox counterparts to contribute to the consultation process leading to the 2023 Synod on Synodality.

In a letter, the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land (ACOHL) explained that Catholics in the region were taking part in the local stage of the two-year synodal path launched by Pope Francis last October.

“We would be delighted to share with you what we are learning and also learn from you,

listening to your wisdom and experience,” they wrote.

“Pope Francis has said and written repeatedly that Catholics have much to learn from the Orthodox regarding the exercise of synodality. As we set out on this way, we are more aware than ever that we, all together, as disciples of Christ in this Land, which is His home, are called to witness to him. We remember that his dearest wish was that we should be one (John 17).”

The bishops issued their invitation as part

of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The letter to the heads of the Christian Churches in the Holy Land was signed by ACOHL president Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and secretarygeneral Father Pietro Felet.

The Assembly comprises leaders of the Latin Church, Greek Melkite Catholic Church, Maronite Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church and Chaldean Catholic Church in Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus.

FEMALE SPEAKERS EMPHASISE NEED FOR “RECIPROCITY” IN CHURCH’S MINISTRY

Participants return to their seats after a break during the international symposium on the priesthood at the Vatican, February 17, 2022. Photo: CNS/Paul Haring

POPE MONITOR

Pope Francis said his heart was “broken” by the war in Ukraine as he pleaded, “Silence the weapons!”

“Many times, we prayed that this path would not be taken,” he told people gathered in St Peter’s Square for the midday recitation of the Angelus on February 27. But rather than giving up, he said, “we beg God more intensely.”

With many of the people in the square holding Ukrainian flags, Pope Francis greeted them with Slava Isusu Chrystu, meaning “Glory to Jesus Christ”.

The pope has continued to personally express his concern about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to appeal for peace. The previous evening, he phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr

KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS

Zelenskyy. The president thanked Pope Francis “for praying for peace in Ukraine and a ceasefire. The Ukrainian people feel the spiritual support of His Holiness.”

Pope Francis also made the diplomatically unusual gesture of going to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to express his concern about the war. Usually, a head of state would have an ambassador come to him.

He also phoned Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, who remained in Kyiv with his people, taking refuge with others in the basement of Resurrection Cathedral and sending out daily videos of encouragement.

“With a heart broken by what is happening in

Ukraine – and let’s not forget the wars in other parts of the world, such as Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia – I repeat: Silence the weapons!” Pope Francis told those gathered.

“God is with the peacemakers,” he said, “not with those who use violence.”

Pope Francis is to visit Malta on April 2-3, with the highlights of the visit to include a meeting with refugees.

On the afternoon of the second day of the visit, the pope will meet a group of refugees at the John XXIII Peace Lab Centre for Migrants in Hal Far where he will deliver a speech.

The theme of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Journey to Malta is: “They showed us unusual kindness”, taken from Acts 28:2. It is meant to highlight

the plight of the migrants who cross the Mediterranean toward Europe, and to be a source of encouragement for a new evangelisation in the island nation. The passage references the hospitality shown to St Paul by the Maltese people when the ship carrying him to Rome was shipwrecked there in 60 AD.

The pope will visit St Paul’s Grotto in the Basilica of Rabat, commemorating the shipwreck of the ‘Apostle of the peoples’, and

will travel to Gozo, the second Maltese island, where he will preside over a prayer meeting at the national shrine of Ta’ Pinu.

He will also meet with civil authorities and with members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).

Two previous popes have made apostolic visits to Malta: Pope John Paul II visited Malta in 1990 and 2001, while Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2010.

VATICAN INTRODUCES THREE DAYS OF PAID PATERNITY LEAVE FOR EMPLOYEES

The Vatican has amended its law to include three days of paid paternity leave for employees who have a new child through birth or adoption.

The March 1 rescript, approved by Pope Francis last December, added an article to the Vatican’s 2017 law on family benefits for lay employees.

The law already included five months of paid maternity leave, in line with Italy’s national

maternity leave policies. It also foresaw a transfer of maternity leave to the father in the circumstance that the mother died or was physically incapacitated after birth.

From March 1, an employee who is a new father – through birth, adoption or fostering – will have the right to be off for three working days while receiving his full salary.

The Vatican also updated the General Regulations of the Roman Curia to introduce

the possibility of offering “on-call work contracts”, also sometimes called “intermittent work contracts”.

Both texts were signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who said that Pope Francis had granted the incorporation of the new articles into existing Vatican and Holy See law in a meeting with him on December 13.

“WITH A HEART BROKEN” POPE PRAYS FOR PEACE IN UKRAINE

POPE FRANCIS TO MEET MIGRANTS IN MALTA

SAINTS IN THE CELTIC TRADITION

ST LASERIAN APRIL 18

The cathedral of Old Leighlin nestles peacefully among the lush rural farmlands of the Barrow valley in Co. Carlow. A monastic church existed here since the 6th century or earlier, and since the founder is unknown, the monastery is said to have been the work of the mythical Gobán Saer, the ubiquitous craftsman of early Irish folklore. Nor is it clear when Laserian, abbot and bishop, took possession of Old Leighlin (pronounced Loughlin without the ‘Mc’, if you’ll excuse the Irishism). All we know is that it was in the first decades of the 7th century at a time when the churches in Ireland and Britain were convulsed by the Paschal or Easter controversy.

Laserian was born in the Louth area with links to the Down-Antrim coast and Western Scotland. His father was of the Dál Fiatach in Co. Down and his mother, Gemma, was daughter of Aidan McGoran, king of Scottish Dalriada. The name given him at baptism was Laserian, a not uncommon Irish name meaning ‘flame’ which with the addition of the prefix mo easily liquifies into the hypocoristic or endearing Mo-Laserian; Molaise, if you will.

Much of Laserian’s early years were associated with his royal relatives in the rugged territory of Argyll and no doubt he would have played in Dunadd Hill Fort where Fergus Mór from Irish Dalriada had established himself a century or two earlier and from where Laserian’s grandfather now ruled. As a young man Laserian/ Molaise turned his back on the warlord tradition of his people. He scouted out a hermitage further down the Kintyre peninsula and came to settle on what is now Holy Island off the mountainous coastline of Arran, where he found a cave and a well, the very basics for survival. It is to this cave and this well that pilgrims still come seeking meaning.

After a time in the wilderness, Laserian studied first in Iona and later at Rome during the reign of Pope St Gregory the Great (590-604). His Roman days must have opened his eyes to a church wider than the Celtic fringe. We are told that he was ordained in Rome, by St Gregory, and then set out for Ireland where he soon found himself settling in as abbot and bishop of Old Loughlin. The controversy over the dating of Easter was a burning issue in those days, and St Columbanus, then a missionary in Burgundy, bluntly told the French bishops who wanted him to conform to their way that there were far more important church issues than diversity in liturgical practice.

The Paschal controversy became more acute during the 7th century when it tended to change from being a disciplinary matter to one of doctrine. The Irish were not overly enthusiastic about the controversy but a letter from Pope Honorius I in the late 620s spurred Laserian and a few likeminded Irish bishops at the Synod of Magh Léne (Old Leighlin area) to examine the situation more seriously. By the early 630s the Irish, with the exception of the Columban federation of monasteries, conformed to acceptable Continental practice. St Laserian himself died in 639 AD. Iona would fall into line in the early 8th century and Wales held out until 768.

John J. Ó Ríordáin CSsR

Volume 88. No. 3 April 2022

A Redemptorist Publication

ISSN 0034-0960

Published by The Irish Redemptorists, St Joseph's Monastery, St Alphonsus Road, Dundalk County Louth A91 F3FC

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REFLECTIONS

Proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

HELEN KELLER

Resurrection is contagious, and free for the taking. It is everywhere visible and available for those who have learned how to see, how to rejoice, and how to neither hoard nor limit God’s ubiquitous gift.

RICHARD ROHR

Easter is the only time when it’s perfectly safe to put all of your eggs in one basket.

EVAN ESAR

I still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and true love. Don’t even try to tell me different.

DOLLY PARTON

If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into

the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.”

L.M. MONTGOMERY, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

The best motto to think about is not waste things. Don’t waste electricity. Don’t waste paper. Don’t waste food. Live the way you want to live but just don’t waste. Look after the natural world and the animals in it and the plants in it too. This is their planet as well as ours. Don’t waste them.

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

Let your feet follow your heart until you find your place of resurrection.

CELTIC SAYING ABOUT PILGRIMAGE

Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength –carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.

CORRIE TEN BOOM

If I am hungry, that is a material problem; if someone else is hungry, that is a spiritual problem.

PAUL FARMER

We can never take peace for granted. We must always work for peace, pray for peace and make sacrifices for peace. All of us have the capacity to build peace by our words, our actions and our attitudes to others. We choose to sow peace or conflict, love or hate, to build up, or to tear down, to heal or to hurt, to forgive or to resent, to soothe or to inflame.

ARCHBISHOP EAMON MARTIN, ASKING FOR PRAYER FOR THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE, FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

MARGARET MEAD

Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it.

MAYA ANGELOU

“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.” “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”

E.B. WHITE, CHARLOTTE’S WEB

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HOPE AND HISTORY

Oursix-year-old popped his head around the door as I was working one day this week. He had overheard a story on the news and wanted to tell me about it. “There’s a girl somewhere – in a different country – and she’s separated from her parents, and they can’t find each other.” I knew without asking that he was referring to a story from Ukraine. I tried to reassure him that some kind person would look after this little girl and help her to find her parents. I hoped that was true; I’m sure it was.

Yet, as I’m writing this, I read that at least 38 children have been killed and 71 wounded so far in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One of them, a seven-year-old girl, was killed in an attack on a pre-school. Another, nine years old, was killed along with her mother and father when Russian troops opened fire on their family car. Her sister and brother are being treated in hospital. According to the United Nations, more than 400 civilians have been killed. I dread to think what those figures will be by the end of the war, or even by the time you’re reading this.

In the early days of the conflict, images emerged from Ukraine that made us catch our breath in shock and sadness. Newborn babies in a hospital in the eastern Ukranian city of Dnipro were moved from the neonatal intensive care unit into a makeshift bomb shelter in the basement after the city was struck by missiles. Footage showed nurses cradling tiny babies and using inflatable bags to deliver oxygen to them.

In an underground metro station in Kyiv, a baby was born. An image shared on several news sites showed the sleeping newborn wrapped in blankets, a picture of tranquillity against a backdrop of the anxious faces of others in the shelter.

Other images showed children gazing up at bombed apartment blocks or playing in the wreckage.

There were stories of hope, too. Nataliya Ableyeva crossed the border from Ukraine into

Hungary with precious cargo – a stranger’s children. She delivered the two children to their mother, with nothing but a mobile phone number to locate her, after their father was banned from leaving the country. “Their father simply handed over the two kids to me, and trusted me, giving me their passports to bring them over,” said Ms Ableyeva. It can barely be described as a happy ending, but it’s one snapshot of hope amidst the darkness of war. There have been heart-warming reports also of Polish people welcoming refugees from Ukraine with overflowing donation centres and offers of transport and accommodation.

In the shadow of the worsening conflict, the Christian community around the globe prepares to celebrate Easter. Speaking ahead of Ash Wednesday, Archbishop Eamon Martin encouraged families to pray together and fast for peace this Lent: “Our Lenten journey this year begins as we watch the distressing and frightening scenes from Ukraine. Our hearts and prayers go out to the people of Ukraine. We can never take peace for granted. We must always work for peace, pray for peace and make sacrifices for peace. All of us have the capacity to build peace by our words, our actions and our attitudes to others. We choose to sow peace or conflict, love or hate, to build up, or to tear down, to heal or to hurt, to forgive or to resent, to soothe or to inflame.”

In our culture of instant news, we are able to witness events from thousands of miles away as they unfold. If you watch a film set during World War II, you’ll see groups of people gathered around a radio, waiting for the latest news bulletin. Nowadays, images and video footage are available instantly on our phone or tablet, right in the palm of our hands. It means that the realities of war are never far removed from us. It’s hard to think of it as something happening ‘over there’ when it feels so close.

The harrowing images emerging from the Ukranian conflict touch our hearts and inspire us to act. We might feel helpless, but just as there is a window into the heartbreak, there is also a stream of information about ways we can help, from donating clothes or other items or supporting a charity working in the area, to informing ourselves, praying and resolving always to be people of peace.

So, as we follow the unfolding events in Ukraine, the world unites in prayer and solidarity. On Holy Saturday, when we mark the Easter Vigil, we are suspended between darkness and light, death and resurrection. And in these days, confronted with stories of pain and hope, we are suspended between the darkness of war and injustice, and the hope of a more peaceful and equitable future. Like the late Seamus Heaney, we long for the day when “hope and history rhyme”:

History says

Don’t hope on this side of the grave

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.

We wish all our readers and their families a blessed and peaceful Easter.

Tríona Doherty Editor

UP FRONT TRÍONA DOHERTY

OPEN TO THE CALL OF THE SPIRIT

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN IRELAND TODAY

BY ANN MARIE FOLEY

InJanuary the Capuchin Order in Ireland announced the closure of two friaries and withdrawal from a parish residency. The order runs the iconic Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin so news of the closures came as a shock to many. However, the move is not totally surprising given that almost every town in Ireland has had similar experiences over the last decade.

