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The Sacred Heart

ATHLONE 2015: ‘MESSAGE OF JOY’ Sarah Brady THE OLD CAN DREAM Paul Andrews SJ SPLENDOURS OF THE FAITH Ray Moloney SJ

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EDITORIAL JOHN LOOBY SJ

Lúcás Chan SJ

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He is fondly remembered here where he radiated good humour.”

Fr Lúcás Chan was an Irish/ Chinese Jesuit. His love of all things Irish was shown by always using the Irish form of Luke. When we heard of his sudden death on May 19th, the well-known Irish phrase came to mind immediately: Ní bheidh a leitéidí arís ann. ‘There will never be anyone like him again’. He spent a number of years in Dublin and while he lectured at the Irish School of Ecumenics in 2013–14, he lived next door to the Messenger Office in Leeson Street. He is fondly remembered here where he radiated good humour; we knew him as a prodigious worker, but few guessed that he was also a brilliant theologian.

He collapsed suddenly last May and died almost immediately.

Everyone who knew him was saddened at his death; those who appreciated his ability were saddened by the loss of a brilliant scholar.

It takes a long time to train as a Jesuit priest and I was sad-

dened that after so many years preparation he died just as he seemed to be beginning his priestly life. He dedicated his life to serving God and was a man for others; in his short life he touched many lives. We felt he was needed.

Almost on the same day Lúcás died the martyr Oscar Romero was beatified, 35 years after he was shot dead while saying Mass. He was Archbishop of El Salvador for only three years but his people desperately needed him to give them hope.

His country suffered martyrdom under a brutal dictatorship: many more died before things got better. Romero foresaw his death and realised that his endeavours would not achieve the Kingdom of God; that in his lifetime he could only complete a tiny fraction of that colossal enterprise that will finally reveal the fullness of God’s creation.

What Romero once humbly wrote helped me to accept the death of this young priest:

No statement expresses all that can be said.

No creed exhausts the depths of our faith.

No evangelisation unites all minds and hearts.

No programme completes the Church’s mission.

That is our situation, our limitation.

We plant the grain of seed that one day will burst open and grow.

We water the buds that have already sprouted, knowing much more is promised.

We lay foundations that already envisage further extensions.

We cannot do everything ourselves.

It is a liberating experience when we are aware of this.

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CONTENTS The Sacred Heart Messenger is an official publication of the Apostleship of Prayer ADDRESS: Messenger Publications 37 Lower Leeson Street Dublin 2 Ireland Phone: 01 676 7491 (or 00 353 1 676 7491) Fax: 01 6767493 (or 00 353 1 6767493) E-Mail: sales@messenger.ie Website: www.messenger.ie Articles to: THE EDITOR Business Letters to: THE MANAGER Cheques payable to: THE SECRETARY EDITOR: John Looby SJ LAYOUT: Messenger Publications Design Department

Pope’s Intentions 4 Sr Eilís Coe

Gospel According to Mark 7 Carmel McCarthy RSM The Old Can Dream 10 Paul Andrews SJ

Masterpieces of Christian Art 13 Eileen Kane

Fragments 16 Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

Film Review: The Misfits 17 John Looby SJ

Dublin’s Historic Churches 20 Christopher Moriarty Finding God in All Things 24 Brian Grogan SJ Daily Offering 27

Prayer Calendar 28

Gardening 31 Helen Dillon

I rish Jesuit Chaplains in the First World War: Jeremiah Hartigan SJ 33 Michael McGuckian SJ

Our Readers Write 36

Adult Crossword 40

NIHIL OBSTAT: Noel Barber SJ, Censor Deputatus

Cooking 38 Marie McGuirk

IMPRIMI POTEST: + Diarmuid Archbishop of Dublin

PRICES FOR 2015: Price monthly: €1.50/£1.25 Annual subscription 2015 from promoter or newsagent: €18.00/£15.00 Annual subscription by post Rep of Ireland and N.I.: €25/£21 Annual subscription to Britain: £24 Annual subscription to EU and ROW: €30/$40 © All rights reserved.

Young Readers’ Pages 41

Message of Joy: Athlone 2015 44 Sarah Brady

Splendours of the Faith 48 Ray Moloney SJ

In the Master’s Footsteps 50 John Murray PP

Serial Story: Esker Road 53 Anne Marie Kennedy

Fragments 56 Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

Cover photograph: The Mass at the end of ‘Messege of Joy’, a day-long event in Athlone on 27 June 2015. Organised by Messenger magazine, it was a hugely successful inaugural event that allowed promoters and readers of the magazine to meet the staff and writers.

Pictured here, from left to right, are Donal Neary SJ (Incoming Editor of The Sacred Heart Messenger), Bernard McGuckian SJ, John Looby SJ (Outgoing Editor of The Sacred Heart Messenger), Charles Davy SJ and Brian Grogan SJ. Photograph: Paula Nolan.

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POPE’S INTENTIONS SR EILÍS COE

Human Trafficking PRAYING WITH THE POPE

That human trafficking, the modern form of slavery, may be eradicated.

I sit with Rachael, Mary, Lucy and Lena. We are reading one of NALA’s abridged novels. The women enjoy the book, following with keen interest the tale of the Irish heroine, Nora, and how she overcomes various obstacles in her way. This story opens the door to their own stories, which are not fiction but the truth.

They are stories of betrayal, cruelty, fear and abuse. These women have been trafficked into Ireland, three of them from West Africa, one from Eastern Europe.

I am a volunteer with Ruhama and a member of APT (Act to Prevent Trafficking), providing a little help for the women at a very vulnerable time in their lives and working to bring human trafficking to an end.

Rachael tells me her story, her eyes filling with tears as she recounts her experiences: Growing up in Nigeria, Rachael had dreams of making a good life for herself. Disaster struck when her parents died and she was sent to the home of an uncle to be taken care of. In this household, Rachael became a housemaid, doing household chores, while her cousins went to school. When

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Rachael was a teenager, her uncle told her she would have to contribute some money to him in exchange for her food and lodging, so Rachael got a job in a factory, where she was making shopping bags. She enrolled in some classes at night-school. A committed Christian, Rachael went to Church every week and prayed every day.

One night, Rachael overheard her uncle speaking on the phone. ‘I have a girl here who will go with you’, he said. A few days later, a Nigerian man came to the house and told Rachael that he would be taking her to Europe to work. Rachael protested, saying she wanted to live her Christian life and to go to school. The man told her that in Europe she could do all of the things she wanted to do.

The man told Rachael not to tell anyone where she was going, in case they might be jealous that she was getting this opportunity.

Some weeks later, the man took Rachael to the airport in Lagos and boarded a plane with her. The man held documents for Rachael. A second flight brought them to Dublin. Rachael had no idea what country she

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was in; she had never been more than twenty miles from home.

Rachael’s companion took her to a house in the city, where he told her to rest after her journey.

Later that night, he came to her bedroom and raped her. Her nightmare had begun. From that day on, she was raped repeatedly by a succession of Irish men.

Night and day they came, one after the other. Rachael says she was ‘living and not living at the same time’. A man and a woman who were in charge of the house told Rachael that she would have to work as a prostitute to earn money to repay them for her travel expenses. The men who came to use her were sometimes very cruel. Through all of this, Rachael never lost her trust in God, beseeching God to help her. At last, she was freed.

One night a young Irish man came to buy sex with Rachael.

Sensing her dread, he asked her ‘Are you being forced to do this?’ When she said yes, he said, ‘I’m leaving now but I’m

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coming back with the guards’.

Rachael had no idea who these guards might be. The man did not come back, but members of An Garda Síochána came and raided the house, freeing Rachael and some other women who were being held there.

Rachel was taken to a safe house and after some time, she was placed in a Reception Centre for asylum seekers. The Gardaí contacted Ruhama and so Rachael began to receive counselling and help with her application for asylum. She came regularly to Ruhama for literacy classes and to speak with a social worker.

Traumatised and confused, Rachael slowly began to heal and to regain some confidence.

The other women have similar stories, all of which tell of betrayal, beatings, rape, fear, desperate loneliness and even thoughts of ending their own lives. Rachael, Mary, Lucy and Lena are all victims of human trafficking, a modern form of slavery. They are among the

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The main root is the society which we have created, where some of our brothers and sisters are regarded as disposable.”

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people designated by society as ‘disposable’. In Laudato Si, our Holy Father uses the phrase ‘the disposable of society’ (p27).

In Evangelii Gaudium, he says, ‘Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded’. Meeting them face to face brings home the horror of the crime that has been committed against them.

The Holy Father uses the word ‘eradicated’, literally ‘taken out by the roots’. Anyone who has tried to get rid of a persistent weed knows what a difficult task this can be. Nevertheless, the roots of human trafficking need to be found and taken out.

The main root is the society which we have created, where some of our brothers and sisters are regarded as disposable.

Demand drives all markets and so it is in the matter of buying and selling human beings. Some people have a sense of entitlement, believing that they have a right to buy the bodies of others for their own gratification. Poverty, often due to the destruction of the environment, makes some women easy prey for unscrupulous traffickers. Greed on the part of traffickers is another root, leading to an increase in victims as the traffickers count their profits in millions.

We pray with our Holy Father and we do what we can to combat this evil which is thriving in Ireland and many other countries. May our prayers and our efforts bring this about.

Watch over us, Lord.

Mt. 18:1-5.10 First Friday: 2 October ................................................................. ................................................................. ................................................................. ................................................................. ................................................................. ............................................................... ................................................................. ................................................................. .................................................................

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PRAYING WITH MARK’S GOSPEL CARMEL McCARTHY RSM

The Feeding of the Five Thousand Mark 6:30-44

Find a quiet space. Switch off your phone or leave it in another room.

Gently become aware of God’s presence in you and around you, asking the Holy Spirit to guide you. Then slowly read the gospel and accompanying notes to allow this passage to have meaning for you now, in this moment.

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Read the gospel passage again, this time even more slowly and prayerfully. Perhaps you might take one word or sentence at a time, or stay with one key image. You may find it helpful to jot down what strikes you most.

As you enter more fully into the gospel passage, notice how central to the story Jesus is, and what that means for you.

The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ With so many coming and going they had no time even to eat.

So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. But people saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They ran ahead on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. On coming ashore, Jesus saw the vast crowd and his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said: ‘This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Send them away so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’ Jesus said to them in reply, ‘Give them some food yourselves.’ But they said to him, ‘Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?’ He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have? Go and see.’ When they had found out they said, ‘Five loaves and two fish.’ He instructed them that all should sit down in groups on the green grass, and they sat down in clusters of hundreds and of fifties. Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. Twelve baskets were filled with what was left of the loaves, and the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand.

