Reality June 2016

RAMADAN MUSLIM MONTH OF FASTING

JULIAN OF NORWICH OPTIMIST AND MYSTIC

A STAR CONFINED INTO A TOMB POETRY AND THE COSMIC CHRIST

Informing, Inspiring, Challenging Today’s Catholic

JUNE 2016

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Redemptorist Solemn Novenas to our Mother of Perpetual Help June 2016

ESKER NOVENA

Tuesday June 7 - Wednesday June 15, 2016 Daily Sessions at Esker Monastery:

8.00am, 10.00am, 4.00pm, 6.00pm, 8.00pm & 10.00pm Sessions for Sunday June 12:

8.00am, 10.00am, 12.00noon, 4.30pm, 6.00pm & 8.00pm

Novena Sessions at Athenry: Weekdays 10.00am, Sunday June 12 at 11.00am Blessing of Babies & Children will take place after each Mass on Sunday June 12 Novena session for the Sick & the Infirm: Saturday, June 11 at 12 noon

CLONARD NOVENA

Wednesday June 15 - Thursday June 23, 2016 Daily Sessions:

6.45am, 8.15am, 9.30am, 11.00am, 12.45pm, 4.30pm, 6.00pm, 7.30pm, 9.00pm, 10.30pm (The Candlelight Session - except Saturday & Sunday) Novena times for Saturday & Sunday, June 18 & 19

6.45am, 8.15am, 9.30am, 11.00am, 12.45pm, 3.00pm, 4.30pm 6.00pm, 7.30pm, Novena Session with Sign Language each day at 4.30pm Novena session for the Sick & the Infirm: Saturday, June 18, at 11.00am, 12.45pm & 3.00pm Blessing of babies & young children - Sunday June 19 at 3.00pm without Mass Special Youth session with Mass on Sunday June 19 at 7.30pm The Sacrament of Reconciliation (No Masses) will be celebrated on Friday, June 17 at 9.30am, 4.30pm, 6.00pm & 9.00pm

For more information/to see the novena go to: www.clonard.com

LIMERICK NOVENA

Friday June 17 - Saturday June 25, 2016 Daily Sessions (including Sunday):

7.00am, 8.00am, 10.00am, 11.30am, 1.10pm, 4.30pm, 6.00pm, 7.30pm, 9.00pm, 10.30pm Novena session for the Sick & the Infirm: Saturday, June 25 at 11.30am Novena celebrations for children: Blessing of babies & young children - Sunday June 19 at 4.30pm Celebration for First Communion classes - Monday, June 20 at 11.30am

See this year’s Novena streaming live on the Internet. Go to www.novena.ie

IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE FEATURES 12 MOTHER OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR IN MOUNTJOY JAIL The story of a precious window in the Chapel of the Women’s Prison

By Margaret Ryan

19 RAMADAN The Muslim month of fasting begins on 6 June.

Fasting, including from water, is observed through the daylight hours of every day.

By Jonathan Kearney

24 A LIMINAL PLACE A word remembered from a theology course prompts a reflection on long term illness.

By Margarita Synnott

26 ARE WE TO SPEND TWO HUNDRED DAYS’ WAGES ON BREAD? By Mike Daley

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28 TEILHARD DE CHARDIN: PIONEER OF CATHOLIC EVOLUTIONISM A Jesuit priest-scientist’s theological and philosophical writings radically redefined the theory of evolution.

By Susan Gately

32 A STAR CONFINED INTO A TOMB A childhood memory leads through poetry to a recognition of the depths of the Cosmic Christ

By John F Deane

36 LOVE AND GIVING THANKS Gratitude can humble us to rediscover the richness and beauty we can take for granted

By Patrick T. Reardon

38 JULIAN OF NORWICHOPTIMIST AND MYSTIC People continue to find hope and inspiration in a medieval English mystic

By Naomi Kloss

40 AN ATTACK ON TWO FRONTS Trócaire has been working with local partners in Myanmar to strengthen civil society and ensure respect for human rights.

By Seán Farrell

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36

OPINION

REGULARS

11 BRENDAN McCONVERY CSsR

04 REALITY BITES

18 DAVID O'DONOGHUE

07 POPE MONITOR

31 CARMEL WYNNE

08 FEAST OF THE MONTH

44 PETER McVERRY SJ

09 REFLECTIONS 42 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 45 GOD’S WORD

REALITY BITES THE LIMERICK SYNOD LIMERICK

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NEW LIFE

The Diocese of Limerick held its diocesan synod from 8 to 10 April last. The director of the synod, Fr Eamonn Fitzgibbon, say sthere was a strong desire among the participants for more lay leadership in the Church. “There was clear mandate that this is the laity’s moment in the Church “, he said, “and that we are moving into an era which is really going to be a lay-led Church in terms of lay ministry, lay leadership in our parishes and our communities.”

More than a hundred proposals were voted on by the delegates, the overwhelming majority of them lay people (300 out of 400). Proposals were grouped under themes, including community and sense of belonging, pastoral care of the family, young people, liturgy and life, faith formation and education, and new models of leadership.

Bishop Brendan Leahy, who called the synod in September 2014, said that the assembly had “breathed new life into the diocese,” and that one of the key things to come out of it was a rediscovery of baptism and the priesthood of the faithful as the primary vocation of all church members. The next step will be to put together a diocesan plan and corresponding statutes that would then need to be approved by Rome.

