Reality December 2016 by Redemptorist Communications

blessed Charles de Foucauld

DECEMBER 2016

The Legacy of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

The Role of St Joseph

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE FRANK CAPRA'S CLASSIC FILM ON THE POWER OF GOODNESS

THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS THREE MASSES ON THE HILLS OF ROME

O HOLY NIGHT

THE HISTORY OF THE HYMN MADE FAMOUS BY MANY www.redcoms.org Redemptorist-Communications @RedComsIreland �2.00 �1.80

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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12THE CATHOLIC VISION OF FRANK CAPRA The Christmas Classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, reflects the Catholic view of life of Frank Capra By María Elena de las Carreras Kuntz

18 ELIZABETH ANNE SEATON The first American-born saint was a woman convert born two years before the declaration of Independence By Mike Daley

21 TRANSCENDENCE, TENDERNESS, & TENNIS: THE SECOND SHEPHERDS’ PLAY The Second Shepherd’s play begins as knockabout comedy, but is a witness to popular faith and devotion By Dr Frances McCormack

24THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS: THREE MASSES ON THE HILLS OF ROME The Christmas Liturgy has a long history that began in the Basilica of Bethlehem and thrived in Rome By Fr Patrick Jones

32 “WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE ...” The searchers of the heavens become seekers of the new born king By Dr Jesse Rogers

34 THE WORLD’S FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS SONG? The Story of “O Holy Night” By Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR

36 BLESSED CHARLES DE FOUCAULD His sense of the ‘littleness” of the incarnation makes him an ideal saint for Christmastime. By Little Sister Kathy McKee

Plus

ue Free with this iss The Redemptorist Newsletter See centre pages

OPINION

REGULARS

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

04 REALITY BITES

20 DAVID O'DONOGHUE

07 POPE MONITOR

31 CARMEL WYNNE

08 FEAST OF THE MONTH

42 PETER Mc VERRY SJ

09 REFLECTIONS 27 PRAYER CORNER 39 TRÓCAIRE 43 GOD’S WORD

REALITY BITES NEW REDEMPTORIST CARDINAL INDIANOPOLIS RED HAT FOR RED

Archbishop Joe Tobin

One of the unexpected names in the list of new Cardinals announced by Pope Francis was the former superior general of the Redemptorists and current archbishop of Newark, Mgr Joseph

William Tobin (64). A native of Detroit, Michigan, Cardinal Tobin is the eldest of a family of thirteen children. After ordination to the priesthood, he served in Latino parishes in Detroit and learned excellent Spanish. No stranger to Ireland during his twelve years as Redemptorist general, he was appointed as secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and was named titular Archbishop of Obba. At that time, the Congregation was running what was regarded by

many as a hostile investigation into women’s religious life in the United States. Archbishop Tobin said publicly that Rome needed to acknowledge the "depth of anger and hurt" provoked by a visitation, and that it illustrated the need for a "strategy of reconciliation" with women religious. Two years later, he was appointed Archbishop of Minneapolis. During his term as superior general, he had attended the Synod of Bishops on behalf of the religious. He joined one of the Spanish working groups, a member of which was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. Fr Tobin joked with him that his mother had been

rooting for the Argentine Jesuit during the recent conclave which elected Pope Benedict. Surprised, the future pope asked why. “Well, she read in the newspaper that you pick up after yourself and you cook your own food and wash your own clothes,” Fr Tobin told him. “She’s had it up to here with the sort of monarchic church!” Mrs Tobin is still alive and attended her son’s installation as Cardinal along with many other members of his extended family. Cardinal Tobin, along with Archbishop O’Malley of Boston, a Capuchin, is the second bishop from a religious order in the United States to receive the red hat.

NEW DUBLIN-BORN CARDINAL Dublin-born Archbishop Francis Farrell was named as Cardinal in the same list as Cardinal Tobin. The 69 year old native of the Dublin parish of Drimnagh was educated by the Christian Brothers, and joined the Legionaries of Christ as a young man. Later as a priest, he was incardinated into the diocese of Washington DC. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Washington in 2001, and six years later, he became Bishop of Dallas. He was appointed head of the new Vatican Congregation for Laity, Family and Life, taking office in September 2016. In that capacity, he will play a major role in the preparation for the World Meeting of Families to be held in Dublin in 2018. His elder brother, Brian, who had also entered the Legionaries of Christ, is a bishop and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. REALITY DECEMBER 2016

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DUTCH LIBERALISE EUTHANASIA LAW HOLLAND

"COMPLETED LIFE"

The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia, in 2002, but only for patients who were considered to be suffering unbearable pain. The Dutch government now intends to introduce a law that would legalise assisted suicide for people who feel they have "completed life," but who are not necessarily terminally ill. In a letter to parliament, the health and justice ministers said details remain to be worked out, but that people who "have a well-considered opinion that their life is complete, must, under strict and careful criteria, be allowed to finish that life in a manner dignified for them". The proposal is likely to provoke critics who say Dutch euthanasia practice has already expanded beyond the borders originally envisioned for it, since the definition of "unbearable suffering" has now been extended to include mental illnesses and dementia. The rate of assisted dying has increased

dramatically since the law was introduced, with euthanasia accounting for 5,516 deaths in the Netherlands in 2015, or 3.9 percent of all deaths nationwide. In her letter setting forth her intentions to introduce the new bill, Edith Schippers, the health minister, said that that "because the wish for a self-chosen end of life primarily occurs in the elderly, the new system will be limited to them”, but she did not set a threshold age. The proposal comes as a surprise, as a commission enlisted to study the idea of allowing a "completed life" extension to current policy concluded there was no need for it.

NEW JESUIT GENERAL The Society of Jesus has elected its first LatinAmerican leader since its foundation in 1540, a Romebased Venezuelan. Father Arturo Sosa (67) was provincial between 1996 and 2004, when there were tensions within his province over the dictatorship of Hugo Chávez. Prior to his appointment as provincial, Fr Sosa was in charge of the Jesuit’s social apostolate which inc ludes the massive school Jesuit network, Fe y Alegría (Faith and Joy), that primarily serves the poor. He was also head of the Jesuit-run social action research centre. In an interview in 2014, he described the authoritarian regime of Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro as a “popular tyranny”. Fr Sosa, the 31st superior general of the Jesuits, was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on November 12, 1948. He has a doctorate in political sciences and speaks Spanish, Italian, and English. In addition to academic posts in Venezuela he was visiting professor at the Latin-American Studies Centre of Georgetown University, Washington DC, in 2004.

A CHRISTMAS ANGEL?

McDONALD’S FOR THE VATICAN?

Church of the Nativity

It has been reported that McDonald’s burger company has acquired a property near the Borgo Pio, very close to St Peter’s Square and a stone’s throw from Vatican City, in which they intend to open a restaurant. The move to open a cheap eatery which would appeal to the thousands of tourists and pilgrims who flood the area daily has meet with stiff opposition. Some Rome commentators and journalists allege that a fast-food outlet would take the look off the venerable square, while supporters counter that the area is already crowded with sellers of cheap souvenirs, as well as overpriced restaurants and cafes. Some curial Cardinals who live in official apartments in the area are reportedly also opposed to the proposal. There are already several branches of McDonald’s in Rome, including one close to the famous Spanish Steps.

An ancient mosaic hidden for centuries has been uncovered and restored to its original colours in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. The eight-foot tall angel was found last May by the team working on the restoration of the fourth century church, which

was built by the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena in 339 AD over what is believed to be the place of Jesus' birth. The angel is one of seven to decorate the walls of the church, and was found on the north wall between the fourth and fifth windows.

continued on page 6

REALITY BITES 8AXEL8

6 The late Anthony Foley

When Anthony Foley, coach of the Munster Rugby team died suddenly last October while the team were in Paris for a match, his family and the team supporters were devastated. Crowds flocked to his funeral in the small town of Killaloe, Co Kildare. His young son, Anthony, used a Facebook page a few days later to suggest an unusual but very traditionally Catholic memorial for his dad. He asked people to tag eight of their Facebook friends to go to Mass over the eight Sundays between Halloween and Christmas Day to pray for his dad, to remember their own dead and to light a candle for a loved one. His mother Olive explained in her own comment on the page: “November is fast approaching, which is, of course, the month of the Holy Souls so it’s very timely also in that regard. The eight Sundays will take us right up to Christmas, which is a special family time, of course, but can be very difficult for families who have lost loved ones. The support for the campaign over the coming weeks will certainly be a positive for the family at an otherwise very difficult time.”

NEW RULES ON CREMATION The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in consultation with a number of other Vatican congregations, has published a new set of regulations regarding cremation entitled Ad Resurgendum Cum Christo (That we might rise with Christ) and dated on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, 15 August, 2016. It continues to favour the traditional mode of burying the body in consecrated ground, but acknowledges that, when cremation is chosen “because of sanitary, economic or social considerations,” the Church raises no doctrinal objections to the practice, “since cremation of the deceased’s body does not affect his or her soul, nor does it prevent God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life." One reason for continuing to favour burial in consecrated ground is the way it manifests the relationship between REALITY DECEMBER 2016

the living and the dead and opposes any tendency to minimize the significance of death for Christians or to relegate to a purely private sphere. The ashes of the faithful, however, ”must be laid to rest in a sacred place, that is, in a cemetery or, in certain cases, in a church or an area, which has been set aside for this purpose [e.g. a columbarium], and so dedicated by the competent ecclesial authority.” It is forbidden to conserve the ashes in private homes, except where there may be cultural reasons for so doing. Nor is it permitted to scatter the ashes in the air, on land, at sea or in any other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewellery or other objects. If cremation has been chosen, however, as a way of stating a rejection of Christian teaching on death or the body, the deceased may not receive a Catholic funeral.

SWEDISH CATHOLIC CHURCH GROWING STEADILY At the Reformation, the national Church of Sweden became Lutheran, and harsh measures were adopted against Catholics that endured for centuries. As a result, Catholics were reduced to a very small minority, less that 2% of the population. Although 63% claim to belong to the Lutheran Church, this is a drastic decline from 1970 when 95% were members. More characteristic of Sweden in recent years has been the increase in agnosticism. According to a Eurobarometer Poll in 2010, only 18% of Swedish citizens professed to believe in God. Due to immigration, the membership of the Catholic Church continues to grow by a few thousand every year. Sweden has taken in many refugees, and many of those from Eritrea and Syria are Catholic. There is also a constant influx of workers from Poland. Of the 150 priests in the single diocese of Stockholm, one third are Polish. As many of the newly arrived Catholics are not officially registered, it is difficult to calculate the exact number of the faithful. According to the Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, the first native-born bishop since the Reformation, about 115,000 are registered in the parishes, but a more accurate estimate is 150,000. Despite its small numbers, there has always been a trickle of converts into the Catholic Church. Queen Christina abdicated in 1654 in order to become a Catholic: she is buried in Rome. Elizabeth Hesselblad, a convert, who restored the Order of St Brigid of Sweden, was canonised in 2015, and Bishop Arborelius, a Carmelite, is himself a convert. He estimates there are about one hundred conversions annually. Most are from the Lutheran Church of Sweden, a number of whom are ministers. Some converts are attracted by Catholic spirituality, or by its fidelity to tradition or by its social doctrine or simply by the universal character of the Church.

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POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS CELEBRATING THE REFORMATION WITH THE LUTHERANS Pope Francis spent two days in Sweden attending the inauguration of the Five Hundredth Centenary of the Reformation. Reformation Day is traditionally celebrated by Lutheran communities on 31 October each year, the day when Martin Luther proposed his 95 theses on indulgences, inaugurating the Reformation. After an early morning departure from Rome, the Holy Father arrived in Malmö and paid a courtesy visit to the royal family before attending a prayer service in the pre-reformation Cathedral of Lund, an ecumenical event at Malmö Arena and informal meetings with ecumenical delegations. The following day was a day for the Catholics of Sweden, many of whom are emigrants and refugees. Mass for the feast of All Saints was celebrated for them at the Swedbank Stadium, Malmö, and after the Angelus, Pope Francis returned to Rome. During his homily at the Cathedral of Lund, Pope Francis recognised the need to look with love and honesty at our mutual past, “recognising error and seeking forgiveness, for God alone is our judge.” The joint communiqué issued at the end of the meeting acknowledged that both Churches are profoundly grateful for the spiritual and theological gifts received through the Reformation, yet they “confess and lament before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church. Theological differences were accompanied by prejudice and conflicts, and religion was instrumentalised for political ends.” As both Churches engage in dialogue, “our common faith in Jesus Christ and our baptism demand of us a daily conversion, by which we cast off the historical disagreements and conflicts that impede the ministry of reconciliation. While the past cannot be changed, what is remembered and how it is remembered can be transformed.” It called on members of both Churches to be “bold and creative, joyful and hopeful in their commitment to continue the great journey ahead of us.” One practical outcome of the visit to Sweden was a joint declaration by the Caritas Internationalis, the world-wide Catholic charity body, and the Lutheran World Federation committing themselves where possible to joint action for the relief of distress. The Pope at the Swedbank Stadium in Malmo, Sweden

CHRISTMAS LOTTERY FOR THE POPE’S GOOD CAUSES For the fourth year in succession, the Vatican will hold a Christmas lottery to give people the opportunity to contribute to the Holy Father’s special charities. Pope Francis contributes some of the prizes each year from gifts he has received. The beneficiaries of the lottery this year will be the homeless and the people of Central Italy whose homes were devastated by last August’s earthquake. Tickets costing €10 will go on sale before Christmas, and the draw will take place on 2 February. Tickets will be sold in the Vatican pharmacy, post-office and museums. Prizes include a car, a professional racing bicycle, a wristwatch, a complete set of tableware and a coffee machine.

POPE’S HOLIDAY HOME TO BECOME A MUSEUM 7

The Gardens of Castel Gandolfo

Castel Gandolfo, the papal holiday home about 25km south-east of Rome, has been opened to the public at the direction of Pope Francis. The papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace, including the pope’s bedroom, chapel and study, were inaugurated as a museum by the director of the Vatican Museums 21 October last. Traditionally a retreat from Rome’s stifling summer heat, the residence offers spectacular views over Lake Albano. Although his immediate predecessors used it frequently, Pope Francis has never spent an entire night there, choosing to remain at his rooms in the S. Marta guesthouse throughout the summer. Situated on the site of Alba Longa, the ancient capital of the Latin League, it derives its name from the fortress built by the Gandolfi family in the 12th century. Pope Clement VIII purchased it in 1596, and rebuilding began under Urban VIII in 1626. Pope Francis opened the villa’s 75 acre gardens to the public in 2014. Last year a tour was launched from the Vatican train station directly to Castel Gandolfo. This is not the first time Castle Gandolfo welcomed masses of people. By international law, it is part of the Vatican City State. Towards the end of World War II when the Nazis occupied Rome, its doors were thrown open to anyone wishing to enter, and eventually some 12,000 people sought refuge in it. No one was asked their politics or religion, and many of those taking shelter were Roman Jews. Thirty-six babies were born in the papal palace and the pope’s private apartments were turned into a makeshift nursery.