“We took some time to really examine our ability to maintain our presence and apostolates in nine communities across the country with now only 65 friars with an average age of 78. For perspective, when I entered the Order in 2002 we had 114 friars with the average age being 70,” said Br Seán Kelly OFM Cap of the closures in Carlow and Rochestown, Cork and the withdrawal from residency in St Francis Parish, Priorswood, Dublin.

The Capuchins are not alone. Many other religious orders have closed convents, monasteries, schools and churches throughout Ireland in recent years. This is the physical manifestation of the reality of change. In an article in The Tablet (July 29, 2021) Liz Murphy, past secretary general of the Association of Leaders of Missionaries & Religious of Ireland (AMRI), stated that apostolic religious life in Ireland is “at a crucial crossroads”. While religious congregations were once a powerful force in Ireland

– in 1965, at the time of the Second Vatican Council’s decree on renewal of religious life Perfectae Caritatis, there were almost 30,000 priests and religious in Ireland – since the early 2000s, religious life has been declining. As a response, many congregations put schools and hospitals in trusts. Others donated money and property to pay for ministries with those on the margins. In spite of increasing age profile, many got involved in advocacy and influencing government policy on homelessness, climate change, direct provision, emigrants and prisoners.

Figures from the Statistical Yearbook of the Church state that in 2002 there were a total of 11,981 religious (women religious, laymen religious and religious priests) in Ireland, while in 2012 there were 9,428, a 21 per cent drop in a decade. For more recent statistics, the 2019/2020 annual report of AMRI states that there were 6,940 religious priests, missionaries and sisters as of June 2020, and 20 contemplative female groups. More than 30 congregations had fewer than 10 members. The majority of religious, 5,700 of the 6,940, were now more than 70 years old.

Following the Capuchin

AMIDST THE CHALLENGE OF RISING AGE PROFILES AND DECLINING VOCATIONS, RELIGIOUS ORDERS ARE FINDING WAYS TO ADAPT TO THE CHANGING NEEDS OF SOCIETY

St Mary of the Angel’s Capuchin Church, Church Street, Dublin

announcement, Br Richard Hendrick OFM Cap, a member of the Church Street Capuchin community, says he expects there will be no more changes for at least three to six years. He adds: “It may be that in the future there are other closures or that there are new places opened up. We are open to the inspiration of the spirit and the call of the church to whatever way we can serve the people.”

The Capuchins currently have one person in formation for ordination and two postulants. At a recent vocations day, a further 11 people expressed an interest in joining the order. The Capuchin Day Centre has opened an outreach in Kilkenny, and other new ministries include online work, teaching meditation, and chaplaincy in two Dublin hospices and a Cork hospital. “There is a great interest there and to be honest I think the pandemic has woken people up to deeper questions and looking at life from a deeper perspective. So the Lord can use all these things to wake up to the movement of the Spirit in our own lives,” says Br Richard. As Br Sean concludes in his statement on the imminent closures, Is cuimhin leis an tír na Manaigh: The land remembers the monks.

“That’s how our ancestors felt when they saw monasteries being closed. They knew that even with the monks in exile and the churches closed nothing could expunge the spirit and heritage of prayer and peace created by the life of those dedicated to faith.”

“RESURRECTION MOMENT”

The Brigidine Sisters in Co. Laois are no strangers to change. Having been in education for 200 years, in 2009 their secondary school was amalgamated with the Patrician College and Vocational School to form Mountrath Community School. The Brigidines gifted in trust their convent and school to the local community, and in 2017 they re-opened as a community centre and social enterprise business hub that was named Bloom HQ.

“It was a resurrection moment for the building because it has taken on new life,” says Sr Rita Minehan csb. “It is generating employment and facilities for local groups.”

Martin Meade, chairperson of Mountrath Community Forum (a group behind Bloom HQ) expressed gratitude to the sisters for the gift of the premises, which is now paying its

The former Brigidine convent and school in Mountrath, transformed into Bloom HQ

way. “They gave so much and looked after the community so well, and we are trying to keep that going. We have a school of grinds, music and English classes, and gym and training courses. The legacy of education continues,” he says.

Hot desks, office and meeting spaces and the highest spec internet keeps business and jobs local. The paying activities make it more affordable for community groups such as Scouts, Foróige and other clubs to use the facilities. Martin hopes that Bloom HQ will act as a blueprint for other towns with empty convents. Four Brigidines continue to live in Mountrath.

Sr Rita is chairperson of the board of management at Solas Bhríde Centre and Hermitages in Kildare, where the Brigidines moved in 1992 with a view to “reclaiming her (Brigid) in a new way for a new millennium,” as Sr Rita puts it.

They opened Solas Bhríde in 2015. Scholars, chaplains, students and others visit to hear more about Brigid and Celtic spirituality, as do people of other Christian denominations and faiths. This year, groups from Germany and the US have already booked.

There are three Brigidine sisters present at the centre and Sr Rita hopes that the spirit of St Brigid will live on through 20 lay volunteers or Cairde Bhríde (Friends of Brigid), a group of women and men inspired by the values of St Brigid.

“Religious life as it is will not survive, that is very obvious,” says Sr Rita. “They (Cairde Bhríde) are really very committed to unfolding the legacy of Brigid of Kildare and its relevance to our times. We don’t go back and stay in the past; we see how it is relevant for today.”

NEW LIFE

In Killarney, the imposing grey stone Franciscan friary has become home to Kerry Diocesan Youth Services and a religious bookshop. The church is still used by the Franciscans but four years ago they opened an International Novitiate and Friary which now houses young men and friars from all over Europe and Canada who preside at daily

Eucharist, reconciliation and prayer services.

The four international novices have helped prepare local children for confirmation and do pastoral work such as visiting people at the local St John of God facility. There are also four men in the Irish Province Novitiate. Two are in Rome studying and two are in the Novitiate in Galway where they work in a new youth ministry.

“Like most religious orders we have elderly men; we are blessed that we have some young men coming in,” says Br Pat Lynch OFM, who has spent 15 years as vocations director of the Irish Provence. “We have closed a number of places, we will have to continue to do that, but there is hope because in the future it is going to be smaller numbers of men who commit to prayer and the marginalised and to community life.”

The Franciscans are open to new ministries, especially for their new young friars. “We want to cater for them. They are the future of the order and we have to be aware that some of the ministries we did in the past might not be relevant or speak to the people today,” says Br Pat.

The Franciscans were involved in setting up and running Merchants Quay Ireland Homeless and Drugs Services in Dublin in the 1980s when drug abuse and HIV was rampant. Today they have a presence on the board of this lay-run registered charity.

de Paul, grant-seeking for Good Shepherd projects in the developing world, to new initiatives such as the No Interest Loan Scheme.

This scheme was started by Good Shepherd Australia in the 1980s and has become a model for micro-finance programmes throughout the world. It was introduced in Ireland in 2018 and it involves other organisations referring people who are in need of a small loan but cannot access mainstream sources. They include people in direct provision, women who are being financially controlled by an abusive partner, or those with a bad credit rating. They receive loans of up to €1,000 with no interest, for essential items such as white goods, education and housing rent deposits.

“It provides a safe and affordable alternative to high-cost options such as payday loans or money lenders, which promise ‘fast cash’ but

RESTRUCTURING

In 2017 the Good Shepherds Sisters created Good Shepherd Ireland (GSI) to bring all their ministry activity in Ireland under one umbrella.

“There is nothing constant in life except change and religious life is no different. With a smaller number of sisters, we are restructuring internationally and locally,” says Sr Margaret Lynch, director of GSI. Activities range from supporting older sisters volunteering with groups such as St Vincent

often compound a person’s financial situation,” says Sr Margaret. GSI is currently seeking a funder to pay for a loans officer to make the project more sustainable. “It is already having a huge impact that I would love to bring to scale if funding was available,” she adds.

There are 76 Good Shepherd Sisters in Ireland based in Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Derry and Belfast. The congregation is present in 72 countries around the world. Apostolic sisters work primarily with women

“I believe that religious life will continue though even if it is in a form that is very different from what we see today. God is guiding us. We have only to trust.”

Members of the Franciscan community in Killarney

and children, promoting their rights and dignity from the grassroots level to the UN, and work collaboratively with many groups and organisations. The contemplative sisters live a life of prayer in support of the work of the apostolic sisters.

The Good Shepherd’s charism of having a heart for those who are excluded in society, particularly women and children, is one that many share. “That will continue even if there are no sisters in the future. I do believe that religious life will continue though even if it is in a form that is very different from what we see today. God is guiding us; we have only to trust,” says Sr Margaret.

“IMMENSE VALUE”

In his homily to mark the Day of Consecrated Life 2022 on February 5, Archbishop Dermot Farrell told religious: “Your mission does not

belong to the past. Despite the reduced numbers of those in religious, and your decisions to withdraw from places where your work of service is clearly visible, you are not invisible to us, to the Archdiocese, or to the world. Like the presence of Christ himself, your presence has changed: your very ‘being’ people who are consecrated is of immense value and is greatly appreciated.”

Religious men and women build up the body of Christ through their charisms and in their lives (1 Cor 12:12-30), he said, adding that the 2,500 religious from 54 countries today in the archdiocese are involved in “responding to the cry of refugees, of migrants and of other vulnerable groups, in responding to the cry of the earth, as they strive to promote change, while at the same time endeavouring to deepen the spirituality of people through their ministry of prayer

and witness.”

While the declining numbers, rising age profile, and increasingly negative media image can be disheartening, hope remains. In her president’s report in the 2020-2021 Annual Report of AMRI, Sr Kathleen McGarvey OLA says: “As people called by God and committed to the Good News of the Gospel, we know that ‘the history of salvation is worked out “in hope against hope” (Rom 4:18), through our weaknesses’ (Pope Francis, Patris Corde ). Weakness reminds us of our dependence on God, who is always faithful. Religious life is not something we ourselves created; it is founded and built on a call, to love God above all else, to serve God in our neighbour and to be a sign and instrument of God’s love and fidelity to the world.”

Ann Marie Foley is a freelance writer living in Co. Laois, covering a variety of topics including religion, food, farming and country life, transport and business. She has written for CatholicIreland.net and several other religious publications.

Micro-finance in action at Good Shepherd Ireland

Statue of St Mary Euphrasia, founder of the Good Shepherd Sisters, by Italian sculptor Giovanni Nicolini

Photo: Darafsh, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Darafsh, via Wikimedia Commons

WITH EYES WIDE OPEN JIM DEEDS EASTER PRAYERS BY THE LOUGHSHORE

VISITS TO HOLY PLACES ALLOW US TO RECONNECT WITH OUR FAITH AND OUR TRADITIONS

They would have brought with them their struggles, their illnesses, their worries as well as their joys.

This is the view out of the window space in the old ruined church at Cranfield, Lough Neagh. Lough Neagh sits at the heart of the Northern part of the island of Ireland. It is the largest lake by area in the British Isles, and it supplies 40 per cent of Northern Ireland’s water. Much is made nowadays, and rightly so, of the beauty of this part of Ireland, with people increasingly including a trip round the lough on their staycation itineraries.

Less may be known about its monastic tradition and the many monastic sites and old churches sitting quietly by its shores. Cranfield, on the outskirts of the County Antrim town of Randalstown, is a perfect example. The ruins of the old church sit right on the shoreline of the lough and looking out what would have been the window, you can imagine how the people in the 13th century (from when the church dates) might have felt, their awe at the beauty and power of creation.

I visited this amazing place recently. Closing my eyes there, in my mind’s eye I could see the people coming from the fields around the lough to the old church to pray, worship and give thanks.

In a little gap in the wall, someone has placed a stone with the words, ‘Amazing Grace’ painted onto it in bright colours. I could almost hear their voices lifting up prayer and petition in song. That day, however, all around the church was the noise of nature, of birds chirping and water lapping. It’s quite an idyllic place.

The site is dedicated to St Olcan who, we are told, was found by St Patrick, lying in a grave beside his dead mother. Patrick heard the distressed cries of the baby, born just after his mother was buried, and dug the child out of the grave, giving him a new opportunity for life. Patrick took him in. He grew with and learned from Patrick and became the first consecrated bishop in Ireland.

On this holy site there grew up a tradition of silent prayer while walking around the church. This has lasted to this day, some 800 years on; tradition alive.

A short distance from the church, we go back in time once again to another ancient tradition. A large rock sits on a green bed of grass, its top flat. Tradition has it that Olcan himself lay on that very rock. Not only that, but tradition holds that lying on the rock can heal you of a sore back. I’m not sure about the veracity of that claim. Although, I have to admit that I had a wee lie down on it. Just in case...

Tradition is everywhere in Cranfield, and turning 180 degrees from the rock, we see a ring of thick trees and hedges standing

‘on guard’ around a holy well. The tradition of holy wells is strong in Ireland and many have associations with Patrick. This one, linked with Patrick through his charge Olcan, is said to have healing qualities. People dip rags in the water and tie them to the trees around the well. As they do, they pray for what ails them – illness, worry, sadness. I was struck by the vast array of rags hanging from the trees; some very old and others more recent. I was struck by the many facemasks that have been placed there. It speaks to me of how difficult this time of pandemic has been. Each mask and rag is a symbol of someone’s story, someone’s prayer. I placed mine among them.

A fourth tradition has grown up at Cranfield, also very much connected to the land. The chemical make-up of the water at Cranfield means that at certain times of the year amber coloured crystals come to the surface. Tradition holds that if someone throws one of these into the nearby lough, the worries they carry go with the pebble. As years went by, this evolved to include throwing any pebble into the lough, not just the amber crystals that only appear from time to time.