The gathering

An official blessing from Pope Francis was presented to the Diocese of Limerick

Bishop Brendan Leahy, speaking at the end of the three day session

STAY AWAY VATICAN CITY

ARCHBISHOP JULIUSZ PAETZ formerly of Poznan

REALITY JUNE 2016

HARMFUL COMMOTION

A Polish archbishop who was forced to resigned after charges of sexually molesting seminarians, has been warned by the Vatican to stay away from public events to celebrate the eleventh centenary of Poland's conversion and the forthcoming visit of Pope Francis.

"The Holy Father decisively reiterates his invitation for you to live a life of privacy in repentance and prayer," said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican's nuncio to Poland, in a

message to Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, formerly of Poznan and released through the office of the Polish bishops. "Media news about your participation in official celebrations of the anniversary of Poland's baptism has created a new situation of unnecessary and harmful commotion for the church in Poland and the Holy See. It blatantly contradicts the instructions given you."

The archbishop had told local journalists he saw "no reason" not to take part in the celebrations.

The bishop’s press conference added that it was "hard to imagine" he could ignore the order during the pope's July 27-31 to Krakow visit for World Youth Day.

N E WS

CATHOLICS IN SPACE TEXAS PRAYER IN THE SKY On the International Space Station there’s a place, where astronauts like to hang out.

Called the Cupola, it has seven large bay windows that give crew members a panoramic view of Earth. On his first mission into space, Mike Hopkins, was amazed by what he found there. “When you see the Earth from that vantage point and see all the natural beauty that exists, it’s hard not to sit there and realize there has to be a higher power that has made this,” said Hopkins, who is a convert to Catholicism. He returned to the Copula to pray and take Communion. By arrangement with his diocese and the pastor of his home parish, he brought with him a pyx containing six consecrated hosts, each broken into four, so he was able to take communion each Sunday of the twenty-four weeks he was on the space station. On two occasions, he and another astronaut had to make a spacewalk to change a pump module. Before exiting the craft, he took Communion as well.

Such practices of faith, among Catholics and astronauts of other faiths are not unusual.

In 1994, astronauts Sid Gutierrez, Thomas Jones and Kevin Chilton, an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, celebrated a Communion service on the shuttle flight deck 125 miles above the Pacific Ocean. On long-term missions to the space station, their schedules usually give astronauts blocks of private time daily, allowing them to pray, read the Bible, write in a journal or reflect on God. Mike Hopkins used some of his time to keep up with the Sunday readings and his pastor’s weekly homily, both of which he received via email from the support person for his family assigned by NASA, who was a member of his parish.

Astronaut Mike Good, a member of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Nassau Bay, Texas, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and a veteran of two space flights, spent about 12 days on each of his missions aboard the space shuttle.

Taking Communion into space, he said, was not so imperative on a short mission, but “if I was going to do a six-month expedition on the ISS, I would talk to my priest and figure out what we were going to do.”

From another perspective, Good, 53, and retired astronaut Mike Massimino, 54, said that the opportunity to fly in space offered

time to reflect on creation as they gazed upon the spaceship called Earth. Good, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, expects that when the moment of launch comes, there’s a feeling of connection with God or a higher power among just about everyone heading to space. Heading out to the launch-pad is like being in a foxhole,” he said. “There’s not a lot of atheists in a foxhole.

I don’t think there’s many atheists sitting atop the launch-pad.”

Another Catholic astronaut, Mark Vande Hei, 49, is preparing for his first mission to the ISS next March. He said he has talked a bit with his Catholic colleagues about what to expect. For now, his spiritual preparation remains the same with daily prayer and regular Mass attendance at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Nassau Bay. “I pray the rosary while walking the dog,” he added.

To keep astronauts’ spirits high, NASA arranges for occasional calls with celebrities on flights and asks each astronaut with whom they might like to talk. Vande Hei suggested Pope Francis. His request may not be outside the realm of possibility as Pope Benedict communicated with the crew aboard the ISS in May 2011 in a 20-minute conversation.

Karen Nyberg in the 'Cupola'

ASTRONAUT MIKE HOPKINS Practising Catholic in space

The International Space Station

Mike at work

continued on page 6

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REALITY BITES IS ITALY LOOSING THE FAITH? Italy has been traditionally considered a Catholic country, but a poll taken on behalf of the left-wing newspaper L’Unita on March 29 last, questions that assumption. On a sample of 1,500 respondents, 50% described themselves as Catholic, a further 13% as Christian, while 4 percent said they were Orthodox or Protestant, 2 per cent described themselves

KING ABDULLAH TO HELP FUND HOLY SEPULCHRE RESTORATION

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King Abdullah of Jordan has offered to contribute to the restoration of the centrepiece of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The gesture by a Muslim ruler has been widely welcomed.

According to the Jordan News Agency, Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Theophilos III, praised the King's generosity and said he embodied "in deed, and not only in word, the shared living of Muslims and Christians all over the world and particularly in the Holy Land".The Catholic Church's patriarchal vicar, Bishop William Shomali described it as "excellent news and news of a highly symbolic character, since the Holy Sepulchre is the most sacred place for Christians of all confessions."

The Kingdom of Jordan is one of the few places in the Middle East where Christians feel relatively secure. Before the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Christian Holy Places were in Jordanian territory. The King’s uncle, Prince Hassan, was taught French by some of the Dominican fathers attached to the École Biblique.