FEAST OF THE MONTH ST SAMTHANN DECEMBER 11

There were many female saints in Early Christian Ireland whose names continue to surface in the history and topography of the land. Little is known about these individuals except their name, the district in which they lived, and perhaps the spring well that supplied them with water. And yet, collectively they are our proudest boast, the saints of Ireland’s heroic age, the centuries when our ancestors were first hearing the Good News of the Gospel. At that time young women and young men in the first flush of Christian enthusiasm were leaving everything and overcoming all obstacles in order to devote their lives entirely to the love and service of Jesus Christ through prayer and care – care for the sick, care for the poor, care for all in need whether it be a kindly word, a listening ear or a dig-out in time of hardship. These saints were the first fruits of Christian Ireland and were either contemporaries of the National Apostle in the 5th century or a generation or two later. In his Confession Patrick refers to the human cost of following Jesus. The women in particular met opposition from within the family; even more difficult was the social opposition endured by cumals and mugs, i.e. female and male slaves. Readers of the Lives of Patrick are introduced to Ethna and Fidelma, the two princesses at the well of Cliabhach; and also to ‘the two Emers,’ daughters of Milciu to whom the young Patrick had been enslaved for years. Others of the heroic age include Attracta of Lough Gara, Brigid of Kildre, Moninne of Slieve Gullion, Cannera of Scattery Island, Gobnait of Ballyvourney and Lelia of Limerick. Initially, it is likely that these young consecrated virgins lived at home, but such was not always possible or desirable. They soon tended to cluster in communities, and here and there throughout the country, there are memories, often vague, of these early monastic communities of women. Among the most notable are Kildare, Clonbroney near Granard, Co. Longford, said to be have been founded by St Patrick, and where he is said to have blessed and bestowed the veil of consecration on the above-mentioned Two Emers. In later years the monastery of Clonbroney was claimed by Kildare as a Brigidine initiative. Later still the foundation at Clonbroney was attributed to St Samthann the subject of this essay, and one of the outstanding women-saints in the Irish calendar. Before becoming abbess of Clonbroney, Samthann was in charge of a convent at Urney in Co Tyrone just a stone’s throw from Lifford. The communities of women that best withstood the test of time through the Middle Ages are Kildare, Clonbroney and Clonburren, the latter having been founded in Roscommon by Cairech Dergáin, a patron saint of Ui Maine. Characteristic of the Celts was a tendency to wander, to be on the move. That attribute did not die with the adoption of monastic life or even with the good advice of an abbot or abbess. The great excuse for getting on the move was the concept of pilgrimage, and there are numerous tales concerning the desire to go on pilgrimage and the efforts of the abbot or abbess to encourage a stay-at-home policy. When St Molua’s abbot hummed and hawed about giving him permission to make a pilgrimage to Rome, St Molua blurted out “Unless I see Rome I shall die soon.” St Samthann too, when abbess of Clonbroney, was approached by a member of her community seeking permission to go on a foreign pilgrimage. ‘I desire to go overseas on pilgrimage’ said the nun to the theologically articulate abbess. Samthann calmly replied, ‘Were God to be found overseas, I too would take ship and go. But since God is near to all that call upon him, there is no constraint upon us to seek him overseas. For from every land there is a way to the kingdom of Heaven.’ That surely was sound theologically, but the good woman might have benefitted from an up-grade in her psychology. I often smile to myself wondering what the nun said under her breath as she backed out the door. John J. O Riordain, CSsR REALITY DECEMBER 2016

Reality Volume 81. No. 10 December 2016 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651 Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Web: www.redcoms.org Email: sales@redcoms.org (With permission of C.Ss.R.)

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REFLECTIONS Time always seems long to the child who is waiting - for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day. DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith WH AUDEN

This is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son 'to serve, not to be served'. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ. QUEEN ELIZABETH

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.

Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.

ROBERT LYND

RONALD REGAN

A CHRISTMAS BLESSING

Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling.

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.

The light of the Christmas star to you. The warmth of home and hearth to you. The cheer and goodwill of friends to you. The hope of a child-like heart to you. The joy of a thousand angels to you. The love of the Son and God's peace to you.

The great thing about getting older is that you become more mellow. Things aren't as black and white, and you become much more tolerant. You can see the good in things much more easily rather than getting enraged as you used to do when you were young. MAEVE BINCHY

We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ask to be born, but had we been consulted, how could we ever have refused? KATE Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;BRIEN

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. CS LEWIS

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

It is possible to argue that the true business of faith is not to produce emotional conviction in us, but to teach us to do without it. RONALD KNOX

Are we hungry enough to realise that we must go home to the Only One who loves us?

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.

ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY BLOOM

ROBERT FROST

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

ST BASIL

GRAHAM GREENE

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EDI TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

PUT CHRIST BACK INTO CHRISTMAS

When

I was young, my dad was involved in a campaign to raise funds for the building of a new Redemptorist church and retreat house on the Antrim Road in Belfast. This month, that church, dedicated to St Gerard, celebrates its sixtieth birthday. One of the fund-raisers I remember best was the “Put Christ back into Christmas” campaign. It involved encouraging local businesses to erect a crib in their window if possible, and promoting the sale of religious Christmas cards and calendars, many with illustrations of crib scenes from the paintings of the Old Masters, others with Irish designs and prayers by the now sadly forgotten artist and printer Brian O’Higgins. According to a report in the Irish Independent for 16 November, 1953 I have just come across, the Belfast group had sold 24,000 religious Christmas cards by mid-November, and were confident of reaching their target of 54,000 by Christmas. A similar campaign undertaken in Limerick the previous year had encouraged families to erect cribs in their homes. According to the Limerick Leader, a conservative estimate of crib sales in the city for that Christmas was about £20,000 (well over half a million euros today). I think we need regular reminders (even annual ones) to “Put Christ back into Christmas” Almost every weekend edition of the newspapers from early November includes advertising for lavish food and drink for the Christmas season. Gifts seem to range far beyond what John Betjeman called the “sweet and silly Christmas things,” to the expensive and useless. Seldom is there the slightest hint that there is a reason for the season. How we celebrated Christmas (or failed to celebrate it) has changed constantly throughout history. The Boston Puritans in the 17th century decreed: “The Observation of Christmas having been deemed a Sacrilege, the Exchanging of Gifts and Greetings, dressing in Fine Clothing, Feasting and similar Satanical practices are hereby FORBIDDEN with the Offender liable to a Fine of FIVE SHILLINGS.”

Christmas survived in America, however, and took on a new life, thanks Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, to the film industry and the popularity of songs like “White Christmas.” Despite their messages of home and peace, they were a long way away from the traditional carols that sang of the birth of Christ in the bleak midwinter. When the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany in August 1914, it was confidently predicted that it would be over by Christmas. A year later it was still dragging on and the horrors of war would soon culminate in the horrors of the Somme and Verdun. The poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was invited by The Times of London to contribute a poem for its Christmas Eve edition in 1915. Hardy’s poem is simple yet memorable. In the midst of the horrors of war, he evokes an evening at a country fireside in a world that is dying, and evokes ancient Christmas traditions and times when faith was simpler and easier and people did believe that the farm animals knelt at midnight to adore the Christ Child. Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease.

The last verse of the poem speaks of Hardy and his generation. It probably also speaks to many in our generation. Life has become more complex, more questioning, yet there is a hunger for security, for the calm of faith that, even in the dark, might prove to be nourishing, that might even be ready to cast aside comforts as it gropes towards the light. I have a friend whose last vestige of contact with the Catholic Church was Mass on Christmas Day with the family. A couple of years ago, they were so busy entertaining unexpected callers on Christmas morning that they did not get to Mass. Only during dinner did they realise it, but admitted that they did not really miss it that much and it did not figure in their plans the following year. I wonder if someone invited her to go with them in the gloom, would she go, “hoping it might be so.”

We wish all our readers and their families the joys of Christmas and every blessing for the New Year. Despite our best efforts to keep costs low, we are forced to introduce a small increase in price from the January – February edition of 2017.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

C OVE R STO RY

The Catholic

A STAPLE OF CHRISTMAS TELEVISION VIEWING, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, IS A FILM CLASSIC THAT REFLECTS A PROFOUNDLY CATHOLIC VIEW OF LIFE, AS DO MANY OTHER FILMS OF ITS DIRECTOR, FRANK CAPRA. BY MARÍA ELENA DE LAS CARRERAS KUNTZ

The

career of Frank Capra coincided with the golden age of Hollywood. His work reflects a profoundly Catholic vision of reality, framed by the Sermon on the Mount, while celebrating American life and its democratic ideals. Born in Sicily in 1897, Capra immigrated to the US in 1903, settling in Los Angeles. In the mid-1920s, he began as a gag writer for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett, producers of comedy shorts. In the late 1920s, Capra REALITY DECEMBER 2016

worked for Columbia Pictures, in a twelve-year association that would catapult him to fame and fortune for films like It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Capra produced the outstanding Why We Fight series during WWII, and in 1946 he directed his classic It’s a Wonderful Life in 1946. By the midfifties his cinema was considered too sentimental and patriotic, out of synch with the times. His 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title marked a revival of interest in his work.

CAPRA’S FORMULA FOR SUCCESS Capra had a knack for visual jokes and humorous angles. This comic sense is at work in the endearing characters and hysterical romantic entanglements in films like It Happened One Night,that became the blueprint for the Hollywood screwball comedy. In romantic comedies and melodramas of the early 1930s, Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin experimented with a comic formula that film historian Richard Griffith described

Vision of

as a “fantasy of goodwill”: “a messianic innocent, not unlike the classic simpletons of literature, pits himself against the forces of entrenched greed. His experience defeats him strategically, but his gallant integrity in the face of temptation calls forth the good-will of the ‘little people,’ and through their combined protest, he triumphs.” The formula was in place by 1936 with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, where Gary Cooper plays the small-town tuba player who outsmarts the New York’s high society when he decides to spend his $20 million inheritance helping farmers become landowners. It is one of many Capra films showing the power of goodness to effect change in the hearts of those willing to undergo an experience of conversion.

A film to tell the wary, the disheartened, and the disillusioned; the wino, the junkie, the prostitute; those behind prison walls and those behind Iron Curtains, that no man is a failure! To show those born slow of foot or slow of mind, condemned to unschooled toil, that each man’s life touches so many other lives. And that if he isn’t around it would leave an awful hole With screenwriter Sidney Buchman Capra brought a political twist to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), offering an explicit defense of the US and its Christian values on the eve of World War II. Jimmy Stewart plays

an idealistic young senator almost destroyed by the political machinery of a senior senator (Claude Rains) and a shrewd political operator (Edward Arnold)—the prototypical Capra villain. With the aid of a savvy woman (Jean

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the affection of family and friends, who will together save the bank from insolvency. The hero’s wry smile to the camera is a wink to the audience; he has seen, understood, and accepted life in all its glory and imperfection. Capra called It’s a Wonderful Life the greatest film he had ever made: “A film to tell the wary, the disheartened, and the disillusioned; the wino, the junkie, the prostitute; those behind prison walls and those behind Iron Curtains, that no man is a failure! To show those born slow of foot or slow of mind, condemned to unschooled toil, that each man’s life touches so many other lives. And that if he isn’t around it would leave an awful hole.”

George with his Guardian Angel, Clarence

Arthur) Mr. Smith defends the principles of liberty, truth, and democracy in a climactic filibuster scene, reading from the Declaration of Independence and 1 Corinthians 13, the Hymn to Charity. Meet John Doe is a dark political fable about a fascist newspaper tycoon who fabricates a story about an ordinary John Doe (Gary Cooper), who will commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest against the state of the world. But Doe has a change of heart at a packed baseball stadium, and denounces the ominous movement to squash the country’s democratic

A WONDERFUL LIFE It’s a Wonderful Life is a work of summation, whose undercurrent of angst can be interpreted in different ways. It lays out the conflict between the desires of the heart and the needs of the common good. The protagonist George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) struggles with this irreconcilable conflict. Even though his nemesis Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) typifies the classic Capra villain, he’s really more an external manifestation of one side of George’s divided spirit than an autonomous character. Most of the film is an extended flashback, in which an apprentice guardian angel named Clarence, reviews G eorge’s life as the head of a small-town building and loan company. Believing he has failed as a husband, father, and businessman, George is contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve. In the “unborn” sequence, Clarence shows George how the absence of his goodness would have made the town an urban hell of mean little people. Awakened by this desolate vision, George returns home to

The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own, not self-acquired. God gave you those talents; they are His gifts to you, to use for His purpose institutions. Mr. Deeds, Mr. Smith, and John Doe are often studied as a trilogy of progressive social comedies that dramatise American values with exceptional artistry. Because Capra’s vision of America coincided with that of the majority of his audience, his work was consistently popular until the war. REALITY DECEMBER 2016

A VISION OF THE CROSS Capra’s biographers and critics agree that the power and consistency of the filmmaker’s moral vision are rooted in his own experiences. An individualist by temperament, Capra initially rejected his religious heritage, only gradually growing into it. He wrote that in his early adulthood he was a “Christmas Catholic.” But in the mid-1930s, the astonishing success of It Happened One Night triggered an artistic crisis, which resulted in a conversion experience, not unlike the one faced by many of his characters. It was the scolding given him by an anonymous man that pushed him into action: “The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your

Closely associated with communion is the idea of mediation. In Capra, the hero functions as a mediator between the needs of the community and the entrenched forces of greed. The most Christ-like of these figures— Mr. Smith and John Doe— are “crucified” by the powerful, and they embody the archetypal messianic innocent: through passion and death to resurrection.

George deals with the devious Mr Potter

own, not self-acquired. God gave you those and “sacramentality" are rendered cinematically. talents; they are His gifts to you, to use for His These three concepts provide us with a good purpose. And when you don’t use the gifts context for understanding Capra’s cinema. God blessed you with, you are an offense to A joyful sense of community, of belonging to God—and to humanity.” something larger than oneself, is at the heart Through the influence of his wife Lucille of Capra’s mature works. But it is also present Reyburn, Capra returned to the Church. He in earlier films like Lost Horizon (1937) about described himself as “a Catholic in spirit; one the utopian Shangri-La in the Himalayas whose who firmly believes that the anti-moral, the members follow the teachings of their lama, a intellectual bigots, and the Mafias of ill will may 200-year-old French missionary. destroy religion, but they will never conquer the cross.” If his films are a form of submerged autobiography, then one can understand why so many of them show the clash between a Catholic moral view— represented by the idealist—and the materialistic worldview of his villains, a view that Capra The joy of giving sometimes felt drawn to because of his desire to be a successful Hollywood director. Lourdeaux notes that Capra’s somewhat In Italian and Irish Filmmakers in America, Lee idealised communities are a blueprint for Lourdeaux’s 1990 study of John Ford, Frank Capra, the principle of subsidiarity, which is so Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, the fundamental to the social vision of the author argues that the Catholic identity of these Church: families, neighbourhoods, and small directors can be probed by examining how the organisations provide protection against Catholic notions of “communion”, “mediation”, both anarchy and despotism.