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The feeding of a large group is the only miracle to be recounted by all four evangelists.”

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NOTES ON MARK 6:32-44 Preliminary comment: The feeding of a large group is the only miracle to be recounted by all four evangelists. Mark (followed by Matthew), presents Jesus as doing it twice – feeding 5,000 here in Jewish territory, and later feeding 4,000 in Gentile territory (8:1-10). The second narrative is a literary doublet, that is, a retelling of the basic story, which Mark used as a ‘teaching’ tool to emphasise that Gentile Christians were as welcome in the Christian community as were those of Jewish origin. gathered together with Jesus: The verb here suggests both intimacy and teamwork.

‘Come away’: Jesus invites his disciples to take time out to recharge. deserted place: Occurring three times in this account, attentive ears would recognise in this phrase an allusion to the desert days of Exodus, where their ancestors were fed by manna. ‘and rest a while’: There are echoes here of the ‘rest’ in Psalm 23 given by the Lord as Shepherd. no time even to eat: This blunt statement vividly captures the need for recharging batteries, and hints at the nature of the miracle about to unfold.

They ran ahead on foot: So strong is the desire of the crowds to encounter Jesus! his heart was moved with pity: This expression in Greek has a strong emotional focus, rooted in its Hebrew origins.

he began to teach them: With no thought for himself, Jesus first nourishes their spiritual hunger.

like sheep without a shepherd: A common biblical image of a people without a leader, it is a further echo of Ps 23.

‘Send them away’: This sharp command of the disciples contrasts vividly with Jesus’ compassion.

‘Give them some food yourselves’: This is a strange command if taken literally – we have already been told that the disciples had no time to eat, and yet Jesus seems to expect them to have brought provisions for 5,000 with them! This narrative device sets up a dramatic tension, which will be resolved by the miracle about to take place.

‘Are we to buy?’: By question and answer, Mark brings out the disciples’ lack of understanding – one of the leitmotifs of his gospel. green grass: Characteristic of Mark’s style, this vivid detail evokes the ‘green pastures’ of Ps 23. the five loaves and the two fish: The fish appear to be a secondary detail, since they are not ‘broken’ as the bread will be. They may have been included here to achieve the perfect number ‘seven’, symbolising completion. clusters of hundreds and of fifties: Not an obsessive concern with military precision, but a further allusion to the Exodus, during which Moses organises the Israelites into groups (Exod 18:25). taking … blessed … broke … gave: These four actions present Jesus

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as host. Mark’s community would have recognised them as echoing the eucharistic liturgy with which they were familiar. Through participating in the distribution, the twelve are associated with Jesus in this unexpected refreshment.

They all ate and were satisfied: This suggests a superfluity of food, not unlike the manna, of which there was always more than sufficient. In contrast to other miracle stories, there is no mention of the crowds being amazed. Mark’s focus is not on the spectacular, but on openness as to who Jesus really is.

Twelve baskets: A symbol of the twelve tribes of Israel, and by extension of the twelve apostles. five thousand: Since the population of the area in the first century could not have reached this figure, this is a symbolic way of indicating a very large crowd.

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SUGGESTIONS FOR PRAYING WITH MARK 4:35-41 Central to early Christian faith was the image of Jesus as one who feeds the hungry. Mark presents Jesus as compassionate towards a leaderless people, and concerned for their need for nourishment at all levels.

Given the starving millions in our world today, where do I stand in relation to Jesus’ words: ‘Give them some food yourselves’?

What nourishment can I share?

What do I hunger for? Where do I seek sustenance? What does Eucharist mean for me?

CONCLUDING PRAYER Loving God, you nourish us with your word and with your body.

May we always seek in you our true Bread of Life.

Amen.

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WORDS OF WISDOM PAUL ANDREWS SJ

The Old Can Dream

A time comes when nobody notices if you do not get out of bed in the morning. It could be unnerving, but it is also a luxury.

Remember the days when you wanted to stay unnoticed in a warm bed, asleep or daydreaming, but were hunted out of it by a grown-up. You can day-dream now, and to good purpose: to see your life steadily and see it whole. You no longer need to make excuses for yourself. You cannot be bribed with money or offers of promotion. All that is mercifully behind you. You can think about your parents and relations as they were, and try to understand the family myths and the large, life-changing, emotionally charged experiences that shaped them.

Now that you have nothing else to do, here is something worth thinking about: what made your parents tick? If you have the luxury of a living brother or sister, explore it with them. What were the large, often unspoken experiences or factors that shaped their way of thinking and behaving? Let me give two examples: When Peter McAleer, my mother’s father, opened the Campsie Bar in 1874, it looked as though he was set up for life.

He married Mary from Donegal.

A year later Bernard was born,

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and died at four months. Next came Michael, who died at seven months; then Charles, who lasted two months; then Mary, who lasted three months; then Eugene, who died at four months. TB killed them all, and finally killed their mother, who died aged 30 after six years of marriage and five dead children.

The tombstone in Killyclogher that carries all their names is a monument to unimaginable heartache.

I’ve often wondered about Peter McAleer. He must have been tough. By the age of 35, he had buried five children and his wife, one after the other.

After four years of grieving, he married again, Joanna Lafferty from Ardstraw, who gave him four daughters and two sons, one of whom died in infancy.

‘Will I ever bring you to man’s estate?’ my mother would say when I was sick as a child. I found it a strange phrase, and it is only recently that I realised some of its flavour for mother.

It must have been part of her family myth that children are fragile, easily lost, difficult to rear ‘to man’s estate’, since her father had buried five children and a wife before marrying Joanna – and had lost one of his second clutch too. So mother cherished and enjoyed her children, especially the sons,

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perhaps because from the five who survived out of her father’s eleven children, only one was a boy.

Now that both parents are long dead, I find I can brood on their history with a sort of affectionate curiosity, free from guilt or regret. It is one of the privileges of age, this detached observation and the quest for family myths. Why, for instance, are there none of my father’s family in the photographs of my parents’ wedding? They were all within reach, just two hours’ train ride away, his parents, two brothers and four sisters.

But none of them turned up.

They are conspicuous by their absence. All the party are from the McAleer side, none from the Andrews. When I questioned

mother about it, she smiled: ‘A bit of nonsense. They thought I was not good enough for him.’

It fits the family myths that the Andrews should boycott the marriage of my parents.

Their ethos was competitive, upwardly mobile, always going for better, striving to forget the rural poverty of the previous generation. They were in the government service, and blow-ins to Omagh, where the MacAleers were solidly grounded in the town’s trade, with a pub and a travel agency.

The marriage of Bill Andrews to the daughter of the licensed premises did not fit the expectations of Mrs Andrews.

She could comfortably visit and drink with Peter McAleer, but found it quite another matter

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Now that both parents are long dead, I find I can brood on their history with a sort of affectionate curiosity, free from guilt or regret.”

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when their children wanted to marry. That was part of the unspoken agenda of my parents’ marriage.

Every family has that sort of hidden agenda. It may be shaped by money matters, such as winning the lottery, falling deep into debt, a disputed legacy or landing a shaky compensation claim. It may be an agenda of unforgiven offences and desire for revenge.

It may be a prejudice against a class of public figures such as politicians, journalists, police, clergy, builders or doctors. It may be shaped by tragedies, such as the MacAleers’ untimely deaths, or suicides, or prison. It may be an attitude to ill-health – a hatred of hospitals or a deep desire to be looked after in one.

You recognise it in the emotions that are stirred by the relevant topic.

The memories I like to linger on, and that lift my heart, are not always what I’d want mentioned in an obituary. There was the joy of falling in love with Susan (linked with gratitude that I didn’t marry her – she is now on her third husband!). There was my victory over mother regarding school dinners: she wanted me to move from her sandwiches to the hot dish served by the school. As a four-year-old I played truant rather than give in – and I won.

There was my body’s ingenious solution to the abject misery of being in boarding school at the age of nine: I became a carrier of diphtheria, which forced the wretched school to close early and send me home for good.

The things that seemed disasters at the time take on a different colour in the perspective of age.

There is plenty to dream about.

With sincere appreciation to our promoters, readers & benefactors

Through the generosity of our Promoters, most of our readers are able to receive the Messenger at the lowest possible cost. THANK YOU. Be assured that the Lord will bless you for your help in making better known His name and the love of His heart.

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Thank you also to all of you who sent donations during the past month for the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart and for other good causes. You are all remembered in our prayers and Masses. – John Looby SJ

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MASTERPIECES OF CHRISTIAN ART EILEEN KANE

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes Raphael: Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) Peter was a fisherman, earning his living on the Lake of Gennesareth. After a long night’s work out on the lake, during which he had caught nothing at all, he came ashore. He pulled his small fishing-boat up onto the beach, alongside a boat that belonged to his colleagues, James and John, and went to join the group washing their nets nearby.

There was a crowd of people on the beach that day, milling around Jesus of Nazareth, wanting to hear him preaching.

Jesus, in order to be heard by as many as possible, stepped into Peter’s boat, asked Peter to put out a few yards from the shore, and from there, addressed the crowd.

When he had finished preaching, Jesus turned to Peter.

‘Put out into the deep water,’ he said, ‘and cast your nets, to catch some fish’. Peter’s reply was straightforward. ‘Master’, he said, ‘we worked all night and caught nothing. But’, he added, ‘if you say so, I will cast the nets’. Immediately the cast was made, such a huge number of fish were caught, that the nets began to tear, and Peter had to call out to his colleagues, who came in a second boat to assist.

The men hauled in the nets, distributing the catch between the two boats, but it was so plentiful that both boats were filled to overflowing, almost sinking under the weight of it.

Then, Peter, over-awed by what had happened, fell on his knees in front of Jesus. ‘Lord’, he said, ‘leave me, for I am a sinful man.’

This is the moment that Raphael has captured in his depiction of the scene. There, on the lake, are the two boats, heavy and low in the water, laden with all kinds of fish. In one, two strong young men, no doubt James and John, are hauling in the nets, while their father Zebedee controls the boat with an oar. In the other, nearer to us, Peter, kneeling, surrounded by fish, joins his hands, and looks up at the face

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of Jesus. Behind him another man, probably his brother Andrew as he is very like him in appearance, moves forward, astonished. Jesus, sitting in the stern of the boat, raises one hand in a gesture that gives reassurance. ‘Do not be afraid’, he is saying to Peter, ‘from now on, it is men you will catch’.

‘Then’, writes Luke, in whose gospel this event is narrated, ‘bringing their boats back to land, they left everything and followed him [Jesus]’.