Insert –King Abdullah

REALITY JUNE 2016

as Buddhist, 1 percent as Jewish and 1 percent as Muslim. Twenty percent said they were atheist and another 8 percent described themselves as religiously unaffiliated. Enzo Risso, research director of the company that carried out the poll, commented that Italy has witnessed a weakening of religious faith over the past 20 years, and a growing trend toward personal spiritual inquiry. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said they did not feel part of a

religious community: of those, some said they believed in destiny, horoscopes, reincarnation, Tarot readings and miracle cures.

Monsignor Bruno Forte, archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, theologian and adviser to the pope, described the data as “worrying but not surprising.” “It is not that those who do not believe in God don’t believe in anything,” he said. “On the contrary, they risk believing in everything, as a ‘surrogate’ to faith.”

ABANDONING THE THEOLOGY OF “JUST WAR”?

A major Catholic conference held in Rome in April of this year and sponsored by the Vatican’s Justice and Peace office and Pax Christi International, a leading Catholic peace movement, has asked whether the time has come to abandon the theory that a “just war” is possible. Speakers at the conference said that too often the doctrine had been used to justify and endorse military action rather than prevent it.

Catholic moral theologians have long allowed for “just wars,” or the use of force to stop an unjust aggression, as long as certain conditions were met. They included that peaceful means to prevent the evil have been exhausted, the force is proportionate to the goal to be achieved, that it won’t produce worse effects, particularly among noncombatants and that there is a reasonable chance for success.

Participants at the conference called for the church to no longer use or teach “just war” theory, and to develop instead a new peacemaking framework consistent with Gospel’s teaching on nonviolence, and recommended that Francis articulate this in a new encyclical. “The time has come for our church to be a living witness and to invest far greater human and financial resources in promoting a spirituality and practice of active nonviolence and in forming and training our Catholic communities in effective nonviolent practices,” the statement said.

Like his predecessors, Pope Francis condemned wars and appeals for peaceful ends to conflicts around the globe. He has also said it is “licit to stop the unjust aggressor,” but if military action is judged necessary, it must be endorsed by the international community.

N E WS

POPE MONITOR KEEPING UP WITH POPE FRANCIS THE JOYS OF LOVE Introducing Pope Francis’s document, Amoris Laetita, on the Synod on the Family published on 8 April, Cardinal Christopher Schönborn summarised the document as guided by the phrase, ‘“It is a matter of reaching out to everyone,” as this is a fundamental understanding of the Gospel: we are all in need of mercy! “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.”’ We are all journeying, the Cardinal continued, regardless of the marriage or family situation in which we find ourselves. Even a marriage in which everything is “going well” is journeying.

In this document, he said, Pope Francis wished to speak about all situations without cataloguing them or putting them into boxes, looking at them instead with the fundamental benevolence of the heart of God or with the eyes of Jesus that exclude no-one. Some people, the Cardinal went on, might be troubled by this principle of ‘inclusion,’ lest it imply a certain relativism by which mercy becomes confused with ‘permissiveness?’ “Does this exhortation favour a certain laxity,” he asked, a sense that “anything goes,” that fails to see that Jesus’ mercy sometimes is often severe and demanding? While the pope makes it clear that the Christian vision of marriage and family has an unchanged force of attraction, it also demands what he called “a healthy dose of self-criticism,” that is willing to acknowledge how the Church’s presentation of its vision and its treatment of people have contributes to the present situation. “We have proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families,” he said. “This excessive idealization, especially when we have failed to inspire trust in God’s grace, has not helped to make marriage more desirable and attractive, but quite the opposite” Much media speculation prior to the document’s publication was preoccupied with whether it would bring about any change in the discipline of admitting the invalidly married, including the divorced, to Holy Communion. There is no easy solution to this problem, as Pope Benedict XVI had already made clear. Pope Francis makes equally clear the need for careful discernment of each and every individual case, since discernment of this kind can sometimes find ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits. “He does not offer us case studies or recipes,” said Cardinal Schönborn, but simply reminds us of two of his most quoted phrases: “I want to remind priests that the confessional should not be a torture chamber but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” and the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” Guided by such insights, the Church’s ministry to people in difficult marriage situations might become more creative.

PAPAL VISIT TO REFUGEES

Pope Francis welcomes his Syrian guests

Pope Francis' five-hour visit to Greece on 16 April, ended with him offering safe passage to Italy to twelve Syrian Muslims, half of them under the age of 18. The Vatican had kept secret the pope's plan to invite the members of three Syrian families to fly back to Rome. Rumours began circulating in the Greek media a couple of hours before the flight took off, but it was confirmed by the Vatican only as the 12 were boarding the papal plane.

The Vatican Secretariat of State had made formal arrangements with the Italian and the Greek governments for the legal papers they needed to live in Italy. The Vatican will assume financial responsibility for them and they will assisted by members of the Community of Sant'Egidio.

Earlier in the day, along with the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Archbishop Ieronymos, Metropolitan of Athens and all Greece, Pope Francis visited the refugee camps and heard some of the horrifying stories of their flight from their homelands.

At the harbour of Mytilene, the church leaders offered prayers for those who have died crossing the Mediterranean and blessed laurel wreaths that were tossed into the sea in their memory.

