Realitysept15online

BORN IN CRETE THE ORIGINS OF AN ICON

SEPTEMBER 2015

THE GOLDEN QUILL THAT WROTE AN ENCYCLICAL?

FR DAN CUMMINGS A REDEMPTORIST WITH A REMARKABLE STORY

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

LAUDATO SÍ REVIEWING POPE FRANCIS’ RECENT ENCYCLICAL ON THE ENVIRONMENT

QUESTIONS TO JESUS WHAT WOULD YOU ASK?

TALKING TO THE NEW SHEPHERDS SPEAKING TO THE NEWLY ORDAINED ABOUT THEIR HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS

PLUS PETER McVERRY SJ ON BUDGET 2016 PAUL CLOGHER ON HOLLYWOOD AND JERUSALEM

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IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12 LAUDATO SÍ: REFLECTIONS ON THE NEW ENCYCLICAL Key themes of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment

By Suzanne Mulligan

19 QUESTIONS TO JESUS “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

By Mike Daley

22. TALKING TO THE NEW SHEPHERDS Some of this year’s new priests talk about themselves

By Claire Carmichael

12

26. BORN IN CRETE? The origins of the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help

By Brendan McConvery CSsR

28 THE QUILL THAT WROTE AN ENCYCLICAL? Discovery in a Cork auction room sets a priest on a detective mission

By James Good

32 REST AND BE THANKFUL A Redemptorist’s story of his life

By Rosemary Doherty

35

22

35 WHAT HAS HOLLYWOOD TO DO WITH JERUSALEM? Religion in the cinema

By Paul Clogher

OPINION

REGULARS

38 FATHER OF BIG BANG THEORY

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

04 REALITY BITES

18 KATY DOBEY

07 POPE MONITOR

31 CARMEL WYNNE

08 IRISH SAINT OF THE MONTH

- MGR GEORGES LEMAÎTRE A New Series explores the place of Catholics in Modern Science

By Susan Gately

40 TEACHING IN FAITH A Young Teacher Reflects on Catholic Education

By Ian Corbett

47 PETER Mc VERRY SJ

09 REFLECTIONS 42 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 44 GOD’S WORD

REALITY BITES ARCHBISHOP SAYS LAY PEOPLE ARE THE FUTURE

DONEGAL

4

STRONG AND ARTICULATE

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has warne d that the Church in Ireland will only have a future if a Archbishop new generation Diarmuid Martin of “strong and articulate” laypeople can make their voices heard. He also warned that the Church will not be renewed if people are harking back to the past or if Catholics become inward-

ATTACK ON CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN HOLY LAND HOLY LAND

CHRISTIANS UNDER FIRE

An arson attack on a Catholic pilgrimage site on 18 June caused considerable damage to the area around the church. Fortunately, no damage was done to the priceless floor mosaics. Situated close to the Sea of Galilee, the church of Tabgha commemorates the multiplication of the loaves and fishes by Jesus to feed the multitude. The church was built in 1982, imitating in every detail the style of a fourth-century basilica, and on REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

looking. He was speaking at the MacGill Summer School in Co. Donegal, last July.

He also said that he regretted saying the result of the recent referendum on same-sex marriage was a “reality check” for the Church in Ireland, and that he had probably sent out “mixed messages.” He had intended to make the point that a reality check is “nothing more than discerning the facts in all their complexity and then facing the facts and evaluating how to address the facts in a culture that is ever changing.”

He said he was convinced that the Irish Church, needed “a new generation of strong and articulate laymen and women,” and called for “a strong laity which is not inward-looking

or caught up simply in Church structures and activities.” He observed that some, including young people, might be seeking refuge from the challenges of life by adapting ways from the past and avoiding dialogue with the present in the false security of imaginary better times. “Simply repeating doctrinal formulas is not the answer,” the Archbishop said, “an inward-looking Catholicism – liberal or conservative – is not the answer.” Rather, the future of the Church depends on wellformed Catholics “who are articulate in understanding their faith and feel called to bring the unique vision which springs from their faith into dialogue with the realities of the world.”

the site of a church that had been described about the year 380 by the famous woman pilgrim Egeria. Destroyed some centuries later, its mosaics with their bright images of birds and water creatures were discovered in 1932.

Slogans in Hebrew were daubed on the walls by the arsonists who are presumed to belong to a Jewish fringe movement.

The church is in the care of a small German Benedictine community who also tend to the small guest/ retreat house. It is a daughter house of the Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem.

Their abbot is Fr Gregory Collins, who is a monk of Glenstal, Co Limerick, and a native of Belfast.

A burned-out section of the Benedictine Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha, Israel

N E WS

HE AIN’T HEAVY, HE’S MY BROTHER NEBRASKA

BOYS TOWN SAINT?

The cause for canonisation of Father Edward Flanagan, founder of Boys’ Town has completed its diocesan stage and now moves on to the Roman stage. Four large boxes, containing almost five thousand pages of evidence, will be sent to Rome where the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will continue the work of investigation into the heroicity of Fr Flanagan’s virtues.

Fr Flanagan was born near Ballymoe, Co Galway, in 1886. He received his early education in Summerhill College, Sligo. He emigrated to the United States in 1904 at the age of eighteen but managed to continue his education there and eventually entered the seminary. Eight years later, he was ordained priest for the diocese of Omaha in Nebraska.

In 1917, Edward Flanagan embarked on what would become the major work of his life. He opened a residence for homeless boys in a rundown mansion in downtown Omaha. Some years later, he was able to move it to a more rural location where it grew to become a large community where boys between 10 and 16 could receive an education and learn a trade.

Fr Flanagan’s work with boys became famous

Top: Archbishop George J. Lucas of Omaha blesses the boxes of documents detailing the investigation for the sainthood cause of Edward Flanagan Opposite: Fr Edward Flanagan Far right: The statute at Boystown

through the 1938 film, Boys Town, staring Spencer Tracey and Mickey Rooney. He was regarded as an insightful expert in the field of adolescent care and juvenile delinquency. After World War II, President Truman asked him to travel to Asia and Europe to contribute to the debate the care of children orphaned or displaced by the war.

While visiting to Ireland, he was dismayed at the state of nation’s reform schools and described them as “a scandal, un-Christlike, and wrong.”

Had his criticisms been taken, the sad story of institutional abuse that emerged more than fifty years later might have been different.

Fr Flanagan died of a heart attack in Berlin in May 15, 1948 while continuing his work of advising on the care of child survivors of the war. He borrowed the words, "He ain't heavy, Father, he's my brother," as a motto for Boy’s Town from a teenage boy he had met carrying his younger brother.

VICTORY FOR CRIB FRANCE

ROBERT MÉNARD Mayor of Béziers, France

THE CRIB STAYS!

The mayor of a southern France town has successfully defended the erection of a Christmas crib in his city hall against a legal complaint by secularists. The mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, installed the crib last December against the advice of the prefect, the local representative of the French state. Secularists filed a legal complaint, arguing the crib

violated France’s policy of laïcité or state secularism, but a judge rejected it.

M. Ménard also permitted the local Jewish community to set up a large eight-branched candlestick for the Hanukkah festival in the city hall. The court rejected the secularists’ appeal on the grounds that the crib was a “cultural activity”. continued on page 6

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REALITY BITES CORRYMELA CELEBRATES FIFTY YEARS BALLYCASTLE HOUSE OF PEACE Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest reconciliation community, this year celebrates fifty years of peacemaking. One possible meaning of the underlying Irish of the name is “Hill of Harmony.” The residential centre on the north Antrim coast hosts over 11,000 people a year. It has a residential community of volunteers and staff and a “dispersed community” of more than one hundred and fifty members committed to living out Corrymeela’s principles of reconciliation in their own communities.

The founder of Corrymeela was a Presbyterian clergyman, Ray Davey. Serving in the YMCA during the war, Ray was captured and spent time in a prisoner of war camp in Dresden, where he witnessed the bombing of the city. It

6 EUROPE DECLINES,

AFRICA THRIVES

Nigerian women sing at their local mass

The number of Catholics worldwide has increased while the number of priests to serve them has fallen, a new study has found. Research by Georgetown University’s Centre for Advanced Research in the Apostolate (Cara) found that between 1980 and 2012, the world’s Catholic population had grown by 57 per cent from 783,662,000 to 1,228,612,000.

Overall, the global Catholic population has grown by 57 percent since 1980. Europe’s Catholic population grew by just 6 percent while the number of Catholics in Africa grew by 238 percent, followed by Asia with a 115 per cent growth rate.

African Catholics now comprise 16 per cent of the total number of Catholics. In 1980, European Catholics comprised 36 per cent of all Catholics, now they are only 23 per cent.

According to the Cara study, the European birthrate is currently below replacement level REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

was an experience that changed him profoundly and underscored for him the sheer futility and destructiveness of conflict.

After the war, he was appointed the first Presbyterian Chaplain or “Dean of Residence” at Queen’s University, Belfast. Ray and his students, became concerned at the sectarian tensions that were brewing in Northern Ireland during the 1960s and wished to establish a place of gathering, an “open village where all people of good will” could come together and learn to live in community.

In 1965, a site outside Ballycastle came on the market. It was purchased by Ray and the students for £7,000 and the money was raised within 10 days. It was officially opened on October 30, 1965.

From the beginning, Corrymeela has been a place of gathering, work, faith and discussion which has brought people of different backgrounds, different political and religious beliefs and different identities together.

at only 1.72 average births per woman over her lifetime. In Africa, the fertility rate has also dropped from its 1980 high of 6.76, but it still hovers above replacement rate at 5.15.

Globally, the Church had only 713 more priests, diocesan and religious combined, in 2012 than it did in 1980. The most serious decline was in Europe, which had a net loss of 56,830 priests during this period. Where the Catholic population is growing, so are the numbers of priests. The number of priests more than doubled in Africa (adding 22,787 priest for a 131 percent increase) and Asia (adding 32,906 priests for a 121 percent increase) between 1980 and 2012.

The late Rev Ray Davey

In its golden jubilee year it has almost 40 full time staff, a cohort of 20 year–long volunteers and interns as well as hundreds of volunteers who come for shorter periods of time. The Community of Corrymeela has 150 members, 50 associate members and thousands of friends around the globe.

GERMAN CATHOLICS LEAVING THE CHURCH The number of Catholics officially leaving the Catholic Church in Germany during 2014 rose by 20 per cent on the previous year to reach a new record high of 217, 716. In Germany and in some other European countries, church members of any denomination pay a portion of their taxes, usually about 8-9%, as a ‘church tax.’ If they opt not to pay it, then they lose any claim on the church for funerals or sacramental ministry.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and president of the German bishops’ conference, said the figures made the Church “painfully aware of the fact that its message is not reaching people.”

Each departure, however, was a “personal life decision which we deeply deplore but respect as a free decision.”

On the other hand, 2,809 people had become Catholics during the same period and 6,314 had returned, after officially leaving, and church attendance had increased by 0.1 per cent to 10.9 per cent, with an increase in church marriages and baptisms. Germany’s Catholic population fell by 0.9 per cent and stands currently at almost 24 million.

N E WS

POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS DIVORCED CATHOLICS Speaking at the first audience after his short summer holidays on 5 August, Pope Francis addressed the question of Catholics in irregular unions. “The Church knows well,” he said, “that such a situation contradicts the Christian Sacrament.” However, he continued, the Church, as a Mother, always seeks the good and salvation of all her children. It is important, he went on, for the Church to foster a true welcome for these families in our communities. The Church must always show her pastoral care for those in such situations, especially the children.

Pope Francis noted that the Church in recent decades has developed a greater awareness of the need to be welcoming toward the divorced and re-married. He emphasized that they are still part of the Church. They are not excommunicated, and should not be treated as such, but rather must be encouraged, with their families, to participate in the Church’s life: through prayer, listening to the Word of God, the Christian education of their children, and service to the poor. He pointed to the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who called for careful discernment and wise pastoral accompaniment, while recognizing that there are no “simple solutions” to the difficulties wounded families face.

The Church, Pope Francis said, should imitate the Good Shepherd, welcoming all her children as a mother who is willing to give her life for them. “Each one of us can do our part by having the attitude of the Good Shepherd, Who knows every one of His sheep, and excludes no one from His infinite love."

POPE ASKS PARDON OF WALDENSIANS FOR PERSECUTION

BY CATHOLIC CHURCH During his pastoral visit to the city of Turin to venerate the Holy Shroud, Pope Francis became the first pope to visit a place of worship of the small Waldensian Church. He formally asked pardon of them for the indignities they had Pastor Eugenio Bernardini welcomes suffered in the past at the hand of Catholics.

Pope Francis "“Reflecting on the history of our relations, we can only grieve in the face of strife and violence committed in the name of faith, and ask the Lord to give us the grace to recognize we are all sinners, and to know how to forgive one another,” he said. “On behalf of the Catholic Church, I ask forgiveness for the unChristian and even inhumane positions and actions taken against you historically. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us!"