What matters most, in the painting, as in the gospel text, is not so much the catch of fish, as what is happening between Jesus and Peter. In fact, if we look at just these two figures, the message is clear and powerful – Peter, the fisherman, chosen and blessed by Christ.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is one of ten scenes commissioned from Raphael

by Pope Leo X, in 1513, to be made into tapestries, which were to hang on the lower part of the walls of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo had only recently (in 1512) finished painting the ceiling of the chapel with scenes from the Book of Genesis, prophets, sibyls and the ancestors of Christ, and already in place, on the walls, were earlier frescoes with scenes from the life of Moses and of Christ. Emphasis is given, in those scenes, to the authority of Christ, and to the handing on of that authority to Peter, and to his successors the popes, as

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leaders of the Church on earth.

The scenes in the tapestries were to continue that theme, emphasising again the special authority of Peter as well as the preaching of Paul.

Raphael’s paintings were not intended, themselves, to hang on walls. They are ‘cartoons’, an intermediate stage between a sketch and a finished work of art.

He painted them between 1513 and 1517. Then, they were sent to Brussels, to the studio of the master-weaver Peter van Aelst, as full-scale working-models for the weavers who would create the tapestries. When finished, the ten tapestries were dispatched to Rome, but the cartoons remained with the weavers. Of these, seven have survived, including The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, and are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The tapestries are in the Vatican Picture Gallery.

The word ‘cartoon’, used in its art-historical sense, has nothing to do with the meaning it carries nowadays, suggesting caricature or a comic-strip. It derives from the Italian word ‘carta’, meaning paper, and ‘cartone’, a large piece of paper, and denotes, as here, a working-model, on paper, for a finished work of art. That is why, although it is big, (3.2 metres high by 3.9 metres wide – more than 10 feet by 12), The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is painted on paper – many sheets of paper assembled together. It is painted

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in water-colour, and there are some beautiful effects in it – for example, the treatment of light in the sky and on the water, and the detail of the dark-plumed cranes in the foreground.

In making a tapestry, the weavers worked facing the back of their work and, with threads of wool, silk and gold, they copied the cartoon. The front of their work – what we might call the ‘right side’ – was therefore a mirror image of the design on the cartoon. So, did you notice that Jesus raises his left, and not

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his right hand, in speaking to Peter? Raphael had to compose his scene in reverse, so that the tapestry would be the right way round. If you hold the picture up to a mirror, you will see how the composition looks in the tapestry.

The ‘Raphael Cartoons’ have had an immense and widespread influence on artists down through the generations.

They are a peak of achievement in the art of the Italian Renaissance, as well as being masterpieces of Christian art.

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Fragment s

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Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

God is useless

This often seems true. God doesn’t fit my norms for usefulness.

I don’t experience miracles. Prayers seem unanswered. ‘What does Mr Godot do?’ was a question in Beckett’s famous play, and the answer is shocking: ‘Nothing’. This feeling is one of the foundations of atheism. It happens when they fall into immature images. Our kind of usefulness is not a divine attribute. So instead of constant disappointment, I am invited beyond my easy expectations.

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FILM REVIEW JOHN LOOBY SJ

The Misfits

Directed by John Huston I 124 mins I 1961 I Screenplay: Arthur Miller Although Arthur Miller conceived The Misfits as a film, he first wrote it in a form more like a novel, because its sense depends as much on the nuances of character and place as on the plot.

The place is Reno, Nevada, described as the divorce capital of the United States. And Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) is here to divorce her husband. She rejects the usual reasons for seeking a divorce, insisting instead that he wasn’t there. Even though you could touch him, she meant, he wasn’t there. Her friend Isabelle, who knows a misfit when she sees one, reminds her that ‘if that was grounds for divorce there’d be just eleven marriages left in the United States’. But Roslyn insists: ‘If I’m going to be alone, I want to be by myself’.

When shortly afterwards we find her with three others who have come to a ramshackle house in the Nevada desert to ‘just live’ for a while, we get some idea of how she continues ‘to be alone by herself’. They drink, they dance, the men try to come closer, but she eludes them. All four were once married but now no one depends on them, nor do they depend on another. Maybe they like it that way.

Each of the others sees Roslyn differently. Isabelle worries that

she is too believing and warns her that ‘cowboys are the last real men in the world, but they’re as reliable as jack-rabbits’. Guido sees her sometimes as a goodtime girl, who worked in dancehalls, but is uncertain when she pushes him away. Gay (Clark Gable) is more perceptive and wonders what makes her so sad.

She is surprised: she had always been told how happy she is. Gay grasps that she makes men feel happy, and that is why we see men are drawn to her, but she does not allow him to kiss her, even in the fog of booze that fills the scene.

Clark Gable’s character, a grizzled cowboy, wishes he were younger, and says he hopes she’s going to stay there. Her face fills with sadness. ‘Why?’ she says, ‘what difference would it make?’

His response, ‘Might make all the difference in the world as time goes by’, causes her to look at him with unconcealed intensity, and he does not evade her look.

Soon they are dancing. While she resisted the brash dance Guido forced on her, she is soon leading Gay into a dance he never knew he could do.

Maybe Gay did not know he could dance, but we hardly thought he would be the one to have breakfast cooked by the

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time Roslyn woke the next morning, or within a week to have tidied up the half-finished house, cleaned the windows, done some decorating, hoed weeds, put wild flowers on the table and planted lettuce. He wants to please her, he wants her to stay.

He doesn’t want her to think badly of him because he’s a cowboy.

He seems happy that she seems to respect him; he even admits that he was hurt when his marriage broke up, that he misses his kids, and when she catches his mood he guesses at the hurt she herself has known.

The spell, however, is broken

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when he reaches for his rifle to kill the rabbit that has eaten the lettuce he had recently planted.

To him that is a natural reaction, but she can’t stand anything being killed. Soon he is telling her not to be silly and their mutual respect seems to have evaporated.

The timely return of Isabelle and Guido interrupts the dispute and Roslyn seizes the opportunity to praise Gay, smiling on him as she shows them all the improvements he has made to the house while they were away. Soon she draws Gay back into the conversation.

Reassured that she does respect him after all, this unapolo-

www.messenger.ie getically masculine man decides to show her his home: the open country and the wonderful free life he lives. On the way to the rodeo they find Pierce Howland (Montgomery Clift), the extra man they need for the round-up.

In his late twenties, he is another misfit, sitting forlornly on his saddle, staring at the broken ground – for all the world like some paper trash that has been tossed out of a passing car. He can’t even get to the rodeo, he has no money.

His shyness attracts Roslyn’s sympathy, especially when he is badly injured after being thrown by a bucking bronco at the rodeo. To Roslyn he is another of nature’s gentle creatures at risk, just like the rabbits. His life on the open range copies Gay’s, but in him there is little to respect.

The film moves to a climax when they begin to round up the horses. The old days when they rounded up hundreds of horses are over, now they find only five.

John Huston’s filming captures

the beauty of the horses – once more, gentle creatures at risk. The expertise of the cowboys who separate the horses, rope them in, bring them to the ground, and tie them up, is thrillingly done.

But there is a bleakness about it, as we see it through the eyes of Roslyn, whose protests are brushed aside. When she gets in the way she is roughly knocked back by Gay who is totally caught up in the thrill of the chase.

She will always be an outsider in this man’s world and anything that happens afterwards is irrelevant.

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…he is another misfit, sitting forlornly on his saddle, staring at POSTSCRIPT. There is a certain bleakness the broken about this film: It was the last film ground…” that Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable made, and Mongomery Clift was also dead within five years. I have heard it said that Montgomery Clift could not bear to watch the film afterwards, and it has always been said that the shoot was troubled.

Bequest Please remember in your will

‘I give and bequeath to The Sacred Heart Messenger, 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland the sum of €__________ for the general charitable purposes in Ireland of the said Charity. The receipt of the said Charity shall be sufficient evidence of payment of the said sum.’

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DUBLIN’S HISTORIC CHURCHES CHRISTOPHER MORIARTY

Church of the Holy Name Beechwood Avenue

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“

Within the round tower, a stone spiral staircase of 132 steps leads first to the organ loft : then to the bell chamber and finally to the flat roof of the square tower…”

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Many churches exist tightly hemmed in by the dwellings of housing estates. Most of them are small, modest buildings.

Few make their presence felt in the manner of the Church of the Holy Name on Beechwood Avenue. The church, indeed, is quite big but it is dwarfed by the splendid belfry which forms the northwest corner of the main building. This marvellous structure towers above the roofs of its two-storey red brick neighbours and can be seen from a great distance.

The architect was William Henry Byrne who was born in Blackrock, Co Dublin in 1844 and learned his trade under James Joseph McCarthy, one of the leading church architects of his time and an exponent of the Gothic Revival, characterised by high spires and pointed arches.

Byrne moved to Belfast and formed a partnership with John O’Neill. This firm subsequently established a branch office in Dublin. In his turn, Byrne joined the leaders in church architecture and we have met him already as the designer of St Patrick’s in Ringsend. In 1902 Byrne took his son Ralph Henry into partnership and the firm became WH Byrne & Son. In spite of the architect’s

enthusiasm for the Gothic style, he decided on Romanesque – with semi-circular rather than pointed arches – for the church in Beechwood.

Romanesque was the style used by the ancient Church in Ireland from the 10th to the 12th centuries – a time when round towers were also being built in the monasteries. In a few places, including Lusk in North Co Dublin, an older round tower was incorporated in a later square structure and this may very well have given Byrne an inspiration for the unusual shape of the Beechwood belfry.

Tragically, he never saw his finished church – although he probably attended its opening.

William Henry Byrne lost his sight in 1913 and the final stages of the building took place under the eye of his son Ralph.

It is essentially square – except for the northwest corner whose proportions are very much like those of the traditional round towers – including a small, narrow window on each of the three lower storeys and, just possibly, the pointed cap. But the resemblance ends at the level of the roof of the square tower.

Byrne’s round one has an extra storey with pillars and arches which support the cap which

itself is surmounted by a cross.

Within the round tower, a stone spiral staircase of 132 steps leads first to the organ loft in the main body of the church, then to the bell chamber and finally to the flat roof of the square tower which has a stone balustrade railing. The bell was cast

by Matthew O’Byrne at his Fountain Head Bell Foundry in James’s Street in 1912 and has a lengthy inscription in Latin, which translates as Blessed be the Name of the Lord, in the year of the Lord 1912.

I began to praise the Most Holy Name, the Archbishop Most Illustrious William Walsh.