THE DIGNITY OF THE UNDERDOG A distinctively Catholic idea, sacramentality is the capacity of things—people, objects, places, the whole cosmos—to carry the presence of God. It invites us to see God in and through His creation. It is in the portrayal of “little” people and their inherent dignity. “The meek can inherit the earth when the John Does start loving their neighbours,” John Doe says at the end of his radio broadcast. The filmmaker also observed that the underlying idea of his movies was actually the Sermon on the Mount. Although Capra’s spiritual vision gets its focus from the Catholic faith, this is not immediately apparent to most viewers, since his films contain very little religious explicit religious imagery. His Catholic imagination must be traced through characters and plot structures. Perhaps the single most important Frank Capra

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A still of Mr Smith Goes To Washington

theme in Capra’s work is the power of goodness to transform sinful human nature. In many instances, goodness manifests itself as a romantic love that thoroughly metamorphoses the people—a contemptuous Broadway actor in The Matinee Idol (1928), a cynical gold digger in Ladies of Leisure (1930), and the unfaithful husband in State of the Union. Arsenic and

Like the gospel parables, Capra’s films show us how love, a gift freely given, comes to ordinary reality and changes it in extraordinary ways—in other words, the transcendent disrupts the course of human events. In It’s a Wonderful Life, a work of theological optimism, a representative of the divine comes to earth to offer salvation to a soul in despair. The hero arrives at his salvation only after undergoing an experience of powerlessness. His prayer of desolation— “Lord, I’m at the end of my rope”—recalls the loneliness of our Lord’s cry in Gethsemane. The pattern is completed with George’s resurrection, when he realises that in spite of its imperfections, life is still wonderful. His love—an analogy for Christ’s love—has created a spiritual

community, a tangible manifestation of the kingdom of God. Capra’s cinema reminds us that this imperfect world can be redeemed, that the reward is worth the fight, and that life is a gift to be treasured.

Capra’s films show us how love, a gift freely given, comes to ordinary reality and changes it in extraordinary ways Old Lace (1944) presents a funny variant: the misguided love of two eccentric old ladies makes them poison twelve lonely gentlemen to end their misery.

Reprinted with kind permission of Sophia Institute / Crisis online A Fulbright scholar from Argentina, Maria Elena de las Carreras Kuntz has a Ph.D. in Film Studies from U.C.L.A. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jonathan and their daughter Rebecca

By Mike Daley

ELIZABETH ANN SETON THE FIRST AMERICAN-BORN SAINT WAS A WOMAN CONVERT BORN A FEW MONTHS AFTER THE BOSTON TEA PARTY AND TWO YEARS BEFORE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Several

yearsago, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton while on vacation in New Mexico, my wife and I wandered into a toy store. Towards the back, lining a shelf were a variety of lunch boxes. Given the themes on them it was easy to see that these were for adults, not children taking food to school. Case in point: On one of them was a nun in full habit, requisite ruler in hand. She was standing watch over a young girl writing, for some disciplinary infraction, “I am personally responsible for the sins of the world,” over and over on the chalkboard. Exiting the store, for sale at the cash register, was “Nunzilla”—the fire breathing nun. Wind her up and look out. Impressively, women religious had entered the elite world of novelty items. In retrospect, I can’t help but think that, as their numbers have decreased, caricatures of Catholic sisters have when the pervading sentiment was that a increased. Everybody it seems has a “Sister” woman’s place was in the home. They were story which captures a nostalgic, limited, America’s first feminists, battling for the and, often, humorous moment of Catholic rights and opinions of women in a workplace culture, but at the same time obscures the where bishops sometimes regarded nuns as central role that women religious have played their subjects or, worse, part of their ‘turf.’” in America’s religious and civic life. When people think of places where saints In his book, Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the lived—the Holy Land, Europe (Ireland), Latin Making of America, John Fialka contends America—all come to mind. Rarely does one that women religious’ “contributions to think of the United States. This probably America are not small. They built the nation’s has more to do with the relative “newness” largest private school and nonprofit hospital of the nation than a lack of holiness on the systems. They were the nation’s first large part of the faithful here. Whatever the case, network of female professionals in an age Elizabeth Ann Seton is one of the persons

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who has changed this situation. She has the distinct title of being the first American-born saint. DAU G HTER O F A N E W NATION Elizabeth was born in New York City in 1774, a few months after the Boston Tea Party, right before the Revolutionary War began. She was brought up in a wealthy Episcopalian home. Through her father, who was a doctor, she learned the virtue of service to others. Unfortunately, tragedy would trike early for Elizabeth, when at the age of three her mother died. Relations with her eventual stepmother were strained at best. What sustained Elizabeth through this difficult time and all the other ones to follow was her devotion to reading the Scriptures. At the age of nineteen, in 1794, she married William Magee Seton, a wealthy and socially prominent businessman whose father owned a successful import/export business. Over the course of nine years together, they had five children. In the beginning, with a fashionable home on Wall Street, life, it appeared, couldn’t get any better. In addition to the demands of being a wife and mother, Elizabeth and her sister-in-law became concerned about the material conditions of the poor. This led to the formation in 1797 of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Children. Together, the two women became known as the “Protestant Sisters of Charity.”

Elizabeth’s life would soon change, however. Due to a combination of economic pressures and a plague of international piracy, in 1801, her husband’s business went bankrupt and then his health began to fail. A trip to Italy to visit the merchant Filicchi family, international business partners and friends, was suggested to improve William’s health and well-being. Upon arrival, though, for fear of yellow fever, Italian authorities quarantined the family for several weeks only worsening his condition. Sadly, William died of tuberculosis shortly after reaching the Filicchi’s home. All was not lost though, as it was there in Italy that Elizabeth first discovered the beauty of Catholicism. She was particularly drawn to the Blessed Sacrament.

beginnings, Elizabeth Ann Seton is credited with founding the Catholic parochial school system in America. From the small group of women who joined Elizabeth to teach would emerge the Sisters of Charity, the first congregation of women religious in the United States. During Elizabeth’s lifetime twenty communities would be established. Her legacy today is impressive: six religious congregations, plus hundreds of schools, health care facilities, and social service centers throughout the United States and the world. All this sprang from Elizabeth’s love for Jesus and her sisters and brothers in God’s family. Franciscan Leonard Foley maintains that “Elizabeth Seton had no extraordinary gifts. She was not a mystic or stigmatic. She did not prophesy or speak in tongues. She had two great devotions: abandonment to the will of God and an ardent love for the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote to a friend, Julia Scott, that she would prefer to exchange the world for a ‘cave or a desert.’ ‘But God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.’ Her

She ached to be present, to experience presence, to literally be close to others CONVERSION AND GROWTH Upon her return home to New York in June 1804, after a profound inner struggle, Elizabeth became a Catholic. Not unexpectedly, her relatives and friends disapproved. Soon she found herself without any financial support for herself and five children (all under eight years of age). Sister of Charity Regina Bechtle believes that “Elizabeth’s experience of poverty was a conversion moment, pivotal to her story of transformation. When her husband died and she chose to become a Catholic, her former world, that of a comfortable matron who moved in the highest social circles, quickly disappeared. What she had taken for granted was gone.” After a failed attempt at starting a boarding school in New York and with the encouragement of Bishop John Carroll and Sulpician priests (by whom she would be introduced to the spiritual tradition of Sts. Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac), Elizabeth established a school for girls in Baltimore, Maryland. Later she would move to a more permanent and lasting location in Emmitsburg, Maryland. From these humble

brand of sanctity is open to everyone if we love God and do his will.” Plagued by tuberculosis, Elizabeth, now known as Mother Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Maryland on January 4, 1821. The National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is located there. She was canonized by Pope Paul VI on September 14, 1975. Summing up her life, Wendy Wright, professor of theology at Creighton University, says “The overarching motif that guided Elizabeth’s spiritual journey seems to have been her search for an enduring and evermore-intimate experience of Embodied Presence. She ached to be present, to experience presence, to literally be close to others. Her relentless desire to be intimate played itself out in her relationships with her father, husband, children, friends, and, most significantly, with God.”

19 Mike Daley is a teacher and writer from Cincinnati, OH where he lives with his wife June, and their three children. His latest book is Vatican II: Fifty Personal Stories (Orbis).

Statue of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton at the National Shrine, Emmitsburg, Maryland

COMMENT THE YOUNG VOICE DAVID O’DONOGHUE

SCRIPTURE THEMES AND POP CULTURE

HOW THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE TAKES ON NEW LIFE IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR CULTURE

I try to read a chapter of the Bible every night. Sadly I have to say “try”, as after a long shift of work, I find that reaching out to grab the leatherbound King James that rests on my bedside table is a tribulation in and of itself. But when I crack open the volume and peruse the books, selecting one whose tone and content I know might connect with how I’m feeling, the trial of opening up the book is always worth it. As someone who comes from a background of academic literary theory, there are few pieces of prose as exciting as scripture. Not only does the bible contain sublime poesy and profound wisdom, but the pages of the text itself seem charged with the invisible energy of the historical circumstances which have surrounded it. As my fingers follow along the crimson-shaded words of Christ I can feel a kind of ephemeral connection; a connection to the early Christians who huddled in caves and gathered their new faith like firewood to keep out the smothering darkness of Roman imperial aggression, a connection to the radicals like Dorothy Day who found comfort and a sense of mission in Scripture even in the despair of the Great Depression and a connection to the Christians in war-torn regions of the world like Syria who find time for Scripture even in all the bloodshed that surrounds them. The bible is unique in the world of texts not only for the beauty and significance of its writing but also for the profound sense of REALITY DECEMBER 2016

universality and connection it creates in the reader. Needless to say, my feelings are not exactly shared by many in my generation. I’ve had many more shocked and puzzled reactions to my studies in Scripture than to my dedication to reading arcane, Enlightenment-era political philosophy. My references to what I view as fairly standard biblical references (the road to Damascus, the Tower of Babel) have provoked bemusement so many times that I have begun to doubt that the universality of scripture extends from Syrian Christians to our own college campuses. But as someone who lives simultaneously in the world of biblical study and millenial pop culture. I am beginning to see that perhaps I’ve been looking for my generation’s connection to Scripture in the wrong places. In reality, the universality of biblical stories becomes evident the moment you turn on Netflix. Comic book-based fiction, the cause celebre of the millenial popcultural universe, is in fact riven with both overt and more subtle references to biblical themes. The

most obvious of these examples is Netflix’s Daredevil. On its surface the programme is a fairly standard masked superhero show but the background of this particular character, a blind man who fights crime with the aid of his supernaturally sensitive remaining senses, is deeply intertwined with discussions of faith. I’ve always been a fan of the character of Daredevil as he is one of the few characters in comic books whose religious faith is an important element of his character which informs his morality and discussions as well as the thematic content of the work in which he appears. While other big comic book characters float in a universe of super-powered demigods and seem to have no use for traditional spirituality, Daredevil is different. Daredevil is a varyingly devout Irish Catholic, so the appeal of the character for someone like me should be evident. His character struggles with questions of faith, identity, sin, justice and redemption, and through his trials, he illustrates the universality of these deeply biblical themes. The programme’s aesthetic and

themes are heavily Old Testament, as it presents us with the question of how someone might navigate a world filled with sin and struggle and how one can say what is just and moral in such a world of crime and conspiracy. Its narrative floats between transcendent imagery and illustrations of a heightened sensory world beyond our own to the bone-crunching reality of a world of violence and strife. Millenials have absorbed the world of the Old Testament even if many of us haven’t cracked open a bible in our life. These biblical ideas of how to live a good life and the contrast between our transcendent moments, and how the world can be the stage for such profound difficulty and ugliness inherently resonates with us. This kind of popular portrayal of the central and most powerful questions of Scripture in an entertaining way will open many more people up to faith than will my rambling explanation of the story of Saul’s conversion in lecture theatres at 9am. We must not be afraid of using popular culture as a springboard to discuss and illustrate the power and universality of the struggle, questioning and appreciation for beauty which Scripture cultivates. Although the Bible presents us with a tome whose storied background gives it a soul-stirring gravitas we must remember that when it comes to opening up conversations about faith we can just as easily talk about our television screens as crack open Genesis.

TRANSCENDENCE, TENDERNESS, AND TENNIS T HE A RT OF TH E S EC ON D S HEPH E R D S’ PL AY

IN THE MIDDLE AGES, AMONG OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LITURGICAL YEAR, ESPECIALLY FOR THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI, WERE THE MYSTERY A N D MO R A L I T Y PL AY S , PERFORMED BY AMATEUR ACTORS ON BIBLICAL STORIES OR THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. THE SECOND SHEPHERD’S PL AY IN THE WAKEFIELD CO LLE CT I O N B E GI NS A S KNOCKABOUT COMEDY, BUT LIKE ALL THESE PLAYS, IS A WITNESS TO POPULAR FAITH AND DEVOTION.

BY DR FRANCES MCCORMACK

The

burlesque episodes of the late Medieval Second Shepherds’ Play have, at times, overshadowed the Christological and soteriological seriousness of the piece. With elements of farcical comedy, the Wakefield Master’s tale of a stolen sheep, concealed as a newborn baby, all too often dominates readings of the pageant and obscures what is a message of hope and promise for the medieval Christian audience. IT’S A CRUEL WORLD The pageant opens in a bitterly cold Yorkshire

winter where three shepherds individually make complaints about both the weather and the lack of justice in their society. This is a text that repeatedly reiterates the transience and harshness of the pre-Incarnation world, where everything is out of joint with the medieval idea of order: where husbands are dominated and oppressed by their wives; where shepherds who complain about being overworked accuse each other of laziness. It is only in the discovery of the Christ-child in Bethlehem that order will finally be restored, and the shepherds will close the pageant by articulating their salvation through God’s

grace. “Lord, well is me,” Gibb rejoices in the final lines of the piece. The arrival of Mak, a notorious thief who, the shepherds rightly suspect, will steal their sheep, emphasises the social discord of a world mired in sin. Yet, Mak’s complaints about his own marital troubles cause the shepherds to cautiously accept him as a fellow victim of social unease, and they settle down together to sleep. Here is unity in disunity: social cohesion, the Wakefield Master demonstrates, can be found through solidarity among the dispossessed, even when they are likely to further dispossess each other.