The Waldensian movement takes its name from Peter Waldo, a twelfth century merchant and lay religious leader who preached a form of radical poverty and condemned the wealth of the Catholic Church. Waldo was declared a heretic and excommunicated. Some elements of the movement survived until the Reformation, when they identified with the theology of the Reformers and their radical critique of the Roman Church.

Some 1,700 Waldensians were killed in 1655 by the Catholic forces of the Duke of Savoy. This inspired the poem “Avenge O Lord, thy slaughtered saints” by the English poet John Milton Today, there are just over 30,000 Waldensian Christians world-wide, the majority of them in the Turin region of Northern Italy.

RELICS OF PADRE PIO FOR THE VATICAN The relics of St Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, will be exposed for veneration in St Peter's Basilica during the Jubilee of Mercy from 8-14 February 2016 at the request of Pope Francis as part of the celebration of Ash Wednesday in the Jubilee Year of Divine Mercy.

"The Holy Father has expressed his strong desire that the remains of St Pio of Pietrelcina be exposed in St Peter's Basilica for Ash Wednesday, the day on which he will send 'Missionaries of Mercy' throughout the world, giving them a special mandate to preach and celebrate sacrament of reconciliation so that they may be a living sign of how the Father welcomes all who seek his pardon," said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, wrote. Padre Pio was a tireless confessor and a witness to the mystery of Divine Mercy.

POPE FRANCIS SIGNS ON FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY

Pope Francis was the first pilgrim to sign up for World Youth Day to be held in Krakow, Poland 26-31 July 2015. Accompanied by two Polish teenagers who wore World Youth Day 2016 T-shirts, the pope had to make a couple of attempts at pressing the screen of a tablet before his online registration went through. “There. With this electronic device I have signed up for the day as a pilgrim," he told thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square on 26 July 26 for the Angelus. "I wanted to be the one to open registration."

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IRISH SAINT OF THE MONTH ST CIARÁN

OF CLONMACNOISE

St Ciarán - a window detail taken from St Brendan's Church, Birr, Co. Offaly

8

Born: c.513 Died: 546 Feast Day: 9 September Patron of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise

Ciarán Mac an tSaoir (“son of the carpenter”) was born in 513 near Fuerty in County Roscommon. His father was a carpenter and chariot-maker and on his mother’s side of the family, there was a tradition of bardic learning. He is known as Ciarán the Younger to prevent confusion with Ciarán of Saigir, bishop of Ossory.

Ciarán entered the monastery of St Finian at Clonard as a young man. Early Irish monasticism did not necessarily commit a young monk to remain all his life in the same monastery. When he had absorbed what one master had taught him, he could move on in search of another. So after some years with Finian, Ciarán travelled to Aran, where he became a disciple of St Enda, whose ascetic rule attracted many of the early Irish saints to Aran. Ciarán might have remained there, but according to legend, both Enda and Ciarán had the same dream of a great fruit tree growing beside a stream somewhere in the middle of Ireland and whose fruit went forth over the sea that surrounded the island, and the birds came to carry off the fruit. This is very close to Ezekiel’s vision of Israel as a great cedar tree or the Gospel parable to the mustard seed. Enda interpreted the dream to mean that Ciarán would one day build a monastery in the centre of Ireland.

Ciarán’s search for wisdom next led him to the monastery of St Senan on Scattery Island in the Shannon Estuary.

In 544, still just thirty, Ciarán finally settled in Clonmacnoise where he founded a monastery with ten companions. He was not destined to rule the monastery as abbot for long, for he died in 546 at the age of 33. His monastery however continued to flourish. It reached its zenith between the eighth and twelfth centuries. Its position on the Shannon made it vulnerable to being plundered frequently by raiding parties of Vikings (and probably sometimes also by the Irish). The site still preserves many remains of its ancient monastic past.

As with all the Irish saints, folk-lore and legend grew up around Ciarán. Many of the legends made their way into three Latin and one Old Irish Lives. According to one story, he wanted to bring a cow with him to Clonard. Its calf was determined to follow, but Ciarán drew a line in the ground and the calf returned to the herd. The cow’s output of milk was prodigious – enough to supply the whole monastery, and its skin eventually provided the parchment for the famous manuscript, Lebor na hUidre, the “Book of the Dun Cow.” Another tells how Ciaran wanted to send the gift of a cloak to Senan.

He placed it on the waters of the Shannon, and it travelled straight to the harbour of Scattery. Knowing that it was on its way, Senan asked his monks to go to the harbour and there was the cloak, dry as a bone.

Brendan McConvery, CSsR REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

Reality Volume 80. No. 7 Septemper 2015 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, 75 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6, Republic of Ireland Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Web: www.redcoms.org Email: sales@redcoms.org (With permission of C.Ss.R.)

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REFLECTIONS Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

ST AUGUSTINE

Since there is very little good that can be accomplished, or evil avoided, without the aid of money, we must look after it in small as well as in great matters.

SISTER CATHERINE MCAULEY

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

HELEN KELLER

A bookshop was like an Aladdin’s cave for me. Entire worlds and lives can be found just behind that glossy cover.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

BRIAN O’DRISCOLL

You never really learn much from hearing yourself talk.

GEORGE CLOONEY

MARIAN KEYES

Nothing on earth can make life more worthwhile than ‘thanks’ from a friend with the warmth of a smile.

It’s best to make changes little by little, the same as you’d put clothes upon a growing child.

LADY GREGORY

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honoured by posterity because he was the last to discover America.

Just by the very nature of our birth, we are on a spiritual journey.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

WARREN BUFFET

P.D. JAMES

It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.

JUDI DENCH

I can’t think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world.

SEAMUS HEANEY

HELEN STEINER RICE

JAMES JOYCE

God gives every bird his worm, but he doesn’t throw it into the nest.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

MAHATMA GANDHI

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

As kids we are not taught how to deal with success; we are taught how to deal with failure. If at first you don’t succeed try, try again. If at first you succeed, then what?

MAE WEST

CHARLIE SHEEN

THOMAS KEATING

Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so indispensable, none so powerful, as hope.

CHARLES SAWYER

Cultivate friendship like a garden. It is the best love of all.

Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moment

SISTER HELEN PREJEAN

ROSE KENNEDY

The right word fitly spoken is a precious rarity.

JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

It’s a funny old world.

Once you realise that, you’re halfway there.

MAEVE BINCHY

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E DI TO R I A L UP FRONT BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

EUROPE’S SHAME?

She

seemed like a typical Italian mamma. One of the highlights of her week has always been the enormous Sunday lunch, with lots of pasta, where everyone is welcome – relatives, pals and girlfriends of her sons, or old friends back in town. Her pasta sauces were made according to tried and tested recipes inherited from her mother and grandmother. She is in her element now, cooking for these people. But they are all strangers, for Maria now runs a soup kitchen for migrants on the island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily, where boatload after boatload of migrants has landed. Maria’s soup-kitchen depends on the goodwill of neighbours who drop off packets of pasta, kilos of tomatoes, a couple of litres of olive oil, fresh vegetables and anything else she and the other women who took turns at the cooking need. The first act of the day is to see what is in the store before deciding what to serve that day.

Before the guests are admitted, Maria and her fellow-workers gather to invoke a blessing on the food and on their labour. Sometimes, the crowd is bigger than they expect, but no one ever goes away hungry. Maria had prepared thirty kilos of pasta one day, but so many turned up that she needed another seven. Trusting in the story of the loaves and fishes, they serve what they have. No one goes hungry and they usually have a sandwich to take away. Maria says that, when she passes them in the street, all she sees are vulnerable, hungry young men, so like her own boys, that all she can do is commend them to St Rita, the patron of hopeless cases. I heard Maria tell her story on a news programme. She is not alone. Claudine is part of a team in Calais that aims to offer a hot nourishing meal each day to up to 400 of the migrants who throng the “Calais Jungle,” a series of makeshift camps where migrants and refugees have gathered as they try to smuggle themselves onboard lorries or trains hurtling through the channel tunnel.

There is a European crisis of refugees and migrants. The countries that have had to bear the brunt of it are the countries on the Mediterranean fringes of Europe, especially Italy and Greece and their off-shore islands.

Well over 124, 000 refugees and migrants had arrived in Greece by sea by the end of July this year. This was a staggering 750 per cent increase on the same period the previous year. Greece’s domestic economic difficulties have not fitted it to handle a crisis of such proportions with little warning. According to the European director of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the "vast majority" of those arriving in Greece come from countries which are experiencing conflict or human rights violations, particularly Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Syria accounts for up to 70 percent: it is unknown how many of them may be Christian, but it is likely that a goodly proportion is. In the first six months of this year, 137,000 people made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, almost double of the number the previous year. The UN figures show that the majority are, once again, from Syria, with Afghanistan and Eritrea following closely behind. More than 2,000 people have drowned attempting to make their way to Europe.

There are few heroes in this story of death, degradation and horror. The ill-judged and disastrous Western intervention in the politics of the Middle East that was the Iraq War served only to destabilise the region and to trigger a migration problem of such proportions that its creators pass over it in guilty silence.

Fortress Europe (of which Ireland is a part) seems to think it is simply a question of how best to seal the borders or how to barter for the lowest number of refugees that can be safely taken to save national face. The North African states that continue to permit the trafficking of human beings in recklessly overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels are colluding in a crime against humanity, yet the UNHCR appears to do little to hold them to account. If there are heroes, they should include the ordinary Irish sailors who, on one occasion alone, rescued 367 men, women and children from one sinking boat. Not to mention Maria and Claudine and thousands like them, who see only the faces of suffering human beings, who are led by faith or a sense of sheer decency, to do humbly, and with no fanfares, what they can.

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

11

C OV E R STO RY

LAUDATO SÍ

REFLECTIONS ON THE NEW ENCYCLICAL 12

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOME OF THE KEY THEMES OF POPE FRANCIS’ RECENT ENCYCLICAL LETTER ON THE ENVIRONMENT.

BY DR SUZANNE MULLIGAN

On

Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd of June 2015, Maynooth University, St Patrick’s College Maynooth, and Trocaire hosted a joint conference on climate justice. This collaborative event brought together experts from around the world, and the conference provided a forum for various voices on climate justice to be heard. The scientific, economic, geo-political and ethical arguments were voiced, as were local and more international experiences.

By coincidence, Pope Francis had just launched his first encyclical a few days earlier. Although dated 24th May, Laudato si was published at noon on June 18th 2015.

It was a much-anticipated encyclical for many reasons. It was the first document that could be truly attributed to Francis. The papal exhortation, Lumen Fidei published in 2013 had been begun by Pope Benedict. There was also much excitement and interest about what he might say about the environment.

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

Not everyone was happy with its content, to put it mildly. Reactions from the United States and elsewhere were mixed. What we find here, however, is a challenging and provocative document, one that shakes us from any slumber of indifference to which we might have drifted. Let us consider, then, some of the key contributions of Pope Francis’ first encyclical.

WHAT HAS ECOLOGY TO DO WITH THEOLOGY? Ecology has, for too long, been overlooked within Catholic Church teaching. Although some moral theologians have dedicated considerable time to this issue, climate justice has, at best, remained peripheral within official church documents. It is true that Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI initiated the beginnings of a response, but this is the first comprehensive teaching document on the environment. As a result, Pope Francis’

letter adds the much-needed theological voice to the broader ecological discussion.

For the most part, we are used to hearing arguments framed by political, economic, and scientific experts. It might be noted that considerable work has been done on this front by some of the Orthodox Churches, as well as many inter-faith groups. The expression of a theological/faith-dimension in Catholic terms finds expression for the first time in Laudato si, and this is a welcome development.

Secondly, although this encyclical represents a strong theological response by a pope to the ecological crisis, Pope Francis addresses this document to all people. It is not intended just for Catholics or for people of faith. We all share this planet, and our efforts to avoid environmental disaster must be collaborative. The pope appeals here to the entire human family.

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Pope Francis addresses this document to all people. It is not intended just for Catholics or for people of faith

C OV E R STO RY

HARD HITTING? Both the tone of the document and its language are hard-hitting. Francis does not shy away from the difficult realities that we face as a global community. Addressed to all people of good will, there is a very obvious collaborative and ecumenical feel to Laudato si. He does not intend to enter into a scientific debate, but rather his hope is to build on the scientific resources available and to incorporate them into a broader ethical and spiritual discussion. “I will begin by briefly reviewing several aspects of the present ecological crisis,” he writes, “with the aim of drawing on the results of the best scientific research available today, letting them touch us deeply and provide a concrete foundation for the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows” (n.15).

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The poor are disproportionately affected by climate change

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

THE ENVIRONMENT: AN ISSUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE A third contribution we might identify is the connection that Pope Francis makes between environmental justice and economic justice.

It is not surprising that Francis gives so much time to the impact of climate change on the poor. From the moment of his election, and by his choice of the name Francis, the Holy Father made it clear that concern for the poor and for the environment would be to the forefront of his pontificate.