Parish Priest Thomas Hogan.

In Memoriam Patrick Martin RIP. So the name of the church is discreetly associated with those of the Parish Priest who conceived the building, the archbishop who permitted it and the man who provided the funds for the bell.

The other outstanding feature of the west front of the church is the great wheel window which looks out from a surrounding arch, supported by pilasters.

Beneath it is an arcade of niches – which in many Romanesque churches are houses for statues but are left plain here. On the ground floor below this, the paired main doors to the church are surmounted by an arch with a statue of the Saviour in the centre. He bears in his right hand an orb bearing the Holy Name.

The interior of the church is

spacious and full of light, with a high vaulted ceiling. The nave is separated from side aisles by arcades, supported by massive columns of polished pink granite. The church is very richly decorated. The windows of the lower storey are filled with brightly coloured stained glass, most of them representing scenes from the Gospels. While the work of Harry Clarke himself is not represented, the glass comes from his Dublin studio.

Elsewhere, especially in the Sanctuary, mosaic scenes and abstract designs provide colour and inspiration.

Planned in the prosperous years of the Edwardian era, the church was completed and opened shortly before the

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outbreak of the horror of the First World War. It began to celebrate its centenary in 2014 and continued with special events and services in the following year, culminating in June 2015 with Mass celebrated by the Papal Nuncio to an accompaniment of Mozart’s Coronation Mass, played by a small symphony orchestra and hymns sung by the Parish children’s and adult choirs.

Veneration of the Holy Name dates in particular to the 15th century St Bernardine of Siena, who devised the monogram IHS and instigated the practice of inserting, over doorways, a blue tile with the letters shown

in a blazing sun. In Ireland, the Franciscan Father Francis Donnelly revived the practice and established the devotion amongst the Poor Clares in Galway in 1914, the same year as Beechwood Church was dedicated. The date seems to have been a coincidence since the Dublin parish had had the title of The Holy Name since 1906.

Details of the history of the church and parish and, particularly of the stained glass, mosaic work and statuary were published in 1996 in an illustrated book by two parishioners, John de Courcy and his wife Sheila.

The Sacred Heart Messenger RETREAT DAYS In association with the Lay Retreat Association of St Ignatius

HEART OF JESUS HEART FOR THE WORLD

Themes will be linked to Scripture, and the christian life as lived

with

A day for Fr Donal Neary SJ yourself, at in silence Ballyvalloo Retreat Centre, Co Wexford with talks, DATES: prayer, Saturday October 31 and sacrament of Sunday November 1 reconciliation, (similar retreats) Exposition 10.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m. Cost: €40 and Mass. includes coffee, dinner and evening tea

PLEASE BOOK WITH:

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John Redmond 0879962946 or John Creane 0879871152

CALENDAR & AOP 2016

2016 Sacred Heart Calendar 2016 Living Prayer: Apostleship of Prayer Following the success of last year’s editions, we have sourced more beautiful photos of Pope Francis to feature for 2016.

Sacred Heart Calendar 2016

Pope’s Intentions Principal feast days of the year Brief thought for the day based on the gospel reading

Living Prayer: Apostleship of Prayer

Introduction to the Apostleship of Prayer Forms of the Daily Offering A monthly reflection on the Pope’s Intentions The liturgical calendar for each month The gospel reading for each day

CALENDAR: Price €2.50/£2.20 (€1.05 P&P) LIVING PRAYER: Price €1.90/£1.70 (€0.90 P&P) SPECIAL OFFER: BUY BOTH FOR €3.50/£3.00 (€1.50 P&P) Please make cheque/postal order payable to Messenger Publications Please send me _________ copies of 2016 Sacred Heart Calendar Please send me _________ copies of 2016 Living Prayer Please send me _________ Special Offer(s) (1 x Calendar PLUS 1 x Living Prayer)

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FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS BRIAN GROGAN SJ

Chatting with God: you and I, Lord This article is an extract from the new edition of the book Finding God in All Things by Brian Grogan SJ

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We begin a relationship with another person when glances are exchanged. Glances tell so much. The loving glance of God invites me to respond, or else our relationship never takes off.

Next, we begin to talk together.

But do we talk with God? Let us look at this. I know I can spend much time reflecting about God – third person singular stuff, such as ‘I wonder what God thinks of what I’ve done now?’ ‘Does God care about the mess I’m in, or how I feel?’ ‘Perhaps God is angry with me?’ ‘I’m mad with God right now!’ And so forth. But this is not conversation, it is head stuff!

However when I switch to talking directly to God, everything changes; the relationship moves forward. I say to God, ‘What do you think of what I’ve done now?’

‘Do you care about the mess I’m in, or how I feel?’ ‘Are you angry with me?’ ‘I’m mad with you right now!’ ‘Lord, I’m too tired to pray, please excuse me, bless me and give me a good night’s rest.’

Now I am in dialogue: instead of maintaining a safe distance I am bringing God in on what is happening in my life.

AS ONE FRIEND TO ANOTHER St Teresa of Avila articulates a

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long tradition when she says, ‘Mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart-to-heart conversation with God by whom we know ourselves to be loved.’

St Ignatius has the same idea in proposing the ‘colloquy’ as a way of praying. ‘Colloquy’ comes from the Latin, and means ‘speaking together’. It involves a personal and spontaneous conversation, a chat, a heart-to-heart interaction between friends. Ignatius had a deep capacity for friendship, so he was able to bring this into his relationship with God. He would talk with God about anything and everything, since he believed that God is present in all things.

We can do the same.

As in all friendships, we can have companionable silences when we are with God. It may seem that nothing is going on in this simple being-with-the-other, but heart is speaking to heart at a level too deep for words, and I am changed in the process.

WHEN GOD SPEAKS Some time ago I was trying to help a group to pray by introducing them to the Jesus of the Gospels. So I read a scene from Jesus’ life and invited them to get involved in it. I asked them

www.messenger.ie to see Jesus looking at them individually, speaking directly to them, laying his hands on them, and so on. In the silence they caught on and entered into the scene. At the end, a man remarked, ‘That was really great.

Terrible pity they don’t read that stuff in Church!’ When asked to say more, he added, ‘This is the first time I felt the Bible is FOR ME. When I heard it in the Church it used to go over my head.

It floated around but it never landed on me, and of course I wasn’t expecting it would. I felt it was for the holy people!’

God speaks with me through Scripture. I need to allow Jesus speak face-to-face with me. ‘You are my friend, Brian.’ ‘Brian, go and sin no more!’ ‘Brian, do not be afraid!’ ‘Peace be with you, Brian!’ ‘Brian, love others as I have loved you!’ Everything he says is precious, full of richness for me.

HOLY WAITING But there are times when my prayer seems to be a non-event.

Nothing happens! I show up for prayer rather like a patient for radiation treatment. I want to become well, but I notice nothing during the treatment.

Such waiting is holy waiting, as is the season of Advent. It sharpens my attentiveness for those unexpected moments when there occurs what the Welsh poet RS Thomas describes as ‘the movement of a curtain’ – tiny hints that God is responding to me.

St Paul says that our inner nature is being renewed every day even when we don’t seem to be ‘getting anywhere’ in prayer.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of this ‘renewal’ is that God is increasing in importance for me.

My prayer time may leave me with nothing to report on, but in my life I notice more easily God’s provident action in simple things, such as bumping into someone ‘by chance’ and having a good encounter. God is becoming more and more important, even if in a non-dramatic way.

SUGGESTED EXERCISE G Settle into your preferred routine of time, place and atmosphere.

G Notice how you feel, whether tired, energetic, peaceful, upset, focused, distracted...

G Greet Jesus when he arrives.

Spend time with him, because the interpersonal quality of your first moments colours the time of your prayer.

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“

God speaks with me through Scripture.

I need to allow Jesus speak faceto-face with me.”

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G Look

Finding God In All Things

by Brian Grogan SJ Phone 01-6767491 or order online at: www.messenger.ie €7.99

over the Gospel of the day, and see where you are drawn. (The following is drawn from what happened for me as I prayed on Passion Sunday on the raising of Lazarus. It may be helpful to you).

G After Lazarus was restored to his family I met up with Jesus in imagination and asked him what this miracle might mean for myself.

G He invited me into the tomb; it was dark and smelly. I could just about see him. ‘Lie down where Lazarus was’ he said ‘and ask yourself is there anything about you that is dead or dying.’

G I

lay on the rock, feeling the cold and discomfort.

Situations came to mind where my faith, hope and love were flickering weakly rather than burning steadily – the feeling of being only halfalive...

G I called out to him: ‘Lord, give me life that I may be fully alive before you!’

G He whispered words of comfort to me, took me by the hand, raised me up and led me out into a world of colour and pure air and birdsong.

G It was also raining lightly. But it came to me that to complain about the rain would spoil everything…

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Available from www.messenger.ie

or email sales@messenger.ie or phone Vera on 353 1 6767491

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DAILY offering Heavenly Mother, help us to persevere with one mind in prayer with you and the whole Church, so that the Holy Spirit may come to us, change our hearts and help us to transform the world with his love.

Pope’s Intentions

And I pray with Mary and the whole Church for the Pope’s intentions this month:

Universal: Human Trafficking

That human trafficking, the modern form of slavery, may be eradicated.

Evangelisation: Mission in Asia

That with a missionary spirit the Christian communities of Asia may announce the Gospel to those who are still awaiting it.

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POPE’S INTENTIONS Universal That human trafficking, the modern form of slavery, may be eradicated.

For Evangelisation That with a missionary spirit the Christian communities of Asia may announce the Gospel to those who are still awaiting it.

SUNDAY

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

4

Pray for the children of broken marriages.

Mk.10:2-16

MONDAY

5

Love your neighbour as yourself.

Lk.10:25-37

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St Bruno, Pr.

6

Spend time in listening.

Lk.10:38-42

St Edward the Confessor

11 12 13

Your reward will be great.

Mk.10:17-30

Mission Sunday

Find God in Everything.

Lk.11:29-32

Rest in his love.

Lk.11:37-41

St John de Brébeuf, St Paul of the Cross M.

18 19 20

Pray for those searching for God. Mk.10:35-45

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Guard against greed.

Lk.12:13-21

25 26

Lord, open my eyes.

Mk.10:46-52

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TUESDAY

Be prepared to greet Jesus.

Lk.12:35-38

St Otteran Monk (I)

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Rejoice in God’s goodness. Small beginnings are often Lk.13:10-17 best.

Lk.13:18-21

OCTOBER 2015 WEDNESDAY THURSDAY Thérèse of Lisieux, V.D.