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Medival manuscript of the shepherd's play

In pantomimic mode, Mak casts a spell, with a blasphemous (and anachronistic) incantation of “Manus tuas commendo, Poncio Pilato” (Into your hands I commend, Pontius Pilate), that causes the shepherds to remain asleep until he has finished his task, and he makes off with one of their sheep. Critics have read Mak, for both his blasphemy and his immoral behaviour (particularly, his theft of a sheep that prefigures the Lamb of God) as a type of devil. Yet, unlike the grudging devils of medieval literature who bewail their sentence, Mak later willingly accepts the punishment that he risks by committing such crimes: “If I trespass eft, REALITY DECEMBER 2016

gyrd of my heede” (If I trespass again, cut off my head). Further, his character serves a very important function in that it is through him that we see the operation of God’s redemptive intervention into human affairs: his humanity is evidence within the text that the grace of the Incarnation transforms a world of reprisals into a world of mercy. A MOCK NATIVITY? When Mak returns home to his wife, Gyll, she is concerned that the discovery of the stolen sheep could result in his death by hanging. She proposes to pretend that she has just given birth, and lies wailing and groaning by

the crib in which she has wrapped the sheep. It is in the movement from false to real nativities that the action of the play hinges. In Gyll’s crib, a sheep in infants’ swaddling clothes prefigures the lamb of God lying “Betwyx two bestys” (between two beasts) in Bethlehem. Gyll, with her innumerable offspring (her house full of brood, as Mak puts it), and her appetite for both food and drink, is the very antithesis of the Virgin Mary who reiterates the plan of salvation previously delivered by the angel while directing the shepherds towards Bethlehem. Mak returns to the field and lies down by the shepherds who wake him and rebuke him for sleeping so late. When he returns home for a second time, the shepherds notice the missing sheep and are divided when two of them suspect that Mak or Gyll is the thief. When the shepherds visit Mak’s house, they recount the theft of their sheep and Mak invites them to search his house if they are suspicious. They find no sign of their sheep, and they depart, but one of the shepherds returns to offer sixpence to what he believes to be the newborn child. As the shepherd, Daw, lifts up the blanket to kiss the child, he discovers the stolen sheep. Despite Mak and Gyll insisting that the sheep is a changeling, the shepherds resolve to punish them for their crime, but the punishment on which they settle is neither a beating nor a hanging; Mak is wrapped in a blanket and tossed about. RECONCILIATION The critic D.W. Robertson, Jr., sees Daw’s loving offer of a gift to Mak’s child as the pivotal moment of the play, marking the move from the Old Testament law of redress to the New Testament law of reconciliation: When the shepherds, under the inspiration of the “youth” among them who shows from the outset glimmerings of wisdom, and whose charitable impulse leads to the discovery of the stolen sheep, are led to perform an act of mercy, substituting a toss in a blanket for the legal death penalty for stealing after Mak has shown repentance (lines 622-623), they have, in effect, implemented the New Law

and are thus in a position to discover Christ. Daw’s offering is benevolent not only because it signals forgiveness of and reconciliation with the villain who is suspected of stealing their sheep, but also because Daw has previously complained about the poverty and hunger endured by underpaid shepherds. In fact, his behaviour demonstrates a clear transformation, since it was he who originally warned the other shepherds about Mak’s criminal tendencies, who insisted that they count their sheep, and who suspected Mak and Gyll when he noticed the lost sheep. Although the three shepherds have most often been read as typological figures with little to differentiate them from each other, it is Daw’s ability to transcend his initial suspicion and his desire for retribution and to demonstrate beneficence and mercy that sets him apart as an exemplar of the acquisition of Christian virtue. GIFTS TO THE CHRIST CHILD The shepherds, tired and sore from the physical exertion of punishing Mak, settle down to take a nap, but an angel appears and declares that they must go to Bethlehem to visit the infant Christ. Upon arriving at the stable at Bethlehem, they offer gifts to the Christ child before the pageant ends with a song. It is their speeches of offering, however, that are the most surprising part of a pageant that defies all expectations of a nativity story. Each speech is in three parts: each shepherd addresses the child as God and expounds some doctrine; likewise, each speaks affectionately to the infant Christ; and each presents a symbolic gift without explanation. Coll’s speech compares the youth and purity of the infant with his power over creation and his vanquishing of the devil. He remarks on the infant’s good nature--“Lo, He merys! Lo, He laghys my swetyng!” Behold, he’s making merry! Behold, my sweeting is laughing!) and presents him with a cluster of cherries that, in their blood-red colour, prefigure Christ’s sacrifice and thereby

indicate the second person of the Trinity. Gibb’s focus is on Christ as Creator who has “made all of noght”, and he kneels and cowers before him, before addressing him as “lyttyl tyne mop” (little, tiny moppet), reiterating the contrast between and consubstantiality of Godhead and human infant. He presents him with a bird that represents his divinity and symbolises the third person of the Trinity. Daw greets the “derlyng dere, full of Godhede” (darling dear, full of Godhead) and prays that he be near when Daw is in need. He laments the poverty into which the Christ child is born, and compliments him on his sweet face before presenting him with a ball: “Have and play Thee with all, and go to the tenys,” he urges. The tennis ball (tennis was played with hands or gloves centuries before the birth of lawn tennis) is round like an orb and therefore, as the critic Lawrence J. Ross notes, symbolises kingship, and contrasts with the poverty upon which Daw remarks. This gift, in turn, symbolises the first person of the Trinity. These short passages and offerings highlight, through juxtaposition, Christ’s divine power and human fragility, and the innocent laughter of the baby who receives

a gift that points forward in time to his blood sacrifice is breathtakingly poignant. The contrasts between poverty and kingship, power and helplessness, provide promise of hope in a world where the grace of the Incarnation has already been visible in the Mak episode. Despite the assertions of many scholars of the pageant, the Mak narrative is not a precursory episode to the nativity scene: it is part of it. Depicting the sinfulness of the world that has necessitated the Incarnation, this is a play about lost sheep and the lamb who will come to save them, about imperfect shepherds and the shepherd-king who make reparations with his own blood, about a move from retribution to mercy. The power of the nativity scene in the pageant lies in its return to innocence: although the idea of the Lamb of God is bound up with the concept of atonement through sacrifice, it is the Augustinian emphasis on the lamb’s innocence that prevails, echoed through the representation of the Christ child that is marked by such tenderness. Dr Frances McCormack lectures in English at University College, Galway

C H RI STM A S

THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS: THREE MASSES ON THE HILLS OF ROME

People gather in St Peter's Square on Christmas Eve for midnight mass

DID YOU EVER WONDER WHY THERE ARE THREE MASSES ON CHRISTMAS DAY? THEY REFLECT A LONG HISTORY OF CELEBRATION THAT BEGAN IN THE BASILICA OF BETHLEHEM AND WAS EVENTUALLY PLANTED IN ROME BY FR PATRICK JONES

‘And

so, there was no Christmas at the beginning,’ said one participant at the liturgy talk in the parish. We were reflecting on the liturgical year and how it developed, beginning with Sunday as the ‘original feast,’ to use the words of Vatican II. Then very soon was added Easter with a night vigil, celebrating

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like Sunday, the death and resurrection of the Lord. There was also the preparation through fasting for these days. Since it was a time of persecution, communities of believers honoured their own martyrs, those who gave witness through dying for the Faith. That was the picture for the first 300 years.

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS By the beginning of the 4 th centur y, persecution was replaced by the Peace of Constantine in the year 313. Over time, the one celebration of the Vigil at Easter, took shape as a week-long celebration, Holy Week, with Palm Sunday and its procession, a commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist

on Holy Thursday and Good Friday with the veneration of the Cross. After Easter, the Ascension and Pentecost become feasts for the fortieth and fiftieth days of the season. Finally, the birth of Christ, with the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany, is celebrated East and West. We have one intriguing piece

EARLY CHRISTMAS AT THE VATICAN Around this time the Basilica of St Peter’s was being constructed on the Vatican hill. It was there that the feast was observed through the Mass of the day, celebrated around 9 o’clock in the morning. It is the original Mass of Christmas at Rome and we still celebrate it today as the ‘Mass during the Day’ or the third Mass of Christmas. We still proclaim the traditional Gospel, not the story of Christ’s birth according to St Luke, but opening section of the first chapter of St John’s Gospel, the Prologue: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ This is what Christmas is about. Preaching on Christmas at this Mass at St Peter’s, St Leo the Great, bishop of Rome (440461), reminds us, ‘This is the day our Saviour was born: what a joy for us, my beloved! This is

no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life –the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising, as it does, immortality.’ The sermon ends, as it does in the section of it we read in our Office of Readings for Christmas, with a reminder, ‘O Christian, be aware of your nobility –it is God’s own life that you share.’ This is echoed in the collect of the Mass. Some think that it was written by St Leo the Great and is his homily in prayer form: ‘O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.’ There are echoes of it in the prayer the priest says at every Mass as he mingles the water and the wine. THE MANGER AND MIDNIGHT MASS It was only in the 11th century that this Mass at St Peter’s was

The shrine of the crib at the church of St Mary Major

of evidence from this period regarding the celebration of Christmas. In a calendar dated the year 354 and ascribed to Furius Dionysius Philocalus, giving us lists of the deaths of bishops of Rome, and the Roman martyrs as well as civil observances, we have an entry: ‘December 25 Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.’ From internal evidence, given the updating through additions to the calendar, this record of the feast of Christmas means that the feast of Christ’s birth was already being celebrated in Rome in the early 330s.

celebrated at the Basilica of St Mary Major on the Esquiline hill. St Mary Major had become the Christmas church, and in 5 th century, a night Mass or ‘Midnight Mass’ was celebrated there in the basilica built, under Pope Sixtus III (432-440), as a church of Mary, following the Council of Ephesus (431) which had proclaimed Mary as Theotokos, God-bearer, Mother of God. This Mass, celebrated by the Pope, with a night Office beforehand, and Lauds or morning praises afterwards, imitated what the Christian community of Jerusalem was doing at Bethlehem, though they did so on the eve of Epiphany. In keeping with that link, in the next century, a chapel was built in St Mary Major as a replica of the cave at Bethlehem. In the 12th century relics of a wooden manger, regarded as being from the manger in which Jesus lay, were deposited in St Mary Major. They are now kept in a reliquary under the main altar of

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SAINT ANASTASIA There is another Roman church located near the Circus Maximus at the foot of the Palatine hill and dedicated to St Anastasia. Her feast was kept on the 25 December at this church by the Greek Byzantine community who lived nearby. They were honouring one of their great saints, who gave her life for her faith at Sirmium in modern day Serbia around 304. Her body was taken to Rome at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century, and her name was put in the Roman Canon of the Mass. At this church, beginning from the mid 6th century, the

The Church of St Anastasia

the basilica. In 1585, the chapel was moved and placed under the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. The midnight Mass, though officially it is simply ‘Mass at night,’ recalls the birth of Christ at Bethlehem as told in the Gospel of St Luke. The reading ends with the song of the angels, the opening lines of the 4th century Greek Christian hymn, ‘Glory to God in the highest,’ which we did not hear on Advent days but keep for Christmas.

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bishop of Rome on his way to St Peter’s, celebrated Mass for the martyr’s feast on Christmas Day with the Byz antine community. After some time, this became a Christmas Mass, with Christmas prayers and readings, and an additional prayer commemorating St Anastasia. The old Latin Missal remembered this tradition adding the subheading Statio ad S. Anastasiam for the second Mass of Christmas, meaning literally “stopping at the church of St Anastasia” for the ‘Mass at Dawn.’ These three Masses have traditional Gospel and New Testament readings. The Letters to Titus and to the Hebrews remind us that God’s grace has been revealed to the whole human race. What was spoken at various times and in different ways in the past, now in our time God has spoken through his Son. Through God’s compassion we are saved, through cleansing water and the renewal with the Holy Spirit poured out over us through Jesus Christ. Old Testament readings have been added to the traditional scheme of readings. They too give us the rich meaning of Christmas as we celebrate the Christmas Masses. We no longer walk in darkness, a light has shone and all the ends of the earth see the salvation of God. A child is born for us, WonderCounsellor, Mighty-God, EternalFather, Prince-of-Peace. A FOURTH MASS FOR CHRISTMAS? The three Masses, ‘at night,’ ‘at dawn’ and ‘during the day,’ have their origins in the papal liturgies

at three churches on the hills of Rome, Vatican, Esquiline and Palatine. As the books of the papal liturgies became known and used elsewhere, the custom of the three Masses was accepted in the West. Perhaps this history was forgotten in medieval times, when the three Masses were given a mystical meaning centred on the ‘threefold birth’ of the Lord: in the mystery of the Trinity the Father bears the Son, one with himself in essence but a distinct person: in the second birth, commemorated at Christmas and in us, finally, a third birth, ‘born every day and at every hour in a good soul, as a result of grace and love.’ And nowadays there is a fourth Mass! This is the evening Vigil Mass on 24 December, since the morning Mass is an Advent Mass. The Gospel of the evening Mass, the beginning of the feast of Christmas, gives us the genealogy of Jesus as in the first chapter of St Matthew. It concludes with the message of the angel to Joseph: ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’

Fr Patrick Jones was director of the Irish National for Liturgy at Maynooth and has published many articles on liturgy. He is now Parish Priest of St Columba’s, Iona Road, Dublin.

prayer corner

In this series, Fr George Wadding invites us to take an imaginative look at some familiar Gospel stories, imagining how the characters might have told their story if they were alive today. Using the imagination can be a powerful way of entering into reflective contemplative prayer. Find a quiet corner, read the article slowly a few times, think about and pray as the spirit leads you.

I, Joseph Of Nazareth

One of the most important influences on the life of Jesus of Nazareth was St. Joseph. And yet we know very little about him - just those few lines written about him in the gospels. His name - Joseph - conjures up images of the other Joseph in the Old Testament. In both cases, their lives were given direction through dreams and both of them saved the lives of their families by bringing them to Egypt. Read this meditation and keep your bible handy, open at Matthew Chapters 1 and 2.