The connection he makes in Laudato si between poverty and climate injustice is valuable in other respects also. For many years the link between the two was either not acknowledged or not understood properly. Yet, it is all too clear that the poor are disproportionately affected by climate change. The poor are least able to cope with the crippling effects of flooding, famine, deforestation, and rising sea levels. We are witnessing huge increases in the number of environmental refugees around the world.

Natural habitats and local cultures are under threat from environmental degradation.

Francis concludes that “Today…we have to realize that a true ecological approach

environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation” (no. 48).

The situation is often exacerbated by the greed of many companies and governments.

By way of example, he explains that there are proposals to internationalize the Amazon, which only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations. “We cannot fail to praise the commitment of international agencies and civil organizations,” he continues, “which draw public attention to these issues and offer critical cooperation, employing legitimate means of pressure, to ensure that each government carries out its proper and inalienable responsibility to preserve its country’s environment and natural resources, without capitulating to spurious local or international interests” (n.38)

This is a challenging and provocative document that shakes us from any slumber of indifference into which we have drifted always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (no. 49).

INTEGRAL ECOLOGY Pope Francis calls for “integral ecology”. “We are not faced with two separate crises,” he writes, “one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis which is both social and environmental” (no. 139). In other words, we need a vision that recognizes the manner in which all these concerns form part of one interconnected whole. “Human

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses a Vatican summit on the moral dimensions of climate change and its impact on the poor

IN A TRADITION OF SOCIAL TEACHING In his condemnation of this kind of injustice, Pope Francis is directing us towards what we might call integral, sustainable development that echoes the teachings of John XXIII and Paul VI. As popes build on the rich tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, they address the “signs of their times” and bring the gospels’ transformative message to the world.

It is interesting that a number of leading economists would later challenge conventional approaches to development on similar grounds to those of Paul’s encyclical Populorum Progressio.

In Laudato si, Francis takes the notion of integral human development and extends it to the environment. Like his predecessors, Francis is skeptical of free-market capitalism and the excesses that accompany it. Based on a belief in the priority of growth and progress, where profit becomes the all-important goal, little consideration is left for the limits of the earth’s resources or indeed for the distribution of the earth’s goods. Pope Francis draws from concepts such as the common good, solidarity, and the universal destination

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C OV E R STO RY

An area deforested by illegal gold mining is seen in the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios, Peru.

16

of the earth’s goods in his critique of current global economic realities.

CLIMATE AND CONVERSION Fourthly, we might consider the pope’s appeal for a change of heart. Interestingly Francis calls not just for a change in structures but also a change in attitude. He reminds us that a change of heart, the Gospel metanoia, is required of us also.

Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm. Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find themselves caught up in the same globalized logic. To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system (n.111).

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

IN THE SPIRIT OF ST FRANCIS Technical solutions, laws, international agreements and the like will not rectify the problem. What is required is education in virtue; the creation of responsible global citizens. Thus, we find throughout this encyclical a wonderful recognition of the place of virtue and spirituality in any holistic

response to our ecological challenges.

Drawing from the inspiration of Saint Francis of Assisi, the pope writes: "Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise… If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.

The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled "(n.11).

Pope Francis stresses “a sense of deep communion with the rest of nature” (no.

91). We are called to mirror God’s love for us; to “love and accept the wind, the sun and the clouds, even though we cannot control

A banner calling attention to climate change is seen in St. Peter's Square. Some 5,000 people marched to the Vatican in support of Pope Francis' recent encyclical on the environment.

them” (n.228), and for that reason Francis insists that “we can speak of a “universal brother- and sister-hood” (no. 228). He goes so far as to say that: “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is “contrary to human dignity”. We can hardly consider ourselves to be fully loving if we disregard any aspect of reality: “Peace, justice and the preservation of creation are three absolutely interconnected themes, which cannot be separated and treated individually without once again falling into reductionism” (n.92).

READ, STUDY AND PRAY This is a rich document, and this brief summary cannot do it justice. It is challenging, direct and provocative. The Holy Father does not skirt around the issue: the urgency and magnitude of the problem no longer affords us that luxury. He blends the scientific with a powerful theological and spiritual analysis.

He reiterates the Christian mandate to go out into the world and to transform it for

the better. The demands of justice in our world, including climate justice, cannot be an “optional extra” for the Christian. Rather, it is at the heart of what it means to bring the joy of the gospel into our world. Pope Francis concludes his encyclical with a prayer.

Perhaps that is an appropriate way to end these modest reflections also.

“Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love, teach us to contemplate you in the beauty of the universe,for all things speak of you.

Awaken our praise and thankfulness for every being that you have made.

Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined to everything that is.”

Dr Suzanne Mulligan teaches Moral Theology at the Pontifical University, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, where she is also Director of the Higher Diploma in Theological Studies programme.

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THE RELIANCE ON THE SMARTPHONE CONTINUALLY UNDERMINES OUR ABILITY TO MAINTAIN OUR ATTENTION, TO CONTEMPLATE AND REFLECT, AND EVEN TO BE ALONE WITH OUR OWN THOUGHTS

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In June, I spent a long weekend in Connemara. A group of friends rented a cottage and we spent three days eating nice food, walking beautiful beaches, climbing mountains and relaxing by the fire.

I enjoyed long conversations with friends and I came back to Dublin feeling refreshed and sustained.

The weekend had been perfect.

The company had been attentive, interested and enthusiastic about activities. Everyone seemed particularly ready and willing to let go of work and other commitments and simply enjoy a few days’ rest.

I soon realised why this weekend had stood out so much: there had been no phone signal. From when we arrived on Friday until we entered Galway on our way home on Monday, our phones were obsolete. Nobody had to leave the room to take an important call. Nobody jumped up upon hearing a beep. Nobody proved their points with references to google searches. Nobody checked into Facebook to compare our long weekend with that of others.

I am a fan of technology and its developments. I like to keep connected with my friends through social media. I read newspaper articles online. I try new apps and go online shopping.

I can spend a lazy weekend morning browsing the internet on my phone, as another might read a magazine or newspaper. However, I am also aware that smart phones are highly addictive.

I get a rush of excitement when REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

my phone beeps signalling the arrival of a text message or an email. At unnecessary times, I take out my phone to check for little red circles which signify new notifications. I keep my smart phone near me from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. In fact, even as I sleep it is only an arm’s length away. And I am not alone in this habit. In fact, I don’t consider myself an extreme case. (But maybe I’m in denial).

The American author, Nicholas Carr, has studied the behavioural and social changes caused by the widespread adoption of the smartphone. He comments that the phone’s size and its offer of constant connectivity has changed the human relationship with computers. By its very nature, it creates “an environment of almost constant interruptions and distractions,” he explains.

The reliance on the smartphone

continually undermines our ability to maintain our attention, to contemplate and reflect, and even to be alone with our own thoughts.

Recently, I clicked a link on Facebook which took me to a series of photos making fun of how business people don’t know how to take a vacation. There are numerous photos with witty captions that show men and women dressed in suits on the beach, phones in hand. They paddle while on the phone, they use a surfboard as a desk, they desperately look for a Wi-Fi password. The pictures are funny because they are an extreme example of how many people live.

In a recent study of 1,600 managers and professionals, Dr Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School found that 51% of respondents check their phones continuously

during vacation. 48% check over the weekend including Friday and Saturday nights.

The effects of this behaviour are so large, I hardly even notice them anymore. I have grown totally tolerant of people who stop speaking mid-sentence to respond to a lit up screen.

Minutes may pass where a friend will ignore my company, keep eyes on screen and settle whatever it is that has come up with no need for explanation or apology. In fact, I feel it would be rude of me to interrupt their interaction with the smartphone.

The consequence of this behaviour is even more obvious when you look at young children.

Young children mirror the behaviour of adults around them.

In school, the infants’ classes spend a lot of time playing in the role play corner. They play hairdressers, office or shop for example. Often this play-corner calls for lining up to pretend-pay for goods, or pretend-sitting in a waiting room. I was amazed when I first set up a doctor’s waiting room area with books and magazines for the kids. Of course, they all ignored the books, instead they immediately took out imaginary phones and acted as most adults do these days when they have to wait in line.

It is no wonder that my trip to Connemara was so special.

Having someone’s complete and uninterrupted attention is a rarity and a lack of phone signal can be a blessing. (But not for too long, right?)

QUESTIONS TO J E S U S 1

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WHAT MUST I DO TO INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE?

BY MIKE DALEY

“Who

am I to judge?” The question startled those who first heard it. Especially given the person who asked it. The pope.

Returning from his first World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Pope Francis held an impromptu press conference with journalists on the way back to Rome. The questions

ranged from possible upcoming foreign trips to relations with the Orthodox Church to the well-publicized scandals in Vatican bureaucracy.

In many respects his responses were what one would expect to hear from a pope—positive, safe, and general.

At the end, however, one reporter asked Pope Francis about two separate, but related,

things: the “private life” of a priest working in the Vatican and the existence of a supposed gay lobby there. Though he said more than is provided here, the most memorable part was when he responded, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?”

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QUESTIONS TO J E S U S 1

AN INVITATION but, more importantly, to live in them. In his My teenage daughter Cara and Pope Francis book, Living in the Question, he writes, “A pat have a lot in common. Actually, though I hate answer is closed, it is finished; that’s it. It goes to admit it, it’s one of her more endearing no where and leaves little room for hope. A personality traits. She asks a lot of questions. It question, the mystery, opens space for us. It is started when she was young and hasn’t stopped full of possibility. It gives hope of life and ever since. I say it, she sees it, she hears it, she questions it. “Why?” “How come?” “When?” “Who’s that?”

Pope Francis holding an impromrtu Whenever she goes into one of her press conference during a flight litany of questions, I’m reminded of the bumper sticker that reads: “Question authority.” Well, she’s got a gift for it.

As much as I want to encourage this curiosity, this search for more, I’ll be the first to admit that it can be frustrating, time-consuming, and nerve-wracking. I’m often tempted to say, “Because I said so.” “Be Quiet.” Or “Just do it.” Yet, I really do want to encourage this character more abundant life. Our faith, solid as it may trait. On a related note, I think Pope Francis be, is full of questions. And, therefore full of wants to encourage Catholics to not be afraid life and hope.” to ask questions as well.

One great resource for questions of faith is scripture—the Word of God. Almost from BEYOND THE CATECHISM the very beginning, We hear a question of the Though difficult to recall, I harken back to my utmost importance when, after being pressed high school grammar lessons. There I learned by God about his brother Abel’s disappearance, about all kinds of questions: hypothetical, Cain replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We’ve personal, leading or loaded, indirect, rhetorical, been struggling to live that question ever since. closed or open-ended, and still others. Others touch upon the mystery of suffering and Whatever the kind, questions are essential to salvation to the possible absence of God and the spiritual life. Yet, Catholics are also known the end of the world. for catechisms—summaries of faith easily The Gospels are full of questions both from memorized in question and answer format. and to Jesus—the Word of God made flesh.

Irish people might remember the Maynooth His life, ministry, and person prompt them. or Butler’s Irish Catechism.

Questions that, as much we try to do so, are In his book The Questioning Church, not easily answered, questions that might be published during the heyday of the Second better left unasked. Yet, the call of discipleship Vatican Council, Cardinal Julius Dopfner, then or the desire to dismiss Jesus as a fraud, bring archbishop of Munich-Freising, wrote that “We them forth. can no longer be satisfied with half-forgotten, theoretical ‘catechism knowledge’ inadequately THE RICH YOUNG MAN understood. In all the urgent tasks of our age we “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” must turn to Christ with the questioning and As focused as I am on this life, the question seeking Church and ponder his words anew.” of what I must be doing to prepare for the The popular spiritual writer and Cistercian next is often in the background rather than monk, M. Basil Pennington, encourages us, the forefront. Thankfully, the rich young man not only to ask and answer questions of faith, (Mk 10:17-21) brings it up.

Jesus soon discovers, as he questions him, that this is an impressive young man. In response to Jesus’ litany of commandments, he replies, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”

(If only I were so lucky!) Eternal life seemed to be assured for him.

Sensing something else, however, Jesus continues the conversation.

He responds: “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that, scripture reports, the rich young man went away disheartened for he had great possessions.

Following the law and having money seemed like a perfect combination. One knew God’s favour rested upon them. Jesus, like he often does, rejects this way of thinking. In the process, he turns the rich young man’s certainties upside down.

His false sense of security begins to crumble.

Salvation isn’t something you “inherit” or earn through following the law and obtaining riches.

It is entering into relationship with Jesus and accepting that grace, that friendship, as gift.

WALKING IN HIS SHOES Uncomfortably, I place myself in the shoes of the rich young man. Undeniably, though I try to deny it, I too have great possessions.

In a world marked by gross inequality, I have more than my fair share. Attempting to ease my conscience somewhat, I try to convince myself that I’ve earned what I have. I worked hard for it. I deserve it.

In the process of questioning, though, confusion is created. Tension arises. Old beliefs collide with new invitations. Like the rich young man, I meet Jesus on his terms (unconditional love) —rather than mine (merited relationship).