Recognizing the generosity and sacrifice of the Greek government and Greek people, who had tried to assist hundreds of thousands of refugees despite their own severe economic crisis, the pope told them, “You are guardians of humanity for you care with tenderness for the body of Christ, who suffers in the least of his brothers and sisters, the hungry and the stranger, whom you have welcomed.” Since January last, according to the International Organization for Migration, more than 150,000 migrants and refugees landed in Greece, and 366 people died attempting to cross the Aegean Sea. "Wake us from the slumber of indifference," the pope prayed, "open our eyes to their suffering and free us from the insensitivity born of world comfort and self-centeredness." In his prayer, Pope Francis insisted that "we are all migrants, journeying in hope" toward God in heaven.

Later on his Twitter account, Pope Francis tweeted a message that summed up the visit: “Refugees are not numbers, they are people who have faces, names, stories, and need to be treated as such.”

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FEAST OF THE MONTH BL. MARGARET BALL AND IRISH MARTYRS June 20

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While the Protestant Reformation took place in the 16th century, it was preceded by a hundred years and more of tensions, disease, and an ever-rising clamour for reform building up inside that fragile hold-all which we speak of as Christendom. Repeated appeals for reform fell upon deaf ears until the sound of Martin Luther’s hammering on the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg in 1517 reached Rome. That sound sent Christian Europe into a spin from which it has only partially recovered.

Like so many revolutionary uprisings, the Protestant Reformation went far beyond the hopes and dreams of its originators. Before their very eyes they saw the apparently seamless robe of Christendom in tatters. In Ireland the Reformation precipitated centuries of persecution and martyrdom arising out of the fact that, while the Irish cherished the ancient faith, their political masters in London had other ideas stemming from King Henry VIII’s break with Rome. During the 16th and 17th centuries, when religious feelings were raw and at breaking point, many thousands of Irish people suffered the confiscation of their property, imprisonment and the cruel forms of death.

Not indeed that it was all a one-sided persecution. Catholics and the different forms of Protestantism each had their share of suffering and dying as martyrs for what they believed to be the truth of the Gospel.

The seventeen Irish martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1992 are representative of the thousands of others that died rather than renounce their Catholic faith. They include clergy and laity, men and women, educated and illiterate; in fact the whole gamut of church membership.

Of the seventeen beatified I have chosen Margaret Bermingham, a Kildare woman of Norman stock who in her mid-teens married Bartholomew Ball, a well-to-do Dublin merchant. Of the many children born to the couple, five – two girls and three boys - survived into adult life. The fallout from the Reformation was already making its impact on Ireland. The families of both Margaret and her husband remained deeply committed to the old faith, and did everything in their power to preserve and promote it. Like Anna in the temple, Mrs Ball never ceased pouring out her prayers and supplications before the Lord.

Meanwhile the family business prospered, and Bartholomew was elected mayor of Dublin for the year 1553-54. When he died in 1568, Margaret devoted herself even more fully to the Catholic cause in the city. She was mistress of a large household employing many servants. Margaret trained them to a high standard in their domestic duties, provided adequate religious instruction and saw to a climate which included morning and evening prayers.

She secretly harboured priests and bishops whose lives were at risk because of growing religious intolerance in government circles, and was well-known in the city for her activity on behalf of persecuted Catholics. More than once she was reported to the authorities, accused of practising the Catholic Religion, and committed to prison. In the turbulence of the time, the payment of fines or bribes or both would manage to get her release.

In 1580, however, intolerance for Catholics took a turn for the worse. Despite all her prayers and good works, Bartholomew Ball’s widow carried a very heavy cross over many years; and now that cross fell heavily on her shoulders. Her son, Walter Ball, now mayor of Dublin, was committed to the reformed faith. No amount of pleading or discussion would alter his position. As mayor of Dublin, Walter committed his widowed mother to the dungeons of Dublin Castle where she died three years later. Having been used to the high standard of living among the Dublin merchant class, she was now condemned to an underground dungeon without light or heat, without sanitation or exercise, with poor ventilation, foul air and a perpetual stench. And yet, Margaret was free to return to the comforts of her home if she would but renounce her catholic faith and swear allegiance to the Queen of England as head of the church. But that was a bridge too far. Margaret Ball died in 1584 at the age of sixty-nine.

John J. Ó Riordáin, CSsR REALITY JUNE 2016

Reality Volume 81. No. 5 June 2016 A Redemptorist Publication ISSN 0034-0960 Published by The Irish Redemptorists, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651 Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Web: www.redcoms.org Email: sales@redcoms.org (With permission of C.Ss.R.)

Editor Brendan McConvery CSsR bmcconvery@redcoms.org Design & Layout David Mc Namara CSsR dmcnamara@redcoms.org General Manager Paul Copeland pcopeland@redcoms.org Sales & Marketing Claire Carmichael ccarmichael@redcoms.org Administration & Accounts Michelle McKeon mmckeon@redcoms.org Printed by Nicholson & Bass, Belfast Photo Credits Catholic News Service, Shutterstock, synod2016.com, The Humphrey Family REALITY SUBSCRIPTIONS Through a promoter (Ireland only) €18 or £15 Annual Subscription by post: Ireland €22 or £18 UK £25 Europe €35 Rest of the world €45 Please send all payments to: Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin D09 X651 ADVERTISING Whilst we take every care to ensure the accuracy and validity of adverts placed in Reality, the information contained in adverts does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Redemptorist Communications. You are therefore advised to verify the accuracy and validity of any information contained in adverts before entering into any commitment based upon them.