45, I am nearing the end of my days. Some of my boyhood friends have already passed on before me. My breathing is bad – I imagine my lungs must be full of sawdust. I let my son Jesus do most of the work these days. He’s young and strong and can travel to outlying districts to fix a fence or make a door or straighten out a plough or measure an ox for a yoke or whatever. Yes – Jesus! We, that’s Mary and I, we were expecting great things of him since his birth. But he has simply remained at home and learned my trade. I am a craftsman. My little business came down to me from my grandfather Mathan and my father Jacob and now I am passing it on to Jesus. When he was still a baby, an old man called Simeon told us that he would be trouble. But, apart from the first years of his life, so far, thank God, he is just a dutiful son and a thoughtful neighbour to anyone in need. I wonder, when will the marvellous events of his childhood blossom into fulfilment! Before things settled down

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here in Nazareth he was responsible for interrupting my life on four separate occasions – well, ‘responsible’ is the wrong word, maybe just the ‘unwitting cause’ is better.

MARRYING MARY As I worked in my workshop, I would often see Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anne, go to the well with other women and girls. From the start, my heart was drawn to her. She was beautiful and oozed innocence and life. I dreamt of her as my future bride. Eventually, her parents and mine met to discuss a possible match between us and the upshot of it was that we became engaged. Then unexpectedly came the first interruption. I discovered the love of my life was pregnant, and I knew one thing for certain – I was not the father. Can you

occurred. An angel spoke to me in a dream and made a startling announcement: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." (Mt. 1:20-21) The dream was so real – more like a vision. What was I to do? Would I heed my dream - or my instinct? Could I face down the whisperings of the neighbours in Nazareth.They would know when Mary and I completed our betrothal and when our child was born! Gossips are good at this kind of arithmetic. Next morning I had decided. I would do as the angel of the Lord commanded me. I took Mary as my wife but I had no marital relations with her before her baby son was born. In fact, I never had afterwards, either. I officially named the baby, our baby, Jesus.

We lived hand to mouth, crippled with taxes and tithes to the temple in Jerusalem imagine my personal anguish! My dreams were shattered. Our wedding was off! My beautiful bride had committed adultery! What would I do? My immediate instinct was to obey the law of God and take her to court. But I loved her too much. I couldn’t live with the thought that this beautiful, laughing girl might be stoned to death. So I chose the second legal option open to me. I would divorce her privately in the presence of select witnesses. That would be much kinder and more humane. But first I would sleep on it and deal with it in the morning. In bed that night the second interruption REALITY DECEMBER 2016

EASTERN VISITORS I was looking forward to a life of domestic bliss. I slept a contented man next to my beloved wife and our son, unaware of what was brewing in the dark night. A group of exotic men had come from the East to pay

their respects to our child. They were supposed to be wise. Whether they were wise or not, it wasn't very wise of them to tell the reigning king of the Jews that they were looking for the new king. Their imprudence would spark off a slaughter of all the innocent baby boys of Bethlehem. Our little king whom the wise men came to worship was in danger of being murdered at birth, and we didn’t know it. The fate of those innocent baby boys tore the hearts out of us. That was the third major interruption in my life. The angel spoke to me again in a dream. He alerted me to Herod's plans and told me to take the child and its mother and escape into Egypt. "Stay there," said the angel, "until I tell you to leave." (Mt. 2: 13) In the twinkling of an eye, we, proud and happy parents, had become fleeing refugees. LIFE AS A REFUGEE Like my namesake before me, I found refuge in the land of our ancient enemy. Egypt was good to us. There was plenty of part-time work for a good carpenter and we enjoyed the supreme bliss of married life. There is a joy that goes deeper than the joy of sexual intimacy, a sort of ecstasy beyond human words. Our mutual and intimate love, our pride at having been chosen by God to be guardians of God’s Son was like a flame that lit our paths and smoothed the bumps and bruises of life. Then came the fourth interruption. Another dream and another angelic command, "Get up, take the child and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Herod’s son, Archelaus, was even more

ambitious and more vicious than his father. For the child's safety I took our family north to Galilee where Archelaus' brother Antipas was king - a somewhat less cruel ruler. Now at last we could live in peace as a family.

WINTER

AT HOME IN NAZARETH My workshop was in a sort of courtyard which we shared with my extended family. Mary became good friends with my brother Clopas’ wife, also called Mary. We were always surrounded by uncles and aunts with their families, Jesus’ cousins. And we weren’t far from Mary’s extended family. A lot of the family chores would be shared - like cooking and baking, laundry and sewing. There was a water tank which the women and girls kept filled from the village well. The homesteads were hives of activity women minding squabbling children, doing their household chores, chatting about the things women chat about, nursing the sick and caring for the aged. During the day,

the men and boys would be in the fields or plying their trade like myself. The girls stayed near their mothers, learning and working with them. In spring and autumn the girls and women would lend a hand in the fields at planting and harvesting. Nazareth was a farming community. We lived hand to mouth, crippled with taxes and tithes to the temple in Jerusalem. From time to time young hot-heads rebelled but were cruelly suppressed by the Romans. Many young were crucified or sold into slavery. It is a cruel age. I taught Jesus all I knew about my trade. In the evenings, I told him about our great faith-heroes, Abraham and Isaac and Moses and David and the others. I taught him his Hebrew prayers and recited the psalms with him and saw him grow into a responsible and hard-working young man who was always able to find time to commune with his heavenly Abba in prayer. Now that my days are numbered, memories come flooding back to me. It was a hard life

but made more than bearable by our deep love for each other. We could not have asked for a better son. Only once did he cause us any anxiety. That was when he went missing on our way back from Jerusalem. He was twelve. I remember so clearly what he said to us the day we found him in the Temple: “Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” His mother and I were completely puzzled. It wasn’t like him. I found myself thinking and praying: ‘Lord has he begun already to implement the prophesies made about him by the angel Gabriel? But, Lord, he is only a boy!’… He did come back to Nazareth with us and has remained obedient and dutiful ever since. Just now, I have but one regret. It looks like I will not live to see how his divine mission will play out. Will our people accept him? Or will they say what they always say, ‘Can any good come from Galilee?’ In my absence, may Yahweh be his father and protect him from all evil!

Ennismore Retreat Centre

Friday 25th – Sunday 27th November Advent Retreat “Endings and Beginnings” Fr. Joe Kavanagh O.P. (Non-Res places still available).

Wednesday 30th November Advent Evening of Reflection “Waiting in Mindful Hope” (Based on new book by Martina Lehane Sheehan) Martina Lehane Sheehan 7.30pm – 9.30pm Monday 30th January 2017 Conversations resume at Ennismore 7.30p.m. - 9.15p.m. Cost €10/Donation

ST DOMINIC’S

Tuesday 7th, 14th, 21st & 28th February “Lord teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1) 4 week series - Week 1 Centering Prayer, Week 2 - Lectio Divina, Week 3 - Christian Mindfulness, Week 4 - Ignation Discernment Martina Lehane Sheehan 7.30p.m. - 9.30p.m. Cost €65 Sunday 12th February Thoughts from Pope Francis Laudato Si: “All creation gives you praise” Fr. Benedict Hegarty OP 3p.m. - 6p.m. Cost: €20 Friday 24th February Intergenerational Healing Fr. Jim Cogley 10a.m. - 4p.m.Cost: €60

Wednesday 1st March Lenten Evening of Reflection Patrick Sheehan 7.30p.m. - 9p.m. Cost: €10/Donation 2017 Programme now available Centre is closed for the month of January ‘17 Newly Released -Waiting in Mindful Hope, by Martina Lehane Sheehan. This book is suitable for any time of year and especially perfect for the Advent Season. Available in most bookshops and in Ennismore Retreat Centre.

Tel: 021-4502520 Fax: 021-4502712 E-mail: ennismore@eircom.net www.ennismore.ie

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COM M E N T CHRISTIAN PARENTING CARMEL WYNNE

BELIEFS, FEARS AND FANTASY

SOMETIMES OUR FANTASIES CAN PARALYSE US INTO INACTION Have you ever considered that how we cope with life situations is powerfully affected by what we believe to be true? No two people respond in exactly the same way to a situation. Whether we like to admit it or not, we make judgements based on our beliefs about what is and is not true. For example, if I am talking to someone and I begin to imagine that the person is judging or critical of what I say, I’ll have an emotional response which could stop me from expressing my views freely. Almost everyone has been in situations where they felt nervous, inhibited and selfconscious. It’s hardly surprising that when we feel conflicted or unsure, it can put us off making a decision. The fear of feeling hurt or embarrassed keeps many of us stuck in indecision. One result is that many of us go through life unaware of the limitations we put on the quality of our relationships because we fantasise about what might happen if the other person responds as we imagine. We have a genuine emotional response to what we imagine and what we believe to be true. Say a teenage boy spends a lot of time imagining he asked the girl he is attracted to out on a date. He daydreams about her for weeks. In some daydreams he imagines she will say “yes”. In others he imagines she says “no”. He spends hours fantasising about their time together. The reluctance to take the risk of dealing with our fears is as real

we develop our guesses into assumptions and after some mind-reading about what goes on in the mind of the other person, we can make our fantasy imaginings into beliefs. We then treat our beliefs as if they were the Gospel truth.

for adults as it is for a teenage boy who is trying to build up the courage to ask for a date. Imagined scenarios keep many of us stuck, indecisive, fearful of what might happen if we acted. It’s possible that we could be depriving ourselves of the close relationships we desire but tell ourselves that the other person may not want. ESCAPE FROM FANTASY If the teenager continues fantasising about what could be, he avoids the risk of the emb ar r a s sment and the rejection he would feel if the girl turns him down. He also avoids any possibility of the happiness he could enjoy if she accepts his invitation. Developing the awareness to tell the difference between reality and fantasy is one of the many benefits that people gain from the practice of mindfulness. What we imagine others think and feel about us is a reflection of our own beliefs. Most of the fears we have about what could go wrong in our relationships are fantasies, stories created in our imagination.

People can feel alienated from family or friends who, in their imagination, treated them badly. I’m reminded of the man whose lawn mower was broken. As he went next door to borrow his neighbour’s machine, he imagined what he would do if the neighbour refused. He remembered that he had forgotten to return a borrowed hammer. Annoyed at the thought that his neighbour would bring this up, he felt irritated that this gave his neighbour the perfect excuse for refusing to lend him the mower. When the neighbour opened the door the man snapped, “You can keep your lawn mower” and walked off. Our fantasies can be valuable when we use them to imagine goals we want to achieve or when we deal in fantasy with situations that need to be addressed. They can also be detrimental if they give us a reason to avoid dealing with reality. It’s important to know that every assumption we make about how others think is simply a guess. In many situations where we feel judged or criticised

AN EXPERIMENT Why not tr y this little experiment to see if you do this. Think of someone that you blame for hurting your feelings. Pick just one incident and start by remembering what your response was when it happened. Once you recall the feelings bring your attention to what you told yourself about why the other person said or did whatever happened that hurt your feelings. If you are still smarting there is probably an unfinished situation. What belief stopped you from expressing what you wanted to say to this person? Your painful feelings are real, generated by what you imagined. Understand that it is your assumptions, not the other person, who is responsible for any pain or alienation. No two people respond in exactly the same way to a situation because people relate to their fantasies about what they imagine is true. As that great playwright William Shakespeare said, “There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” !!! Carmel Wynne is a life and work skills coach and lives in Dublin. For more information, visit www.carmelwynne.org

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WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE ...

AT THE HEART OF ST MATHEW’S ACCOUNT OF 32 THE BIRTH OF JESUS IS THE STORY OF THE MAGI, THE SEARCHERS OF THE HEAVENS WHO BECOME SEEKERS OF THE NEW BORN KING BY JESSE ROGERS

cannotimagineChristmaswithout the crib, and the crib wouldn’t be complete without the three magi adoring the Christ child and offering their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Sometimes they are called kings, sometimes wise men. It is only Matthew’s Gospel that tells us the story of the visitors from the East (Matthew 2:1-12); Luke gives us the story of the shepherds and the angels. I wonder what traditions you have around the three wise men? Do you even have three? That has become the traditional number in the West – one for each named gift I suppose – but in the Eastern tradition, particularly the Syriac churches, there are often twelve. TheGospeldoesn’tgiveusanumber.It doesn’t give us names either, but later

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tradition has supplied that: Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. It is also later tradition that made them kings. AN ECHO CHAMBER OF SCRIPTURE Do you put the magi in the crib immediately, or do they take a slow walk along the mantelpiece, only arriving at the Feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January? That is the day we especially remember them. An epiphany is an ‘aha’ moment, a moment of sudden and striking realisation, and the magi bowing low in adoration represent the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, God’s invitation to those who were considered ‘outsiders’ to come into the light and warmth

around the Christ child. In the words of the response to the Psalm for Epiphany: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” When the evangelist whom we call Matthew writes the story of Jesus, he is playing within an ‘echo chamber’ of Old Testament stories and poetry. Matthew believes that Jesus is the fulfilment of the hopes and dreams of God’s People, so those hopes and dreams are woven into his telling. They are also woven into our hearing of the stories at Mass if we listen carefully to the first reading and enter into the response to the psalm. Sometimes there are explicit quotations from the prophets, such as in the answer to the question of where the Messiah is to be born: “You, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel” (Matt 2:6). B But there are also subtler allusions which add further layers of meaning to the narratives. The story of the Adoration of the Magi is followed by

the horrific Massacre of the Innocents where Herod orders the murder of all baby boys in and around Bethlehem. This is the crisis which precipitates the Flight into Egypt, when Joseph takes the child and its mother into a foreign country in search of safety. If you know the story of the birth and rescue of Moses (saved in a basket among the bulrushes) in the opening chapters of Exodus, then the resonances are deafening! If the story of an insecure king killing male babies didn’t alert you to the echo, then the reference to a sojourn in Egypt should. And if you miss that, then Matthew virtually shouts it out with the explicit reference to the Exodus in the quoted words of the prophet Hosea which are here re-applied to Jesus: “Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Matt 2:15). Matthew is inviting us from the start to make these connections because a central strand in his portrayal of Jesus throughout the Gospel will be as a new ‘Moses’. Jesus, like Moses before him, leads God’s People into freedom and brings them into covenant relationship with God.

ARISE AND SHINE JERUSALEM I believe that the pairing of the opening verses of Isaiah 60 with the Adoration of the Magi in the readings for the Feast of the Epiphany is an inspired choice. The more I reflect the more convinced I am that Matthew had these words in mind as he crafted his narrative. Those words were written by the prophet in a period when the People of God were small and insignificant, subject to the power of a foreign empire. He describes how their battered and tattered capital, Jerusalem, will one day take its place among the great of the world and will be a magnet for great wealth. He draws a picture of the glory of God rising over and shining upon Jerusalem as a great light and nations and kings being drawn by that light. The prophet dreams of caravans of camels trekking toward Jerusalem bringing gold and frankincense and praising God. Does that sound anything like the journey of the magi following the wild star? Except, of course, when the magi got

to Jerusalem, they discovered they were in the wrong place. Jerusalem at the time of the birth of Jesus had begun to look a bit like what the prophet described. Despite his legendary cruelty, Herod the Great made something quite magnificent of Jerusalem through his ambitious building projects, and this period was marked by unprecedented economic growth. Herod controlled a number of important trade routes from Jerusalem, including part of the route that the incense trade took from Yemen to the Mediterranean. But that wasn’t where the longedfor King was born after all, though it was where he was executed thirtysomething years later. Matthew doesn’t just turn this poetic prophecy into a narrative; he also turns it on its head. It isn’t over Jerusalem that the light of God’s glory is shining – God comes in the form of a child in the Palestinian village of Bethlehem. By looking in the seat of power and privilege, the magi were looking for the King in the wrong place.