The Guardian Angels u

Live simply.

Lk.10:1-12

Watch over us Lord.

Mt.18:1-5. 10

1

Our Lady of the Rosary

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FRIDAY

8

2

Ss Denis & Comps., & John Leonard, Pr.

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SATURDAY

3

‘Blessed are the eyes that see.’ Lk.10:17-24

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Lord teach me how to pray.

Lk.11:1-4

Don’t lose heart.

Lk.11:5-13

Let the Holy Spirit guide you.

Lk.11:15-26

Hear and keep God’s word.

Lk.11:27-28

St Callistus P.M.

St Teresa of Avila, V.D.

St Margaret Mary Alacoque, V.

St Ignatius of Antioch, B.M.

God knows each of us.

Lk.12:1-7

The Holy Spirit dwells in you.

Lk.12:8-12

St John of Capistrano, Pr.

St Anthony Mary Claret, B.

Discern before making decisions.

Lk.12:54-59

God’s mercy is unconditional.

Lk.13:1-9

14 15 16 17

Practise what you preach. Pray for women in religious Lk.11:42-46 life.

Lk.11:47-54

21 22 23 24 Stand up for your Christian beliefs.

Lk.12:49-53

Simon and Jude, App.

St Coleman of Kilmacduagh, B.

Jesus has chosen you.

Lk.6:12-16

Place yourself in God’s hands.

Lk.13:31-35

Bl. Dominic Collins, M.

28 29 30 31 Follow your informed concience.

Lk.14:1-6

Pray for the Church in Latin America.

Lk.14:1. 7-11

u First Friday

Use your gifts wisely.

Lk.12:39-48

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St Joseph’s PENNY

DINNER FUND

Help to supply

DAILY DINNERS to the poor at home and overseas

All donations will be gratefully acknowledged and should be sent to SAINT JOSEPH’S PENNY DINNER FUND c/o Fr Paul Farquharson SJ St Francis Xavier’s Gardiner Street, Dublin 1

VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE! Prayers ~ Books Devotion to the Sacred Heart Novenas ~ Back Issues And lots more information about your favourite magazine.

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Many thanks to all of you who sent money during the past year.

Your contribution is greatly appreciated.

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GARDENING HELEN DILLON The Dillon Garden, 45 Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

Open Sundays only (2-6) in April, May, June and September and every day in March, July and August (2-6).

www.dillongarden.com October can be the most exhilarating and creative time in the garden – new ideas to consider, new plans to study, new beds to be dug – time to sort out all the mistakes – this is the start of the gardening year.

I met a lady the other day who told me she had two wisterias, one blue one which never failed to flower every year, and another, called white wisteria on the label, which hadn’t flowered in twelve years. Such perseverance is admirable, but why put up with an unsatisfactory plant for so long? I, too, have wasted time waiting for wisterias to flower, only to find they are wishy washy colours and too few at that. Of course I should have insisted on getting one with an Award of Garden Merit (AGM) as part of the name, awarded by the British Royal Horticultural Society, which means the cultivar has been tried and tested and is excellent in every way. (Unscrupulous growers are tempted to sell seed-grown wisterias, which can turn out to be useless.)

If you don’t prune wisterias correctly, they can get into an amazing non-flowering tangle.

The simplest way to describe the method of pruning is: cut all long shoots back to 5 buds around midsummer except for a few (3-5) needed to form your intended framework. Then, in early winter, cut the same ones again to within 2-3 buds from the main stems to encourage flowers to form. Round, plump buds should be apparent during winter.

Kind-hearted gardeners often find it difficult to dig up a plant and dump it on the rubbish heap, especially if it was given by a friend who is now dead. My argument is that if your friend was a good gardener, they could only approve of digging it up and finding room for some lovely new plant you’ve always wanted.

On the subject of wanting new plants, an old friend of mine in Norfolk was startled the other day when the gardener who helps her once a week remarked ‘This garden would be perfectly all right if just you’d stop buying plants.’ Quite.

This is a problem we are all up against – in my case with pink roses. I cannot resist yet another one, so invitingly displayed at the garden centre. The most recent arrival was the exquisite

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If you don’t prune wisterias correctly, they can get into an amazing nonflowering tangle.”

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“

Roses grow very well in oldfashioned galvanised dustbins, because the bins offer a deep root run.”

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Rose ‘James Galway’

pale pink ‘James Galway’, with petals so beautifully enfolded around each other – an excellent plant, which can form a shrub or a climber and flowers in flushes throughout summer.

But when I got home the usual problem set in – where to plant it? As usual I settled for a very large pot and used a good rich mix of 2 parts topsoil, 2 parts peat, and 1 part grit plus handfuls of well-rotted cow manure and generous helpings of Osmacote – the excellent long term fertilizer which is expensive (but much cheaper in the long term if you buy a large bag – obtainable from National Agrochemicals, Blakes Cross). Roses grow very well in old-fashioned galvanised

dustbins, because the bins offer a deep root run (obtainable in Churchtown Stores, Churchtown, Dublin). Make five drainage holes 1 inch diameter in the base and put 5 inches of drainage rubble on top before filling with potting compost.

Autumn is the perfect time to move most herbaceous plants (don’t move agapanthus, kniphofias, lobelias, grasses until spring) because you can see exactly how much a plant has spread and precisely where its neighbours are positioned. With some easy herbaceous plants, such as many of the yellow autumn daisies (Helianthus, Rudbeckia), phlox, heleniums, where the clump has become too large, I just chop a bit off and move it elsewhere or give it away, then fill up the hole with some compost or manure and fresh soil.

Don’t forget to get fresh sweet pea and broad bean ‘Aquadulce Claudia’ seeds to sow in early November and the gorgeous Ammi majus (an annual like a beautiful lacy tall cow parsley) for whopping plants next year.

Buy a pot of parsley, divide into 8 pieces, and plant out or pot up for winter use. Hurry to buy tulips. Empty containers of summer plants (even if still in flower) renew the potting compost, unless it was fresh in spring – in which case just add fertilizer for planting up your spring bedding of winter pansies, wallflowers, forget-menots, primroses and so on.

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BOOK EXTRACT MICHAEL McGUCKIAN SJ

Irish Jesuit Chaplains in the First World War:

Jeremiah Hartigan SJ

Letter from Fr Jeremiah Hartigan SJ, Aldershot, England to Father Provincial Thomas V Nolan SJ, describing his forthcoming travels, ‘Southampton – thence on the Hospital ship Dongola to somewhere in the Mediterranean’ and masses said. Thursday, [February] 1916.

Reference: IJA/CHP1/33/2.

Jeremiah Augustine (Austin) Hartigan was born at Foynes, County Limerick on August 18th 1882. His father, Dr Jeremiah T Hartigan, FRCS was the dispensary doctor in Croom, County Limerick, and his mother was Jane, née Hartigan (They were given a special dispensation to marry as they were first cousins once removed). His father was son and grandson and

great-grandson of doctors. He was the fourth boy in a family of seven boys and three girls, two of whom, a boy and a girl, died young.

Austin (always known as Austie in the family) went to the Sacred Heart College, Limerick in 1890, at the age of eight years, and stayed a year and half. After a further year of private education under a governess, he followed

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In January 1916, he volunteered to go as a chaplain in the war and was assigned to that task.”

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his three brothers to Mungret College, Limerick in 1892 and matriculated from there in 1898.

He entered the Jesuit novitiate in St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, King’s County (County Offaly) on September 7th, 1898.

After the two years of noviceship, he studied rhetoric in the college for a further two years in preparation for his university studies.

By his own assessment, Austin was more suited to teaching than preaching, and he was sent to Beirut to study oriental languages in the Jesuit-run St Joseph University, with a view to professing Sacred Scripture. After two years of study in Beirut, he was awarded a Doctorate in Oriental Letters and he spent a further year studying at St Francis Xavier’s College in Alexandria, Egypt.

He returned to Ireland for his regency (engaged full-time in ministry, traditionally teaching) and spent two years teaching Greek and Latin in Clongowes Wood College, Naas, County Kildare. From there he went to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire for two years philosophy and then on to Ore Place, Hastings in Sussex for theology. During his theology studies in Hastings, Austin published articles on oriental matters in the Catholic Encyclopaedia. He was ordained a priest at Milltown Park on August 26th, 1914. On completing his theology studies, he returned to Tullabeg for tertianship in the autumn of 1915.

In January 1916, he volunteered to go as a chaplain in the war and was assigned to that task. The Hartigan family made a very considerable contribution to the war effort. Fr Hartigan’s brother, Dr Joseph (Mungret 1891–95), had enlisted at an early stage of the war in the Royal Naval Medical Corps and was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Royal Hamadryad Seamen’s Hospital in Cardiff. Later, he served as a surgeon with the navy on the coast of East Africa and he died of pneumonia in Port Said on May 30th, 1918, aged 39. Another brother, Patrick (Mungret 1892–96), also served in the war, as did another brother, Martin George (Crescent 1902–03). Martin served in the 13th Hussars in Mesopotamia and was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.

The citation states: ‘He took command of his squadron after his squadron leader had been killed and his second-in-command wounded, and in a mounted action handled it with great determination and dash under fire, inflicting heavy loss on the enemy.’ A brief aside: Patrick and Martin subsequently became successful horse trainers in England.

Fr Hartigan’s own participation in the war was brief indeed.

He left England in May 1916 with the First Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, acting as chaplain on the hospital ship Dongola, bound for Mesopo-

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tamia. On arriving at Basra, the main port of Iraq on the Persian Gulf, Fr Hartigan heard that Fr Frederick Peal SJ, the chaplain of the Rangers at Amara, had resigned because of illness on March 26th and he offered to go there. The Connaught Rangers had been involved in the defence of the garrison at Kut al Amara which fell on April 28th, 1916. Others of them also faced the Turkish troops at Kut throughout the summer of 1916 and during this period many of the men died due to a cholera epidemic. Fr Hartigan arrived at Magasis as chaplain on June 12th. On June 19th, the Rangers were relieved and began a difficult march across the desert in the extreme heat to the ‘Twin Canals’ rest camp, which lasted

seven days. Many of the soldiers succumbed to hunger, thirst and fatigue, and Fr Hartigan stayed with the dying men. He himself subsequently lost his way in the desert and after a few days was taken to hospital in Amara ill with jaundice. He recovered his strength to some degree and refused the offer of the authorities to send him to India for a rest. At this stage, he wrote to his mother that he was well, and that he hoped to return to his regiment in the near future. The day after she received this letter, his mother had a telegram from the War Office informing her that her son had died of jaundice in the Amara War Hospital on July 16th, 1916. Fr Hartigan is buried in Amara War Cemetery, Iraq.