I found myself at the shore of the lough at the end of my visit to Cranfield. I stood in the sunshine and the cold wind and felt connected to myself, to the land, to tradition, to God. I held a pebble in my hand and recalled the story of Olcan, brought to new life out of the grave. I thought of the people who have come to

Cranfield for centuries seeking new life and freedom from illness and worry. It struck me that this place is all about new life. It is, at its core, an Easter place; a place where death and new life meet, with God’s great glory writ large in the wonder of nature, itself a symbol of the power of new life, all around the pilgrim who has travelled to this sacred spot.

I stood silently by the lough and called to mind my own prayers for new life. I threw my pebble high into the air. It landed with a soft ‘plop’ and I watched as it sank quickly to the depths of the lough, as if hastening my prayers into the depths of God’s merciful love. And then I left, taking with me a deep sense of peace and consolation at having tread ground where so many of our forebears have stood throughout the centuries.

This Easter season, I invite you to join me in a prayer:

• What would your hope or prayer for new life be right now?

• How might you speak this prayer to God?

• How might you ritualise your prayer? A trip to Cranfield? To another holy place?

As we see church attendance falling, I wonder if reconnection to our faith at holy places like Cranfield might not be a good idea? Lough Neagh holds many old monastic and church sites with stories, legends and a deep connection to our tradition of Celtic Spirituality. Well worth exploring, I think...

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

View from Cranfield Old Church

VERONICA AND THE SCREEN CINEMA AND THE CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION

SINCE ITS INCEPTION, FILM HAS PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE INTERPRETATION AND REIMAGINING OF THE CHRISTIAN STORY

BY PAUL CLOGHER

There is little doubting the role played by cinema and online streaming during the lockdown experience. The screens in our lives not only connected us with family, friends and workplaces, but also offered visions of other worlds, other ways of being human. Those same screens can equally distract, disinform, and even deform. Viewing, then, is never an automatic or passive experience but often a matter of how we see. The technological advances of recent decades have redefined the art of cinema to such an extent that it may well be more accurate to speak of a ‘cinematic culture’ that

encompasses the worlds of streaming, social media, and image culture in all their forms. These dynamics made it possible for filmmaking and viewing to continue via many media while cinema theatres remained closed for long periods in many parts of the globe.

Cinema’s multimedia character means that it intersects with, and borrows from, other art forms, such as music, painting, and literature. This constant overlapping with other media and sites of meaning makes it a potent mirror of the ambient culture and, indeed, of ourselves as viewers. One of the

most intriguing dimensions of this is the way in which viewing allows us to imagine ourselves as another. The popularity of the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, a story rooted in the vagaries of human relationships, is but one example of this trend.

All of this has profound implications for the Christian mind and heart. In the darkness of the auditorium or the privacy of the LCD screen, we can be caught up in the noise of constant content and distraction, but we can equally encounter spaces within which to compose ourselves, reflect on the world, and

encounter broader horizons of our humanity. Viewing is very much an active participation in what any one story has to say to, and for, us. The French director Jean-Luc Godard grasps this dimension with great clarity when he describes cinema as a moment of encounter, even love, that renews the legend of Veronica, that patron saint of photographers, who in the sixth Station of the Cross receives the miraculous imprint of Jesus’ face. As he explains: “The cinema is the love, the meeting, the love of ourselves and of life, the love of ourselves on earth.” The screen, he continues, is “the linen of Veronique, the shroud that keeps the trace, the love, of the lived, of the world.”

THE CHRISTIAN STORY

From its inception in the late 19th century, the art of the moving image has played a key role in the interpretation of the Christian story and this trend shows little sign of decline. Films such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) heralded a renewed interest in biblical themes and stories. More recently, mini-series such as HBO’s The Young Pope and The New Pope (2016-2020) and films in the mould of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (2017), an acclaimed meditation on despair, faith and the climate crisis, exemplify the continued relationship between the cinematic and the sacred.

From the beginning, propogandists of all persuasions recognised cinema’s potency as a medium of social and religious transformation. As early as 1907, for example, Pathé’s silent pageant La Vie et Passion de Jésus Christ was heavily censored in Czarist Russia on the grounds of photography’s inadequacy as a form of representation as well as, perhaps, cinema’s potential role as a rival for institutional religion. Not unlike the wind that blows through trees or the primordial presence that hovers over the deep, however, the Word often evades coercion or control, so that on the latter-day shrouds of the screen the redemptive gesture of Christ still reverberates. In what remains of this reflection, I would like to sketch some

important dimensions and examples of this dynamic in three recent iterations of the Gospel story in cinema.

PASSION PLAY

The passion play traditions of European Christianity illustrate the social and dramatic contours of the Gospel. Alongside the great artistic traditions of the renaissance and baroque eras, they exerted an important influence over the early days of film, one that continues in contemporary cinema. The French-Canadian director Denys Arcand’s attention was turned toward the passion story by a chance encounter with an unshaven actor during an audition. When asked about his appearance, the actor replied, “I’m sorry, I’m Jesus.” This led Arcand to attend a passion play in which the actor was playing the lead role. Recounting the event, he recalled the sight of “actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from tourists” and concluded, “I had to make a film.”

Set in contemporary Montreal, Jésus de Montréal (1989) is an update of Veronica’s legendary story, where the imprint of Jesus is left on the world of 1980s Quebec. It tells the story of Daniel Coulombe, an idealistic but mysterious actor who is hired to re-write and modernise a local passion play. While the play’s sceptical tone sparks criticism from the shrine authorities, it is received rapturously by the wider public. One scene suggests that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier, while the play’s conclusion hints that the resurrection may have been a pious fraud. By the same token, Daniel’s performance is sincere and intensely prophetic to the point where he draws ecstatic responses from some audience members who believe him to be Jesus.

As the passion on the mountain increases in popularity, its story begins to play out in the lives of the actors with tragic, yet hopeful, consequences. The story outside the play takes the form of an allegory of the Gospel of Mark and a meditation on artistic integrity as a medium of meaning. Like Mark, Arcand

plays with the boundaries of what we perceive to be the Christian story. Rejecting those who expect to be ‘inside’, Daniel/Jesus forms his own troop of ‘outsiders’ for a passion play which contradicts traditional perceptions of both the Christian story and theatre itself. Amid the tumult, Jesus remains hidden but also present, hinted at, and even unavoidable. “Consumerism may be the legacy of the eighties,” Arcand once explained, “but there has got to be more to life than that. Jesus of Montréal is about a yearning for something else, a search for a sort of meaning.” Against this backdrop, the figure of Daniel embodies an ambiguous, even hidden, trace of redemption.

CONTEMPORARY SETTING

For much of cinematic history, Jesus has invariably been played by white European or American actors. Mark Dornford-May’s Son of Man (2006) represents a decisive and welcome shift from this approach by transposing that story onto a contemporary African setting. Starring Andile Kosi in the title role, the film offers viewers a prophetic messiah who moves among the poor and exposes the injustices and tragedies of the African experience. Set in a fictional southern African state named Judea, Son of Man contemplates what the story of Jesus might look like in contemporary Africa. The massacre of the innocents, for example, takes place during a violent raid on a school where Mary the mother of Jesus works as a teacher. Amid the bodies of dead villagers, an angel in the form of a child announces an impending birth.

The film is also prefaced by a more cosmic but nonetheless grounded encounter

Bearing all the physical hallmarks of a wilderness lifestyle, this Jesus asks a reverberating question:

“In the silence, is there something calling?”

between Jesus and a Satan-like figure in the desert. In a variation on the temptation scenes of the synoptic gospels, the two men argue until Jesus pushes the Satan figure down a sand dune with the words, “this is my world.” A profoundly incarnational statement, the scene illustrates the film’s urge to incarnate the Jesus story in the contemporary African reality and let it take shape in the faces and lives of those who inhabit its world.

GENDER AND FAITH

Both Jésus de Montréal and Son of Man contemplate the humanity of Jesus and the meaning of the Christian story as it encounters new social, cultural, and political realities. In the Christian imagination, the humanity of Jesus is intimately bound up with the humanity of his mother Mary. We can equally think of this humanity in a more expansive way as emerging through the lives of the women who form the Christian body. In Garth Davis’ Mary Magdalene (2018), we encounter another trace of the Christian story that restores its title character’s role as the ‘apostle to the apostles’ and explores the relationship between Christianity and gender.

In a striking departure from both cinematic history and several popular traditions, Mary, played by Rooney Mara, leads a relatively sedate life on the shores of Magdala. After she spurns an arranged marriage, her family

fear that her introverted demeanour and desire for solitude may be the product of demonic forces. Following an aborted water exorcism, she remains in an almost catatonic state until a wandering preacher enters the story. Played by Joaquin Phoenix and bearing all the physical hallmarks of a wilderness lifestyle, this Jesus asks a reverberating question: “In the silence, is there something calling?” Their encounter leads to another river. In a detail drawn from the Gospel of John, which depicts Jesus and his disciples practising baptism, Mary’s immersion brings new life but equally draws her into conflict with both her family and a suspecting group of disciples.

Davis’ exploration of the relationship between gender and faith offers a timely reflection on Christianity’s dialogue with contemporary culture. In one of the film’s most evocative scenes, a group of women question Jesus on how one forgives sexual violence and patriarchal honour killing. Their exchange hints that the death of a patriarchal world lies in the realisation of the Gospel, a liberation which, for many, still awaits.

UNFINISHED STORY

Two millennia of interpretation and representation offer viewers an expansive and diverse landscape through which the Christian story is imagined and reimagined. Cinema is one site where the dynamism and tensions of that story are revealed. Such

tensions are a mirror of the incarnation itself. To think of a Christianity that exists in pure seclusion or apart from culture is to ignore the incarnational dimensions of the Gospel. The incarnation reveals how there is no such thing as ‘worldless’, wordless, or imageless Christianity. The films mentioned here have their limitations in either style or taste, but each equally makes a profound contribution to the unfolding of the Gospel within contemporary culture.

The last two years have been tinged with a certain uncertainty and the LCD screens of the phone, television and laptop are, by now, probably in need of the stand-by button’s respite. On the latter-day shrouds of the screen, the humanity of God still speaks in dynamic and sometimes unexpected ways. These films reimagine the Christian story as a series of tensions, but tension is always the birthing ground of creativity. That creativity points the mind and heart toward the unfinished story of Christian hope, and mirrors, perhaps, a more sacred uncertainty as humanity moves toward the unknown horizon of redemption which that story proclaims.

Paul Clogher is a lecturer in religious studies and theology in Waterford Institute of Technology.

From the beginning, propogandists of all persuasions recognised cinema’s potency as a medium of social and religious transformation

SHARING GOD’S WORD WITH CHILDREN

BY JESSIE ROGERS

Howwe go about sharing bible stories with children reveals a lot of what we really believe about both Scripture and children. Rebecca Nye, an expert in childhood spirituality, wonders whether a lot of what is done with the aim of appealing to children “is made on the assumption that neither children nor the Bible have profound spiritual qualities”

(Rebecca Nye, Children’s Spirituality: What it is and why it matters ). That is quite an indictment! When we stand in awe of the depths and dignity of childhood and experience Scripture as the transformative word of God in our own lives, we will be in a good place to wonder about creative and

fruitful ways of bringing the two together. Children already experience God. They bear God’s image and are created with an instinct for connection. We do not fill empty vessels with spiritual ideas or manufacture the link between God and the child. God longs to connect with children and children long to connect with God, even if they have no words for that longing. The role of caregivers and educators is to nurture that connection and to give the stories, images and safe and welcoming spaces for children to affirm, explore and deepen their fundamental instinct for God. Making that our starting point is a gamechanger.

By calling the Bible ‘word of God’ we are recognising it as an important part of how God communicates with and relates to us. When we call it ‘Scripture’ we acknowledge that these are sacred texts for the faith community. The Bible contains stories and songs that shape us and that give us a language for our spiritual lives. The Old Testament is full of stories of how people encounter God and the difference that makes. In the Gospels we meet Jesus and come to know him by watching and listening to him in the stories themselves. The stories allow us to meet a Jesus who is not just a creation of our own imaginations. This is as true for children as for anyone.

GOOD RETELLINGS OF BIBLE STORIES FOR CHILDREN SUPPORT THE CHILD TO ENGAGE WITH THE TEXT WITHOUT DICTATING WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE AWAY FROM IT

STORYTELLING

Bible stories do need to be adapted for children, the more so the younger they are. Good bible story books employ ageappropriate language, length, and story structure and engage young readers or listeners with visual storytelling alongside the words. Doing this well is no easy task. There are also choices to be made about which stories are told. Clearly not all stories are suitable for children. But we are not limited to the sweet and happy stories; children experience fear, anger and loss too and the word of God can speak to all of that. A bible story book reveals what the adults who wrote and illustrated it think the bible story is about, and what they believe children want or need to see and hear. If the depths of either the bible or the child are not duly acknowledged the results will be stories that do not engage the child or are too simplistic to become the basis for a lifelong dialogue with the word of God.

It is always tempting to try to tame the Bible. We domesticate the bible stories when we think that their function is to tell children what to believe or how to behave. If that is our approach, we will try to find the ‘moral’ or the ‘lesson’ which is the kernel that we want the child to take away with them, as if the story itself were just a wrapper to be discarded once we have the ‘truth’ inside. Can you imagine approaching other literature like that? Who, after reading a wonderful story to a child at bedtime, would stop and ask them what they learned or what they should do in light of the story? We know that stories and storytelling do something much more fundamental than impart information or moral lessons. Why would we want bible stories to do less?