Fortunately there were the words of another prophet to send them in the right direction again. The Magi followed the star until it rested over the place where the child was. They gave him gold for a king, but not like Herod; frankincense to signal divine presence far from the Temple in Jerusalem; and myrrh. That last gift wasn’t mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy. It is the spice used for anointing the dead. This King’s power and glory will be revealed through a shameful death by crucifixion. Here perhaps is the epiphany that Matthew adumbrates right at the beginning of his story about Jesus – the striking realisation, the shocking discovery that God is to be found at the margins, in the humble, among those who suffer, in the child who has to flee from the threat of violence to seek shelter in a foreign country. I used to imagine that when the curtain came down on the story of the Nativity, the Magi disappeared into the ‘happily ever after’. But T.S. Eliot’s poem The Journey of the Magi powerfully expresses the disquieting

and disruptive effect the journey must have had on them. They had to return by a different road (Matt 2:12); life could never be the same again. One of them reflects in old age: Were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death. The birth of this child is the death of the old ways. In the stories of the birth of Jesus, Matthew is subtly setting us up for a journey through the Gospel which, if we are paying attention, will turn our world upside down. He is warning us: this Child changes everything.

Dr Jessie Rogers is a native of South Africa where she also did her postgraduate studies in scripture. She teaches scripture in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

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THE WORLD ’S FAVOU R I TE C H R I STM A S S O NG?

The Story of

O Holy Night

FIRST SUNG AT CHRISTMAS 1847 IN A SMALL TOWN IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE, IT HAS BEEN RECORDED BY SINGERS AS DIVERSE AS ENRICO CARUSO, DANIEL O’DONNELL, PERRY COMO, BING CROSBY AND LEONTINE PRICE, AND EVERY YEAR BRINGS AT LEAST ONE NEW VERSION. BY BRENDAN McCONVERY C.Ss.R.

For

many people, it marks a special moment during the Christmas Mass. Perhaps during the silence after Holy Communion, the opening notes on the organ give way to the familiar voice of the best singer in the local choir inviting the congregation to ‘fall on your knees, o hear the angel voices.’ MIDNIGHT, CHRISTIANS The song was commissioned by the parish priest of the small town of Roquemaure to celebrate the renovation of the organ in the parish church. The curé’s choice of poet was unusual. Placide Cappeau (18081877) could hardly be described as a devout church-goer. Quite the contrary! The local wine merchant was better known for his anticlerical opinions, which he did not keep to himself, but he had a reputation as a capable writer of verse. He thought about the project,

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and, it is said, the words of the song began to form as he made a stagecoach journey to Paris, inspired by the account of the birth of Christ in the Gospel according to St Luke. Cappeau eventually had a poem beginning Minuit, Chrétiens (“It is midnight, Christians”), but he was no musician. He turned to a friend, Adolphe Adam (18031856), who obliged. Adam is probably best known for his ballet Giselle and, although he had been a church organist in his early years and received a religious funeral, he was scarcely more devout Cappeau. The new Christmas song was given its first performance at Midnight Mass and was a resounding success.

Word of the new carol quickly spread in the surrounding area. In days before recordings or YouTube, new songs became known by being sung or by means of sheet music. Minuit Chrétiens was quickly becoming a regular part of the Christmas festivities in many French parishes. When the religious background of the poet and composer were discovered, there was a certain amount of shock in devout bourgeois France. Some bishops deemed it unfit as unfit for use during the liturgy because of what they considered its poor musical taste and its "total absence of the spirit of religion.” Attempts to have it completely banned, however, met with resistance. The ordinary people found that it echoed their deepest feelings at Christmas time. They knew little, and cared less, about the background of composer and poet. If it was sung less frequently in church, it remained a popular Christmas song. It is said that towards mid-night on Christmas Eve 1871, while Germany and France were at war, a French soldier jumped out of his muddy trench. Standing without a weapon in no man’s land, he opened his mouth and sang the familiar words, “It is midnight Christians, that solemn hour when the Man-God came among us.” Then a German followed suite, and sang a well-known German Lutheran carol. The guns were silent for the rest of the day. It may well be that this sign of the song’s popularity that forced the bishops to realis e that Minuit, Chrétiens was here to stay.

O HOLY NIGHT If O Holy Night has captured so many hearts, it is due to an American, John Sullivan Dwight (1813-1893). Dwight was a Unitarian minister and a music critic.

When he discovered Cappeau’s song in 1853, he translated it into English and it won widespread popularity in America. Dwight was very committed to the struggle for the abolition of slavery. He was particularly taken by the third verse of Cappeau’s poem, as he believed it expressed the religious vision that was at the heart of the movement for the abolition of slavery. He translated it as follows: Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother; And in His name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name. TO A WIDER WORLD On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessender, a 33-year-old university professor, did something that marked the beginning of a communications revolution. He spoke into a microphone, and, for the first time in history, a human voice was carried over the airwaves. The words he chose for this first broadcast were the opening words of the Christmas Gospel according to Saint Luke: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” When he finished reading his biblical text, Fessender picked up his violin, played the music of O Holy Night and sang the final verse. It was the first time music had been broadcast. Fessender’s experimental broadcast of speech and music was picked up by ship’s wireless operators and operatives tending news-wire services, accustomed only to receiving the pips of a Morse code signal. The first known recording was by Enrico Caruso in 1916. Since then, there is at least one new version each year and no Christmas is complete without at least one rendering of O Holy Night on the airwaves.

Fr Brendan McConvery is editor of Reality.

W IT N E S S

Blessed

CHARLES DE FOUCAULD CHARLES DE FOUCAULD’S SENSE OF THE ‘LITTLENESS”OF THE INCARNATION MAKES HIM AN IDEAL SAINT FOR CHRISTMAS. HE WAS ALSO A PIONEER IN CHRISTIAN AND MOSLEM DIALOGUE. BY KATHY McKEE

December

1 2016 marks one hundred years since the death of Charles de Foucauld, or as he’s better know to his followers, Brother Charles of Jesus. Born into the French nobility in 1858, he was raised at a time when rationalism reigned triumphant and lost his faith as a teenager. As a young officer, he underwent a radical conversion after a daring exploration of the Moroccan highlands. His experience of Muslim prayer awoke in him the question that perhaps God did exist. “Islam made a very deep impression on me. The sight of such faith, of people living continually in the presence of God, made me glimpse something greater and truer than worldly pursuits.” SEARCHING FOR GOD Upon his return to Paris, the question of the existence of God became a real torment. He read all kinds of books and would spend

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Blessed Charles’ Prayer of

Abandonment

Father, hands; I abandon myself into your l. wil you at wh do with me nk you: Whatever you may do, I tha I am ready for all, I accept all. me, Let only your will be done in and in all your creatures Lord. I wish no more than this, O my soul: nd me com I ds han Into your love of my heart, I offer it to you with all the need to give myself, for I love you, Lord, and so r hands without to surrender myself into you reserve, nce, and with boundless confide for you are my Father. hours in churches repeating what he called a strange prayer… “My God if you exist, let me know you.” His family’s witness to their faith impressed him deeply, especially since they didn’t preach at him. He finally said to his cousin Marie: “How fortunate you are to believe, I am seeking the light and I can’t find it.” She wisely replied, “Do you think that seeking alone is the proper way to go about it?” He decided to attend a series of lectures at a nearby Church. Unfortunately, the priest’s ill health caused the lectures to be cancelled. Charles went to find him privately one morning, and found him in his confessional. Charles explained his case, saying that he was seeking private religion lessons but the priest, Fr Huvelin, replied by inviting him to make his confession. He hadn’t come for that, but some mysterious grace made him kneel down. God isn’t a concept you have to grasp but a person you meet. Confession was followed by the Eucharist. Charles was overwhelmed. Later on he used the expression “Jesus Caritas” as his logo. It was a summary of his conversion experience. The love that had come to meet him would become the driving force in his life. NO HALF MEASURES Charles was never a person for half measures. Once he became a believer, he knew that everything in his life had to be for God, so

he decided to enter religious life. But which order? Fr Huvelin, now his spiritual director, sent him on pilgrimage to the Holy Land to get to know Jesus better through direct contact with the places where he had lived. It was nearly Christmas and so he began his pilgrimage in Bethlehem. It was a shock to see exactly where God had chosen to be born in such utter lowliness. In Muslim countries, the greatness of God was forever being proclaimed. But here was the littleness of God, a saving littleness. He met that same littleness with the cross in Jerusalem. But the place that impressed him the most was Nazareth. God’s littleness in Jesus wasn’t just at the beginning and at the end of his life, but every day of his life. From then on he knew…his vocation was to imitate Jesus’ going down to Nazareth by becoming little. THE HIDDEN LIFE He looked for an order that imitated Jesus’ hidden life in Nazareth. He thought he could find that in the Trappists, a congregation of monks dedicated to contemplation and

hard manual work. But after a few years, something wasn’t right. Life was poor, but the poverty of a monastery couldn’t compare with the poverty of a poor working family. He left the Trappists, going to live as a hermit next to a monastery of Poor Clare Sisters in Nazareth . There he could have both silence living a kind of interior life with the Holy

Islam made a very deep impression on me. The sight of such faith, of people living continually in the presence of God, made me glimpse something greater and truer than worldly pursuits Family, and social poverty since he was their servant, living in a shed in their garden. But again, after a few years something wasn’t right. As he prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament and read the Gospels he began to realise that Nazareth wasn’t just something between himself and God alone. Jesus had said, “Whatsoever you do to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do to me.” Living Nazareth meant being with Jesus both in the Eucharist and in the poor. The most abandoned people he could

W IT N E S S

think of were those he had seen in North Africa during his expeditions as a youth. They weren’t just materially destitute, but they were poor in not knowing Jesus. He wanted to bring Jesus into their midst, not as a missionary but as a contemplative presence, preaching the Gospel by his life. BECOMING A LITTLE BROTHER Inspired by the words, “When you give a banquet, don’t invite your rich friends, your family, but the poor” he sought ordination so as to bring the Eucharistic banquet to

The hermitage in Algeria

His apostolic work consisted in conversations, helping each one to advance in fidelity to their conscience and natural religious truths. He became an expert in their language, to the point that some of the Tuaregs said, “He knows our language even better than we do”. He used to repeat that the good we bring about doesn’t depend on what we do but on what we are and in that sense he has much to say to us in a world where words have lost much of their value. His life can also inspire us in our meeting with Muslims or other non Christians because he called them brothers and sisters. God’s Fatherhood is at stake in the way we treat each other. He also emphasised that before we convert anyone else, we need to convert ourselves. The quality of our life speaks for itself. The mystery of the Visitation convinced him that what we carry within speaks to what others carry within themselves.

There is something deeply Eucharistic about a manger. This child is offered to us as food because we are hungry for presence, we are hungry for love 38

them. But in the Sahara all of Brother Charles’ “parishioners” were Muslim! The only Eucharist they would ever know would be his life. In their midst he tried to be the expression of God’s goodness simply by being a little brother. He even taught the women how to knit!

Did you know... Blessed Charles’ vision is carried on today by the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus. They normally live in small communities, with some members supporting the community by taking simple jobs. There are about 1200 Little Sisters worldwide. There is one community in Bishopscourt, Co Down. There are three communities in the UK. They make an hour of adoration in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament each day and in addition one nocturnal hour (Thursday to Friday). Br Charles had a devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. She had helped him especially at the moment when he was discerning his vocation to leave the Trappists and when he went to live in Nazareth.

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MARTYRDOM Brother Charles’ vocation called him to witness to brotherhood, not in the quiet of a cloistered life, but on the frontlines of the colonial machine at a time when Europe was racing to expand its conquests in Africa. He was killed December 1, 1916 during the First World War by a Muslim brotherhood called the Sennousia. One of the Tuareg leaders wrote to his sister after his death: “As soon as I heard of the death of our friend, your brother Charles, my eyes closed; all is dark to me: I wept and I shed many tears, and I am in great mourning. His death is a great grief to me. Charles the marabout (Arabic

word meaning holy man) has died not only for you, but for us all. May God have mercy on him, and may we meet him in paradise!” Those who raided his house after shooting him found among his possessions a small container with something white inside. Not knowing what it was they tossed it into the sand next to his body. It was a pyx with the Blessed Sacrament. Perhaps Brother Charles’ lasting legacy is the invitation to not separate the Body of Christ we receive in the Eucharist from the body of Christ we see poor, naked, hungry and thirsty. Recognising those two forms of real presence can lead us on a path of contemplation in our own Nazareths. Christmas is all about celebrating Jesus’ presence in our midst. When Luke recounts the Nativity he underlines that the infant Jesus was placed in a manger. He repeats the word three times. There is something deeply Eucharistic about a manger. This child is offered to us as food because we are hungry for presence, we are hungry for love. Though Brother Charles died alone, many people have since taken him as their guide for leading a Nazareth life. Three little sisters of Jesus live in Bishopscourt ,Co Down. Their life is about very small things…a small neighbourhood, little jobs, simple everyday relationships with neighbours and workmates. But the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is at the heart of their community. He transforms their small everyday lives into something Eucharistic, and their house into a manger where today’s shepherds and wise men can enter, find peace and then leave with joy. The Little Sisters at Stormont, Belfast with Fr Brendan McConvery, Editor

Little Sister Kathy is a member of the Little Sisters of Jesus at Bishopscourt.