How will I, how will you, walk away from this encounter?

Mike Daley is a high school religion teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio

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V O CAT I O N

22

TALKING TO THE NEW SHEPHERDS THIS SUMMER, FOURTEEN STUDENTS OF ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH, AND TWO FROM THE IRISH COLLEGE IN ROME WERE ORDAINED FOR SERVICE IN THE TWENTY-SIX DIOCESES OF IRELAND. REALITY MET SOME OF THE MAYNOOTH STUDENTS AS THEY WERE PREPARING FOR THEIR FINAL EXAMINATIONS AND FOR THEIR ORDINATION DAY.

is originally from Dunmore in Co Galway and worked as a mechanical engineer before the seminary. Shane O’Neill at 27 is the youngest of the class. A native of Knockanore, Co. Waterford, he studied at University College, Cork where he took a Master’s in Irish. He is being ordained for Waterford and Lismore.

BY CLAIRE CARMICHAEL

You have all had a lot of work experience.

Do you think that has contributed to your training for the priesthood?

Brendan

Wa r d i s 3 4 years old and a native of Glenties, Co Donegal. Before he entered Maynooth, he was a woodwork teacher in the Gael Scoil in Monaghan town. He will be ordained for the diocese of Raphoe. Brian Griffin, 51, ordained for the diocese of Ossory, is from Slieverue, Co Kilkenny and a production engineer by

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

trade. He worked, among other places, in Waterford Glass. Leo Creelman, also 51, is originally from Coleraine. He studied economics and accountancy in Queen’s University Belfast and was running his own business in Enniskillen before he entered the seminary. He is being ordained for Clogher Diocese. Paul Glennon, 41, is being ordained for the diocese of Dublin, but he

Brian: My first job, I'll never forget. I was 21 years old and supervisor on a production line with sixty women working with me.

I'll tell you that was the greatest education any man could get! I didn't feel like I was supervisor, I felt that I was working with people rather than they were working for me! I suppose as the years go by, you realise just how important that is.

all the doubts of his presence in my life fell away and it was such joy that I realised he was there with me all the time. I came back to my faith in a strong way through a group called the Emmanuel Community. Initially I didn't feel much of a strong attraction to them but I went to World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005.

I started journeying with them in my faith as well as working as an engineer, and the question of priesthood came up. Emmanuel include priests and lay members. We don't live together but come together for prayer, times of evangelisation and fraternal time. It is a small community in Ireland. Even though I'm from Tuam archdiocese, I felt the Lord was calling me to priesthood, attached to the community but in the Dublin diocese.

Leo: My first recollection of wanting to be a priest was when I was nine or ten years old when I was actually serving at an ordination.

We grew up on a street where we were surrounded by priests, the curates house was

Leo: At one stage, I went to America and got a licence as a real estate agent. I set up a company for people from Europe wanting to buy property. Basically, we did the full package for someone looking for a house.

You put the requirements into a data base, e.g. three bedrooms, with a pool, near a lake, and twenty houses could come up. We’d organise flights to bring them over, have someone there to pick them up, show them round the property, then we’d then put the bid in on their behalf, do all the paperwork, sort out the mortgage and everything. So it was the complete package for them.

What made you think of priesthood if you were having such a good time at work?

Paul. During my twenties, I wasn't too close to my faith. Actually, it was a girlfriend who brought me back. She brought me to an event in Maynooth, and during Mass, I really felt such a strong presence of God with me:

Paul Glennon

During my twenties, I wasn't too close to my faith. Actually, it was a girlfriend who brought me back. on one side of us and the parish priests was at the other. The curate would play football with us, go fishing with us, that sort of thing, so we grew up with priests. I suppose through my teenage years I thought, “I’m not good enough to be a priest.” I always had good prayer life and I kept asking God for a sign.

When I moved to Enniskillen and opened up the business, St Michael’s Church was only a two minute walk so I able to get to Mass most mornings. Eventually, I just couldn’t fight it anymore to be quite honest with you.

Brian Griffin

I was 21 years old and supervisor on a production line with sixty women working with me. I'll tell you that was the greatest education any man could get!

Were people surprised at your decision?

Shane. They were and they weren't. I think my parents were surprised to hear the actual decision put into words. My mother said that she kind of knew there was something about me that might kind of indicate it: you know the way mothers can read things very well!

I've found great support both from home and from my parish community. There was a natural curiosity about people too. They were interested in what was it that drew me to priesthood, what is involved in training, why is it so long etc. Given all the challenges we've had here in Ireland, with the scandals and the lack of confidence in the

23

V O CAT I O N

Leo Creelman

I suppose through my teenage years I thought, “I’m not good enough to be a priest 24

I cope, how will I bring comfort to people who are grieving. There are huge demands about funerals, and weddings: you are with people at the most intimate moments of their lives.

How can I try to be the presence of Christ with them? It’s challenging, and maybe daunting, but yes, it is exciting as well. I hope I can keep close the Lord and have a strong prayer life to be able to bring what the Lord wants me to bring to the parish.

Brendan. What I am most looking forward to is celebrating the Eucharist on Sundays, meeting people and being challenged by them to go deeper into my own faith. It is easy to get the impression that for a lot of people nowadays, faith does not matter that much. They have more pressing worries, so faith seems way down the list. There's their job, the mortgage, the family: all those things come first and faith is only one compartment in the middle of that that doesn't seem to really penetrate everyday life. When they begin to see it as central, that’s when they really start to practice their faith and become involved in the church.

institutional church at media level, there was that natural curiosity from people of my own age group. It was an occasion for me to give an account of how a vocation is something that sort of bubbles up very gradually and eventually becomes so strong that you have to answer.

Brendan. Some people were, some weren't I suppose. People that knew me well wouldn't be surprised but people that didn't know me that well would have been quite surprised.

What was the seminary like for you?

Brian. When I came here, I was a bit scared. I was thinking I'm going to be locked up in prison and I wasn't going to see anyone anymore. You know, it has been absolutely wonderful. I had a longing to know something about theology and philosophy, and here I was studying all these big questions I had. At my age it’s hard, of course! Your memory isn't as good as it used to be, so it is difficult to remember stuff.

What are you apprehensive about as you begin your ministry?

Paul. I'm apprehensive about dealing with people on all sorts of levels of faith and at difficult times of their lives, joyful times. I'm wondering how will REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

Shane O’Neill

It can be quite difficult when you're so burdened with academic work to actually carve out the space for yourself to look at the other areas of formation

Brendan Ward

What I am most looking forward to is celebrating the Eucharist on Sundays, meeting people and being challenged by them to go deeper into my own faith Is there anything that you would change about the programme?

Shane: I would probably aim to make it less of a “one size fits all” model because there are men coming in from completely different backgrounds, completely different experiences, completely different ages and when they come in, they meet the same programme which tends to be very academic. That was no trouble to someone like myself, coming directly from third level. It can be quite difficult when you're so burdened with academic work to actually carve out the space for yourself to look at the other areas of formation. The age gap among us is living proof that God isn't just calling school leavers: he's calling men from all walks of life. In our class, we have engineers, accountants, teachers, a man from the army, there's even a pilot. It reflects the diversity of life. Even in pastoral situations, no two of us would ever respond the exactly the same way but we'd all complement one another in our different approaches.

Brian. Not much. I came from the business world, world class manufacturing. I've had lots of training

FR

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T p ou

I

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in business and when I came here, I was just blown out of it because it's top notch. I mean they are covering everything, pastoral, spiritual, human, the need to learn about yourself. Its a privilege to learn that so I can't speak highly enough about it.

When was the last ordination for your diocese and what are numbers like now?

Brendan. We had two last summer and there are two more behind me.

Brian. I will be the first ordination in twelve years.

Leo. Two years ago for the diocese, last year one for a religious order. We're very fortunate: we have five here in Maynooth for the diocese and another two in Rome, so we're actually one of the healthier dioceses.

Paul. There are two of us being ordained for Dublin and there are five students currently in Maynooth.

Shane. The last ordination for the diocese was three years ago and currently, there is no one in the seminary.

What standard is Pope Francis setting you as priests?

Brendan. I think he's doing a great job. His popularity with the media may be fading. I think he's reaching out to those Catholics were talking about earlier who are burdened with many things, and for whom faith may not be at the top of their priorities, but they are good people, trying to live well in a complicated world. He talks about all sorts of issues, like divorce, the rosary, the devil. He can get away with saying a lot more than Pope Benedict did.

I think in Ireland that faith and reason had become separated. We had a faith alright, but we were not always able to give an account of the hope that was in us. Education is very one dimensional in Ireland.

Sometimes, you would think it is just about getting enough points to get into university. Faith needs to be taught in a modern way and it needs to be engaged with using the gifts of modern theology.

Pope Francis’ example as a communicator of the Gospel to that generation is what we need.

Leo. I think he’s making people really look at

themselves. What I like most about him is the effect he not only has on Catholics but non-Catholics. To me, that saying that shepherds should share the smell of the sheep important for him. He's cutting a lot of things away he thinks are irrelevant. Just knowing that he'd lift the phone to someone or send a letter is a great example for all of us, for bishops, for priests, for everyone. He makes it clear life is about the poor and the needy, and that’s really what Jesus came here for. He’s making it clear that new priests have, first of all, to develop a prayer life of high standard. Some people might think that Francis is watering down the teachings of the Church: he's not, he is just presenting them in a new and fresh way. Priests have to realise that priesthood is a state of life and we as priests have to set an example. I think he's very firm when it comes to homilies. Our lives are supposed to reflect what we're saying, what we do and above all, the Gospel and the teaching of Jesus. We really have to practice what we preach for a shepherd leads by example.

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BY BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

26

According

to the legend associated with it, the icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help was stolen from a church on the island of Crete by an Italian merchant who brought it to Rome. After various attempts to hide the theft, the icon was given to the Church of St Matthew on what is now the Via Merulana where it was exposed for the veneration of the faithful. It is impossible to recover its origins with any certainty but its origin in Crete has at least the likelihood of being authentic.

ICON MAKING IN CRETE From 1212 to 1669, Crete was under the rule of Venice which was a prosperous trading republic. The island’s native population belonged to the Byzantine or Orthodox Church, while Venice was a Latin Catholic nation. The island flourished under Venetian rule and the patronage of artists and painters that was characteristic of medieval Italy was a feature of life on the island where Western and Eastern styles of painting flourished.

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

Western art of this time was more naturalistic and imaginative while the icon style of the Orthodox church followed more fixed traditional styles both in the range of subjects depicted and in the arrangement of the icon and its colouring.

When the city of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Empire, fell to the Turks in 1453, many of the Empire’s icon painters sought refuge in Crete. This in turn led to a renaissance in the island’s artistic life. One of Redemptorist Church, Via Merulana, Rome

the best-known Cretan artists, Doménikos Theotokópoulos, eventually moved to Spain where he became better known by his nickname ‘El Greco’ and achieved fame for his very unique style that owes much to the inspiration of traditional icon painting.

Cretan icon painting is characterised by very precise outlines of the figures and the careful modelling the flesh tones by the use of small bright highlights on the cheeks. The garments fall into almost geometrical folds and are characterised by strong colours.

Many of these features are obvious in the icon of Perpetual Help.

VIRGIN OF THE PASSION There are five main types of icon of the Mother of God in the Byzantine tradition.

The first and most common is “The Guide” (Hodigitria in Greek) in which Mary is holding the child and pointing toward him, as a guide to God and salvation. The second is called ”Tender Mercy” (Eleusa) and emphasises the love of the mother for the child, holding him close against her cheek while he wraps his arm around her neck. In the third, “The All-Merciful” (Panakranta), the mother is enthroned as a queen with the child on her lap. The fourth type is “Our Lady of the Sign:” here Mary is depicted with her hands raised in prayer, with the child enclosed in a circle, representing her womb.

Finally, the “Intercessor” (Agiosortissa) is the only type that depicts Mary without the child: her hands are held out in a gesture of supplication.

In the course of time, new types of icons appeared, based usually on the five classical types. Our ‘Perpetual Help’ icon belongs to a type that is usually called by the Orthodox, ‘the Mother of God of the Passion.’ In it, the mother holds the child firmly, as in the “Guide” and “Tender Mercy” type. What is most distinctive about it, however, is the presence of the two angels, Gabriel and Michael in the upper corners who carry the instruments of the Passion, with their hands covered by cloths or veils. When suppliants brought gifts to the emperor, they covered their hands as a mark of respect. Usually, a

sandal is falling from the foot of the child.

This is at once a homely detail that recalls the fragility of the child and a biblical symbol for renouncing one’s own rights (see Deut 25:9 and Ruth 4:7-8).

The oldest representation of “the Mother of God of the Passion” seems to be a fresco in a church in Cyprus dating from about 1192.

In it Mary stands full-length, cradling the barefoot child with two full-length angels on each side. It proved to be a popular icon and spread widely among the Orthodox churches around the Mediterranean. It is hardly unexpected that it proved to be a popular icon in the workshops of Crete, especially when it could be painted on wood as a ‘portable icon’ that could be carried around and installed in the home.