Good retellings of bible stories for children will be simple but not simplistic. They will support the child to engage with the text without dictating to them what they are supposed to take away from the story. Illustrations are important, but they should invite the child in and not place unhelpful limits on the possibilities for engagement. If everyone is a smiley cartoon character, how can the child bring their own shadows to the story? Good illustrations will not be too quick

to dictate what the child should have heard or noticed or how they should have interpreted a character’s reaction to a situation. A domesticating reading could be masquerading as a concluding prayer or an instruction on how to behave. What Craig Dykstra says of religious language is true for both the text and the illustrations in bible story books. It should be “clear enough to be comprehensible by young people, rich enough to be meaningful, concrete enough to relate to the world as it is, and critical enough to keep open the dynamics of enquiry and continuing conversation” (quoted in Elizabeth F. Caldwell, I Wonder: Engaging a Child’s Curiosity about the Bible). If children are not supported in engaging the word of God in this way, they may well decide it is something to be left behind as they grow up.

WONDERING TOGETHER

God’s word is best shared with children in a context of genuine connection and response. Reading or telling bible stories and wondering about them together allows connection to happen on multiple levels. Seeing the conversation that happens during and after the story as ‘wondering together’ opens up a whole new approach. Instead of the adult knowing what the story is about and asking leading questions or guiding the child to the ‘take-home lesson’ that the adult already possesses, adult and child together are addressed by the story and open to being surprised, intrigued, troubled, or delighted by it. If the storyteller wonders about the story themselves, genuinely and openly, they give permission for the child to wonder too.

If we desire the wondering to continue in creative response time, then the colouring pages so often used in parish and school settings may not be the best option. Colouring-in is a fun activity, but think about what the ‘colouring page’ does. It re-presents a single snapshot of the story and asks children to engage with and internalise only that. They can decide whether Abraham has a blue or red cloak, for instance, but not if he is excited or frightened or a bit of both when he sets out to the land God will show him.

And what if they wondered about Sarah in the story and she does not even appear in the picture? The same materials – paper and crayons – offered as free drawing would allow the children to enter the story wherever they like, or to draw something from their own life or even a different story. The story of Abraham’s journey, for example, could be the catalyst for them to draw some of the people and objects that they miss from the place they left when the family moved. And if there was a sand-tray and some wooden figures, they could take the journey across the desert …

Those of us who practice lectio divina know how life-giving praying with Scripture can be when we see our lives reflected in the text and find words and images that deepen our faith and connection with God, others and the world. Those dynamics can also come into play when we share God’s word with children. Children benefit from having the visual alongside the verbal, either in pictures or story-telling materials, but the aim is still to open up the story for them, to invite them in, to support them to wonder and to respond to the word that God speaks directly to them.

What could happen if we start from a position of trusting God to connect with children and are open to being delighted, disturbed and surprised by Scripture ourselves? What if we gave up the need to control the outcome of what happens when we share God’s word with children and trusted the Spirit to be the teacher? I wonder.

Dr Jessie Rogers is a lecturer in Sacred Scripture and dean of the Faculty of Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

If the storyteller wonders about the story themselves, genuinely and openly, they give permission for the child to wonder too

NANO NAGLE AND DISCOVERING OUR “-NESS”

ALTHOUGH SHE LIVED OVER 200 YEARS AGO, FOUNDER OF THE PRESENTATION SISTERS, NANO NAGLE, HAD A THOROUGHLY MODERN APPROACH TO LIVING AUTHENTICALLY AND DISCERNING ONE’S PURPOSE IN LIFE

BY MICHELLE JONES

The2006 film You, Me and Dupree concludes with Dupree (played by Owen Wilson) on stage in a conference room exhorting the enthusiastic crowd before him to find and live from their inner “-ness”.

“What’s ‘-ness’?” he rhetorically asks. “It’s your name, plus ‘-ness’!” What Dupree is pointing to is the importance and joy of discovering and living from the unique identity inscribed upon the fabric of our being. He means the same thing by “-ness” as T. S. Eliot means by his reference to one’s “deep and inscrutable singular name” in his poem ‘The Naming of Cats’.

Nano Nagle is the perfect example of what Dupree has in mind. For all its complexity, Nano’s life was remarkable for her simplicity of being and purpose; clearly, she knew and lived from her “Nano-ness”. Here, we will explore Nano’s story from the perspective of her living from her deep and inscrutable singular name, and consider how she can inspire us to discover and live from our own, God-given “-ness”.

CALLED TO SPEND HER LIFE FOR THE POOR

With our minds on Nano’s anniversary in April (she died on April 26, 1784), we need look no further than the scene of her death to discover Nano’s “-ness”. Nano’s last words to the small group of sisters gathered at her bedside were “Love one another as you have hitherto done. Spend yourselves for the poor.” Nano’s life was branded with a call to spend her life for the poor.

‘Nano Nagle, Foundress of the Sisters of the Presentation’ by Jennifer Norton

It took time for grace to germinate and cultivate within Nano the seed of her deep and inscrutable singular name. Nano was far removed from the reality of poverty in her early years. After her schooling (perhaps in Belgium), Nano and her sister Ann entered the Parisian social scene and became wellaccustomed to its glamour and leisure. Yet when the sisters returned to Ireland after the death of their father, Nano was profoundly moved by the devastating impoverishment and societal breakdown that confronted her in her homeland. Stark was the contrast between the circumstances she had known abroad and what now surrounded her.

This bitter taste of life’s realities awakened Nano to the simple, integrating thread of her life; it awakened her to her God-given “-ness”. Nano discerned that to be truly herself, she had to spend her life in service of the poor. Although her life from this time forth was far from simple, this simple, clear imperative guided Nano throughout the rest of her life. Clarity regarding what her life was most deeply about was her inner light as she navigated her way through the darkness of adversity, false starts, disappointments and uncertainties. Initially, Nano and Ann served the poor as

best they could from their own resources. Then, after their mother’s death, which was soon followed by the death of Ann, Nano decided to fulfil the demands of her deepest heart by entering a convent in Paris. This proved to be something of a dead end: Nano was aching to be of concrete service to the poor, but the convent’s rule of enclosure meant that she couldn’t reach them. So, inevitably feeling rather a failure and surely full of uncertainties, yet in profound faithfulness to her deep and inscrutable singular name, Nano returned to Ireland.

Back home, Nano moved in with her brother and sister-in-law in Cork and embarked on the incredibly risky venture of establishing a school for impoverished girls. This was in direct contravention of the Penal Laws, and could have landed Nano in jail; certainly, she faced great opposition from her brother when he found out. In this bold venture, Nano demonstrated that we are enabled to do the apparently impossible when we are heeding our “-ness”.

The unfolding of Nano’s ministry is familiar to many of us. This one school led to seven schools for poor children across the city of Cork. Nano further fulfilled the mandate

inscribed upon the fabric of her soul by visiting the poor by night. Again, this was perilous work but her inner flame, which we see represented by the lantern she famously carried about with her, emboldened her to go beyond her own natural boundaries.

We continue to witness Nano living from the deep simplicity of her singular name in the way she sought to provide for the perpetuation of her work of educating and caring for the poor. As her ministry grew, Nano looked for a community of women that would give her work stability into the future. A congregation of Ursuline sisters from France agreed to help. Nano poured her own money, which she’d inherited from an uncle, into building a convent in Cork, and she also paid for Irish women to travel to France to be formed as Ursulines and to travel back again. We can imagine the extent of the organising, planning and excitement that would have consumed Nano over many months and years. And we can only imagine how bitter Nano’s disappointment would have been when enclosure again became a stumbling block. The Ursuline Sisters were not permitted to go beyond the convent walls to join in Nano’s mission of spending herself for the poor.

Ever faithful to her “-ness”, Nano eventually founded her own order – a non-enclosed order, the order that would eventually be known as the Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, Nano finally made formal and explicit the reality that had defined her life – the commitment to spending herself for the poor. This is the Presentation legacy which, in a variety of forms, flourishes today.

Visiting the poor by night was perilous work but her inner flame, represented by the lantern she famously carried about with her, emboldened her to go beyond her own natural boundaries

‘Nano and the Children’ by Annette McCormack. The sculpture is located at Nano Nagle’s birthplace in Ballygriffin, Cork. Photo: Dalal Smiley

NANO’S LIFE AS INSPIRATION FOR BECOMING WHO WE ARE

Nano’s simplicity of being and purpose can encourage us to uncover and embrace our inner “-ness”. In his book Discovering Your Personal Vocation, the Jesuit theologian Herbert Alphonso refers to our “-ness” as our “personal vocation”. He says that for each of us, our personal vocation is “my unrepeatable uniqueness, the ‘name’ by which God calls me, my truest or deepest self”. Clearly, in using the word “vocation”, Alphonso has in mind something far

deeper, something far more interior and fundamental than what is traditionally understood by that term. Alphonso goes on to explain that “the personal vocation is precisely a person’s unrepeatably unique way of giving and surrendering self – not of closing in on self. In other words, the personal vocation is precisely a person’s unrepeatably unique way of opening out onto community –opening out onto social reality, social responsibilities, social commitment.”

Our “-ness”, or our personal vocation, is the key to wholeness in our lives. If we are in touch with and living from the divinely given meaning of our lives, we may be busy, but we are not scattered. We see this in Nano. She ran schools, visited the sick, cared for the elderly, and initiated and led a religious order – yet there is a fundamental unity in her life: throughout everything she did, she was spending herself in service of the poor. Clarity about her personal vocation helped Nano to know what to say “yes” to, and what to say “no” to – whether it was saying “no” to enclosed religious life, or “yes” to the risky business of starting illegal schools.

We needn’t attend a conference with Dupree in order to discover and come to live from our “-ness”. Rather, as we see in Nano’s story, it is as simple – and challenging – as being attentive to the whispers of our deepest selves within the circumstances of our lives. It is a matter of discerning within the fabric of our being the orienting and integrating thread that

makes us uniquely ourselves. It can help to ask ourselves questions such as, “When and how do I experience myself as being fully alive and bringing life to others?”

And, “In those times when I’m feeling restless and somehow estranged from my truest self, what is it that is being denied or not sufficiently expressed?”

Of course, prayer is the ideal space for exploring these questions. After all, our “-ness” is our God-given meaning; it’s that deep and inscrutable name which is at the heart of our existence and the key to our flourishing and integration. We can be confident that as we come before our God of love with childlike simplicity and trust, we will come to know deeply what it means for God to say to us personally “I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). Additionally, a spiritual director can provide invaluable guidance and support as we seek to be attuned to that spirit which shapes the core of our being.

Nano Nagle died well over 200 years ago, yet, because she was steadfastly faithful to the deepest truth of her being, her light continues to shine brightly in our world. If, inspired by Nano, we discover and live from our divinely-gifted “-ness”, we too will bring light and life to those around us and beyond – whether we realise it or not.

My thanks to Srs Margaret Walsh PBVM and Anne O’Leary PBVM for their kind assistance with fact-checking and images, respectively.

Michelle Jones is a consecrated woman living a life of prayer in rural Western Australia. She is a Presentation Sisters lecturer in theology with BBI: The Australian Institute of Theological Education, and author of The Gospel Mysticism of Ruth Burrows: Going to God with Empty Hands.

It can help to ask ourselves questions such as, “When and how do I experience myself as being fully alive and bringing life to others?”

Nano Nagle: artwork by students of Binalbagan Catholic College, Negros, the Philippines. Photo: Anne O’Leary PBVM

FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE

EMBRACING CHANGE

A STRONG BOND IS ESSENTIAL WHEN IT COMES TO NAVIGATING PARENTHOOD AND THE ‘EMPTY NEST’

Isn’tit interesting that the conventional wisdom in psychology is that people resist change because it’s bound to be difficult? The single most lifechanging event that can happen for parents is the birth of a baby. Yet that is a change that is more often embraced than resisted.

There are libraries of books on how to parent children, but reading about broken nights is no preparation for the loss of sleep when a baby wakes up screaming a couple of times a night. Becoming a parent is a massive change that will turn each person’s life upside down.

It’s wonderful for a couple to have a baby but there is a downside – the potentially monumental changes that will keep happening over about 20 years. When children finally leave home and their parents return to being a couple again, they will be very different people.

Becoming parents means saying goodbye to the more carefree aspects of a couple’s early relationship. Children demand time, and couple relationships can quickly stop being a priority. Busy spouses can fall into the habit of not talking to each other about anything but issues to do with the children and practical matters. Then when something important to discuss comes up, they are out of practice.

No parent can prepare for the far-reaching emotional changes that are inevitable as their family grows. Coping with the different

stages from infancy through childhood and adolescence is bound to be challenging. During the teenage years, many parents look forward to the day that their young people will finally leave home and they can enjoy going back to being a couple again.

OPEN COMMUNICATION

It is not true that couples who rarely or never engage in conflict have a good marriage; some do, many don’t. People who avoid arguing when they have a disagreement may be so afraid of conflict that difficult issues are never resolved. To avoid dissent in matters relating to their children, they focus on what is agreeable and ignore the rest.