D E V E LOP M E N T IN ACTION

ETHICAL GIFTS CAMPAIGN CONTINUES TO BRING HOPE TO THOSE IN DIREST NEED

WONDERING WHAT TO GIVE AS A GIFT TO SOMEONE WITH EVERYTHING? CONSIDER A TRÓCAIRE GIFT AND HELP SOMEONE WITH NOTHING. BY DAVID O'HARA

Now

in its 17th year, the Trócaire Gifts campaign has seen over 840,500 gifts sold and raised nearly €36 million for Trócaire’s work with families in some of the world’s poorest countries. Trócaire is offering nine Christmas gifts this year to help families build a better future. Choose from olive trees for families in Palestine (€5), chicks for families in Ethiopia (€7), solar lamps for families in the DRC (€15), school lunches for children in Somalia (€30), goats in Kenya (€50), beehives for families in Kenya (€65), care for mothers and their newborn babies in Somalia (€85), water pumps and irrigation around the world (€100), land for a family home in Myanmar,

Honduras and Guatemala (€150), a farming kit for families in the DRC (€200) and support for women’s small businesses around the world (€250). The gifts really are life-changing for the families that receive them. Here are just some of their stories of hope…

grow enough food to feed their families. Many people have to leave the area and their families to find some kind of work elsewhere to survive. Thankfully for Hido and others in her community they have been included in a small poultry farming project funded by

The gifts really are life-changing for the families that receive them

CHICKS Hido Tadesse (18) lives in Billa village in southern Ethiopia. Hido has a little boy and is expecting her second child soon. Hido and the other villagers are farmers, but erratic rains and the onslaught of pests and disease on their crops make life very difficult. It is hard to

TrÓcaire. Hido received training on poultry management and when she completed this training she received six chicks which can produce up to 300 eggs a year. Within eight months, she was not only producing continued on page 41

Buy a or donate to the Trรณcaire Christmas Appeal

ROI Charity No: 20009601; Revenue No: CHY 5883. NI Charity No. NIC103321

TO DONATE OR BUY A GIFT: Visit

- Trรณcaire, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

YOU CAN ALSO BUY FROM:

- 12 Cathedral Street, Dublin 1 - 9 Cook Street, Co. Cork - Trรณcaire, 50 King Street, Belfast, BT1 6AD Go To Call (ROI) Freephone (NI)

www.trocaire.org 1850 408 408 0800 912 1200

and selected

stores

TRÓ CA I R E

enough eggs for her family, but also selling the surplus. She was able to buy a rooster and now she has five newly hatched chicks. Poultry farming has proved to be a cost effective way of allowing communities to generate additional and continuous income. It is not seasonal and doesn’t depend on the rains coming. For farming families like Hido’s, the chickens droppings are rich in nitrogen and organic material and very valuable as fertilisers. Such a simple and inexpensive project has proved to be a real life-changer for Hido and the other farmers in Billa.

TrÓcaire has been implementing a hot lunch programme for over 4000 children in fifteen primary schools in the Gedo region SCHOOL LUNCHES In Somalia, where a twenty year conflict still rages and many people have been forced to flee their homes, accessing education is just one of the many challenges facing children. Add to this the chronic shortage of food and seemingly endless cycle of poverty and it is not surprising that many children are not able to go to school. However, despite these challenges some children in the Gedo region of southern Somalia walk miles to attend school. Most attend classes on an empty stomach because food is scarce and their parents cannot afford what little there is. This lack of basic nutrition makes it hard for children to concentrate and learn and leads to many dropping out. Zahra Ali (16) from Waberi in southern Somalia understands these challenges all too well. “I have to walk long and dangerous hours to school on an empty stomach,” she says. “Because of the hunger pangs concentrating in class is really hard and my stomach is always rumbling.” TrÓcaire has been implementing a hot lunch programme for over 4000 children in

fifteen primary schools in the Gedo region. It means the children are fed every day, can concentrate on their studies and are able to complete their education. The programme has made a huge difference to the lives of the children and gives them hope for a brighter future for themselves and their families. Zahra says, “I’m happy now. I can concentrate in class and not feel hungry all the time.” BEEKEEPING In the dry and dusty land around Kitui in Kenya it is very hard to make a living from farming. Rainfall in this part of the country is minimal and has become increasingly unpredictable because of climate change. Beekeeping is one of the few surviving ways of making money in this area but has traditionally been a male-dominated activity. Dorcus Kenyatta is a widow who lives in Kitui. After her husband died, Dorcus needed to find a way to make a living. She joined the Mwasuma Beekeepers Group. The twenty members of the group kept bees in traditional beehives which are made out of hollow logs and positioned in trees. This made it very difficult for women to practice beekeeping due to the difficulty of accessing the hives. The group received TrÓcaire-funded training on beekeeping which included

modern and hygienic methods of honey harvesting and processing and introduced new types of hives which were much easier to access as they were constructed on the ground. After the training the group was given 100 beehives. “One advantage of beekeeping is that you do not need large tracts of land to engage in it,” Dorcus explained. “This project has been great. Members have been maintaining their hives and the quantity and quality of honey harvested has improved. The beekeeping and honey harvesting is carried out during the day along with household chores. This means I can support my family as both a mother and a provider – I feel empowered. I also make candles from beeswax and sell them. We eventually hope to open a honey processing factory in our area.”

You can buy Trócaire gifts or donate to the Christmas Appeal online at trocaire. org/gifts, by calling 1850 408 408 (0800 912 1200 in NI), in Veritas stores, selected Easons stores and in Trócaire centres in Maynooth, Co. Kildare; Cathedral Street, Dublin 1; Cook Street, Cork or King Street, Belfast. Trócaire ‘One4all’ gift cards are also on sale in post offices nationwide.

REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, WE CHRISTIANS CELEBRATE A REVOLUTION – A REVOLUTION IN THE MEANING OF RELIGION.

All the great religions of our world help people to find God. They point us to Churches, Temples, Synagogues, to sacred places where people can encounter God. They tell us to worship God with sacred actions, sacrifices, prayers, music, incense, actions that are pleasing to God. But on Christmas day, we Christians celebrate our belief that God became a human being. And that changes everything. On Christmas day, the divine and the human became one, fused together, bound together with a bond that can never be broken. The human and the divine can never again be separated one from the other. Hence for us Christians, we encounter God, not in sacred places, not in Churches, Temples or Synagogues, but in other human beings. “Whatever you do to the least of my brother and sisters, you do it to me.” (Matthew 25 v 40) And if we encounter God in other human beings, then we worship God, not by sacrifices, or prayers, or music or incense, but by loving one another. The worship of God, that sacred action which the God-man tells us is most pleasing to God, is the love we have for one another. In our loving, caring, reaching out, we are worshiping the invisible God who is made visible in the other. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” (John 13 v 34) All religions have, at the centre of their moral code, the command to love one another. But for us Christians, the model for our love REALITY DECEMBER 2016

of others is the love of God for us, as revealed in the God-man Jesus, a love that sacrificed everything, even what was most precious to him, namely his own life, for the sake of us, his brothers and sisters. To worship God, then, is to love our brothers and sisters with the same willingness to sacrifice everything, even what is most precious to us, for their sake. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 15 v12) As Mother Teresa said. “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God. Indeed he talks about

little else. He tells his listeners that the Kingdom of God is at hand. And what is the Kingdom of God? It is where God lives, where we encounter God. And if we encounter God in other human beings, then the Kingdom of God exists in community. Those who are willing to embrace a life of God-like, self-sacrificing, love of others, come together to share their lives in community. In such a community, the Risen Jesus is present as model and leader. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”(Matthew 19 v20) But to fully understand the meaning of Christmas day, we

must fast forward to the death of Jesus. Jesus did not die a famous holy man, his funeral was not attended by thousands of mourners, no eulogy by a senior religious leader was given. No, Jesus died a rejected, unwanted nobody, with only a handful of poor friends at his burial. Why was Jesus crucified? After all, the religious authorities of his day also preached love of neighbour. But our worship of God, that self-sacrificing love for others, had such radical consequences for the way we live together in community that it threatened the existing order of things. This self-sacrificing love is incompatible with the inequalities of wealth and power that exist in society. In a community that loves one another, there can be no-one poor, unless all are poor; there can be no-one rejected or marginalised. Jesus’ challenge, namely to worship God in the poor and the marginalised, by sharing our wealth with the poor, and by using power, not for our own selfinterest, but for the betterment of the poor, was understood, by the wealthy and powerful leaders of his time, to be a threat to their status and position. It was the wealthy and the powerful who handed the God-man over to be crucified. In the poor and marginalised, the God-man continues to be crucified today by those who refuse to love as God wishes us to love.

GOD’S WORD THIS SEASON REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COMING John the Baptist is a major figure in the Advent liturgy and our Gospel readings SECOND SUNDAY today and next week focus OF ADVENT on two important aspects of John. In today’s Gospel, we meet John the Preacher. He was probably something of a rough diamond. His clothing and food were rough and ready: a camel skin with a rough leather belt did for clothing and locusts and wild honey served as food. Locusts were one of the few insects that Jewish law considered as fit for food. Those who came to hear him preach might have recognised in him several of the features of the prophet Elijah. Like John, Elijah was a tough-talking prophet who had little fear of authority. Matthew summarises John’ message very briefly: ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ Later, he will summarise Jesus’ preaching in the same terms (Matthew 4:17). John was a prophet calling for the radical renewal of the people of Israel. As

a symbol that their willingness to become part of that renewal, he invited his hearers to be baptised in the river Jordan. This was not a symbolic pouring of water but total immersion. Immersion was commonly practised in Judaism as a way of obtaining freedom from ritual impurity when, for example, you touched something unclean. For John, it is a symbol of conversion of heart and a desire to change. John is particularly hard on the selfrighteous religious leaders like the Pharisees or the self-serving priestly aristocracy, the Saducees ,who controlled the Temple. Even when they come to him for baptism, he challenges their sincerity: is baptism for them just a kind of religious ‘fire insurance policy’, a formal rite that does not require any change of heart? If they want to repent, he tells them, they must abandon their easy slogans that they are descendants of Abraham. In the times that are coming, that will count for nothing because God can raise up children of Abraham from the very stones! John recognises he is just a temporary figure, the messenger preparing the way

for someone more powerful. Elijah was mysteriously taken up to heaven in a whirlwind and a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11). Since he had not died in the normal human way, many Jews believed that he would return to earth again. The most likely reason for his return would be to prepare the way for the Messiah. As a second Elijah, John baptises with water, but the one coming after him will baptise them with the Holy Spirit and fire. John uses the image of threshing after a harvest to describe the work of the future Messiah. Threshing was the final act of harvest time. Bundles of corn were laid on a stone floor and the grain beaten out. The grain was saved for human consumption, while the rough straw and the husks were burned. The image of a final judgement by fire will return several times in Matthew’s Gospel.

ARE YOU THE ONE WHO IS TO COME? In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist is in prison. For his outspokenness in condemning Herod’s adulterous affair with THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT the wife of his brother, he was imprisoned in one of the string of royal palaces. With John off the scene, Jesus and his preaching have begun to attract attention. What John has heard makes him wonder if this man he baptised in the Jordan is really the one whose coming he had heralded. He sends some of his disciples to Jesus to ask: “are you the one who is to come or do we have to wait for someone else?” Jesus replies that his deeds can speak for themselves. He tells John’s messengers about his acts of healing and preaching good news to the poor. At the time of Jesus, some Jewish groups eagerly expected God’s Messiah to come soon,

but wondered how they would recognise him. One such group lived near the Dead Sea and one of their writings has come to light. It lists the “Works of the Messiah.” The genuine Messiah would “liberate the captives, restore sight to the blind, straighten the bent…he will heal the wounded, and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor." It is very close to the message Jesus sends back to John. As the messengers depart, Jesus asks why they went after John. He suggests three possible things. There was no need to go into the desert to see a reed shaken by the wind. John was no reed, blown this way or that by the fashions of the day. A man wearing fine clothes? John’s rough skin cloak and belt were hardly at the top of the range. A prophet then? That is closer to the mark, but it still does not get to the heart of the mystery of John. John was more than a prophet. Jesus then quotes a verse from the last of the

prophets, Malachi. He had described a time of renewal when God would send a messenger to announce his own coming to Jerusalem. “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1). If John was the messenger, then the one whose coming he announced must be the Lord. John’s role as ‘the forerunner’ made him different. The new age that he announced has begun in earnest. A border between the time of Israel and the time of the Kingdom has been crossed. The signs that it has happened are apparent in the work of Jesus. In this new age, even the lowliest of believers will be consider themselves as more fortunate than John.

DECEMBER

43 Today’s Readings Is 11: 1-10/ Ps 72: 1-2. 7-8. 12-13. 17/ Rom 15: 4-9/ Matthew 3: 1-12

Today’s Readings Is 35: 1-6a. 10/ Ps 146: 6-7. 8-9. 9-10/ Jas 5: 7-10/ Matthew 11: 2-11

GOD’S WORD THIS SEASON DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TAKE MARY AS YOUR WIFE Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus begins in an atmosphere of unease and doubt. Joseph FOURTH SUNDAY has discovered that Mary, OF ADVENT the young woman he had intended to marry is already pregnant. That can mean only one thing: that she has been unfaithful to him. Jewish Law was quite explicit about the death penalty to be exacted from an engaged woman who was unfaithful. That presents Joseph with an unpleasant dilemma. If he calls off the marriage publicly, he is exposing Mary to danger: if he proceeds with it, the child she is carrying is not his, so what kind of a marriage will that be? Joseph opts for another way, the way mercy. The marriage contract will be quietly set aside, with only the immediate families being any the wiser, leaving Mary free to marry the other man. Matters take a new turn. A messenger from

God appears to him in a dream, telling him not to fear. Mary has conceived her child not through an illicit affair, but through the action of God’s Holy Spirit. The child she is carrying will save his people from their sins. Joseph is also told the name to give the child – Jesus. This is the familiar Christian form of the Old Testament name, Yeshua or Joshua. Joshua was the assistant of Moses and the people of Israel into the Promised Land after Moses’ death. Matthew roots aspects of the story of Jesus in the Old Testament by using ‘fulfillment quotations’. He quotes a short passage from the Old Testament scriptures, and shows how this event fulfils a prophecy. Here it is a verse from the Book of Isaiah (7:11-15). In Isaiah, the prediction of the birth of a child to a young woman of the royal court of Ahaz is a sign that God will not forsake his people in time of danger. This child was probably the future King Hezekiah. Ancient kings were given a number of official titles when they ascended the throne. One of the official names of Hezekiah may

be been Immanuel (God is with us) inspired by this prophecy. Matthew weaves in his short account of the annunciation to Joseph several other allusions to the great story of Israel. God communicates with Joseph through a dream, recalling Joseph, ‘the man of dreams,’ sold by his brothers into slavery but becoming their saviour by providing them with a refuge in Egypt. The child’s name has further echoes of the story of the Promised Land and the Exodus. Jesus is never called Emmanuel in the Gospel, but his last words are “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Mat 28:20). Just as the baby Hezekiah was a sign that God was with his people in time of crisis, the Risen One will continue to be with his Church in whatever crises befall it.