THE LIFE-LONG PASSION Behind the simple icon art of the Mother of God of the Passion there is a rich biblical theology. The underlying text is from the meditation on the priesthood of Christ in the Letter to the Hebrews. The author of the Letter imagines how “when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'See, God, I have come to do your will, O God' (Heb 10:5-7). In other words, from its very beginning, the heart of Jesus was directed toward his death as an act of obedience and submission to the will of the Father.

The liturgy for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is centered on the same idea of the infant Jesus being offered in the first weeks of his life by his parents. A great hymn-writer / preacher of the Byzantine tradition preaching for the feast imagines a conversation between Mary and her son. “One day you will see the child you carry now in your arms with hands pierced with nails out of love for your kind. He whom you call life you will see hanging on the cross and you will mourn his death.”

Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR is a Redemptorist from Belfast.

He is a well-known biblical scholar, author and is currently editor of Reality.

Five Types of Icons The Guide (Hodigitria in Greek) – Mary points towards Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life who holds a scroll

Eleusa – The Mother of God of Tender Mercy This is the best known example of this type.

It is also known as Our Lady of Vladimir

The All-Merciful (Panakranta): Mother enthroned as a queen with the child on her lap

Our Lady of the Sign: Mary is depicted with her hands raised in prayer, with the child enclosed in a circle, representing her womb

Intercessor (Agiosortissa) is the only type that depicts Mary without the child: her hands are held out in a gesture of supplication

27

F E AT U R E

IS THIS THE QUILL THAT WROTE THE ENCYCLICAL

RERUM NOVARUM? 28

THE DISCOVERY OF AN UNUSUAL OBJECT IN A CORK AUCTION ROOM SETS A CORK PRIEST ON A DETECTIVE MISSION.

BY JAMES GOOD

Pope

Leo XIII was probably the most enlightened of modern Popes. He opened up the Vatican Archives for Scholars, helped to modernise Catholic philosophy and theology, and – his most valuable contribution – addressed the important social questions of his day.

Born in 1810, he was ordained a priest in 1837 and was made a cardinal in 1853. He became Pope in 1878 and reigned for twentyfive years. His most famous encyclical RERUM NOVARUM condemned both Marxism and unbridled capitalism as incompatible with justice for the working man. The title of the

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

encyclical is strange: it means literally “New things,” but this is a Latin idiom meaning REVOLUTION. It was indeed a revolution in papal documents.

THE MYSTERIOUS QUILL Now, to answer the question which forms the title of this article. A neighbour spotted a gold quill in a Cork auction-room. The inscription on it read as follows: “LEONI XIII P.M. L SACERDOTII AN. EXPLENTI.” If the abbreviations were completed, it would read:

“LEONI XIII PONTIFICI MAXIMO 50 SACERDOTII ANNOS EXPLENTI”, or translated into English: “TO LEO XIII SUPREME PONTIFF ON COMPLETING FIFTY YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD”.

There is also an inscription on the reverse side of the quill. It reads: “ANCIETUS M. DE SOUZA ALUMN. DE PROPAG. GOANUS”, in English: “ANCIETUS M. DE SOUZA (former?)

STUDENT OF PROPAGANDA. A GOAN.” Goans belong to a small Portuguese enclave in India. They are extremely acute business people. Many of them came to Kenya to build the famous railway from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean across Kenya and into Uganda. They still manage much of the business life of Kenya today. They are also

fervent Catholics, with great devotion to their apostle, St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary who brought them the faith and whose relics are in Goa.

Pope Leo XIII

SOLVING THE MYSTERY? Who gave the gold quill to Leo XIII? We shall probably never know. He may have been a wealthy student of Propaganda College in Rome, or even a product of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Nor are we ever likely to know how his gift to the Pope reached a Cork auction-room more than a century after it was presented.

But I wonder if it is fanciful to suggest that this precious quill may have been used by Pope Leo XIII to write his famous encyclical Rerum Novarum? The quill was given to the Pope to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood in 1887: he wrote his encyclical in 1891. Surely the Pope would never have picked up a duck’s feather to do his writing when he had a beautiful golden quill in front of him, reclining in its presentation box with the Papal coat-of-arms inscribed on it.

Fr James Good was professor of philosophy in University College before spending several years as a missionary in the Turkanah desert. He now lives in retirement in his native diocese.

29

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8

L !

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CHRISTIAN PARENTING CARMEL WYNNE

REGRETS FOR WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE

TALKING ABOUT TERMINAL ILLNESS IS DIFFICULT AND ESSENTIAL Have you ever found yourself wondering what to say to someone who is diagnosed with a terminal illness? There is an assumption that people always know what to say when it is a close family member who is ill.

They don’t.

Most people are aware that it is unhelpful to tell anyone, “I know how you feel”. And only those of us who have been in the situation know that sometimes the best thing a true friend can do to be supportive is to ask, “What do you need?”

A significant number of people who are in the middle of a crisis don’t want to talk about what is going on for them. They are in emotional turmoil, unable to think clearly. Staying quiet, not saying anything, just leaving a companionable silence is a true gift, a beautiful way of being present with another.

People who are emotionally upset can find it difficult to focus or make decisions. Medical teams who are dealing with a patient who needs palliative care make every effort to have a family meeting. In an ideal world there would be an open and frank discussion about the treatment options that are open to the patient. Family members would have the freedom to ask the tough questions until they were clear about what needs to be done.

It’s sad that hardly any families have that freedom. Often one person is either designated as the spokesperson for the family or assumes that role. Some family

members can be so upset that they are unable to focus; they are not able to process any information. Writer Aidan O’Hara describes this state as being distracted by grief.

Family members will have different reactions to the fear that they are about to lose a loved one. Some people are able to talk about death and others are not. Everyone at a family meeting listens to the same information, but it’s rare for everyone to agree about what they heard.

Disagreements are not unusual with one person saying they understood one thing and others claiming that this was not what was said at all. It’s natural for people to feel confused and unable to concentrate when they feel worried and anxious.

Many families have unspoken rules about what should and

should not be talked about.

Parents and siblings have expectations of each other.

One person can be chided for being too quiet and another for talking too much. There are certain things that adult children discuss with each other but keep from their parents. People make assumptions all the time.

Even within the closest of families, there are different levels of intimacy. Often mothers and daughters speak freely to each other but only share certain information with the men in the family. Dad talks to his sons about issues that he keeps from mum for fear that she will be upset. The son decides that mum needs to know but not wanting to upset his father he asks his mother not to let on that he has told her.

Scenarios such as this are not uncommon. The children have just learned that dad’s favourite

sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One daughter decides that dad could never cope if he knew how serious her condition is. She asks her siblings not to tell him just yet. Her belief is that they should wait until their aunt and their cousins feel ready to talk to extended family members.

Her brother says that dad needs to know but perhaps they should tell mum first and let her decide how much dad should be told.

Another daughter feels it’s unfair to wait. She thinks that time is precious and doesn’t want their dad to miss an opportunity to spend time with his sister. Her belief is that it is unfair to keep the truth from their parents or from anyone else who loves their aunt. Her intuition is to let people know.

Family disagreements that spring from a genuine desire to do the right thing can lead to making poor decisions. Telling family members that a loved one has a terminal illness is difficult and essential. Not telling could mean someone missed the opportunity to say goodbye because the information that their loved one was terminally ill was kept from them.

Regrets for what should have been done, but were not, are a heavy burden to carry.

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

31

F E AT U R E

REST AND BE

THANKFUL

Portrait of Fr Dan Cummings, author of Rest and Be Thankful, painted by a Belsen Concentration Camp survivor, Hans Baumeister, Germany 1946

FR DAN CUMMINGS WAS A BELFAST-BORN REDEMPTORIST. HE HAD A VERY VARIED MINISTRY AS FOREIGN MISSIONER, SEMINARY PROFESSOR, ARMY CHAPLAIN, PIONEER IN THE ECUMENICAL MINISTRY IN HIS NATIVE CITY AND CHAPLAIN TO IRISH ROADWORKERS IN ENGLAND. HE WROTE A MEMOIR THAT OBSERVED EVERYTHING WITH METICULOUS HONESTY. IT HAS BEEN EDITED AND PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY HIS NIECE.

32

BY ROSEMARY DOHERTY

It

made the young girl cry and retch. The grainy, jolting image on the black and white television could not dull the horror recorded: emaciated bodies with pleading eyes, death piled high, unimagined barbaric atrocities. She knew someone who had been in this grim war and decided to investigate.

Her uncle, Fr Dan who had never spoken to her of the horrors he witnessed, was not surprised at her reaction to the graphic TV programme .

“YOU SHOULD WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS” 'Were you really in the war?’ she asked.

‘You must have been through some times.

I wouldn't have believed those things actually happened, without that original footage.'

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

When he confirmed that he had been there as an army chaplain, and was part of the forces which liberated Belsen concentration camp, she immediately demanded: 'Well, you just must write it all down. You've had such a varied and interesting life that you should write your life story.'

Many years later, a letter arrived to the girl from her uncle. The task was complete.

Dan Cummings had written his story. Over a four-year period, he had sacrificed his free time, claimed four to six hours writing time in each day by rising around 4.30am and working on his manuscript until his working day started. His reward was his completed longhand manuscript of almost 140, 000 words.

WHO WAS DAN CUMMINGS? Dan Cummings was first and foremost a Belfast man. He loved the city and its people. He had been born into a devout Catholic teacher’s family in 1907, and spent his young days living in a Protestant part of the city, Agincourt Avenue. He had many happy memories of life there, despite eventually having to leave the area due to the increasing tensions of those years. The family got the chance of a house exchange to the Springfield Road in West Belfast, close to Clonard Monastery. Inspired by his education at St Malachy's College and his admiration for the self-sacrificing Redemptorist ideals, Dan decided, at the tender age of fifteen, to enter the ‘juvenate’ or preparatory

A chilling temporary sign erected by British troops liberating Belsen, detailing just a portion of the grisly death total, which eventually reached 50,000

L college for the priesthood. It was a difficult decision for himself and his family, as it entailed 'migrating' to Limerick. But he was determined and ignoring the difficulties, he headed off alone for his new life. He was never to live at home again.

After the demanding and uncompromising regime of his novitiate and student days, he was eventually ordained a Redemptorist priest in Esker in 1930. He was secure in being part of the impressive religious tradition in his family since 1742. Over five generations, sixteen members of the family had been ordained priests. His great great grand uncle was known as ‘the old priest’ and probably tended those who fought in the battles of ’98.

His mother's uncle was Dr Richard Marner, first president of St Malachy's College and her brother was Dr Daniel Mageean, who was to become Bishop of Down & Connor diocese.

The family also had a strong Redemptorist connection. An uncle, Fr Robert Mageean, was a Redemptorist missionary in Australia: one cousin Fr Joe Morgan would become a Redemptorist missionary in India and another, Fr Robert Quinn, would go to the Philippines. Other family members of the ‘Reds’ included Brother Malachy Morgan and Richard McCall, who died as a student for the priesthood in Esker.

MISSIONS AND THE WAR Dan’s first appointment took him16 000 miles from home to the Philippines. He was swept from a life of protective obedience to having to fend for himself. He set off by boat to an alien country with alien illnesses. It was one of these which put him back on the boat to Ireland three years later. Back in Ireland, Dan was sent to the new house of studies in Galway to help the preparation of young men for the priesthood by teaching them sacred scripture.

His quiet life of study and teaching in Galway was rudely interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. The provincials of religious orders were asked to provide priests as chaplains to minister to the growing number of Catholic men in the forces. Dan applied and was accepted. He arrived in England and entered a new life as a British army chaplain. What started as a novel and exciting new career in the pleasant land of southern England, quickly moved to the reality of warring Europe. Dan was among the men who landed in Normandy on D-day, 6 June 1944. In the following weeks, he proceeded through war-torn Europe. He was with the army that liberated Brussels. He spent much of his time serving in hospital tending the wounded and eventually those liberated from Belsen.

Like all the chaplains, Dan provided an immense support system for all those they encountered, friend and foe alike. Dan had good German and was able to hear the confessions of German prisoners. One he encountered was a young Redemptorist brother conscripted into the army. In gratitude to Dan, he carved him a wooden statute of St Gerard Majella. It can still be seen in Clonard Monastery.

Dan was among the men who landed in Normandy on D-day

Fr Dan with Irish road workers on Spaghetti Junction Birmingham

33

PEACE TIME Back in the Belfast he loved, Dan was enthusiastic in embarking on a new venture: a “Mission for non-Catholics” in Clonard. The war years had radically transformed attitudes in Belfast. Catholics had fought alongside Protestants in the war. Members of both faiths had sheltered in the crypt of Clonard during the air-raids.

The first mission was held on the Sundays of Lent, 1948. This work brought him into contact with a newly self-appointed minister, by the name of Ian Paisley. They made good sparing partners and had many a heated discussion.