If couples don’t talk openly and freely about things that matter, either of two things happens. The first is they make assumptions about what the other thinks or feels. If one person is emotionally upset and assumes the other knows this and is ignoring it, it must mean that s/he is not loved enough, or that their emotional needs are not important. A good guide to the state of any relationship is how open both parties are to talking about feelings. Many of us know married couples who have a volatile relationship. Friends wonder at how they stay together. They have frequent, passionate and noisy rows but they also talk and laugh and enjoy being together. Would it surprise you to learn that volatile couples who

communicate openly have a higher likelihood of staying together than couples who never fight?

Spouses are not good at predicting how well they will cope with the expected, and mostly unexpected, changes when they revert to being a couple again. Time and time again I have coached people who made the decision to prioritise their children’s needs. For the sake of the children, they would stay married. The plan was to separate once the children left home. The plan changed when they found that they had a strong bond. The coaching that changed their communication changed how they related.

CHANGING ATTITUDES

The belief that people will resist change has spawned an industry of self-help books for individuals, and training in change management for executives. Chip and Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, suggest that often what looks like resistance to change is simply a lack of clarity. Researchers at West Virginia University found that people were more likely to embrace change when the new behaviour expected of them was crystal clear.

Nothing may seem to be wrong in the relationship of couples who don’t talk much, until the ‘empty nest’ exposes how little they interact. What a tragedy if a

couple who look forward to having the house to themselves discover that life without the children is so lonely that it highlights a lack of intimacy in their marital relationship

Life expectancy today is much higher than it was for previous generations. The stigma of separation is gone, and people will consider separation when there is little positive or life-giving energy in their marriage. So it’s no wonder that couples experience fear and are apprehensive about coping with the changes that will come when the children leave home.

We all encounter many major changes in our lives: some are hard, others easy. People who are more likely to embrace rather than resist change learn how to make adjustments that effectively change their hearts and minds and attitude. I like the following quote attributed to Oprah Winfrey: “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.”

Carmel Wynne is a life coach, crossprofessional supervisor and author based in Dublin. For more information go to www.carmelwynne.org

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

BY MARIA HALL

Of all the signs and symbols we use in prayer, the Sign of the Cross is the most common. It permeates the Mass, the sacraments and our personal devotions. We even see athletes making the sign of the cross before they race. If we see someone making the sign of the cross, we think “Catholic!” This universally understood sign sums up our identity.

But because we make the sign of the cross so frequently, we are in danger of taking it for granted. The symbol of the cross dominates Lent and Holy Week, so it is the perfect time to reflect on the significance of tracing it upon ourselves and how it has the potential to be a unique source of evangelisation.

ORIGINS AND HERESY

One of the earliest records of Christians using the sign of the cross was in 211 AD when Tertullian wrote about how Christians would sign themselves regularly:

…in all our travels and movements, in our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross.

In times of persecution, this was impossible. The fish, anchor and Chi-Rho were less obvious and easier-to-use symbols. When they were able, Christians crossed themselves on the forehead. When Constantine made Christianity legal, the church was free to identify itself publicly. From this point, the custom of making a larger cross developed and we see it appearing in liturgical ceremonies. In the 4th century, St Basil refers to the Apostles

as those who “taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross”. Of sacred functions, St Augustine says, “if it be not applied to the foreheads of believers; to the water, with which they are regenerated; to the chrism, with which they are anointed, and to the holy bread, with which they are nourished, no rite is duly performed.”

In those early days, the sign of the cross was as much a part of everyday life as it was in the church’s liturgy. St Athanasius (c 370 AD) writes of the blessing of meat before a meal: “When thou art sat down at table, and beginest to break thy bread, having signed it with the sign of the cross – give thanks.”

St Cyril of Jerusalem instructs his catechumens to not be afraid of the sign of the cross and to use it freely on the forehead: “Use that sign, eating and drinking, sitting and lying, rising from bed, conversing and walking; in one word, use it on all occasions.” But Christians didn’t always get it right; in the 5th century, St Caesarius had to warn people not to cross themselves when they were on their way to commit adultery or steal!

In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Monophysite heresy threatened to split the church. It held that Christ did not have two natures, human and divine, but that he was solely divine.

In opposition to this, Christians began to sign themselves making a large gesture across their chest (using two fingers representing both natures), making sure that it was visible to everyone.

OLD TESTAMENT AND THE COSMOS

The early Christians were aware of the connection between their practice and events in the Old Testament. In Ezekiel 9, God’s

messenger was instructed to “go through the whole city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the forehead of everyone who is distressed or troubled.” This mark was the Tav, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which was the shape of a cross. It was the seal of God which placed his people under special protection. This is mirrored In Revelation, where the 144,000 who were saved, were “marked with God’s seal on their foreheads”.

Justin Martyr described the sign of the cross as the “greatest symbol of the strength and rule of Christ.” He also drew on Plato and his ‘Prophecy of the Cross’ for inspiration. In the astronomical world, it was understood that there were two great movements in the stars; the ecliptic movement of the sun and the orbit of the earth. They intersect and form the shape of a cross, imprinted across the entire cosmos, connecting with the Demiruge, the Creator of the World. Justin saw this as the explanation for God:

The Cross of Golgotha is foreshadowed in the structure of the universe itself. The instrument of torment on which the Lord died is written into the structure of the universe. The cosmos speaks to us of the Cross, and the Cross solves for us the enigma of the cosmos. It is the real key to all reality. – Pope Benedict XVI

LEFT TO RIGHT?

Originally, we traced from right shoulder to left, the right shoulder reminding us that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. The right therefore represents all that is good. Pope Leo IV (d 855) decreed that all blessings should be given from right to left but the faithful got into the habit of copying the priest and so therefore

“LET THE SIGN OF THE CROSS BE CONTINUALLY MADE ON THE HEART AND IN ALL OUR ACTIONS. LET US MAKE IT ON OUR BREASTS AND ALL OUR FRIENDS, THAT WE MAY BE ENTIRELY COVERED WITH THIS INVINCIBLE ARMOUR OF CHRISTIANS.” – ST GAUDENTIUS

In the astronomical world, it was understood that there were two great movements in the stars; the ecliptic movement of the sun and the orbit of the earth. They intersect and form the shape of a cross, imprinted across the entire cosmos.

‘Shadow of the Cross’ on the First Sunday of Lent 2022 in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.

Photo: Séamus Devitt CSsR

their actions were a mirror image; left to right. By the end of the Middle Ages, the Eastern and Western churches had differing styles. In the 15th century, the Brigittine nuns of the Monastery of Sion in England stated that “one should begin with the head and move downward, then to the left side and to the right.” This was because “Jesus came down from the Father (head), was born as man (breast), suffered on the cross (left) and ascended into heaven (right).” This custom has survived to the present day.

MIRACLES

There are numerous stories involving miracles caused by the sign of the cross. St Benedict (d 548) was sent to sort out a monastery where the monks had fallen into unruly ways. Benedict sought to restore discipline, but the monks weren’t happy and plotted to kill him. One day they put poison in his drink, but Benedict’s habit was to bless what he was about to receive and as he made the sign of the cross over the glass, it shattered into pieces!

‘The fire in the Borgo’ (1517) was painted by a pupil of Raphael. It depicts a miracle attributed to Pope Leo. A serious fire had broken out in the district next to the Vatican. He stood in front of the old St Peter’s and blessed it with the sign of the cross and the fire went out!

RENEWED FERVOUR

Arise betimes from your bed, cross your breast and your forehead, wash your hands and face, comb your hair and ask the grace of God to speed you in all your works; then go to Mass and ask mercy for all your trespasses… when ye have done, break your fast with good meat and drink, but before eating, cross your mouth; your diet will be better for it.

The Young Children’s Book dating from the 15th century

Recently Pope Francis has said how it hurts him when he sees children making the sign of the cross so badly. He said, “Children must learn to pray. Maybe they’ll forget or choose a different path, but that prayer will remain in their hearts, because it is a seed of life, the seed

of dialogue with God.” We must be careful to teach young people properly and however rushed we may be, always make the sign with thought and care.

All of us are all guilty of making many lacklustre signs. Pope Benedict reminded us that “the most important aspect… is doing it while you are fully present in the moment.” That is our challenge.

IN THE NAME?

The words we say are a grammatically incomplete phrase, so what do we do “in the name”?

The answer is everything! Our entire Christian lives are lived in the name of our Creator. He is concerned with everything we do, and we do it for him. This should give us enormous comfort, but it is also a huge responsibility. Whoever said being a Christian was easy?

This Lent and Holy Week, we might reflect on what this simple gesture means and strive to make it with renewed sincerity and conviction.

Let us pray the sign

• May it remind us of our baptism, that we have been chosen by Christ to do his work on earth.

• May it remind us of our belief in the Triune God, source of all Creation.

• May it remind us of the cross upon which Christ suffered, died and saved us for eternal life with him.

Let us live the sign

• Let’s not be afraid to make the sign in public and allow others to see the work of

Christ in action.

• Let’s bless our children at night-time.

• Let’s make it at mealtimes, when we see an ambulance, when we pass a church.

• Make the sign in moments of temptation or despair.

• Let’s make the sign of the cross with confidence, to show the world who we are.

AMEN!

Finally, we can’t forget this powerful concluding word. It is our ‘yes’ to everything the sign of the cross means, everything we believe in. It deserves our respect and to be spoken with passion and love. This Lent, let’s banish dull Amens!

The most basic Christian gesture in prayer is and always will be the sign of the cross. It is a way of confessing Christ crucified with one’s very body. We make the sign of the cross on ourselves and thus enter the power of the blessing of Jesus Christ. We make the sign over people to whom we wish a blessing ... Through the cross, we can become sources of blessing for one another – Pope Benedict XVI

FURTHER READING

Cardinal

Bert

Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Part Four)

Ghezzi, The Sign of the Cross: Recovering the Power of Ancient Prayer (free to download at wordonfire.org)

Maria Hall is a music director at St Wilfred’s Church, Preston, England. A qualified teacher, she has a Master’s degree from the Liturgy Centre, Maynooth, and is a consultant on liturgical matters for schools and parishes. www.mariahall.org

Praying the Rosary

MEDITATING THE GOSPEL STORY WITH THE MOTHER OF THE LORD

By Fr George Wadding CSsR

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that when we pray the rosary in a prayerful, contemplative manner, it lifts us into a world where “we see and enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known.” Fr George Wadding CSsR is well-known for his thoughtful but simple and imaginative style of writing. In this little book, he invites us to explore the twenty scenes from the story of Jesus our Redeemer that make up the Joyful, Sorrowful, Luminous and Glorious mysteries of the Rosary. Walking and praying with Mary, we accompany the Lord along his way. This beautifully illustrated book is for beginners, as well as those who have been praying the rosary for many years. It can be used by the family or a prayer group. It is ideal for those who wish to pray the rosary tranquilly, resting in the mysteries, like Mary, ‘who pondered them in her heart.’ It is well-bound but still small enough to slip into a handbag or a pocket, and the colourful images for each decade will long stay in the memory. May God’s Spirit be with all who seek comfort in its pages

Aglow with the Spirit

Irish Saints in the Ordo

Aglow with the Spirit offers some ready-to-hand material on Irish saints celebrated in the Ordo, that is, the Liturgical Calendar for Ireland. Aglow with the Spirit also has a word on certain other saints of Ireland, North Britain and beyond, in whom the author has found inspiration from having lived and worked and prayed in places evangelised by them.

Among the saints featured here are the national patrons, Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille. Featured, too, are such regional guardians as Ita and Gobnait in Munster and Moninna whose remit reaches from Slieve Gullion in Armagh to the Cooleys and the Mountains of Mourne. True, biographical information on many saints may be sparse, but there is nearly always enough to fire the imagination.

Redemptorist John J. Ó Ríordáin writes in a popular and readable style, suitable for sacristy and private use. Covering over 80 Irish saints, this book is rich in our cultural and religious heritage.

To order, contact Redemptorist Communications St Joseph’s Monastery, St Alphonsus Road

Dundalk, County Louth

Telephone: 00353 (0)1 4922 488

Email: sales@redcoms.org www.redcoms.org

€9.95 (plus P+P)

OLYMPIC ADVENTURES

OLYMPIC FEATS OF GREAT STRENGTH AND BRAVERY OPEN OUR EYES TO THE POWER OF GOD

COLM MEANEY CSsR

Atthe recent Tokyo Olympics, Hidilyn Diaz, an air force pilot, won the first ever gold medal for the Philippines. The sport was weightlifting. This was a spectacular achievement, although not altogether surprising; during my mission work in the rural Philippines, I often saw teenagers carrying anything up to 70 kgs in carriers on their backs (Hidilyn lifted 125 kilos!) Stooped, with the basket strapped with a belt around their foreheads, they would walk for miles to deliver their cargo of fresh fruits and vegetables: banana, mango, cabbage, onions, cassava. From the delivery point, the produce would be taken in trucks to Cebu city, sold to customers eager for fresh rural foodstuffs, then taken to their up-market condominiums in the wealthier suburbs of the city.

An even more astounding story is that of Filipino swimmer, Ernie Gawilan. He was born without legs, the victim of an attempted abortion. When he was still an infant his mother

died of cholera and his father left him, so he was raised by his grandfather. Later he was cared for by the Maryknoll Sisters (a missionary order from the US). Later still his talent for swimming was spotted. He won the first ever gold for the Philippines at the Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2018 and has won medals at other competitions. Ernie has spoken of the power of

God in his life, and how he turned what for many would have seemed a hopeless start in life into something spectacularly fruitful.