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Fr Jeremiah (Austin) Hartigan SJ with family.

1916. From left to right: Austin’s mother, Jane Hartigan known as Granny Tarbrook, Auntie Paul, Velia, Fr Austin and Auntie May. Photograph courtesy of Jane Pountney, grandniece of Fr Hartigan.

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Our Readers Write in Praise and Thanksgiving All thanksgivings sent to us are remembered in our Friday Mass each week. A promise to publish a thanksgiving is amply fulfilled by sending it to us.

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MOST GRATEFUL THANKS Dear Rev Father, I promised a letter of thanks to the Sacred Heart, Our Lady and St Joseph and all the Saints, for all that I received in my long years.

I am 93 years old and prayed the wonderful prayer since I was a child, when my parents always had the Messenger and trusted the Sacred Heart and His Blessed Mother for all the petitions granted. This Thanksgiving note is very late – and some of these petitions were miracles. I always seem to be begging the Lord as I am again for my family – I love the Messenger and look forward to getting it. I will forward a donation for your good work and for the dinner fund when I can.

Again my most grateful thanks to the Sacred Heart.

May your good work continue to prosper.

A grateful reader

THE MIRACLE PRAYER Dear Father, I am writing to say thank you and to publish my request. Last year, our family ran into a serious legal problem.

It was a very worrying time for all our family. We prayed every night and thanks to the Miracle Prayer our problems have now disappeared.

We promised Our Father publication of The Miracle Prayer: ‘Dear Heart of Jesus, in the past I have asked for many favours.

This time I ask for a special one: (mention your request here). Take it dear Heart of Jesus and place it within your own broken Heart where your father sees it. Then in His merciful eyes it will become Your favour not mine, Amen.’

Thank you to The Sacred Heart for all the times you have helped us. Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in you.

A reader from Dublin

GRATEFUL STUDENT Dear Father, I want to thank the Sacred Heart, his Blessed Mother and Edel Quinn for exam results.

Anon

TOO NUMEROUS TO COUNT Dear Father, I wish to thank the Most Sacred Heart, Our Lady and St Martin for many favours granted for me and my family.

If I start I could fill pages. My

www.messenger.ie mother and my mother-in-law, RIP, always received the Messenger. I am in my eighties now, living alone. I know the Sacred Heart will mind me. Please publish my thanksgiving and pray for me and my family.

Thank you

A CONSECRATED PERSON Dear Father, I always wanted to be a nun, but my mother said I’d never endure the hard way of life at the time (fifty years ago). So I prayed that one day I would be one. My mother died and I tried the Carmelite way of life but it proved too difficult. I joined a prayer group in All Hallows and met two sisters who became consecrated virgins/persons. They invited me to their ceremony and on seeing it, I said to myself – that’s for me. Ten years later I became a Consecrated Person.

It took me 50 years to find the perfect way of life for me. But God does answer one’s prayers.

I always promised a letter to the Sacred Heart in thanksgiving.

From a grateful sinner FAVOURS GRANTED I wish to thank the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Blessed Virgin Mary, St Jude, St Joseph, St Clare, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and all the Saints for favours granted and praying for others.

Bristol reader

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DEEPEST REQUEST ANSWERED Dear Father, I would like to thank the Sacred Heart of Jesus for answering my very deepest request. I pray to him night and day. I want to say thank you Dear Heart of Jesus, you are my light and my strength and I will always be grateful.

Anon HOLIDAY PROBLEMS Dear Father, I would like to express my most grateful thanks to the Sacred Heart for the favour of granting my request, that my problems regarding my holiday arrangement be sorted.

Grateful devotee, Tralee TURN TO THE SACRED HEART Dear Father, I would like to thank the dear Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady and St Martha for all their unfailing help in my life. I have a lot mentally and physically going on in my life and they give me strength. I am saying a Novena to the dear Sacred Heart and St Martha and pray with their help my requests will be answered. I pray for anyone who is going through any difficulty to turn to the dear Sacred Heart, Our Lady and St Martha, they will all hear your prayer. I love you dear Sacred Heart, please hear my prayer.

Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in thee.

Anon

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COOKING MARIE McGUIRK

‘One Pot Wonders’ As the cold winds of October blow I think some ‘One pot Wonders’ would keep the chill at bay! I am also including an unusual yet delicious cake, which could be used at Halloween instead of the traditional brack!

BEEF AND GUINNESS CASSEROLE

700gms/11/2lb beef 6oz lean bacon, cubed 1lb shallots or small onions 3 cloves garlic 1 bouquet garni 1 tbsp sugar, salt and pepper, basil and parsley 1 tbsp butter 2 tbsp flour 1 tbsp wine or cider vinegar 1 small bottle of stout 1 pint beef stock METHOD n Sauté the beef and bacon in a little oil. Drain off the excess liquid. n Remove the meat and set aside. Add the butter to the pan and melt. Stir in the flour to make a roux. Gradually stir in the stout and half the stock. n Place the meat and the small onions (peeled) in a deep casserole dish and season with the salt, pepper and herbs. n Crush the garlic and add to the ingredients. Sprinkle the sugar on top and pour in the sauce. n Cover and place in the oven.

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Cook very gently for 2 hours at 150°C/300°F/Gas 3 until the meat is cooked. n Check occasionally. If the casserole seems to be drying a little you can add some more of the beef stock. Remove from the oven and serve with mashed potatoes and carrots.

SPICY LAMB CASSEROLE

500gms/1lb minced lamb 2 tbsps vegetable oil 1 onion peeled and sliced 1 red pepper, seeds removed and sliced 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 small chilli, seeds removed and finely chopped 1 courgette, cubed 1 level tbsp mild curry paste or powder 1 tbsp plain flour 500ml/1 pint chicken or lamb stock 75g/3oz block of creamed coconut grated or 1 tin coconut milk Seasoning METHOD n Heat some oil in a casserole and fry the lamb in batches until brown. n Add the onions, pepper, ginger and chilli to the casserole, sauté for a few minutes and then add the flour, spices and seasoning.

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n Gradually add the stock and bring to boil. n Return the lamb to the casserole along with the courgette and stir in the grated coconut (small tin of coconut milk may be added instead of creamed coconut) n Cover the casserole and cook at 160ºC/325ºF/Gas 3 for 45 mins or until meat is cooked.

Add more stock during cooking if necessary. n Skim the top of casserole before serving and adjust seasoning.

HALLOWEEN CAKE

200g/8oz soft brown sugar 6 fluid oz of rapeseed oil 3 eggs, separated 200g/8oz self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda ½ tsp cinnamon 100g/4oz mixed sultanas and cranberries

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125g/5oz grated raw or vacuum packed beetroot 75g/3oz ground linseed, pumpkin and sunflower seeds Ice with an icing made from 100g/4oz icing sugar and lemon juice Poppy seeds METHOD n Whisk the egg whites until thick but not stiff. n In a separate bowl whisk the oil and sugar together and then add the egg yolks one at a time. n Fold in the fruit and seeds, followed by the flour, raising agents and spice. n Mix well before folding in the whipped egg whites gently. n Pour this mix into a lined 3lb loaf tin and bake for 55mins to 1 hour in a preheated oven.

160°C/325°F/Gas 4. n Allow to cool in tin and then ice with lemon icing. Sprinkle with poppy seeds.

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The prize is €100 for the first correct solution opened. Judge’s decision is final.

ENTRIES MUST REACH US BEFORE THE 24th OF THE MONTH.

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WIN €100! ADULT CROSSWORD

Send to: Adult Crossword 510, Messenger Publications, 37 Lr Leeson St, Dublin 2, Ireland

_________________________________________________

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Address: ___________________________________________

510

Name: ____________________________________________

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ACROSS 8. Starting higher leaping in the air. (7,2) 9. At no time included in one version. (5) 10. Part of body failing producing this on court. (9) 11. Hengist’s partner abhors actively participating. (5) 12. Considered studying telepathy. (7,7) 15. Dicey shape. (4) 17. Their leader spots rubbish. (5) 19. No time is lost at this. (4) 21. Of course it goes off at beginning of event. (8,6) 23. A thousand of us loved one. (5) 24. Met requirements with reservations. (9) 26. One is mistaken in this. (5) 27. Cast aspersions about sad lender. (9)

DOWN 1. Disgusted at having to leave port. (3,3) 2. Finished skillful effort with upward movement. (8) 3. Accurately hitting less than one object aimed at. (2,6) 4. Rook or another bird. (4) 5. Worker short time with a wrong mark, it’s a deadly disease. (7) 6. Dislike remarkable rise in river. (8) 7. Big depression forming dividing line in Scotland. (5,4) 13. Curiously want to start groaning giving nasal sound. (5) 14. Creakiest crazy performer at the rink.

(3,6) 16. Endless fire on railway depicted in heraldry. (8) 18. Crack above the forehead. (8) 19. It’s incongruous not having crib. (3,2,3) 20. Mix small things and cook rapidly in pan. (4,3) 22. Hear one coming first with German songs. (6) 25. Resembling sin? (4)

www.messenger.ie Name: ______________________________________________

Address: _____________________________________________

Send to: October Crossword, Messenger Publications, 37 Lr Leeson St, Dublin 2, Ireland

ACROSS 1. Money (4) 3. Cheaper than new (4) 7. Place near Israel (9) 8. The postman knows everyone’s­­___(7) 12. If this breaks when you skydive, you’re in real trouble (9) 14. Something you can tell by your watch (4) 15. A nice material to make pen tips (4)

___________________________________________________

CHILDREN’S CROSSWORD: WIN €30!

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DOWN 1. Worn by wizards (4) 2. Healthy lunch, usually cold (5) 4. What you do in snow (3) 5. Bambi was one(4) 6. Big bird with his head in the sand (7) 9. Makes everything yummier (5) 10. Good name for a dalmation (4) 11. A bike would not be comfy without one (4) 13. Part of a wheel that’s not rubber (3)

JULY CROSSWORD SOLUTIONS & WINNERS

We regret that there was a misprint in the clues for the July crossword. The following correction applies: 1 Across. Go into prayer-book for natural source of energy (5,5) 7 Across. Greek god returned by canal (4)

ADULT CROSSWORD

ACROSS: 1.Prime mover; 7.Suez; 9.Daffodil; 10.Troupe; 11.Cheque card; 14.Befallen; 15.Hammer; 16.Judder; 18.Homesick; 20.Painkiller; 23.Odette; 24.Decorous; 25.Worn; 26.Toy soldier.