On the basis of the talks and questions that arose during the mission, Dan produced a book, The Facts about the Catholic Church.

It had an initial run of 5,000 in 1956 and a reprint of 12 000 in 1968. He had a gift for writing that was accessible, simple and succinct. He prided himself on being able to write for the ‘man in the street’

EMIGRANT CHAPLAIN After a few quiet years, Dan was offered a fresh challenge in 1966 – to go to Birmingham as chaplain for Irish immigrants.

It was the time of massive road construction in Britain. Many of those who built the Gravelly Interchange, better known as ‘Spaghetti Junction’, were Irish. It is said that Dan knew each worker by name. When they realised he wasn't 'collecting' or 'preaching,' he became accepted and respected as a friend. They knew to be good listener and a solicitous advisor. His work in Birmingham included running an Irish club and befriending those immigrants who worked in the hotel trade.

Fr Dan died in Birmingham on 25 May, 1977. He is buried in the Redemptorist plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast.

CONCLUSION Dan's book provides a fascinating chronicle of the life of his ancestors in County Down throughout the 1800s. He lived through many

important historical events of the twentieth century. His happy childhood in Belfast was lived against the grief and loss of young life in the First World War and the pogroms of the 1920s during his teens. He was to find himself as a volunteer chaplain in the British Army - a role that he could scarcely foreseen as a young Catholic lad growing up in Belfast’s Falls Road area. His book memoir is meticulously observed and recorded with forthright honesty.

Rosemary Doherty M.Ed. is a retired Lecturer. She is married with three children and lives in Belfast.

Breaking the Word in September 2015 www.proclaim.ie

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

Holy Cross (Co. Tipperary) Novena (12th - 13th September 2015) The final weekend of the Novena will be preached by Brian Nolan CSsR and Laurence Gallagher CSsR Eyeries (Co. Cork) Mission (26th September – 3rd October 2015) Mission preached by Brian Nolan CSsR, Derek Meskell CSsR and Ms. Niamh O’ Neill Kilbarron, Ballyshannon (Co. Donegal) Novena (19th – 29th September 2015) Novena preached by Johnny Doherty CSsR, Denis Luddy CSsR and Ms. Sarah Kenwright Cooneal (Co.Mayo) (26th September – 3rd October 2015) Mission preached by Brenadan Keane CSsR

We still have limited availabilty for Lent of 2016 The details above are accurate at time of printing. If you have any views, comments or even criticisms about Redemptorist preaching, I would love to hear from you. If you are interested in a mission or novena in your parish, please contact me for further information. And please keep all Redemptorist preachers in your prayers.

Brian Nolan CSsR, Mission Team Co-Ordinator Email: brian.nolan@redemptorists.ie Tel: +353 21 4358800

rs

WHAT HAS

HOLLYWOOD TO DO WITH

JERUSALEM? 35

HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHTFUL DVD SELECTIONS OF FILMS WITH A RELIGIOUS THEME THAT MIGHT BE VIEWED ON A WET AUTUMN EVENING.

BY PAUL CLOGHER

When

the early church father Tertullian decried the use of Greek pagan philosophy in Christian thought with the oft-quoted line ‘what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ he probably could not have imagined the world lasting the

best part of another two millennia, let alone the art of cinema. A contemporary version of the question might replace Athens with Hollywood and philosophers with filmmakers.

One answer might go “what has Hollywood not to do with Jerusalem?” The mystery of God

made human in Jesus inspired the icon writers of the Eastern tradition and the great masters of the Renaissance. Since Christ shared our human nature, so too might human expression capture something of the beyond and say something about the meaning of life. These films might continued on page 36

George Burns as 'God'

36

already be on your shelf. They are not necessarily classics, nor is their content exclusively religious or Christian. Indeed, some might say they are not very good movies! But they might offer us a way of thinking about God, the world, and what it means to be human. In good hands, Hollywood might even take us back to Jerusalem and let us see it, and ourselves, anew.

Hollywood might even take us back to Jerusalem and let us see it anew OH, GOD! (CARL REINER, 1977) In the second creation account in the book of Genesis, God takes on what biblical and literary scholars might call ‘anthropomorphic’ characteristics. He walks and talks with the first man and woman. After they eat the infamous fruit, they even hide from the allknowing, all-seeing God as he walks ‘the cool of the day.’ When the world becomes more cynical and God more absent, messengers in the form of angels still visit humans in the ordinariness of their daily life. Luke’s Mary may well be going about her daily business without a care in the world until Gabriel arrives with his astonishing yet troubling news.

In Carl Reiner’s comedy Oh, God! the late country and western singer John Denver plays Jerry Landers, an unassuming assistant REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

supermarket manager who, like Adam, encounters a walking, talking God in the nondescript setting of a supermarket aisle.

Like the Genesis account, this image of God is decidedly human. He is a wise-cracking, kindly, old man played by the American comedian George Burns. He tasks Landers with being his messenger to the world, a rather heavy burden. The film follows Jerry’s attempts to spread this message, culminating in a court case that deals with the very existence of God. George Burns’ comedic style is well illustrated when he finally appears in court and swears to tell the truth, ‘so help me Me.’ Oh, God! does not attempt to portray an explicitly Christian image of God. And that, after all, might be difficult given how the Christian tradition itself thinks of God in a number of different ways. Reiner’s God character does capture aspects of the Christian imagination. He cares for creation, even though he admits he made a few mistakes: tobacco and ostriches being two.

This film is a comedy about our attachment to certain images of God. Burns even describes Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam as one of his favourite pictures of himself. Through a comedic lens, Oh, God! pokes fun at a more ancient problem. Like the first humans of Genesis, those who ridicule Jerry become convinced that they know everything there is to know about God. The image of George Jesus of Montreal

Burns walking in the artificial cool of the supermarket aisle talking irreverently about his mistakes during creation, then, might be one way of re-thinking that much older idea of making God in our image.

JESUS OF MONTREAL (DENYS ARCAND, 1988) Our familiarity with the story of Jesus means that we sometimes forget that it is both radical and chaotic. In the Gospel of Mark, for instance, Jesus and his followers inhabit a world where the goodness of creation has been reversed.

Demons roam the countryside possessing human beings while Romans, Herodians, and collaborators murder prophets. Even the poor unfortunate disciples do not understand Jesus’ ironic notion of kingship. In the end only the pagan soldier at the cross recognizes the messiah, while the women flee the empty tomb in terrified silence. This ‘good news’ does not seem all that comforting.

Like the Gospel of Mark, Jesus of Montreal takes place in an apocalyptic world where the innate goodness of human beings is threatened, in this case, by the demons and tribulations of cynicism and greed. Like contemporary Ireland, perhaps, Montreal is experiencing a rapid disillusionment with Catholicism. Against this backdrop a troupe of actors, led by Daniel Coloumbe (Lothair Bluteau), stage a passion play on the grounds of the local basilica. Their stripped down,

What mask do I wear? - The Dark Knight

historically specific, and questioning take on the life of Jesus gains widespread popularity but, predictably, draws criticism from the local diocesan authorities. The play strips the Gospel story of its supernatural elements concentrating on its radical, yet tragic, central character. But like Mark, the play offers an ironic twist. The story of Jesus plays out in the lives of the actors more authentically, perhaps, than it does in the play itself. The film, then, is a play within a play where both stories chaotically blend into each other.

If Arcand is ambiguous about the divinity of Jesus, he takes seriously the radical character of his teaching. Daniel inhabits his character fully, assembling a community of actors and pursuing artistic integrity to the bitter end. While religion might be declining, the purity of the theatre offers hope. In one scene Coloumbe chases a group of advertising executives from a theatre using a cord pulled from a camera after they attempt to exploit one of his fellow actors for a beer commercial. The theatre, like the temple, is a secular house of prayer, of authenticity, for all nations. Cynicism and commercialism threaten both its creativity and the human search for meaning. Jesus of Montreal deals as much with artistic integrity as it does Christian faith. It uses theatre as an allegory for the Church and, in so doing, asks, probing and sympathetically, what that stark good news of Jesus means in a cynical and commercialized world.

THE DARK KNIGHT (CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, 2008) Comic book films typically work on the premise of a cosmic battle between good and evil. One problem with this is that the central character, or hero, always seems too distant, too perfect to be in any way interesting. The midpoint of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy breaks this genre’s boundaries through an engrossing, expansive tragedy that takes the cruel origins of both its hero and villain all too seriously.

The plot is relatively straightforward: the so-called Joker (Heath Ledger), a mysterious criminal psychopath, arrives in Gotham city with the intention of outing its resident, equally enigmatic, vigilante, the Batman (Christian Bale) who by day lives the life of millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. In a spiralling series of provocative acts, the Joker unleashes a reign of terror which threatens both the city and the people Wayne loves.

Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, drew inspiration for the Joker character from the central figure in Paul Leni’s 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs, based on a story by Victor Hugo. Gwynplaine is a tragic figure in a romantic melodrama whose disfigurement hides his essential goodness. The Joker, while disfigured, makes his face a tool of violence.

Like Batman, he hides behind a mask but uses it for evil rather than good. Christopher Nolan takes this one step further. He asks

if both masks lead to the same tragic fate or, even more probingly, if they are masks at all? Maybe Bruce Wayne is the alter ego for Batman? The Dark Knight is pure pulp, an engrossing adventure which resembles the structure of a classical tragedy. The Batman uses a mask and operates outside the boundaries of everyday morality. This, he

The theatre, like the temple, is a secular house of prayer for all nations hopes, is a temporary price to cure Gotham’s ills, but does he make life worse? The Joker aims provoke both Batman and Gotham into revealing their true selves by proving that human beings care only for themselves rather than others. What makes this film interesting, and meaningful perhaps, is that, at its core, it is a debate about human nature: whether we are innately good. If one read far enough into it, The Dark Knight could even be a reflection on grace. But that might be best left to the viewer’s discretion. What, indeed, would Tertullian make of such a prospect?

DR PAUL CLOGHER lectures in theology and cinema in the School of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology

37

SCIENCE AND FAITH SERIES Science and Faith are often placed in opposition to each other. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the greatest scientists have been Catholics, and among them a number of Catholic priests.

In this series we tell some of their stories.

FATHER OF THE BIG BANG THEORY MGR GEORGES LEMAÎTRE

BY SUSAN GATELY

38

In

the early 20th century, scientific thought on the universe was that it was in a steady state and had always existed.

All that was to change when an unknown Belgian priest and scientist came up with a radically different cosmology. He showed that the equations of Einstein’s theory of gravity could describe a universe in which space itself is expanding. Astronomers had discovered that distant galaxies were rapidly receding from us. Putting these two facts together, he put forward the theory that the universe was expanding. If this was so, winding the clock backwards one would surely come to a moment when the universe began as something very small.

This “primeval atom,” as he called it, had disintegrated in an explosion, giving rise to space and time.

Mgr Georges Lemaître was the first to propose what later was called (derisively by scientists who disagreed with it) the Big Bang.

His vision of the fireworks display at the REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

beginning of time was so moving, that at a conference in California in 1933 after hearing his theory, Albert Einstein stood and applauded saying: "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

Lemaître's discovery was of fundamental importance, says Professor Bob Scherrer from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee."It gave us our present-day model of the universe." Credit for this is usually split between Lemaître and another scientist, Friedmann with Lemaitre’s contribution somewhat "underappreciated".

"Unusually, he seems to have been conversant in both the theory and the observation, and used this familiarity to produce his model."

So who was this mysterious man, sometimes called father of the Big Bang?

Georges Henri Lemaître was born in 1894 at Charleroi, Belgium. Educated by Jesuits, he resolved aged 9 to give his life to God and science. After school, Georges first studied

civil engineering, then signed up to fight in the First World War receiving the Military Cross with palms for his bravery.

After the war, Lemaître studied physics and maths and began studies for the priesthood.

In 1920 he obtained his doctorate and three years later was ordained a priest by Cardinal Desire Mercier, a spiritual teacher with a fascination for science.

Recognising his talent, the cardinal sent Lemaître to study cosmology and physics in Cambridge University under the British astronomer, Arthur Eddington. Lemaître's research at Cambridge was a review of the general theory of relativity. At the time, scientific thought was that the universe was infinite in age and constant in its general appearance. But Lemaitre's calculations showed that the universe had to be either shrinking or expanding. After observing the reddish glow, known as a red shift, surrounding objects outside of our galaxy, he concluded that galaxies were moving away from the earth: the universe was expanding.

After a year in the US visiting centres of astronomical research, Lemaître published his findings on the expanding universe, in a little known Belgian scientific journal in 1927. The report went unnoticed.

A few years later, the Royal Astronomical Society met to consider the apparent clash of theories between visual observation showing an expanding universe and Einstein's theory of relativity which suggested a static one.

Hearing of it, Lemaître sent his paper to his old friend Sir Arthur Eddington who recognised "a brilliant solution" in the paper. Immediately the Royal Astronomical Society published the English translation of the paper entitled, "A homogeneous universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae.”