MEMORABLE FEATS

The Games, stretching back to at least 200 BC, include some very special moments. One of the most memorable concerns a Scot called Eric Liddell (he was actually born in China, of Scottish parents). Eric was a runner, and his specialty was the 100-metre sprint. He was due to run in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924, but when he discovered that the heats of that race would be run on a Sunday, he refused to participate. As a strict Presbyterian, he refused to run on such a holy day, interpreting quite strictly one of the Ten Commandments “Keep holy the Sabbath day”. So, he decided that he would try instead to win in the 400-metre race – not his forte. But he trained hard and found himself in the

Filipino weight-lifter and gold medal winner Hidilyn Diaz

line-up for the final of that race. An American runner was the favourite, but Eric seems to have had divine help.

As he prepared for the start of the race, one of the team masseurs handed him a slip of paper, on which was written a quote from the Old Testament: “Whoever honours me, I will honour” (1 Sam 2:30). He sensed that the message to him was that he was making the right decision in not running in the 100 metres (being loyal to his beliefs) but was being given a premonition of how the 400-metre race would turn out. And, lo and behold, he won the 400-metre race!

That famous race was immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire (1981). Most people might think that the title of the film refers to the striking description of the prophet Elijah being “taken up” in a fiery chariot, as recounted in 2 Kings 2:11, but then why the plural “chariots”? No, the title better refers to an even more memorable story in that same biblical book, this time 2 Kings 6:14-23. This recounts the tale of Elijah’s successor, Elisha, and his servant who were in the Israelite city of Dothan. At that time there was animosity between Israel and its neighbour Syria. In various encounters, Israel was getting the better of Syria thanks largely to the prophetic help of Elisha who was so accurate in his predictions that the Syrian king was told, “Elisha tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” So the king sent a formidable force to capture Elisha.

EYES OPENED

When Elisha’s servant looked out one morning, he saw the Syrian army and its chariots surrounding the city and he sensed doom and defeat. But in a series of prophetic interventions, all having to do with sight and blindness, Elisha won over the conquering enemy and in the end made peace between the two nations. His first request of the Lord was to open his servant’s eyes, and when he did so the servant saw that the Syrian forces were themselves surrounded by a vast army of (heavenly) “chariots of fire” – hence the movie title. When the Syrians approached to capture Elisha, he prayed that they would be

struck blind, and they were. He then told their leaders that they were in the wrong city, and that he would lead them to the correct one. He took them to Samaria, another hated enemy of the Syrians. Elisha prayed for their sight to be returned, and when their eyes were duly opened, the Syrians knew that they were in big trouble. The king of Israel asked Elisha if he (the king) would slay all the Syrians. But Elisha replied “You shall not slay them. Would you slay those whom you had captured with your sword?” (prisoners of war). Instead, Elisha ordered that a great feast be prepared for the prisoners, after which they went home in safety. “And the Syrians came no more on raids into the land of Israel.”

A final intriguing distant echo of this story of Elisha may be found in the two disciples walking to Emmaus, in the Gospel of Luke (24:13-35). The two disconsolate walkers are temporarily ex-disciples of, in their eyes, a defeated prophet (Jesus). On the road, the risen Jesus speaks with them, but it is only when he shares food with them, in the “breaking of the bread”, that their eyes are opened. And when their eyes are opened, they are changed; from being ex-disciples of a loser would-be Messiah, they become invigorated heralds of the greatest good news of all time: that the Lord has truly risen!

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

Window in the Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais Church, Paris, depicting Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus

HAVEN’T WE BEEN HERE BEFORE?

LESSONS FROM THE GERMAN CHURCH

FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN GERMANY HAS BEEN ENGAGED IN A PROCESS OF REFLECTION AND OPEN DEBATE. WHAT CAN THE IRISH CHURCH LEARN AS WE CONTINUE ON OUR OWN SYNODAL PATHWAY?

BY CHRISTINA MALONE

InMay 2015, Ireland made history by becoming the first country in the world to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, a debate which many agree was won online with #hashtags and social media posts. Many people travelled from abroad to be part of the referendum. In the years since then, terms like transgender and LGBTQ+ have become part of the national conversation and of everyday vocabulary. Not long before the marriage referendum, Pope Francis famously said “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”, words which were received as among the most compassionate from any pope about homosexuality. Furthermore, Pope Francis has opened up discussions on topics such as ordination for women. There is increased debate in church circles about how the church can reach out to people and make them welcome. One of the most public forums where these and

other themes within the church have been debated is the SynodaleWeg, the German Synodal Path.

GERMAN CHURCH SYNODAL PATH

The Synodal Path was established by the German Bishops’ Conference in March 2019. The catalyst for this path was the churchcommissioned report detailing thousands of cases of sexual abuse in Germany over six decades (Sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, deacons and male members of orders in the domain of the German Bishops).

In recent years, trust in the institution has been in freefall in Germany, as has the number of people wanting to be associated with the church. Together with Germany’s powerful lay committee, the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the Synodal Path was launched as an attempt to revitalise the church and begin the task of restoring trust.

Church of St Sebastian in Ramsau bei Berchtesgaden, Germany

The question “What do you want?” is the very first question Jesus asks of his followers. We are reminded that it is also the question with which the Spirit is challenging us.

In March 2019, Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he wanted the German Church to become a listening church and needed the advice of people outside the church.

In June 2019 Pope Francis wrote to the pilgrim people of God in Germany. In his letter he outlined the hope and the challenges

underpinning the Synodal Path. He praised the commitment of the German Catholics and their efforts at church reform, but also appealed that they not distance themselves from the world church.

The Catholic Church in Germany differs from the church in many other countries because of its reliance on church tax. This tax, which has been part of church history in Germany for over 200 years, obliges every Christian in Germany to pay at least 8 per cent of their gross monthly salary to the two biggest Christian churches (Roman Catholic and Protestant).

The church tax allows the church to be independent from the state and means that many services normally provided by the state can be offered by and through the church, such as kindergarten, Catholic schools and institutes for education, hospitals and nursing homes. As a result, the church is one of be the

biggest employers in Germany. The church tax also provides training for seminarians and ongoing formation for those in ministry, as well as full-time jobs in lay ministry and in education and counselling institutes. Critically, alongside all this, is the fact that those who do not pay the church tax are excluded form participation in all aspects of church life. They cannot be employed by the church and can no longer avail of the sacraments of the church (except in extreme circumstances).

Addressing this correlation between the payment of the church tax and participation in church life, the German bishops, while not using the word ‘excommunication’, did highlight that it is impossible to separate the institutional church from the spiritual community of the church. In the eyes of the German Church, you cannot have one without the other.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

During the third Synodal Path gathering in Frankfurt/Main in February this year, a powerful statement was read by Sr Philippa Rath OSB.

Sr Philippa has been a Benedictine nun at the Abbey of St Hildegard in RüdesheimEibingen for over 30 years. She described the pain and suffering that the church has brought upon many. She reflected on her experience of Catholics approaching her and asking her if it was possible for them to leave the church. Sr Philippa revealed that she herself is unsure if she still loves her church. She said she knew of priests who leave out

sections of the Eucharistic Prayer that pray for the bishop and Pope Francis, as they are in disagreement with those in charge. Needless to say, the audience at Frankfurt/Main and those watching the live stream could see and hear her plea for real changes.

Sr Philippa’s comments are reflective of the seriously fragile nature of the church in Germany today. No one knows where the Synodal Path is going to lead. The future is uncertain for many. At the same time, many lay and ordained people are hopeful that finally something is going to change. Changes are needed. Bold changes are needed. But this is not just in Germany.

THE CHURCH

IN

IRELAND

Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell recently published a Statement of Mission for the archdiocese. In the statement, he talks about review and renewal, and invites all parishes to join the conversation and reflection. Words like ‘co-responsibility’, ‘servant leadership’ and ‘inclusion’ are being used as part of the vision across the archdiocese. This comes as a response to the more than 3,000 people who took part in the ‘Building Hope’ consultation process in Dublin last year.

And yet, for some it sounds far too familiar. Haven’t we been here before?

Pope Francis praised the commitment of the German Catholics and their efforts at church reform, but also appealed that they not distance themselves from the world church.

In recent years we have had other synods, such as The Vocation and Mission of the family in the Church and Contemporary World (2014) and Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment (2016). A lot of time and effort was put into gathering together the ‘voices’ of those who were asked, consulted and interviewed about those issues and sending the reports to Rome. What has happened since?

Similarly, three years after the publication of Christus Vivit , the 2019 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation To Young People and to the Entire People of God , very few have engaged with it, let alone acted upon it. The church in Ireland paid little attention to it, in spite of the often-repeated mantra proclaiming young people as the present and future of the church. The lack of engagement is perhaps symptomatic of the broader, fragmented approach of the church in Ireland to the needs of its young people today. So, for instance, while the Archdiocese of Armagh has recently appointed two new youth co-ordinators, other dioceses have let go of those in youth ministry.

MOVING FORWARD

The Irish bishops have been asked to produce a paper to the international Synod 2021-2023. At this time, is it hard to tell how each diocese is going to respond. How are they going to engage with parishioners, especially those people on the margins?

The Irish Bishops’ Conference recently launched a new webpage (www.synod.ie). There it states that 500 submissions for the Irish Church’s Pathway were received last year. Dr Nicola Brady, chair of the synodal steering committee, said that she felt encouraged by the initial response. These submissions, and indeed the voices from the listening session for the international synod, will be used as the foundation of the Irish synod over the next few years.

But when those 500 submissions are compared to the stated 3.7 million Catholics living in Ireland, the number of responses is negligible.

Of course, like everything in recent months, timelines and engagement have been affected by the pandemic. No doubt many listening sessions are still to be organised by parishes all over Ireland in preparation for

the international synod, and these will be the groundwork for the Irish synod.

Personally, however, I am not sure if people even want to be involved, or if those who have engaged before have any interest in being asked again. Perhaps this is because the culturally inspired approach to church is the dominant model, meaning that many, if not most, of those presenting their children for the sacraments are happy to pick and choose what they like about the church in Ireland, and discard what they don’t.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

In the Gospel of John, the question “What do you want?” is the very first question Jesus asks of his followers. We are reminded that it is also the question with which the Spirit is challenging us. In journeying with the church in Ireland, and as a German living in Ireland, I look to Germany in hope. There is a healthy, open debate taking place there about what kind of church they want. Participants regularly refer to the second Vatican Council and its call to “read the signs of the times”.

In the initial weeks after the third synodal gathering in Germany I thought about the Irish priests and religious who have been speaking out on so-called controversial themes, like the Germans did. Their Catholic Church is the same one that in Germany is attempting to address many of the issues we can relate to here in Ireland. Yet, I have not heard many Irish bishops publicly supporting them. This leads me to wonder what good a synod is going to be, if it becomes just another fancy document that will sit on the shelf. Many voices have been heard and have been silenced. Other voices have gone unheard. Now is the time for action.

Christina Malone has been working as a parish pastoral worker for the Archdiocese of Dublin for over ten years. Prior to this she studied and worked for the Diocese of Osnabrück in Germany. She writes regularly for the Irish Catholic column ‘Faith in Family’.

Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell

FROM DEATH TO NEW LIFE

BAPTISM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE QUIET SAINT

BY MARY T. BRIEN PBVM

KNOCK SHRINE AND THE CENTRAL ROLE OF ST JOSEPH

Easter represents the climax of our celebration of the Paschal Mystery and the high point of the liturgical year. It is also the time when baptisms are celebrated, and when baptismal promises are renewed. It is a good time to reflect on Christian baptism and on its origins in the New Testament. The first thing that must be said is that the sacrament of baptism is firmly rooted in the New Testament. While there is no evidence that Jesus baptised anyone, at least not during his public life, his disciples did (Jn 4:2). For a theological understanding of baptism in the New Testament we look primarily to St Paul, especially to his Letter to the Romans, but also to his Letters to the Corinthians and other letters too. The Acts of the Apostles, John’s Gospel, as well as writings of the early Church Fathers also provide evidence of the signal importance of baptism in the early church.

It is known that Jews, even before the time of Jesus, practised baptism by immersion “for the forgiveness of sins”. John the Baptist did likewise, and all three Synoptic Gospels record his baptising of Jesus in the Jordan. Jesus did not need a baptism of repentance and it is understandable that John would object, but Jesus insists, saying, “Let it be so. I must fulfil all righteousness” (Mt 3:15). And Jesus, after his immersion in the flowing Jesus

AS WE RENEW OUR BAPTISMAL PROMISES THIS EASTER, IT IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT ON THE ORIGINS OF THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

baptised by John in the Jordan

waters of the Jordan, is anointed with the Holy Spirit, confirmed in his sacred identity as Messiah and God’s beloved Son. For Jesus, baptism becomes a manifestation of his divinity and the beginning of his public life. It is a confirmation of his identity. The baptism of Jesus, paradigmatic for all Christian baptisms later, differs in essence from that of John. It is accompanied by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

FROM DEATH TO LIFE

St Paul, writing some decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, speaks of baptism as dying to sin and rising to new life (Rom 6:3-4). It is a radical transformation. Going down into the baptismal waters, almost drowning, being submerged completely, is a strong image of death and tomb. Rising from the waters, being dressed in a clean, white robe signifies resurrection, a real entry into the mystery of the risen Christ.