THE WORD BECAME FLESH DECEMBER AND DWELT AMONG US Depending on the time of day, there are three different sets of Mass CHRISTMAS DAY texts for Christmas Day. They all tell the same story of the birth of Jesus. For many people, the Midnight Mass of Christmas has a special charm, especially when it is celebrated late in the night, a time when babies are often born. Even people who may not often attend Mass throughout the year will make a special effort to come for the midnight Mass or for one later on Christmas Day. The Gospel of the Midnight Mass tells the story of the birth of Jesus among the animals in a stable, because there was no room for them in the inn. Despite school nativity plays, it says nothing about hard-hearted innkeepers. Ancient inns were not like modern hotels with private rooms. Travellers shared a public sleeping space, unrolling their sleeping mats wherever they could find a space. When travellers were many, as they might have been

returning to Bethlehem for a census, space was at a premium. It was hardly an ideal place for a woman to give birth to a baby, so one can imagine Joseph and Mary seeking space and quiet in the part of the inn were the animals were. The birth of their child in an inn is announced to shepherds on the hill-side by the heavenly choir. “Today (one of St Luke’s favourite words) is born for you a saviour and you will find him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” The Dawn Mass is sometimes known as the Mass of the Shepherds. Looking after animals was regarded as a rather disreputable trade, yet shepherds are the first to hear the good news, but they are also the first Christian ‘preachers’ who tell the good news of the birth to anyone who will listen to them. Luke has a particular place for Mary in his story of Jesus. Here, she ‘treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.’ She is her son’s model disciple. After Jesus’ resurrection, she will be found with his disciples in the Upper Room waiting in prayer for the coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:14).

The third Mass, celebrated in the full light of day, contains the majestic prologue of the Gospel of John which announces that the eternal Word of God became flesh and entered fully into our human story. The birth of Jesus is a deep mystery, overshadowed by the cross, but that fragility is best expressed today in the fragility of a new born. An English poet reminds us: And is it true, and is it true, this most tremendous tale of all, Seen in a stained glass window’s hue, a baby in an ox’s stall? He goes on to reflect on the “simple silly Christmas things” but brings us at last to the heart of the mystery in the Eucharist: God was man in Palestine, and lives today in bread and wine.

DECEMBER

REALITY DECEMBER 2016

Today’s Readings Is 7: 10-14 Ps 24: 1-2. 3-4. 5-6 Rom 1: 1-7 Matthew 1: 18-24

Today’s Readings Midnight Is 9:1-7 | Ti 2:11-14 | Luke 2:1-4 Dawn Is 62:11-12 | Ti 3:4-7 | Luke 2:15-20 Day Is 52: 7-10 | Heb 1:1-6 | John 1:1-18

START THE YEAR WELL JANUARY Today might be called “the day of many feasts.” It is officially the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. MARY THE MOTHER It is the octave day of OF GOD SOLEMNITY Christmas, the final day in the week-long celebration of a major feast. Only Christmas and Easter in our reformed Calendar have a formal octave. Today was also the feast of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus, an event recalled in the Gospel: “When the eighth day came and the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name Jesus, the name the angel had given him before his conception. (Lk 2:21). Since 1968, it has been observed as the World Day of Prayer for Peace. It is

also, finally, the first day of the civic New Year, at least for those of us who follow the Gregorian calendar. Jesus was born into an observant Jewish family, and Joseph organised his circumcision for the eighth day as the Law required, but it is the mother who guarantees the Jewishness of the family and home. She is responsible for the observance of the laws of purity food and the cleanliness of the house.Mary of Nazareth was an ideal Jewish housewife, observing what she had learned from her own mother, Saint Anne. Mary is the Mother of the Lord: and today we honour her as the mother of Jesus, the Jewish man from Galilee. Peace is as uncertain in our world today as it was when New Year’s Day was marked out as a day of prayer for peace in 1968.

THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED The earliest Christians were familiar with John the Baptist. They knew Jesus had come to John BAPTISM OF for baptism. As their THE LORD sense of who Jesus was deepened, the question why he came to John to be baptised began to trouble them. If he was the Son of God and the Messiah, why was he baptised by John, who was his messenger? He surely did not need to repent of sin, did he? It is this puzzle that Matthew tries to answer in his account of Jesus’ baptism we read in this Sunday’s Mass. The first part of this short account tries to provide an answer to this question. John, Matthew tells us, recognised who Jesus was and tried to persuade him that their roles should be reversed. If Jesus was the one whose coming John was heralding, then Jesus should be baptising John. Jesus replies that this is a temporary measure. A time will come shortly when Jesus will reveal through his preaching his role as the one who proclaims the kingdom. For the moment, it is enough that the two of them set an example of righteous behaviour. Righteous is one of

Matthew’s favourite words. It means the kind of attitude and behaviour that is required of a person who wishes to be faithful to God. It has no suggestion of self-righteousness or being ‘holier than thou.’ The second part of the account tells us what Jesus experienced at the baptism. He saw ‘the heavens opened’. This phrase occurs several times in the Old Testament. It often refers to a moment of special revelation. Ezekiel, for example, saw the heavens opened, allowing him a glimpse of God’s splendid throne (Ezekiel 1:1). Isaiah prayed that the heavens would open, so that God might show himself to the dwellers of the earth (Isaiah 64:1). What Jesus sees is the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove. The prophet Isaiah looked forward to a day when God would pour out his spirit on his people like water on thirsty ground (Isaiah 44:3). That time has arrived when the Spirit is poured out on Jesus. Jesus also hears a voice of God from heaven that proclaims him as

JANUARY

Inaugurating it, Pope Paul said that people must always speak of peace and that “the world must be educated to love peace, to build it up and defend it.” The enemies of peace he named are as real today as they were almost half a century ago: excessive nationalism, the arms race, racial hatred and the spirit of revenge, etc. He warned us to be wary of an easy pacifism that blots out the true meaning of justice, duty or sacrifice and to form future generations that peace is founded on truth, justice, freedom and love. Let us make pray today for world peace. Today’s Readings Nm 6: 22-27 Ps 67: 2-3. 5. 6. 8 (2a) Gal 4: 4-7 Luke 2: 16-21

God’s Son, the Beloved on whom his favour rests. The importance of the baptism for Jesus is not that he is cleansed from sin but that he recognises his calling as Son of God. Remembering the Lord’s baptism reminds us also of our own baptism and of our share in the Spirit. Today’s Readings Is 42: 1-4. 6-7 or Acts 10: 34-38 Ps 29: 1-2.3-4.3.9-10: Matthew 3: 13-17

God’s Word continues on page 46

GOD’S WORD THIS SEASON THE LAMB OF GOD WHO JANUARY TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD John the Gospel writer faced the same problem as Matthew: if Jesus was the IN AY ND SECOND SU Son of God without sin, ORDINARY TIME why was he baptised? John’s solution is quite simple: he omits any explicit description of the actual baptism but he retains an account of the association of Jesus and John. John the Baptist says three important things about Jesus here. First, he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This language was inspired by the language of sacrifice in the Temple. Two lambs were sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem each day, one in the morning and one

in the evening. The most important offering of a lamb took place at Passover, when the lamb’s blood was used to mark the house while its flesh was eaten at the Passover meal. John draws many parallels between the death of Jesus and the paschal lamb. Jesus dies close to evening time, when the lambs were being sacrificed in the temple. The soldiers do not break the bones of his legs to hasten death: it was forbidden to break any of the bones of the paschal lamb while it was being prepared. Instead, they pierce his side causing blood and water to flow. St Paul also calls Jesus the Passover lamb that has been sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). The second important thing he says about Jesus is that it was revealed to him that this young man from Galilee was the one about whom he was preaching even though he did not know him

beforehand. The third important thing he says about Jesus is that he will baptise, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit. This means that Jesus will plunge us into the depths of God’s life, just as surely as John plunged those who came seeking baptism into the waters of the Jordan. Plunging a person into the depths of God is not something external. It opens them to a new depth of relationship with God. Later in his Gospel, Jesus will express that in even simpler language when he says that he is come that we might have life and have it to the full (John 10:10). Today’s Readings Is 49: 3. 5-6 Ps 40: 2. 4. 7-8. 8-9. 10 1Cor 1: 1-3 John 1: 29-34 Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834–1890)

BLESSED ARE THE POOR, THE JANUARY MERCIFUL, THE PEACEMAKERS Matthew has carefully constructed his gospel around the five great sermons Jesus preached during his THIRD SUNDAY IN mission. Today we begin to read ORDINARY TIME the first of them the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew probably has more of an interest in the symbolic value of the hill than its actual location. It was on the mountain of Sinai that Moses received the Law from God. Matthew is deftly suggesting that Jesus, surrounded by his disciples (just as a rabbi would be surrounded by his disciples or students) is a kind of new Moses. The opening part of the sermon is usually known as the Beatitudes. Beatitude means blessed. There are nine beatitudes here. Each follows a set form – the first part proclaims that certain people are blessed (e.g. the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for what is right). The second part or justice (those who hunger and thirst for justice, promises them a reward (the kingdom of heaven, those who are persecuted in the cause of justice). mercy, to be known as God’s children etc). They fall The Beatitudes of Jesus do not simply repeat the into two sets of four with the final longer beatitude blessings of the Old Testament. The Old Testament on how to respond to persecution standing alone. praised in a beatitude those who were kind to the Both the first and the eighth for example, close with poor, “happy are those who are kind to the poor” the promise of the kingdom of heaven to the poor (Pro 14:21), for example but it would never have in spirit and those who are persecuted in the cause considered poverty a blessing. The beatitudes of of right while the fourth and the eight are linked Jesus, however, show that God is on the side of to each other in their reference to righteousness the weak and the outcast. To live by the beatitudes

REALITY DECEMBER 2016

requires a strong commitment to justice and a temperament that does not flinch in the presence of persecution. It is only possible to live such a life if one’s hopes are set on the coming of the kingdom of heaven which will overturn the structures that oppress the poor. Today’s Readings Is 8: 23–9: 3 Ps 27: 1. 4. 13-14(1a) 1Cor 1: 10-13. 17 Matthew 4: 12-23

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 10, DECEMBER 2016

SALT AND LIGHT JANUARY The key to today’s Gospel is the two sayings comparing the disciples to salt and light. Both begin with the words ‘you are...’ and then draw out lessons from these two natural elements. Salt FOURTH SUNDAY IN was an essential commodity for life. In days before ORDINARY TIME refrigeration, it was used to preserve food or to add flavour. Salt was also an important item of trade in the ancient world. The Dead Sea in Palestine was rich in minerals, including salt, but it was not always of the highest quality because of the presence of less wholesome minerals. Salt does not easily lose its flavour, but when it becomes damp, it may be difficult to use. When that happens, there is nothing else to do but throw it away. Disciples are to become ‘salt of the earth’: the word earth should be understood here in its general sense of the world. By their way of life, especially one modelled on the beatitudes we read last week, they will impart flavour to the world and preserve it from going bad. Disciples are also called to be light to the world. Towns in the ancient world were built on top of hills when possible for defensive purposes. It gave the defenders a better view, and the slope posed a challenge to the invading army. A town on a hill side, even if protected by a wall, could not be hidden from view. In the same way, the life-style of the disciples of Jesus should mark them out as different. The short parable-like saying about what people do when they light a lamp develops the same theme. Lamps are intended to give light: it would be foolish to light a lamp and then hide it under a bucket: that was fine if there was danger the house might be burgled. The light Jesus’ disciple will shed on the world comes from their good deeds. One of the characters in The Diary of a Country Priest by the French writer George Bernanos complains: ‘The gospel is meant to be the light of the world. We have turned it into a bed-side lamp for Christians.’ How clearly do our good deeds cause the light to shine?

Sunset over the Dead Sea

Today’s Readings Is 58: 7-10 Ps 112: 4-5.6-7.8-9 1 Cor 2: 1-5 Matthew 5: 13-16

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 8 ACROSS: Across: 1. Zodiac, 5. Theory, 10. Crimean, 11. Rosetta, 12. Loaf, 13. Judas, 15. Half, 17. Sod, 19. Spinal, 21. Goatee, 22. Templar, 23. Bonsai, 25. Parcel, 28. Dim, 30. Asia, 31. Janus, 32. Long, 35. Slogans, 36. Erosion, 37. Gideon, 38. Mentor. DOWN: 2. Origami, 3. Idea, 4. Census, 5. Thread, 6. East, 7. Retract, 8. Sculls, 9. Baffle, 14. Dolphin, 16. Satan, 18. Coral, 20. Lei, 21. Gap, 23. Braise, 24. Nairobi, 26. Chorizo, 27. Legend, 28. Damson, 29. Museum, 33. Lace, 34. John.

Winner of Crossword No. 8 Ms. A Quinn, 68 South Circular Road, Dublin 8

ACROSS 1. Abilities acquired through training and practice. (6) 5. The largest Internet based retailer. (6) 10. Doomed ship of exceptional size. (7) 11. Country contained within South Africa. (7) 12. Prolonged dull pain. (4) 13. The first Pope. (5) 15. He wrote the shortest books in the Bible. (4) 17. Strike lightly with the water device. (3) 19. First canine vertically. (3,3) 21. The act of being dishonest by using a trick, (6) 22. Long coatlike garments. (7) 23. Buildings occupied by a community of monks or nuns. (6) 25. Hair of a reddish-brown colour. (6) 28. Give and unofficial name or nickname to. (3) 30. City founded by Romulus. (4) 31. Sheet of paper folded once to make two leaves. (5) 32. Pipe that conveys a substance. (4) 35. The principal Latin version of the Bible. (7) 36. Hairy. (7) 37. Academy Awards. (6) 38. Tropical fruit shaped like an elongated melon. (6)

DOWN 2. Spicy sauce made from tomatoes and vinegar. (7) 3. A ring or loop in a chain. (4) 4. Not meant to be known by others. (6) 5. In the arms of Morpheus. (6) 6. Part of a church that is shaped like a half circle. (4) 7. The way a thing results. (7) 8. Narrow passage connecting two seas. (6) 9. A poem of fourteen lines. (6) 14. Showing sensitivity in dealing with others. (7) 16. City with the greatest population.. (5) 18. The most mentioned person in the Bible. (5) 20. One of the states of matter. (3) 21. Hereditary material in humans. (3) 23. Reach a place at the end of a journey. (6) 24. Moves or acts in an awkward manner. (7) 26. Oriental Republic of South America. (7) 27. Play a football through the legs of an opponent. (6) 28. Pegs used as fasteners. (6) 29. A senior member of the Christian clergy. (6) 33. A long story of heroic achievement. (4) 34. Pole used as a temporary support. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.10, December 2016 Name: Address: Telephone:

All entries must reach us by December 31, 2016 One €35 prize is offered for the first correct solutions opened. The Editor’s decision on all matters concerning this competition will be final. Do not include correspondence on any other subject with your entry which should be addressed to: Reality Crossword No. 10, Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651

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