DOWN: 2.Real; 3.Muff; 4.Medical; 5.Villein; 6.Retouch; 7.Scotch mist; 8.Experience; 12.Get-up-and-go; 13.Paddington; 17.Raiment; 18.Holiday; 19.Morocco; 21.Brad; 22.Cute.

ADULT CROSSWORD WINNER: James C McGarry, Drumcondra, Dublin 9

CHILDREN’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS: 1.Hostage; 7.Las; 8.Mumps; 9.Rise; 10.Epic; 13.Dizzy; 15.iii; 16.Boycott.

DOWN: 2.Oasis; 3.Tame; 4.Gum; 5.Florida; 6.Psychic; 11.Paint; 12.Sync; 14.Zoo. CHILDREN’S CROSSWORD WINNERS: Róisín O’Neill, Oola, Co Tipperary; Jessica Leane, Lismore Lawn, Waterford COMPETITION WINNERS: Luke McCann, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh; Cian Doherty, Lisburn, Co Antrim

COMPLETE THE GRID SO THAT EACH ROW, EACH COLUMN AND EACH 3X3 BOX HAS THE NUMBERS 1-9

8 9 2 6 6 3 2 7 3 5 4 9 7 7 6 9 8 1 6 7 1 3 9 1 5 2 8 6 8 2 7

A nurse walked into a busy doctor’s surgery and said, ‘Doctor, the invisible man is here.’

The doctor said, ‘Sorry, I can’t see him.’

What did one autumn leaf say to the other?

‘I’m falling for you.’

CHAPTER 2

SARAH’S NUMBERS

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by Ciarán Bartlett

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SCARED

Twanky and Hassie glared at each other.

Fear took over and in a panic they each crashed silently into the nearest hidey-holes. Twanky crawled under a forgotten quilt, while Hassie changed shape and zipped himself into a musty bookcase.

The door at the top of the attic stairs was closed. They waited, both knowing that they were superspooked by whoever it was coming closer and closer with every dull thud on the steps.

Hassie’s face would have turned white if he wasn’t already a ghost.

Twanky’s would have been scrunched up in terror if he wasn’t already a monster.

The handle rattled. Hinges squeaked as the heavy oak door was gingerly opened. Twanky lost count of how many Hail Mary’s he had said.

He was positively shaking under the quilt, a terrible place to hide for someone afraid of the dark. Hassie noticed that Twanky was going to give them away. Just as he tried to tell Twanky to pack it in, the door was fully open and he was forced to stay still in his bookcase.

OCTOBER CHILDREN’S COMPETITION: DRAW OR PAINT A PICTURE AND WIN €30 THE BEST 3 ENTRIES EACH RECEIVE A PRIZE OF €30

TOPIC: In Autumn

October Competitions, Young Readers’ Pages, The Sacred Heart Messenger, 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, or your scanned entries by email to competitions@messenger.ie *Remember: entries for all competitions – including the crossword – must reach us no later than 24th of the Month.

Please remember to include your age.

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DYCATS

A draught blew in through the room and Twanky knew the door was wide open now. He bit his huge wonky bottom lip and sat still.

‘Hello?’

The voice was high pitched and innocent. Twanky couldn’t see and Hassie couldn’t bear to look, his fear of humans becoming so great that he was hardly breathing.

‘Hello? I know there’s somebody up here, I could hear you talking.’

A few more footsteps. Twanky and Hassie knew that whoever was haunting them was now standing in the middle of the room.

‘I’m telling my dad there’s somebody up here if you don’t come out right now!’

Hassie kept still, eyes shut. The possibility of having to move house on account of people was just unacceptable. Twanky, on the other hand, was confused in his anxiety and began considering giving up the monster life. He couldn’t think straight in the darkness under the quilt and he wondered if this ‘dad’ would consider hiring him on as a butler.

‘I’m going to tell my dad then.’

Just as they heard another few footsteps going back towards the door, Twanky made the miraculously daft decision of casting off his quilt and saying in his most posh and well-to-do voice ‘I wish to become your housekeeper.’

The little boy that had been

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tormenting them was about nine. He was short, had glasses on his face and a chocolate bar in his hand. When he saw Twanky, he froze and didn’t make a sound.

Hassie was losing his mind. He couldn’t believe Twanky had just stepped out into the open. What’s more, the human boy in front of them hadn’t screamed and run away.

The boy was either extremely smart, or extremely stupid.

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MESSAGE OF JOY ATHLONE 2015 SARAH BRADY

Going Home on Wings!

Our Staff Top, left and right: Ken Rue, Leslie Rue and Bríd Tynan at one of the registration desks, with Victoria Taylor and Vera Casey at the other.

Centre left and right: Sarah Brady and Caitríona Maher, ready for the day ahead; Elizabeth Foley, well-known to our promoters, chatting with Bernard McGuckian SJ, a speaker.

Bottom left and right: Bríd and Leslie working at the very popular book shop. Gaye Adams makes our promoters and readers welcome in the bright and airy coffee room.

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n Saturday June 27th, The Sacred Heart Messenger staff and writers welcomed over 120 readers and promoters of the Messenger to the beautiful Radisson Blu hotel in Athlone, on the banks of the Shannon, in the heart of Ireland.

The occasion in question was the first ‘Message of Joy’ – a

day of talks, demonstrations and quiet prayer – planned as an opportunity for the staff, writers of the magazine, and the Jesuits to meet the readers and promoters of the Messenger. Many have been promoting the Messenger for over 50 years and their dedication is crucial to the survival of the magazine.

After months of planning and

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I OCTOBER 2015 Speakers Top left: Elizabeth Foley rings the bell before introducing Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Rev Francis Duffy.

Top right: Rev Francis Duffy starts the day with a prayer.

Middle left: John Looby SJ, editor of Messenger, welcomes all to ‘Message of Joy’.

Middle centre: Brian Grogan SJ, the first speaker in the main conference room.

Middle right: Angela Marson.

Bottom left: Marie McGuirk Bottom right: Eileen Kane Below: Helen Dillon

preparation, the Messenger staff began greeting the first of their eager visitors before 9am on Saturday. As well as Jesuit and Sacred Heart themed meeting rooms, there was a lovely coffee room with big glass windows taking in a spectacular view of the river and castle. Here readers and staff had an opportunity to relax

Photographs: Paula Nolan

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Mass Top left: outgoing and incoming editors of Messenger, John Looby SJ and Donal Neary SJ. Top right and bottom left: Mass.

Bottom right: Messenger Publications manager, Cecilia West, and Customer Advisor, Frances Kelliher say goodbye to our guests as we present everyone with a scroll.

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and mingle after registration, before the official proceedings began at 10am.

Elizabeth Foley, a well-known name to promoters, greeted the crowd and introduced Most Rev Francis Duffy, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, who read the opening prayer before handing over to the editor of Messenger, John Looby SJ, who welcomed all assembled.

He in turn introduced popular Messenger author Fr Brian Grogan SJ, who delivered his cheerful and insightful address, entitled ‘Celebrating You!’ Subsequent talks in the main conference area included spiritual companion and retreat-giver Angela Marson’s, ambiguously yet appropriately titled, ‘Sign-

posts in the Dark’. Here Angela dealt, in a deeply personal way, with a topic close to the heart of many Messenger readers – how to pass on the faith to younger generations, and how to cope when your loved ones do not share your faith. In the context of planting the seeds of faith in a new generation, Angela finished with the appropriate words: ‘Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap: judge it by the seeds you sow.’

Fr Bernard McGuckian SJ, director of the Apostleship of Prayer, delivered a talk on devotion to the Sacred Heart, reminding the crowd of the story of the young sister, Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus revealed his heart.

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Messenger favourites Eileen Kane and Helen Dillon, gave illustrated talks on ‘The Sistine Chapel’, and ‘Keeping Colour in your Garden’, respectively.

Messenger cookery writer, Marie McGuirk, gave two demonstrations, to eager audiences, on making imaginative salads and salsas.

Besides the main talks, the guests very much enjoyed a visit to the prayer room, either for quiet personal prayer or for one of the four guided prayer sessions. Another popular session was the promoter’s workshop run by incoming Messenger Editor, Fr Donal Neary SJ, which afforded promoters the opportunity to share with others their

experiences of promoting the Messenger.

The day ended with Mass, enhanced by the beautiful music of the local choir. Long-standing promoters were presented with gold and silver pins in honour of twenty-five and fifty years service, and all participants were presented with a souvenir scroll to take home.

Feedback from guests on the experience throughout the day was extremely positive, with one lady declaring she was ‘going home on wings’!

Both organisers and attendees hope that this very special day marks the beginning of an annual tradition. See you there next year!

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Presentation of Gold and Silver pins Gold pins, for 50+ years promoting the Messenger, and silver pins for 25+ years were presented by John Looby SJ immediately after Mass.

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SPLENDOURS OF THE FAITH RAY MOLONEY SJ

Son of the Living God

This article is the fourth in a series which will go through some of the main truths of the faith, seeing how they reveal to us the wonders of God’s love and compassion.

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‘Who is Christ actually for us today?’ That question was posed by a famous Christian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he faced execution for his resistance to the Nazis. It is a question which the great atheistic movements of our time, Nazism, Communism, and secularism have tried to suppress, but the question will not go away. How could it, given that in one form or another, Christianity is still the largest religion on earth?

Jesus could not have so conquered hearts, if there were not something both intensely human and yet more than human in this man. Here we begin to approach something of his inner secret – something made known ‘not by flesh and blood but by my Father who is in heaven’. It is the secret expressed in the words of the gospel: he is ‘the Son of the living God’ (Mt 16:13-20).

THE SON OF GOD The expression ‘son of God’ was often used in the Bible referring to people, even to angels, as special friends of God. When this title began to be applied to Jesus in the New Testament,

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at first it was not very clearly distinguished from its traditional usage, but in time the disciples came to see that it applied to Jesus in a way that it applied to no one else, either before or since. Eventually, the Church came to express the difference by saying that, if others are the sons of God by adoption, Jesus is Son of God by nature.

Probably this realisation came about only gradually among the disciples. A key event that helped them to cross the gulf which this distinction implied, was the resurrection of Christ.

As that was an absolutely unique event, so it pointed to something absolutely unique in the way Jesus was related to the Father, and the Father to him, and both to the world. Of no other figure in human history can it be said that he rose from the dead in the way it is said about Jesus.

In our lives we are confined to a particular time and place.

For good or ill, these limitations restrict our influence on others.