This image of baptism as a participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus is traceable in several writings of St Paul. In his first Letter to the Corinthians, for example, baptism is portrayed as a participation in the cross of Christ. Paul asks, “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptised in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor 1:1). In the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews, answering a query, the author states that a second baptism is impossible because baptism is a definitive participation in the cross of Christ (Heb 6:4-5). It is the blood of Christ which washes sin away (Rev 1:3). Being baptised “into the death of Christ” means a change of allegiance, a movement from the realm of sin to the realm of grace. This change is portrayed as a movement from death to life.

A NEW PERSON

Christian baptism (as distinct from the baptism of John the Baptist), as recorded in the New Testament, is always post-Pentecost. Peter, with the eleven, on Pentecost day after their experience in the upper room in Jerusalem, preaches to a crowd of five thousand. “Cut to the heart” by Peter’s message, the crowd asks, “What must we do?” Peter answers, “You must repent, and

every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38). The Great Commission, associated with Jesus’ post-resurrection instructions to his disciples, includes an instruction on baptism, “Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptise them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…” (Mt 28:19-20).

The Gospel of John and Johannine writings offer interpretations of baptism and its effects in terms of re-birth. To be baptised is to be born again, to enter a new type of existence. Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Unless a person is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, s/he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3). Baptism is transformative. The baptised person becomes, as it were, a new person with new vision, capable of ‘seeing’ the Kingdom of God.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

It must be remembered that there are many types of baptism in the New Testament and many of these do not involve water. Examples include “baptism for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 3:6), “baptism in the Holy Spirit” (Lk3:16) and “baptism into Moses” (1 Cor 3:2). Jesus also speaks of his Passion as a baptism (Lk 12:50; Mk 10:38).

Current use of the word ‘immerse’ may help us to grasp something of the depth of meaning presumed in New Testament usage. People can be ‘immersed in their studies’ or ‘immersed in politics’, meaning they are completely absorbed in these activities, or taken over by them. Baptism by immersion

acts as a powerful sign of dying to one way of life and being ‘taken over’ by another. It can express sacramentally the inner transformation involved in being “baptised in Christ”.

A striking example from Patristic writings is to be found in the writings of the poettheologian, Ephraim of Syria (306-373). He speaks of baptism as healing and strengthening for the journey, as putting on “the robe of glory” which Adam forfeited, as picking up “the golden threads” of risen life. He is obviously familiar with St Paul’s imagery of tomb and resurrection and makes poetic connections between the life-giving womb of Mary and the life-giving tomb at Calvary (De Ecclesia, 36).

This brief survey has touched on some elements of New Testament and Patristic teaching on Christian baptism. Although foundational, it does not pretend to offer a complete theology of baptism. The church’s theology of sacramental baptism has evolved over centuries, and it merits lengthy treatment, not possible in a brief article like this. However, it is hoped that the above brief survey of New Testament texts may lead readers to a fresh appreciation of some of the fertile and multi-faceted biblical roots of the sacrament of baptism.

Mary T. Brien is a Presentation Sister of the South-West Province, Ireland and a native of West Cork. She currently teaches Sacred Scripture at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

MARY T. BRIEN

EDNA O’BRIEN’S EXPOSURE OF IRELAND’S UNSAVOURY PAST

WHEN EDNA O’BRIEN’S DEBUT NOVEL, THE COUNTRY GIRLS , WAS PUBLISHED IN 1960, ARCHBISHOP JOHN CHARLES MCQUAID DENOUNCED IT AS A “SMEAR ON IRISH WOMANHOOD”. HER EARLY WORK CAPTURES A TIME WHEN WOMEN WERE BEGINNING TO SHAKE OFF THE SHACKLES OF AN OPPRESSIVE SOCIETY

BY EAMON MAHER

Born in 1930, Edna O’Brien has outlived all her famous or infamous contemporaries such as her namesake Kate (who was, in fairness, of an older generation), John Broderick, Maeve Brennan, John McGahern, Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney. Like many writers, she suffered at the hands of the Censorship Board and had her work banned. She was vocal about how backward Ireland was during the 1950s and 60s, especially when it came to its treatment of women, and she laid a lot of the blame at the feet of the Catholic Church. In Country Girl: A Memoir (2012), O’Brien shares some of her forthright views on the “arch-druid of Drumcondra”, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who, in the opinion a friend of hers, “kept Ireland free from paganism and modern aberrations”. She continued: “Dublin was in thrall to him, with his distinctive aura, in red cloak and red biretta, wearing the ‘Borgia ring’ of precious amethyst presented at his inauguration by the Knights of Columbanus.” McQuaid was the person who, on his return from the final gathering of Vatican II, reassured the Irish people that, “No change will worry the tranquillity of your Christian lives.” His reactionary form of Catholicism clearly did not chime with O’Brien’s own more liberal conception of the Council.

THE COMFORT OF RITUAL

Born in Tuamgraney, Co. Clare and educated by the Sisters of Mercy in the 1940s, Edna was

the youngest child of a highly Catholic family. Her mother was pious to the point of paranoia, and her father was a chronic alcoholic whose drinking led to the dissipation of most of the family fortune and to the ill health of his wife. Like other Irish writers, most notably the aaforementioned McGahern and Heaney, O’Brien found comfort in Catholic rituals but discovered at a young age that formal religion was not for her. And yet the memories remained, as can be seen in the following description of the priest coming to say a house Mass during the parish mission:

The preparations to celebrate Mass in these mission stations had the thrall and improvisation of travelling theatre. A portable confessional would have been set up for penitents who longed for conversion, while the altar for Mass was a wooden press, above which hung a dark cloth suspended on a bamboo pole.

These lines show the observant eye of the novelist who appreciated the drama of such events and the distraction they provided from the humdrum daily existence the people mostly had to endure. The travails that punctuated O’Brien’s personal life are mirrored in the experiences that confront her characters, as we shall see. Her decision to marry the writer Ernest Gébler against her parents’ wishes in 1954, and her subsequent divorce ten years later, along with the publication of her early work, ensured that she

was rarely out of the media spotlight. Gébler, quite a deal older than his wife, was jealous of her success and tried to undermine her confidence and achievements every chance he got, going so far as to claim at one point that it was he who wrote O’Brien’s first novel, The Country Girls, published in 1960 and subsequently expanded into a trilogy. The couple had two children, Carlo (also a wellknown writer) and Sasha, both of whom were born in London, where the couple went to live, rather unhappily as it turned out.

CONTROVERSY

Meanwhile, back at home the publication and swift banning of The Country Girls led to much controversy. Archbishop McQuaid, who had been conducting a purity campaign in Ireland during the 1950s, declared that the novel was a “smear on Irish womanhood”, a view that became commonplace, especially among those who had never read it! So, what was so shocking about the book’s contents? The plot revolves around the friendship of two girls, the first of whom, Caithleen (Cait) Brady, is the main focus of the narrative and a barely fictionalised representation of the author. Cait’s father is a feckless, violent alcoholic whose neglect of the once-prosperous farm has placed the family’s security in jeopardy –the autobiographical elements are clear here. Her mother is a meek woman, unable to stand up to her husband or to find a way to secure a viable future for herself and her children

without his support. Baba Brennan, on the other hand, has a loving mother and a father who is a doctor. Cait loves spending time with the Brennans, as it allows her to escape from the misery and apprehension that mark her life at home. The suicide of her mother throws life into even more turmoil and a lifeline is provided when she manages to secure a scholarship to a girls’ boarding school where she falls under the bad influence of Baba, who is attending the same school. On arrival, they are addressed by Sr Margaret who outlines what is expected in terms of behaviour:

The new girls won’t know this, but our convent has always been proud of its modesty. Our girls, above everything else, are good and wholesome and honest. One expression of modesty is the way a girl dresses or undresses. She should do so with decorum and modesty.

Archbishop McQuaid would have undoubtedly agreed with these sentiments. But Baba in particular is not prepared to toe the line and, coming as she does from a wellto-do family background, she is not that concerned about completing her secondary education. Also, the romantic fantasising that the two friends engage in, their yearning to experience life in the bright lights of Dublin, to meet men and drink in pubs, all make them frustrated at being locked up in a boarding school. Eventually they are expelled for writing obscenities on a holy card about the school chaplain Fr Tom and Sr Mary who dressed the altar and served Mass.

Their actions result in their finding themselves in the capital, where they hope to enjoy more freedom. As she’s heading off, Mr Brady offers the following advice to his

daughter: “You’re to behave yourself in Dublin. Live decent. Mind your faith and write to your father. I don’t like the way you turned out at all. Not one bit.” It never occurs to Mr Brennan that he may have had a role to play in the way his daughter has turned out. Cait and Baba believe that Dublin will offer opportunities for sexual adventures. Already, the previous summer, Cait had attracted the attentions of a wealthy local businessman, Mr Gentleman, with whom she has fallen in love. Middle-aged and married, he knows exactly how to flatter Cait’s vanity and exploit her vulnerability. As he drove her to Limerick one day, Cait caught him looking at her:

We smiled at each other and his hand came off the steering-wheel and rested on the lap of my ice-blue dress. My hand was waiting for it. We locked our fingers and for the rest of the journey we drove like that, except going round sharp bends… ‘You’re the sweetest thing that ever happened to me’, he said.

While by today’s standards this might appear timid, in 1960s Ireland an illicit relationship with a married man was a serious misdemeanour. One has only to reflect on the wretched treatment meted out to Joanne Hayes in 1984, when she was wrongfully accused of murdering a baby in Kerry and whose merciless questioning by the State’s legal team about her sexual activity with a married man at a subsequent tribunal led her to believe that it was she, and not the Gardaí who forced her to confess to a crime that she could never have committed, who was on trial.

A COURAGEOUS VOICE

Mr Gentleman, far from being true to his name, knows that Cait is infatuated with him and that he can have her whenever he wishes. True to form, she drops everything when he arrives in Dublin and spends a night with him in his car, watching the sun rise over Dublin Bay, hopelessly in love. When he drops her back to her lodgings, she eats breakfast and goes straight to bed unaware of what day it is: “That was the first Sunday I missed Mass.” It

will not be the last time. There will be no happy ending to this adventure, however. Mr Gentleman had promised he and Cait would spend a week away together, but fails to arrive at the agreed rendezvous. Later a telegram arrives to explain what has happened: “Everything gone wrong. Threats from your father. My wife has another nervous breakdown. Regret enforced silence. Must not see you.”

There is a sense in which The Country Girls captures the zeitgeist of 1960s Ireland, a time when women were beginning to shake off the shackles of an oppressive society where their needs were not treated with the respect they deserved and where they were often vilified for daring to challenge the status quo. Thankfully Edna O’Brien had the courage to say things that most people were unhappy to hear. In some ways, her work unveiled the attitudes that resulted in the horrific treatment of women in the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. Under the circumstances, she might be forgiven for being resentful of religion, but in an interesting interview with Judith Weinraub of the New York Times in 1976, she remarked: “The Catholic religion is the most primitive in the world. One never gets over it.” Reading through O’Brien’s work at an interval of several decades, I believe that she possesses what I would describe as a ‘Catholic sensibility’. She could never quite ‘get over’ the religion of her youth, which is fortunate, as that religion informs her work in an enriching and insightful manner.

“You’re to behave yourself in Dublin. Live decent. Mind your faith and write to your father. I don’t like the way you turned out at all. Not one bit.”

Eamon Maher’s latest book, co-edited with Eugene O’Brien, is Reimagining Irish Studies for the Twenty-First Century, published by Peter Lang.

A SEA OF YELLOW

THE WOMEN OF SIERRA LEONE ARE A POLITICAL FORCE THAT CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED

BY DAVID O’HARE

Overthe rugged eastern mountains, across the wide coastal plains, and deep in the valleys of Sierra Leone, a sea of yellow is demanding change.

The Yellow Ribbon Campaign is growing in political influence, with the women of Sierra Leone uniting and becoming a force for change that can no longer be ignored.

The campaign, which is made up of civil society organisations and women’s empowerment advocates in Sierra Leone, with support from Trócaire, is the driving force behind a new government bill aimed at increasing women’s representation in public parliament and local councils.

In Sierra Leone, with a population of almost 8 million people, just 19 per cent of local politicians are women. The figure is only 13 per cent at national level. But efforts to increase these numbers are rapidly underway. A new Gender Equality and Women’s

Empowerment Bill, developed by the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs, is calling for 30 per cent of parliamentary seats and cabinet positions to be held by women in the West African state. The Bill also aims to improve women’s access to finance, increase positions in employment and to link government spending to improving gender equality.

The Bill would be monumental for the women of Sierra Leone who are routinely discriminated against and at risk of genderbased violence. Sierra Leone is ranked 182nd out of 189 countries on the United Nations’ 2020 Gender Development Index.

With funding from Irish Aid, Trócaire is at the forefront of ensuring the drafting and passing of the Bill which will empower women and girls in Sierra Leone.

SUPPORTING FEMALE CANDIDATES

Ellen Donnelly, Trócaire’s programme manager in Sierra Leone, said that the overseas development agency has been working for several years to champion and support female candidates in elections.

“In Trócaire, we have worked tirelessly with our civil society partner organisations to support the government in Sierra Leone to develop a women’s empowerment policy and to draft the Gender Equality Women’s Empowerment Bill. The Bill has currently passed the first stage in parliament but there are two more stages for it to go through before it is passed.

“Our ambition is that the Bill is passed this year, as 2023 is an election year in Sierra Leone so we’d really love to be in a position to support female candidates in the next election cycle. Through our local partners, we have also developed a manual which will guide female candidates through the election process,” Ellen said.