When you have finished with this magazine, please pass it on or recycle it. Thank you.

REDEMPTORIST COMMUNICATIONS Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin D09 X651 Tel: 00353 (0)1 4922488 Email: sales@redcoms.org Web: www.redcoms.org

REFLECTIONS Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

JOSEPH ADDISON

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a secondrate version of somebody else.

JUDY GARLAND

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

JD SALINGER

We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.

POPE FRANCIS

Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, is also prayer by means of which you can please God our Lord.

SAINT IGNATIUS

Humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.

SIMON WIESENTHAL

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

SIMONE WEIL

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.

VINCENT VAN GOGH

Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old.

Prayer is a plant the seed of which is sown in the heart of every Christian, but its growth entirely depends on the care we take to nourish it.

CATHERINE McAULEY

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. e. e. cummings

ROWAN WILLIAMS

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Restore human legs as a means of travel. Pedestrians rely on food for fuel and need no special parking facilities.

DIETRICH BOENHOEFFER

LEWIS MUMFORD

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last few years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Silence is very important. The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

I think the Irish woman was freed from slavery by bingo. They can go out now, dressed up, with their handbags and have a drink and play bingo.

And they deserve it.

JOHN B. KEANE

Acquire inner peace and a multitude will find their salvation near you.

CATHERINE DE HUECK DOHERTY

The truth at the beating heart of monotheism is that God is greater than religion; that He is only partially comprehended by any faith. He is my God, but also your God. He is on my side, but also on your side.

He exists not only in my faith, but also in yours.

JONATHAN SACKS

Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of which you can please God our Lord.

SAINT IGNATIUS

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

CROWNING GLORY

It

started with a suggestion that it was ‘bizarre’ to ‘parade’ the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help around Ireland on the back of an ‘expensive looking truck,’ or that the message of compassion associated with the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was in short supply when it came to how the Church, and more specifically the religious orders, treated the survivors of the notorious “Mother and Baby Homes.” The priest who was there to represent the Redemptorists was asked was it not ‘bordering on a slap on the face to these women.’

This was the opening segment of the popular afternoon Irish radio programme, Liveline, that took as its topic the pilgrimage of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help around all the cathedrals of Ireland. It then went on to discuss what a caller described as a ‘huge campaign’ to collect jewellery for an ‘icon in solid gold’ encrusted with diamonds, sapphires and other precious stones. Fr Michael Cusack, the Redemptorist, added the clarification that there no such icon in the Redemptorist church in Limerick, as an icon is painted on wood with colours drawn from nature. While one can scarcely expect a phone-in programme to have done detailed preliminary research, as a listener I was left with a curious sense that the programme might actually had another, less explicit, agenda. The novel, The Go Between by the English writer LP Hartley, opens with a sentence that has been cited so often that it is now almost a cliché, yet it still holds some truth: “The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” I get the impression that some of our media commentators try hard to make even the relatively recent past of mid-twentieth century Ireland seem as remote as Cathay might have been for an armchair traveller in the eighteenth century.

Joe Duffy, the programme’s presenter, for

example, thought it ‘bizarre’ (that word again!) for a religious order to ask people to donate their jewellery to make crowns for the figures of Mary and her Son on the Limerick icon, especially in what he described as the cold grey poverty stricken landscape of 1950s Ireland.

I know little about Limerick’s campaign to collect jewellery for crowns for the icon. I am a little better informed however about an earlier campaign at Clonard Monastery in Belfast. A weekly perpetual novena had commenced in Clonard in 1943. The previous year, over one thousand civilians were killed in the Belfast blitz. The novena brought great comfort during those black years and continued to attract crowds when the war was ended. It was in this climate that it was proposed to crown the figures of the mother and child on the icon. Crowning an image in Catholic tradition is a way of showing respect and affection for it. Novena goers were invited to donate jewellery for the crowns. So much was contributed that there was enough for a chalice and monstrance for use at the morning Masses on novena days and for benediction in the evenings. As an altar-boy in Clonard, I had seen them up close and marvelled at how skilfully engagement rings and other jewellery had been incorporated into them.

Gifts to holy places are not unique to Irish Catholicism. I have seen offerings left by devotees of the god of healing in his temple in Corinth and now reposing in the archaeological museum there. It is a human instinct to say thanks in a way that is concrete and leaves a permanent trace of one’s self. Irish pilgrims gave a large gilded crown and cross to the basilica at Lourdes in 1924. An ornate monstrance was made in Ireland in 1946 for the shrine of Fatima and incorporated jewellery spontaneously offered by the faithful. Mosaics from Ireland decorate the basilicas of Nazareth

and Gethsemane in Jerusalem. That a presenter of a radio programme should find the instinct to say thanks in a concrete and personal way ‘bizarre’ is probably more a measure of how far our utilitarian world has moved from the spontaneous generosity instinctive of an earlier generation. They apparently did not find it bizarre to donate a piece of their own jewellery or that of a deceased relative as part of a communal gift that would probably endure long after they had gone. Naive, perhaps, but their faith assured them that something they owned and treasured now formed part of the crown for the Madonna and her Son and would secure them a remembrance in prayer even when they had passed from this world.

Irish Catholics never invested all their disposable wealth in crowns or monstrances.