From the moment when Jesus rolled back the stone at his tomb, he was no longer limited in this way. He rose into the lives of each of us, especially of those

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who believe in him and love him; and through them he continues his work in the world. His ministry is not over. On that first Easter morning, his world-wide work was only beginning to get under way, and ever since it has been growing more and more.

AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER For centuries the Jews had proclaimed with all the certainty of divine faith that God is one.

It was a point that marked them out from all others. To tell them that God had a Son, a second divine person at the right hand of the Father, shattered their traditional sense of the divine and

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indeed their sense of their own identity as believers.

For most of them this was simply a bridge too far, a bridge that these witnesses of the crucifixion could come to cross only as a result of another experience that shattered them in yet another way. That was what happened when they met Jesus on the morning of his resurrection, and ate and drank with their risen Saviour (Acts 10:41). The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was the crossing-point to the fundamental belief of Christians that Jesus is the Son of God and that only in his name can we find life (Acts 4:12).

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IN HIS MASTER’S FOOTSTEPS JOHN MURRAY PP

Gaudi: An Architect Inspired by God

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Barcelona! The very name inspires. For those who love football, the city’s natural first association is with ‘the beautiful game’. A visit to the Nou Camp is essential for any fan, and yet in a city of nearly two million people, it is not the secular skyscrapers and football stadia that dominate the skyline, but a church, which has been a hundred years in the making and is still not finished. The church of La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family), begun in the 19th century, should be completed by the year 2050.

Today it may seem like football ‘blasphemy’, but a hundred years from now the name of Antoni Gaudi will be better known than Lionel Messi, in the city to which the former has given so much beauty, even if the latter has brought more recent joy.

The most famous architect of the 20th century was born in Reus in the Tarragona province of Catalonia, 80km south of Barcelona. After enduring a childhood troubled by rheumatism, the son of two coppersmiths travelled to the Catalan capital to enrol as a student at the Escola Tecnica Superior d’Arquitectura, where he duly studied from 1873 to 1877. Even then his professors did not quite know

what to make of his work, and when he was awarded the title of architect in 1878, Elies Rogent, the director of the school, declared: ‘Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius? Time will tell.’

Yet between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. With his passion for his native Catalonia and his love of nature and above all his love for his faith, Gaudi married all of these strains into his work and has left behind many wonderful and exciting buildings in his beloved city and the surrounding area.

Rogent would no doubt have altered his valedictory words although, to be fair, the student Gaudi obtained average grades and occasionally failed courses.

Perhaps Gaudi is a lesson for all teachers to try to recognise the pearl within the shell who might sit before them.

To some Gaudi’s life might seem strange, but like many artists he was totally involved in his work. Apparently he was only attracted to one woman, Josefa, who was a teacher, but the attraction was not reciprocated.

Thereafter he took refuge in his Catholic faith, which remained strong throughout his life. He

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was devout and frequently – almost daily – attended Mass before beginning his day’s work.

Above all, it is the great Church of the Holy Family with which he will always be associated. Pope Benedict XVI visited the city of Barcelona on November 7th 2010, and dedicated the church and the altar, something that was unusual in that it was not yet complete. Originally, the church had been proposed by a group called the Devotees of St Joseph and the theme of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus and the Holy family features strongly throughout. These ‘founders’ had wanted to set before the world at the time the themes of love, work and service as lived in the presence of God. Pope Benedict remarked in his sermon that Gaudi when faced

by many seemingly impossible problems would state ‘Saint Joseph will finish this church.’

Pope Benedict added in his sermon during the dedication Mass ‘the genius of Antoni Gaudi, inspired by the ardour of his Christian faith, succeeded in raising this sanctuary as a hymn of praise to God carved in stone.

A praise of God, which as with the birth of Christ, has had as its protagonists the most humble and simple of people. In effect, Gaudi, through his work, sought to bring the gospel to everyone.

For this reason he conceived of the three porticos of the exterior of the church as a catechesis on the life of Jesus Christ, as a great rosary, which is the prayer of ordinary people, a prayer in which are contemplated the joyful, sorrowful and glorious

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mysteries of our Lord.’

Pope Benedict continued: ‘in collaboration with the parish priest, Gil Pares, he also designed and financed from his own savings the creation of a school for the children of the workers and of the poorest families in the neighbourhood, which was at that time an outlying suburb of Barcelona. He brought concrete reality to the conviction saying, ‘the poor must always find a welcome in the Church, which is an expression of Christian charity.’

The young Gaudi liked his costly suits and his wellgroomed hair and beard. He enjoyed the trappings of his profession and his increasing fame. But the older Gaudi – more conscious of gospel simplicity and totally absorbed in his ‘project’ – dressed frugally and neglected his appearance so much so that when he was knocked down by a tram in 1926 no one recognised him. By the

time the chaplain of the Sagrada Familia came, it was too late for any serious medical intervention.

He died on June 10th at the age of 73 and was buried two days later. A huge crowd attended the funeral, which took place in the crypt of the great cathedral, which he had begun to build.

Those who might be surprised at the length of time the Sagrada is in the building can be reminded that St Peter’s in Rome took over 120 years from start to finish.

Many of the mediaeval cathedrals of Europe were the same.

As Pope Francis, the Synod Bishops and advisors (women and married couples among them) gather in Rome this October, may we support them with our prayers. As they reflect on the ‘Role of the Family in the Work of Evangelisation Today’, may they be inspired – like Gaudi – to create a lasting monument in the spirit to the great gift of the family by God to the human race.

In Loving Memory

The names sent to us of all those who have died are entered on our

List of the Dead.

They are placed on the Sacred Heart Altar in our oratory and remain there for two months. Every Wednesday a Mass is offered specially for them, that they may have eternal rest with the Lord, and that their families and friends may be consoled in their loss.

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SERIAL STORY PART 7 ANNE MARIE KENNEDY

Esker Road : A Prayer for Paddy The story so far: The community on Esker Road are a little wary of Ingram, the new tenant in the cottage of recently deceased bachelor Paddy McCarthy. But when the inquisitive Eileen pays a visit to the scholar, and he offers to help her finally learn to read, it appears the stranger isn’t so bad after all…

‘Eileen was always giddy, nervy or something, not able to settle for any length of time,’ Tom said, when he met Ingram on the road.

‘She’s a restless soul alright,’ said Ingram, ‘but that may not be a bad thing, especially as she gets older. With all the walking and cycling she does she is very fit, so she will probably not have any major health issues. She finds it hard to sit still at the lessons though, but I’m prepared to give it another few tries.’

Mary often made bread for Ingram or an apple tart. One of the days she called she mentioned the Stations Mass. He was honest about it, said as he was renting, maybe it would be acceptable not to be part of the custom. Mary respected that and invited him to theirs the following October. His response was non-committal.

On one of his trips to Dublin, Ingram bought a jigsaw map of Ireland, the county names were colour-coded, the letters bright and bold. He had a flip chart and he wrote the name of every per-

son in the village in huge letters until Eileen started to recognise them. He got a multi-coloured box of letters from a friend in England and he borrowed the high infant’s reading books from Mrs Murphy in the national school.

Fergus Broderick lived in Galway city and he bought baby blocks, as they were called, wooden blocks with letters on them in pastel colours. Eileen could identify a few simple words from the previous attempts at teaching.

She recognised food labels, road signs and car registration plates, familiar words that she encountered every day.

One Saturday morning she was more edgy than usual.

‘I’m sick of these lessons,’ she said, shoving a box of wooden letters across the table, ‘and what good is reading anyway?’

‘Do you realise, Eileen, that if you can read, you will write, wouldn’t you like that?’ She was pensive then, walked across the room and looked out the small window.

‘I could write a Lord hear us for Paddy.’

‘A Lord hear us?’ Ingram asked with puzzlement.

‘You know. Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us. Do you not know that?’

‘Is it from the Mass?’

‘A course it is. Will you help me make one?’

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‘I will, but first we must spend one hour a week doing what we’ve been doing with the letters, arranging them into words, then sentences...’

‘I hate that part. Can you just write it for me and I’ll learn it off?’

‘I could but I won’t.’

‘I’m going home so.’

‘Please yourself, Eileen, but if you meet me halfway here, I bet I can teach you to read and to write that prayer. Please.’

‘You don’t even know what a Lord hear us is, do you?’

‘I know it’s a prayer, but I haven’t been to Church in a while. I used to be a practising Catholic, but I lapsed a few years ago.’

‘What’s lapsed?’

‘It’s when a person gives up on something.’

‘Like me and the bleddy socks.

I’m a lapsed heel-turner.’

Six months after the lessons began, in October 1982, the O’Neill’s were hosting the Stations mass. Eileen could hardly sit still waiting for evening to come when the neighbours would gather. Mary told Father Michael that Eileen had a prayer to read.

She would not let anyone see it, kept it in her cardigan pocket, constantly taking it out to read and folding it up again.

Father Michael arrived, unpacked his case on to the makeshift altar in the parlour, counted the hands for Holy Communion and put on his vestments. The neighbours were commenting on the photograph of John Paul II, which Mary hung over the mantelpiece, when Ingram came

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in the back door.

Rita Mooney said the first Prayer of the Faithful, Mary O’Neill the second and Eileen the third. She stood up and with trembling hands held the worn piece of paper in front of her face and spoke very slowly.

‘Dear Paddy, we-think-of-youtonight-at-the Stations Mass,’ she stopped, looked around the room, flustered. Ingram said, ‘Darkie...’ and she continued, ‘Darkie is great, the cats love Maisie. I hope you are happy in Heaven. Lord Hear us.’

‘Lord graciously hear us,’ everyone answered in one supportive voice. Eileen sat down, beaming and shaking. After the final blessing Father Michael asked for a round of applause for a teacher and student who made that particular Stations Mass unique and memorable.

Eileen is sixty now. She cannot remember not being able to read and write. She has no patience for novels but reads Ireland’s Own, Woman’s Way and The Sacred Heart Messenger from cover to cover. She writes and recites poetry to her grandnieces, enjoys crosswords and Sudoku.

She writes a monthly letter to Ingram at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

A very refined English lady bought Paddy’s house as a holiday home. They say Mikeen Delaney drank the price of it in a year, before he died of liver failure, destitute, in the County Home.

THE END

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Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

The Divine Wedding

Isaiah has an image of God’s joy being like a bridegroom over his bride. It is a divine joy about us! But, strangely, the bride had been like a forsaken wasteland. It is so real. There is a tired self that cannot open the door to joy. Then God has not only to knock, but to push the door. Desolation is dissolved ‘like snow in May’ (Herbert) by the surprise of the Gift.

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ISSN 1649-4450

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