In addition to drafting and supporting the Bill, Trócaire also engages in advocacy and awareness campaigns. This includes running informational jingles on the radio and travelling throughout Sierra Leone to consult

“There is no such thing as a man’s seat. We’re not taking away anyone’s seats, but in reality, women represent 52 per cent of people in Sierra Leone, so they deserve to be represented in national and local legislative bodies.”

Members of the Yellow Ribbon campaign in Sierra Leone

with men and women, especially in rural areas, to hear their feedback and recommendations on the Bill.

“With the help of our local partners, we engaged with rural women to ensure that they can become champions of the Bill and enable them to use their voice and influence to engage with parliamentarians on what the Bill means for them and why their representatives should vote for it. Women living in rural areas have been very keen to engage with the Bill and to demand change for themselves and their local communities,” said Ellen.

Mariatu Kargbo, secretary of Port Loko Women’s Network, said that she is supporting the Bill “so that women can be heard in decision-making and contribute to the development of Sierra Leone.

“I want to work side-by-side with our fathers, husbands, brothers and sons to show them that we can also do it,” Ms Kargbo said.

Susan B Koroma, president of the Bombali District Women’s Farmer Network, echoed this sentiment saying the Bill “would allow women to lead and take charge of our lives and to be elected as a representative to be part of national development.”

CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS

While the Yellow Ribbon Campaign has gained huge success, Ellen Donnelly added that the movement often gets asked questions which need to be challenged and addressed as they reinforce harmful gender norms.

“We often get questions from journalists

asking whose seats these women are going to take as men have retained these seats for years, and there’s often a fear that women will not be able for these positions. Our feedback is always that every election cycle is a new cycle and there is no such thing as a man’s seat. Every time you’re elected, you’re only elected for a period of time. We’re not taking away anyone’s seats, but in reality, women represent 52 per cent of people in Sierra Leone, so they deserve to be represented in national and local legislative bodies. So, it’s actually men who are occupying a space that was never theirs to occupy and they need to take a step back.”

Ellen added: “Another common question we get is whether there are enough women who are able to campaign and take up these positions. We’re confident to say that in the last election we trained and supported lots of women who were very capable, and the ones who were successful, their constituents are very happy. We have female MPs who are already role models and show that female MPs do work. It’s very important that these assumptions are challenged and addressed. This Bill provides the women of Sierra Leone with the opportunity to gain empowerment but also to address the issues that are most affecting women in the country such as high rates of gender-based violence and child marriage rates.

“We hope over time that this law, if enacted, will lead to clear change and positive outcomes for women. One thing is for sure, the women of Sierra Leone are a political force that can no longer be ignored.”

THIS LENT, THE UK GOVERNMENT WILL MATCH ALL PUBLIC DONATIONS TO THE LENTEN APPEAL IN NORTHERN IRELAND, POUND FOR POUND, DOUBLING THE IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE.

Ellen Donnelly, Trócaire’s programme manager in Sierra Leone

REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

A PRISON WITHOUT BARS

FOR MANY PRISONERS, THEIR EXCLUSION FROM SOCIETY BEGINS LONG BEFORE THEY GO TO PRISON

Johnserved a five-year sentence for a sexual offence. In prison, he did all the therapy courses available to him. On release, he got his own apartment, began a degree course in university and got a part-time job delivering pizzas to help pay for it. However, a tabloid newspaper tracked him down, printed a two-page article, complete with photographs of him leaving his apartment, delivering pizzas and attending college. He had to give up his apartment, the pizza company let him go, and he was too embarrassed to return to college. Prison is a form of social exclusion, separated from the rest of society. But for many, like John, their exclusion is not just for the duration of their sentence, but for life. A person who has been in jail faces huge barriers to employment and accommodation. Society does not allow their crime to be forgotten. Their imprisonment is a community-sanctioned rejection of them and becomes a permanent, socially acceptable, devaluation of them as a human being.

For many, that exclusion from society began long before they went to prison. The majority of prisoners are born into deprived neighbourhoods, characterised by poverty, chronic unemployment, drug abuse, family disruption, poor and overcrowded housing, and severely curtailed opportunities for social and economic advancement. Sadly, most prisoners are resigned to the fact that, on release, they will return to

the same deprived circumstance of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. As many say, “being out of prison is the same as being in prison, except there are no bars.” Ironically, prison for some may be first period of stability and routine in their entire life, which permits access to education or training. Prison could be a time when the chances that were never offered when they were most needed are provided. But the opportunities within prison are very limited. Most people in prison want to do more for themselves. But the sense of exile that they feel, and their sense of hopelessness at what awaits them on release, may undermine even the few rehabilitative efforts the prison may offer.

There is real public fear of being a victim of crime, and it is matched by outrage at those who visit that fate on other people. Many today strive not just for economic security but for prosperity. Our culture persuades us that we deserve whatever gains we have achieved. But conversely, it tries to persuade us that others also

available to them for which there is no waiting list!

Every prisoner has dreams, desires and hopes like the rest of us, but the opportunities to pursue those dreams are limited or non-existent. Many people get involved in crime in order to fulfil those desires which they cannot fulfil in other ways. Crime appears to open doors that are otherwise locked. But for the vast majority of prisoners, the underlying reason for their crime is never addressed. Was it drugs, desire for money, anger, the ending of pain or sheer desperation? If the reasons are not addressed, they remain a problem, both for the prisoner and society, no matter how long the sentence served. The criminal justice system is not designed to address that problem. It seeks only to answer three questions: What law was broken? Who broke it? What is the appropriate punishment?

deserve their failures. And if they happen to be law breakers, there is precious little room for sympathy to their plight. The experience of many prisoners leads them to believe that society doesn’t care. “If society doesn’t care about me, why should I care about society?” may be the unexpressed resentment of the prisoner. Indeed, it is not lost on prisoners from deprived backgrounds that prison is the only public service

Every prisoner has enormous potential. A person is not defined by their crime. Prison officers and chaplains have the responsibility to remind prisoners that their crime does not take away their humanity, and many do. We all come to learn who we are through the love and care of others. It is this belief that we are of value that brings the possibility of transformation. If prisoners do not experience that while in prison, how can we expect them to change?

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

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

The flowing narrative in our Gospel reading today from John is quite unlike the style of the Fourth Evangelist and reminds the reader more of the stories in the account of Luke. Jesus is put on the spot by his critics and asked for his opinion as to what should be done about a woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus is being judged; but he turns the process around and focuses it on

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

the characters who want to catch him out. The judgment of the Law is clear: the woman should be stoned to death. But the point of the confrontation is not the fate of the unnamed woman; it is to find something with which to accuse and convict Jesus. It is a case of Jesus versus Moses, and so there should be no question of the outcome.

Jesus refuses to engage in the debate, but rather challenges his self-righteous opponents to initiate the sentence of death. They and all the others apparently melt away, until Jesus and the woman are left alone, and

for the first time she is addressed directly. Jesus does not judge her, but offers her the possibility of a new life and a restored relationship with God, when he says “Do not sin again”. The past is over, forgiven and forgotten; what matters is the new life from now on.

Today’s Readings

Is 43:16-21; Ps 125; Phil 3:8-14; Jn 8:1-11

JESUS’ FINAL TEST

At the beginning of the Gospel narrative, we saw Jesus tested as to how he understands being the Son of God. Luke ended his account with the ominous words that “the devil left him, to return at the appointed time”.

During the Last Supper, he tells us that “Satan entered into Judas” and was also seeking to challenge Simon Peter. So the scene is set for the final test of Jesus as the Son of God.

Throughout his account, Luke has presented the disciples in a more positive light than Mark, and this more sympathetic view persists throughout the Passion narrative, which we hear read today. The male disciples are not described as fleeing the scene when Jesus is arrested and may well be included among those who witness the crucifixion.

Luke’s version is much more gentle and understanding of the complexity facing the characters in the story. Jesus’ message of healing and reconciliation continues right up to the end: Pilate and the soldiers do not make fun of Jesus; there is no crown of thorns; the crowd of Jewish people following Jesus on his way to Calvary, not all of whom are disciples,

are presenting as “lamenting his fate”. Jesus speaks sympathetically to the “Daughters of Jerusalem”. He prays for forgiveness for those responsible for his being executed on political charges, perhaps not only those who actually carry out the dreadful deed, but also those who engineered it, the chief priest and scribes who did not realise what they were actually doing.

Today’s Readings

Is 50:4-7; Ps 21; Phil 2:6-11; Lk 22:1423:56

APRIL 17 EASTER SUNDAY

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH

WHERE’S THE BODY?

The narrative Gospel tradition presents Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the Resurrection.

We might note that the Gospel accounts do not say that anyone actually saw Jesus emerge from the tomb. The women are the constant factor in the story of Jesus’ journey of suffering. They witness the crucifixion and the burial; Mary Magdalene and others are mentioned in the various narratives of the discovery of the empty tomb.

The episode today recalls John’s telling of

Jesus’ raising Lazarus to life, but there are important and significant differences in the two scenes. First of all, Lazarus’ tomb is still sealed, but that of Jesus is open (leading to questions as to why: Mary does not conclude from the absence of the body that Jesus is risen). In the case of Jesus, his burial cloths are found on the ground and his facecloth rolled up in a separate place: Lazarus appears with his funeral sheets around him.

We might notice that the simple fact of the missing body does not inspire Simon Peter to faith. Peter may well be the leader of the disciples, but it is the one who is closest to Jesus in a relationship of love who understands what has actually happened.

Acts 10:34.37-43; Ps 117; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9

Today’s Readings

APRIL

(Divine Mercy Sunday)

SEEING IS BELIEVING?

Our Gospel reading forms the end of the work of the Fourth Evangelist. Despite the message from Mary Magdalene, the disciples are in hiding out of fear for their lives. It will take an experience of the risen Jesus among them to convince them that he is truly risen.

During Jesus’ ministry, the disciples have no active part to play: they are given no share in Jesus’ ministry, unlike in the other Gospel versions. It is now that Jesus commissions them and they become ‘apostles’, that is, ones who are sent. Now that Jesus is no longer among them as before, it is up to them to continue his mission. Jesus breathes on them the Holy Spirit to empower them in their ministry: those who accept their message will express this publicly by being baptised and having their sins forgiven as a consequence of their decision to live this new life. Those who decide not to become disciples will remain in their present spiritual condition.

Thomas represents the sceptical person who wants to see for himself that what the others tell him is true. The risen Jesus appears among the disciples again and wishes them “Peace”. Thomas does not actually touch Jesus physically, but makes the supreme confession of faith in Jesus which we find in the Gospel of John, when he declares “My Lord and my God!” This leads to the last recorded words of Jesus, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” These words are addressed to us who hear them today.

THE REALITY CROSSWORD

NUMBER 3 April ����

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 1

Across: 1. Rhodes, 5. Macaws, 10. Jericho, 11. Reverie, 12. Rota, 13. Ogham, 15. Chip, 17. Yam, 19. Sacked, 21. Ripple, 22. Messiah, 23. Hebrew, 25. Gaucho, 28. Vet, 30. Beta, 31. Huron, 32. Esau, 35.

Winner of Crossword

ACROSS

1. Chubby winged baby in art. (6)

5. Polish birthplace of the Solidarity movement. (6)

10. I garble the Archangel. (7)

11. What Americans call salad rocket. (7)

12. See above in Footnotes. (4)

13. Official language of the Holy See. (5)

15. Matching card game. (4)

17. A person’s right, what is owed to someone. (3)

19. Pattern produced with small coloured pieces. (6)

21. Gigantic legendary sea monster. (6)

22. Author of ‘War and Peace.’ (7)

23. French goodbyes. (6)

25. Old Testament writer. (6)

28. Bird similar to a penguin. (3)

30. French request for a reply. (4)

31. Counting snake. (5)

32. A short railway branch line. (4)

35. Language and region of Belgium. (7)

36. Former units of length. (7)

37. Speaks in public without previous preparation. (2-4)

38. A cure for an ill. (6)

DOWN

2. J.R.R. Tolkien’s halflings. (7)

3. The remains of a building. (4)

4. A narrative set to music. (6)

5. I ogle a keeper. (6)

6. A fever or shivering fit. (4)

7. The first artificial Earth satellite. (7)

8. Discrimination against older people. (6)

9. A game fish for the patron. (6)

14. Famous wax madame. (7)

16. Arch Roman Emperor. (5)

18. A private, romantic rendezvous. (5)

20. Another name for Romaine lettuce. (3)

21. Ornamental carp. (3)

23. They go with slings and outrageous fortune. (6)

24. A person made weak. (7)

26. Seize and take legal custody. (7)

27. Irritate or disturb persistently. (6)

28. Greek god of beauty and desire. (6)

29. Material used in body armour. (6)

33. Great Asian desert. (4)

34. Front hand centre! (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.3, April 2022

Name:

Address:

Dundalk,

Teasing, 36. Pandora, 37. Isobar, 38. Rebuke.

Down: 2. Heretic, 3. Dock, 4. Stodgy, 5. Miriam, 6. Cave, 7. Warship, 8. Fjords, 9. Temple, 14. Hamster, 16. Yemen, 18. Jihad, 20. Dew, 21. Rag, 23. Habits, 24. Betrays, 26. Cassock, 27. Ocular, 28. Vulgar, 29. Torpor, 33. Limb, 34. Snub.

No. 1 Nancy Clarke, Ballina, Co. Mayo.

Statue of Mary Magdalene