In 2015, for example, €23 million was raised for Trócaire and that is only one charity that draws its support from Irish Catholics. I think I remember Jesus replying rather sharply when his disciples asked indignantly “Why this waste?” as a woman anointed him with costly ointment, and he reminded them that the poor would always be there to be cared for.

Brendan McConvery CSsR Editor

11

C OV E R STO RY

MOTHER O

12

REALITY JUNE 2016

R OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR IN MOUNTJOY JAIL

A STAINED GLASS WINDOW OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP IS THE PRIDE OF THE CHAPEL OF MOUNTJOY WEST PRISON IN DUBLIN. PRODUCED BY THE HARRY CLARK STUDIOS OF DUBLIN, THE STORY OF ITS ORIGINS IS A FASCINATING TALE OF FAITH AND POLITICAL COMMITTMENT.

BY MARGARET RYAN

Last

month, we began the story of Nell Humphreys and her family in Easter Week 1916. During the Civil War, the family were on the Anti-Treaty side. On 4th November, 1922 the Free State Army raided Nell’s house. During the raid, Ernie O’ Malley, who had been hiding in the secret room in the house, was captured, and within a short time, Nell found herself back once more in Mountjoy. Other members of the family were also imprisoned, including her sister Anno O’ Rahilly, who had been accidently wounded by Ernie O’ Malley and spent some time in hospital prior to her imprisonment, and her daughter, Sighle. Her sons, Emmet and Richard were also detained. Her sister-inlaw, Madame Nancy O’ Rahilly had also been arrested when Mary Mc Sweeney - sister of the dead hunger striker Terence Mc Swiney was found hiding in her home. Mountjoy Jail had the status of a military prison.

NELL A PRISONER Early in her sentence, Nell Humphreys wrote from prison: “Don’t imagine that I am to be pitied in here...I could be almost enjoying myself, everything is so much easier than

at home. I can get up any hour I like in the morning, our breakfast is quite good…….but all the same for the sake of the past, go to Our L.P.S – (censored words). She can make anything right.”According to an account in The Irish Press after her death, she heard in Mountjoy that the Free State forces had attempted to burn down her house, but “its saving seemed to be a miracle, for the fire stopped short at the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.”

The majority of the women prisoners belonged to Cumann na mBan and older women like Nell were given command roles. On the top landing of B wing, she erected an altar with a picture of the Mother of Perpetual Succour. She summoned her fellow inmates to prayer by banging an enamel plate with a spoon. The younger women, who were less fond of praying than Nell, nick-named her ‘O/C God ‘and ‘O’/C Prayers’.

Sometimes the prison became overcrowded and extra beds were placed in the cells, but the women removed them to the landings in protest. Late one night, a prisoner, May Langan, was admitted. Landlady of a Dublin boarding house, she was arrested because a family of anti-treaty Republicans were staying with her. In order not to disturb other prisoners, she was told to sleep for the night in a bed on the landing, directly under the altar to the Mother of Perpetual Succour.

Next morning, the women assembled around

The Free State forces had attempted to burn down her house, but “its saving seemed to be a miracle, for the fire stopped short at the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour" the altar for morning prayers. When May Langan woke up, she got the fright of her life, convinced she had died in the night and the women were gathered to pray for her soul! That incident became known as ‘May Langan’s Wake’.

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Gonne Mc Bride, as ‘Maud Gone Mad and Charlotte Desperate’.

Inside the jail, Nell Humphreys organised vigils day and night at her altar of the Mother of Perpetual Succour. The women prisoners were regularly subjected to random searches, and rounds of live ammunition fired off by the soldiers who guarded them. This was an attempt to quell the woman’s protests.

During such an episode, the chapel windows were badly damaged.

WOMEN PRISONERS AND THE CHURCH The hunger strikes continued into 1923.

Sighle Humphreys spent twenty days on hunger strike in Mountjoy during January.

By October 1923, there more than seven thousand hunger strikers in Irish prisons, including Sighle Humphreys and her aunt, Anno O’ Rahilly, interned in the North Dublin Union.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception the previous year had been a dark day in Mountjoy, when four anti-treaty prisoners

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A young Nell Humphreys

PRAYING AND FASTING FOR POLITICAL STATUS Women prisoners were not being given the same political status as men. When Sighle Humphreys pointed this out to the assistant director, Paudeen O’ Keefe, he retorted

issue began in the Female Convict Prison.

Mary Mc Swiney was on hunger strike for 24 days from November 4 to 27, 1922. Nell, Nancy and Sighle went on a shorter hunger strike in solidarity with her from November 4-11. Meanwhile Mary Mc Swiney’s sister Annie was on hunger strike outside the gates of Mountjoy Jail, supported by members of the Women’s Prisoners’ Defence League, who organised a nightly rosary vigil before a picture of the Mother of Perpetual Succour hanging on the railings of Mountjoy.

The Dublin poor nicknamed the founders of the League, Charlotte Despard and Maud

Inside the jail, Nell Humphreys organised vigils day and night at her altar of the Mother of Perpetual Succour “You’re no political prisoner. You’re a military captive and I can do what I like with ye.”

Hunger strikes drawing attention to the REALITY JUNE 2016

were executed by firing squad. One of them, Rory O’Connor, wrote to his sister Eileen: “I have never any feelings of revenge and I forgive all my enemies,” adding that he “had just finished a novena in honour of the Immaculate Conception, the anniversary of my first Holy Communion.”