Lemaître continued his research. If the universe

In a letter to the prestigious journal Nature in 1931 he wrote: "If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time."

In January 1933, he travelled with Albert Einstein to California for a series of seminars and it was here that Einstein reportedly applauded Lemaître's theory.

Later in a selection of essays in 1950, Lemaître described the beginning of the

Lemaître believed Catholic theology guaranteed the autonomy of science was expanding, a logical extrapolation was that if you go far enough back in time, you reach a point where the entire universe is in an extremely compressed state, a single particle.

THE BIG BANG THEORY Lemaître's expanding Universe

universe as a “now without a yesterday”, and as a burst of fireworks, comparing galaxies to the burning embers spreading out in a growing sphere.

While some scientists argued for a series of big bangs, followed by 'big crunches' (with the universe shrinking back again), Lemaître maintained that the Big Bang was a unique event.

Pope Pius XII was delighted with the theory, believing it scientifically validated Christian faith. But Lemaître disagreed.

“As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question," he wrote. "It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God… It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even

39 Mgr Georges Lemaître

in the beginning of the universe.”

Lemaître's theory was not without opposition, and the big bang and the steady-state model competed with each other until 1964 when workers at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey stumbled upon microwave radiation coming from outer space. This “cosmic background radiation” came to be recognized as the faint afterglow of the Big Bang explosion. Hearing the news in hospital as he recovered from a heart attack, Lemaître, must have been overjoyed with the news. Two years later he died.

Lemaître's strong faith never clouded his understanding of science. He believed Catholic theology guaranteed the autonomy of science.

"He (the Christian researcher) knows that not one thing in all creation has been done without God, but he knows also that God nowhere takes the place of His creatures. Omnipresent divine activity is everywhere essentially hidden. It never had to be a question of reducing the Supreme Being to the rank of a scientific hypothesis."

TEACHING IN FAITH

40 THE ALLIANCE FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATION (ACE), SPONSORED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, IS A PROGRAMME THAT HELPS CATHOLIC SCHOOLS BOTH IN THE UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONALLY TO PROVIDE AN EDUCATION OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY TO AS MANY CHILDREN AS POSSIBLE. A YOUNG MAN FROM CO. CLARE REFLECTS ON HIS FIRST YEAR’S EXPERIENCE WITH ACE AND HOW IT HAS SHAPED HIS VOCATION AS A CATHOLIC TEACHER.

BY IAN CORBETT

I

close my eyes for a moment: I can hear the summer breeze, gently caressing the fresh leaves above me.

I notice the sweet singing of the cardinal birds around St. Joseph’s Lake and the prayerful murmurs from the grotto. In that moment, I cannot help but feel the astounding and infinite power of God, present so tangibly on Notre Dame’s campus and within the community of the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

From my blissful state I begin to recall an image presented to us in class, an image of a homeless Filipino boy. Subconsciously, I recall

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

the poignant story of that boy. He completes his homework by the dim light of a McDonalds restaurant each night. The boy is the same age as my own students. He possesses one pencil and carries a rosary to protect him from tormenters.

A JOURNEY My eyes remain closed. Through that moment of reflection, I instinctively begin to make connections with my own students. In an instant, the significance of my role in their life and the weight of my responsibility as their teacher strike me: I am called

to bring Christ to them.

My journey through ACE began almost 16 months ago when I embarked on a summer of educational instruction at Notre Dame before moving to my community in Sacramento, California to teach 3rd grade. During my time in the program, I have come to understand how the three pillars of ACE—spirituality, community and education— have transformed Catholic education in the U.S. and how they could do the same in Ireland

COMMUNITY ACE is described as being “a small faith community” in which young like-minded graduates live together to teach and serve. It provides a remarkable opportunity to learn from people who understand your struggles and your triumphs, people who are always willing to lend an ear or offer advice and reassurance.

I believe that all ACE communities are unique. We are committed to serving the mission of Christ the Teacher and to proclaiming and developing spirituality among the younger generations in Catholic schools.

An ACE community may appear to be simply a group of teachers who eat together, pray together, and regularly vent about their day. But, in reality, an ACE community is much more than that: it is a reality to be lived; it is a family.

Community extends far beyond just us as teachers. Its horizons stretch to our schools, to our dioceses, and to the wider community of Catholic educators. Whether your role within community is rushing home in order to give a fellow teacher a lift, or raising the spirits of a third grader who had a difficult morning, or offering advice to a staff member, you become more than simply a member of the community. You are a counsellor, a role model, a guide, and an inspiration. Even though you may be having concerns, troubles, and anxieties, you see past them all, always remembering that your life is measured by those around you. It’s your job to love; to love as Christ the teacher did; to love selflessly.

“HUGGING AND HOLDING HANDS.” Upon first being accepted into ACE, I was encouraged to embrace the intimate atmosphere of community and the centrality of the Eucharist within community. It was quite different to what it was at home.

At the time, I did not know exactly what this entailed but from arrival in Notre Dame, it became quite evident.

People responded passionately and in unison during prayer, they hugged when offering peace, and they held hands as one family during the Our Father, together creating a community, a family of one.

Being part of this family has provided a remarkable opportunity for spiritual growth through the sharing of our faith. It has allowed each of us to develop, learn, and

grow as young teachers as we strive create lifelong learners who will live with Christ, thus entering into a relationship with the Father.

As with any professional, life has become increasingly demanding with expectations, requirements, and obligations. In ACE, we can often become so busy that we forget to call on God for help. Yet, amidst all the symphonic chaos entailed in ACE, we are continually encouraged to constantly renew our relationship with God. To serve in ACE, it is paramount to call on God to help develop a deep sense of self, and to listen to the quiet depths of our heart.

I have come to realize that our only obligation in life is to find the path God has called us to. He will do all in His power to aid, challenge, push, and confront us along the way. During ACE, my path has become more apparent, and the grass has become much greener.

EDUCATION AND POVERTY I have long known that I have wanted to become a teacher. Seeing that picture of the boy at McDonald’s and his determination to achieve despite adversity is precisely what inspires my passion for such a noble vocation.

As I reflect on the beautiful chaos of my ACE experience, I think it would be a stretch to call myself a “teacher.”

That’s a title you have to earn. ACE strives to strengthen under-resourced Catholic schools through teacher formation, ensuring that all students have an opportunity to experience the gift of Catholic education.

Being an educator in an underresourced Catholic school has certainly brought its trials. On first stepping into my classroom, I immediately noticed the lack of resources and technology. I asked a fellow teacher where the interactive whiteboard or projector was. She

responded, “They do not exist here.”

Like the boy using a restaurant as a light source, we also learn to be resourceful, using all what we have to inform and improve our teaching.

In adapting and being inventive, I have come to realize how easy it is to lose sight of what “teaching” truly means. Have we, as teachers, become increasingly focused on standardized testing, meeting curriculum standards, and quantifiable academic “achievement?”

Inmyexperience,moral,communal, and spiritual development has been the foundation of the personal and academic growth of my students.

Creating a sense of belonging, in a caring and nurturing environment, has been the central aspect of my teaching. Celebrating the Mass each week as a school community, expressing our faith in every aspect

of our day, and applying Catholic social teaching into all content areas nurtures a student body full of lifelong learners, seeking Christ in all things.

TEACHING AND GARDENING Perhaps my favourite metaphor for teaching—and for ACE— is gardening. God has provided me with seeds to plant. The seeds are my students and it’s my duty to make sure that they are provided with rich and fertile soil to grow into exactly who God intends them to be. In giving of myself entirely, in mind, body, and soul, I provide the water that nurtures them. And, although I may never bear witness to the fruits of my labour, I will continue, as any dutiful gardener would, to happily toil in the fields and offer these fruits to God.

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UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

WHERE TWO TRADITIONS MEET: JOHN SULLIVAN, SJ. 1861 – 1933 REVIEWED BY CATHAL CUMISKEY CSsR

42

© Courtesy of Jesuits.ie

Fr

Thomas Morrisey tells the story of a very remarkable man, Fr John Sullivan SJ, whose life (1861-1933) spans the formative years of contemporary Ireland. As the title elegantly indicates, the story integrates many of the absorbing interests of Ireland’s two traditions, the Anglicanism of the Protestant ascendancy and the Catholic life of the ordinary people at a time when “the powerful and the powerless and the rich and the poor rarely meet”. It is a short book, a mere 118 pages, but the well-sketched historical background lends substance to this life of Fr John Sullivan.

He was young law graduate, once reputed to be the ‘the best dressed young man in Dublin.’

Later he was better known as a man of prayer, with thread-bare clothes and with the gift of healing. Ethel Mannin, the distinguished writer, introduced him to the literary world with her 1948 novel, Late Have I Loved You, which was inspired by his life.

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

THE YOUNG MAN John‘s father, Sir Edward Sullivan, was Protestant. As Lord Chancellor of Ireland, he was the most powerful man in the government at the time. His mother was Catholic. In keeping with the arrangements in mixed marriages at the time, their three boys were raised as Protestant and their only girl as a Catholic. A happy and distinguished student at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, John Sullivan carried off distinctions in literature and law at Trinity College, Dublin.

After his father’s death in 1885, he qualified for the bar in London and practised in the English courts. Around this time, he began making walking trips through Europe to places as remote as Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor. On assignment from the government, he went as a member of a peace mission to Armenia, where he saw intense human suffering first-hand.

These travels were to reveal his lounging for something deeper in life as well as his wide range of scholarly interests. Close friends noticed his growing admiration for St Augustine and St Francis of Assisi. He spent two months at Mount Athos in Greece, where the contemplative life lived by its monks was to leave a lasting impression. His family and friends were surprised, nevertheless, when he was received into the Catholic Church in London in 1891, and even more so, when two years later, already in his early thirties, he entered the Society of Jesus at Tullamore, Co Offaly.

THE JESUIT Following his ordination in 1907, he was to spend his life a teacher of the young, first, at Clongowes Wood College, later as Rector at Rathfarnham, and then back to Clongowes again. These were the years when the John

Sullivan of the history books blossomed and grew. Ever a caring teacher, it was during this time of hectic involvement in the life of the school that he became known as a man of prayer and penance, of extraordinary compassion, limitless kindness, of exceptional devotion to the sick poor, far and near, with a remarkable gift of healing both inside and outside the college community. The figure of the man in thread-bare clerical attire flying along the roads on his bicycle, with something for the sick poor tied on the handlebars or at the back, became a familiar sight. So too did the same figure, walking the roads and bye-roads in his patched footwear in all weathers on similar errands

AUTUMN

HIS MEMORY Fr John Sullivan SJ died on the 18th March 1933 after a short illness, and was buried at Clongowes Wood. Reports of remarkable

cures through his prayers began coming in after his death, just as they had during his life.

In 1947, the initial process for beatification and canonization was established. His body was exhumed and placed in a special vault in St Francis Xavier’s Church Dublin in the presence of a large crowd, though no publicity had been given to the event.

In 1983, the Church of Ireland archbishop, George Otto Simms, gave the address to honour his life and work at a special service in St George’s Church, Temple St., where John Sullivan had been baptised. Pope John Paul II sent special greeting for the occasion. The beatification process is still on-going.

as the centre of attention, to be interested in the well-being of others, and to discover, as people have in every century, the spiritual dimension that lifts one’s life out of the traffic that tends ‘to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the Spirit.” (Stephen Spender).

All who met John Sullivan sensed his goodness and felt touched and uplifted by it.”

MESSAGE FOR TODAY Fr Morrissey states very succinctly the message of John Sullivan’s life for readers of the twenty-first century. “His simple lifestyle invites one to look beyond the self

Ennismore Retreat Centre

3rd September 7pm - €25 An Evening of Musical Nourishment of Body and Soul with High Tea 12th September (10.30am 4.30pm) - €55 Man’s search for meaning Spirituality & Transformation for Men Pat Sheehan and John Horgan 15th September (every Tuesday) (7.30pm – 9pm) Lectio Divina 16th September (every Wednesday for 6 weeks 10am-1pm) - €150 Creative Writing and Meditation with Anne and Martina

ST DOMINIC’S

18th September (10am - 4pm)- €55 A day with Jim Cogley 20th - 24th September (Starts 20th at 6pm with tea and finishes 24th at lunch time) -€385 The Revolution of tenderness: A Journey to the Heart Daniel J. O’Leary and Martina Lehane Sheehan 9th - 11th October (Residential Weekend)- €140 plus donation to facilitator

Mindfulness & Self - Compassion Catherine Sutton 17th October (10.30am - 4.30pm)€55 Mindfulness and Healing: A Christian Approach Martina Lehane Sheehan

4th - 6th December €165 (Res) €100 (Non-Res) Advent Retreat Mike Serrage MSC All Day Retreats include a 4 course lunch Applicants for Spiritual Accompaniment Course, (20152017) being taken now.

Newly refurbished Meditation Room now available for bookings

Where Two Traditions Meet: John Sullivan, SJ. 1861 – 1933 by Thomas J Morrissey SJ. Dublin: Columba Press, 2013.