Many Catholic women prisoners said that what hurt them more than the prison conditions was their treatment by their Church. In October, 1922 the Irish Bishops stated in a pastoral letter that those involved in the anti-treaty side of the Civil War were guilty of the ‘gravest sins and may not be absolved in Confession, nor admitted to Holy Communion.’ The women prisoners were denied Communion and when Nell Humphreys and thirty six women prisoners tried to go confession in the prison chapel, they were stopped. Women prisoners in Kilmainham were also refused confession, and many of those on hunger strike were refused absolution.

Despite all this, Nell Humphreys kept her

picture of the Mother of Perpetual Succour with her through her internment. When she was moved to Kilmainham in February 1923, she had Grace Gifford, artist and widow of the executed 1916 leader, Joseph Mary Plunkett, decorate an altar to the Mother of Perpetual Succour. Her sister, Anno O’ Rahilly, succeeded in getting novenas smuggled into the gaol, which she gave out to her fellow inmates and Nell again set about calling the women prisoners to prayer and vigils.

On the anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1923, 270 women inmates gathered in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol. Grace Gifford Plunkett laid a wreath where her husband had been executed, and Nell led the rosary in Irish. At the end of April, she was moved to the North Dublin Union. Conditions here were the worst the women prisoners had experienced. Many had to sleep on the floor, and some had even to sleep outdoors

in the prison yard. Nell regularly shared her meagre rations with younger women who she thought were in greater need. She was finally moved back again to Kilmainham in June 1923.

Many Catholic women prisoners said that what hurt them more than the prison conditions was their treatment by their Church On May 23rd, 1923, the Civil War ended.

Nell was released on July 17th, 1923. She had been incarcerated for 249 days. She was elected as a Sinn Fein representative to Pembroke Urban Council in 1923, but resigned her membership of the Sinn Fein Club in Donnybrook the following year. She continued in public service as an independent councillor, being very committed to helping the poor, and returned to what she did before the Rising, caring for her family, tending her garden and saying her prayers.

Women Prisoners Defence League Demonstrating outside Mountjoy with a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help hanging on the railings.

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16 Afternoon Tea: Left to Right: The O'Rahilly, a friend, Nell, her daughter Sighle and one of O'Rahilly boys at No.54 Northumberland Road shortly before the 1916 Rising.

Her sister, Anno O’ Rahilly, succeeded in getting novenas smuggled into the gaol THE WINDOW On March 27 th , 1939 Nell Humphreys went to the Harry Clarke Studios in Dublin. She placed an order for a stained glass three light window to contain the image of the Mother of Perpetual Succour.

This window was to replace the original window in the chapel that had been damaged by gunfire during the Civil War. REALITY JUNE 2016

Supper Time: Nancy O'Rahilly, Nell and Sighle sometime in the 1930s.

The window was designed under the management of Richard King. From the correspondence between King and Nell in April 1939, it is evident that Nell wanted the studios to keep as closely as possible to the original picture of the Mother of Perpetual Succour.

While exhibiting the traditional elements of the icon, the window contains many other symbols and motifs. The Cross at the apex of the central section symbolises the Risen Christ. Beneath the feet of the Mother of God is a panel with six heads, representing the cherubim and seraphim, the heavenly hosts. Their features and flowing hair are typical of the style of the Harry Clarke studios. Sixteen similar heads, each with an individual face, are located in various parts of the three sections of the window. The six angels in this panel are surrounded by an oriental rope with tassels, reflecting the decorative style of South Eastern Europe, place of the icon’s origin. Under this panel

is a heart, representing the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to which Nell Humphreys had great devotion. Her only daughter, Sighle was baptised Margaret Mary after St Margaret Mary Alacoque, who promoted the devotion, but from early childhood, was always called by her Irish name, Sighle.

The three sections of this window are unified by a green mound located beneath the feet of the archangel Michael on the left, the archangel Gabriel on the right and the Mother and Child in the centre. This represents the green earth through which flows a blue river, ‘the river of the water of life’ of the Book of Revelation. The archangels are given prominence and depicted with very elaborate and colourful wings. Scattered throughout the window are small decorative features, typical of the style of Harry Clarke, such as mystical roses, crossed palms and stars.

The window was installed at 4pm on October 15th, 1939 and blessed by Canon

McMahon, a former chaplain to the prison.

Many of Nell’s family were in attendance, and her daughter Sighle unveiled a plaque, dedicating the window to the members of Cumann na mBan. Nell herself was not present. She had died on Thursday morning, June 8th, 1939 in the home that she designed - 36 Ailesbury Road. Nell Humphreys never saw her beautiful window.

Tipperary-born Margaret Ryan works in adult education in Dublin prisons in the areas of literacy, computer literacy, history, pre-release programmes and distance education. She has a particular interest in the life and career of Nell Humphreys.

COMMENT THE YOUNG VOICE DAVID O’DONOGHUE

THE EMERGENCE OF A GLOBAL CHURCH WIDENS OUR SPIRITUAL HORIZONS

HOW POPE FRANCIS HAS OPENED OUR EYES TO AN EXPERIENCE OF THE CHURCH THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM OUR OWN BUT WILL PROVE TO BE ENRICHING.