Fr Cathal Cumiskey CSsR is a member of the Redemptorist community in Dundalk.

For many years he was Headmaster in St Clement’s College, Limerick.

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH EPHPHATA: BE OPENED Mark tells the story of SEPTEMBER how a man’s speech and hearing are restored briskly, but with some unusual details. Jesus 23rd SUNDAY IN touches the man’s tongue ORDINARY TIME with saliva. Only in one other miracle stor y, the cure of a blind man, does Jesus use a natural substance (mud), for his miracle are usually worked by a word of command or by a healing touch. The word of command, ephphata, has been preserved in the original language of Jesus, Aramaic, but it was also translated into Greek, the original language of the Gospel. It is still used during the rite of baptism. Another unusual word is used to describe Jesus’ prayer: “looking up to heaven, he sighed.” That word could also be translated as “groaned.” It is intended 44 to convey something of the intensity of the prayer of Jesus, as a moment of deep communication with God. The cure is immediate. Despite the command not to make the cure known, the more widely the news is broadcast. The healing activity of Jesus was one of the signs by which he was recognised as the messiah. When John the Baptist sent disciples to ask Jesus whether or not he was the messiah, Jesus’ answered by telling him to report what they had seen, that “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. (Mat 11:5). This was a fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isaiah we heard in today’s first reading, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isa 35:5-6). These words are read in the first reading of today’s Mass.

06

Today’s Readings Is.35:4-7 Ps.145:7-10 Jas.2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37

REALITY SEPTEMBER 2015

WHO DO YOU SAY I AM? t was probably SEPTEMBER Iembarrassing enough for the disciples to be asked by Jesus who people thought he 24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME was. It was even more embarrassing when the question got personal“Who do you think I am?” It is easy to imagine a few moments of stunned and uncomfortable silence which is only broken when Peter blurts out: “You are the Messiah.”

Yes, the rest of them agreed. That is what he was and it would only be a matter of another week or so before they reached Jerusalem for Passover. Then he would declare himself publicly as the Son of David and his reign as king of Israel would begin in earnest. As part of his inner circle, life could only get better for them. But here the conversation takes a sharp turn. What lies ahead is not a throne, but a cross. It is not a cheering crowd that awaits them but a jeering one. There will be no

13

pleasures of the royal palace, but anguished prayer in a garden. Ever the optimist, Peter pulls him aside: that is no way to talk, he tells him, it will only frighten the others. Jesus turns on him. Peter is a tempter, a Satan. If you want to follow Jesus, you must totally forget yourself. No self-respecting human being wanted to end up on a cross. Decent people were spared the cross. It was reserved for slaves and revolutionaries. A character in a play written about two hundred years before Christ, says: “Don’t threaten me. I know that the cross will be my grave. That is where all my ancestors were laid to rest – my father, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather.”For a slave, the cross was a ‘no hope’ sign. It was the sign of death. Yet it will be the door into eternal life for the follower of Jesus.

Today’s Readings Is.50:5-9 Ps.114:1-6 Jas.2:14-18 Mark 8:27-35

WELCOMING CHILDREN Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem is a crash course in discipleship for misguided followers. As 25th SUNDAY IN they walked along, they ORDINARY TIME argued about who will be first. Jesus gives them a lesson they are unlikely to forget. He takes a child and puts it in front of them. There was no cult of cuddly babies in Jesus’ day. For poor families, a child was another mouth to feed they sometimes could ill afford. Sometimes when a baby was born, the midwife would bring it and lay it at the father’s feet. If he turned away, it was a declaration that the child was unwanted and so could be exposed to die abandoned. What made both Judaism and Christianity different, was the respect they had for the fragile child, even before

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20

its birth. It is this fragility that would-be of Jesus must learn if they wish to follow him.

A young American couple, Jenna and Dan Haley were delighted when they discovered Jenna was pregnant. They were devastated when they learned that their baby boy’s brain was not forming properly and he would probably die soon after birth. They never considered abortion as an option. They named their unborn son Shane Michael and made a list of all the things they dreamed of doing as a family and decided to do them with Shane before he was born. The list included visits to the beach or the zoo, a trip to New York to see the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty. They also brought Shane to holy places that were special for their families. Through a Facebook page, “Prayers for Shane,” they kept friends and family informed of their progress. A month

before Shane was due, they had finished the list. Shane was born on 9 October 2014. He lived for just four hours but long enough for his extended family to gather to welcome him into the community of faith in the sacrament of baptism. “Shane spent his entire life in the arms of people that loved him unconditionally,” his parents wrote, “and I don't think you could ask for a more beautiful life than that. He is home now with the Lord and he will forever be our little miracle!”

Today’s Readings Wis.2:12,17-20 Ps.53:3-6 Jas.3:16-4:3 Mark 9:30-37

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God’s Word continues on page 46

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 7, SEPTEMBER 2015

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 5 ACROSS: Across: 1. Velcro, 5. Bereft, 10. Pressed, 11. Garbage, 12. Goth, 13. Tapir, 15. Stye, 17. Lag, 19. Thread, 21. Epochs, 22. Courage, 23. Crusoe, 25. Geiger, 2.8 Act, 30. Laud, 31. Askew, 32. Clay, 35. Crucial, 36. Sabbath, 37. Slalom, 38. Seethe.

DOWN: 2. Elector, 3. Cosy, 4. Ordeal, 5. Bigwig, 6. Rare, 7. Frantic, 8. Spigot, 9. Celebs, 14. Patrick, 16. Bacon, 18. Épées, 20. Doe, 21. Egg, 23. Calico, 24. Unusual, 26. Goliath, 27. Rhythm, 28.

Asylum, 29. Teases, 33. Pill, 34. Oboe.

Winner of Crossword No. 5 Billy Hannon, Co. Galway

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH continued from page 45

SEPTEMBER

27

26th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

ACROSS 1. An angelic child. (6) 5. Dim, gloomy, or shadowy. (6) 10. Illegally took, shelled, and boiled an egg. (7) 11. Precise details for meals. (7) 12. Extinct flightless bird. (4) 13. African country, capital Accra. (5) 15. The frame of a ship. (4) 17. Latin and Christian greeting. (3) 19. Sacred place for veneration or worship.

(6) 21. Semiaquatic mammal. (6) 22. Name of 16 Popes. (7) 23. Scowl, have an angry or sullen look. (6) 25. Avoided or escaped by cleverness or trickery. (6) 28. Official record of a voyage. (3) 30. Comply with a law or command. (4) 31. An artificial waterway. (5) 32. The elder twin brother of Jacob. (4) 35. Fe time. (4,3) 36. The least populous state in the U.S.A. (7) 37. Give a hand. (6) 38. The proper name of God in the Old Testament. (6)

DOWN 2. A person who accumulates things unhealthily. (7) 3. River and industrial region of Germany. (4) 4. Siddartha Gautama. (6) 5. Calm, peaceful and untroubled. (6) 6. Tease in a scornful manner. (4) 7. A feeling of intense pleasure or joy. (7) 8. Tools for playing cards. (6) 9. Sacred songs or hymns. (6) 14. City of seven Popes (1309-1377). (7) 16. A messenger of God. (5) 18. A manner or way of doing something. (5) 20. Do wrong, be incorrect. (3) 21. Monetary unit of Denmark and Norway.

(3) 23. Just the woman for excelsis Deo. (6) 24. Dwarf leopards. (7) 26. Regard with contempt or repugnance. (7) 27. A person made to to hard menial or dull work. (6) 28. A passionate expression of grief or sorrow. (6) 29. The City of the Tribes. (6) 33. South Asian garment for women. (4) 34. Rubbish, nonsense. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.7, September 2015 Name: Address:

COLD WATER AND MILLSTONES Today’s Gospel has two distinct parts. The first attempts to answer the question: “Who is on our side?” The other is about how disciples can be obstacles to the mission. Probably like the other disciples, John wanted to retain the monopoly on the power that came from being a disciple. He probably expected Jesus to congratulate him for defending the territory against amateurs who were attempting to cast out devils by using his name. Jesus’ answer is very clear: if a person is not preventing the mission from happening, then they should be considered as being on Jesus’ side. A cup of cold water is a small thing, but on a hot day in Palestine, it was a welcome gift that offered an opportunity for rest and conversation.

The second part is uncompromising. It considers first of all the case of a disciple who proves to be a cause of stumbling to “little ones” – children or fragile people with few resources. The second part is made up of a series of potential causes of offence – hand, foot or eye. We must be careful here to realise that Jesus is exaggerating to make a point. We have no right to drown an opponent or to cut off a hand or foot or pluck out an eye. That would be murder or mutilation of the body which is gift of God and over which we do not have total control. The strength of the language however is intended to make it clear to us just how careful we need to be in respecting the rights of vulnerable people. It is a strong reminder to the Church about how vigilant it must be to prevent the physical or sexual abuse of children.

Today’s Readings

Telephone:

Num.11:25-29 Ps.18:8,10,12-14 Jas.5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43,47-48 All entries must reach us by September 30, 2015 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. 7, Redemptorist Communications, 75 Orwell Rd., Rathgar, Dublin 6

COMMENT REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

BUDGET 2016

WITH A BUDGET IN THE OFFING, COMMENTATORS ARE LINING UP TO SUGGEST WAYS IN WHICH THE MONEY MIGHT BEST BE SPENT.

The economy is in recovery; the Government will reach its budget targets with at least €1.5 billion to spare (some commentators expect the Government to have €2.5 billion to spare, given the strength of the economy).

How should this money be spent? I can make a few suggestions. In June this year, a 101 year old woman lay on a hospital trolley for 26 hours as no beds were available. She had a blood transfusion while lying on the trolley. Although the Department of Health protested that this was unacceptable and would ensure that it would not happen again, a week later, another 101 year old woman lay on a hospital trolley for 25 hours until a bed became available.

“You wouldn’t see it in the Third World”, said the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association. Hospital waiting lists rose in May this year to record levels: 415,000 people were waiting on an outpatient appointment and 67,000 waiting for a day or inpatient treatment, despite the Minister for Health’s pledge that tackling long waiting lists were a priority for the Government. In 2014, the Good Shepherd Services in Cork, which helps women and children who become homeless, had to turn away 252 women, many with children, because the service did not have enough beds.  In a shocking violation of

their human rights, one in three children who require inpatient mental health treatment are still treated in adult hospitals, because of a shortage of child and adolescent beds. Children face unacceptably long waiting lists for mental health services, patchy service provision across the country, responses that don’t meet their needs and a lack of focus on early intervention that could prevent future problems.  8,000 children, who have been referred to the HSE with suspected abuse, neglect or welfare concerns, are still waiting to be allocated a social worker.  In the first three months of 2014, 2,306 adults sought emergency homeless accommodation in the Dublin region; in the first three months of 2015, that number had risen to almost 3,000. Focus Ireland, who in normal times, would meet 7 or 8 newly homeless families a month, dealt with 71 such families in April this year. 471 families, with 1,054 children between them, were being accommodated in hotel bedrooms in March this year, with no cooking facilities, nowhere for the children to play or study, and often at a considerable distance from their school. Focus Ireland have described the situation as a “child welfare crisis.” Jack lives, with his wife and youngest child, in a house with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a small kitchen and

living room downstairs. He has had both his legs amputated.

He has applied for an extension to his house consisting of a bedroom and bathroom with level-access shower and his application has been approved.

However, he will have to wait until 2017 for the work to begin.

The Council has suggested that he sleep in the living room and use a commode.  In 2014, 197 people lost their lives through road traffic accidents; in 2012 (the last year for which figures are currently available) 633 people lost their lives as a result of drugs. Yet the funding for drugs and addiction services in some of the most deprived areas of the State has been cut by almost 80% since 2010, from €20.9 million to €4.4 million. Women’s Aid received more than 16,000 reports of domestic violence against women and almost 6,000 reports of abuse of children in 2014. “Some of the women were kept prisoner in their own home, cut with knives, stabbed, spat on, punched, slapped, kicked, held down and choked and beaten with household items, with many women disclosing that they were beaten during pregnancy” said the agency’s director. Their funding has been cut this year by 20%.

But how will this money be spent? In his spring statement speech, The Minister for finance

promised tax cuts, focusing on middle-income earners over the next five budgets. However, it now appears that in budget 2016, instead of tax cuts, the unpopular Universal Social Charge will be reduced from its current rate of 7%. The ESRI have calculated that a reduction in the 7% USC rate would see the greatest percentage gains in income go to the upper middle reaches of the income distribution, with some benefits for the middle income group.

However, it would be a popular move and there is an election coming in the months following the budget. All Government decisions made between now and the election will be decided, not by what people need but by what the Government needs.

Those who are homeless, those with disabilities, children needing a social worker or mental health treatment, drug services or services for women suffering violence will just have to wait till the election is over.

If you agree, disagree or just want to add your own thoughts to our comment pieces, email: editor@redcoms.org or write to: The Editor, Redemptorist Communications, 75 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6

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