18

When Pope Francis was elected to the papacy in 2013, I had a strange experience. All of my housemates in our student hovel gathered around the television, undoubtedly the most expensive appliance in a student village that on a bad day could pass for a favela, stood enraptured by static images of the Vatican. For a generation of spiritually disengaged and largely agnostic young people, this was a really amazing time. A pope had resigned for the first time in centuries and now we would get to see what was likely the first papal election of our conscious, educated and spiritually aware lives.

Without a doubt, though one of the things that fascinated me most at the time was this continuous media speculation about whether the new Pope might come from the developing world. As organised Catholicism in Europe seemed to be on the wane in the public mind, we turned to those developing countries to which we so rarely cast our eyes for new perspectives on spirituality. People were abuzz with speculation: imagine the leader of the Christian world coming from those countries we seem only to regard when the Trócaire box is passed around at Lent. Would we see the leader of the Christian world coming from Zambia or El Salvador or the Philippines?

In the end a humble man from Argentina took up the mantle, REALITY JUNE 2016

and in his earnestness and concern, opened up doors to even my young self, hostile and sceptical toward the church, but feeling a burgeoning spirituality.

As the Church begins to pivot toward a Christianity that is thriving outside of Europe, we in the heartland of European Catholicism can learn so much from the different forms and traditions in which these global faiths exist.

I think Pope Francis has been a shock to so many because his Latin American Catholicism has such a rich tradition behind it that so many in Europe know so little about. Pope Francis opened the door for me to names like Gustavo Gutiérrez and Oscar Romero. Latin American Catholicism took the strife and suffering of that continent’s often grim fate in the last two centuries, lurching from colonial atrocities to dictatorship, often in the mire of poverty, and turned it into a force for good which informs the principles of the Latin American Catholic tradition. L atin American Catholicism became a tradition of faith informed in a real and substantial way by those principles of freedom and compassion that Christ so articulately espoused. It is a tradition, to paraphrase Francis himself, of shepherds who are familiar with the smell of their flock. These people do not only preach on poverty but encounter

it every day; the conditions of the developing world mould their faith into one which is proactive and directly involved in the struggle for global social justice. The fire of their principle can sharpen the steel of our European faith into a shining state, if only we can enkindle it in our hearts.

European Catholicism has spoken eloquently and often responded in a Christ-like manner to such issues of inequality. But in the global faith of populations for whom suffering is an everyday experience, the discourse on poverty and pain become as transcendent and immediate as it was for the itinerate MiddleEastern preacher denounced by Roman Imperial power on whom Christianity is based.

This new global faith has exposed me to the Christianity of people like the AfricanAmerican priest and activist Dr Cornel West. Dr West articulates a viewpoint that fifty years ago I, a young man from rural Kerry, might have never been exposed to. He attempts to uphold a centuries old lineage of what he calls “the Black American prophetic tradition,” where African-Americans utilised their religiosity to resist and survive the horrific conditions of slavery and later legal and economic discrimination. In Dr West I get to see a different kind of Christ from my own, one whose

compassionate face is coloured by an entire population who filled him with their hopes and dreams and fears and who gave him their own specific identity.

In this new global faith the Christ of Nat Turner and Martin Luther King can help to illustrate some of the blind spots in my own faith and let the scales fall from my eyes when it comes to the universal struggle against injustice and pain.

While some are concerned about the waning influence of Christianity in Europe, I think we can also view at as an opportunity. For years the faith was dominated by issues in the developed world, but now, as countries and populations with immediate and first-hand experience of injustice begin to articulate their faith through their own particular accents and experiences, it makes for very interesting listening.

David O'Donoghue is a freelance journalist from Co. Kerry. His work has appeared in the Irish Catholic, The Irish Independent, and the Kerryman. He is the former political editor of campus.ie and holds an abiding interest in all things literary, political and spiritual.

OT H E R FA I T H S

Ramadan

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THE MUSLIM FAST OF RAMADAN BEGINS ON JUNE 7 THIS YEAR AND CONTINUES UNTIL JULY 5.

FASTING, INCLUDING FROM WATER, IS STRICTLY OBSERVED FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET EVERY DAY.

BY JONATHAN KEARNEY

The

primary focus of this article is the fourth of the Five Pillars of Islam, Sawm, the Arabic word for fasting during the month of Ramadan. Looking at this Pillar and its requirements is informative, not only for what it tells us about what it is like to live as a Muslim, but also because it offers us a very helpful insight into how

Islam works as a religious system.

This is specifically the dynamic relationship between Scripture and Tradition, a relationship of which many non-Muslims are unaware. In this regard, Islam is not dissimilar to Catholicism (see Dei Verbum, 9).

As stated in our earlier article (June 2015), the careful unpacking

and elaboration of the Five Pillars of Islam constitutes the Islamic science or discourse known as Fiqh (jurisprudence). Looking at how Muslims have understood the injunction to fast during Ramadan permits us to see Fiqh in action. The Arabic word Shari‘a means, in essence, the way of life that is divinely ordained for

a Muslim, or God’s law for all humanity. Fiqh, on the other hand, is the human attempt to formulate the best possible human understanding and articulation of this divine will by carefully engaging with the sources of revelation: first the Qur’an (Scripture), then the Hadith (tradition).

OT H E R FA I TH S

WHEN DOES RAMADAN FALL? To the non-Muslim, one of the most distinctive features of Ramadan is the fact that it does not occur at the same time every year, at least in terms of our calendar. In order to understand this aspect of Ramadan, it is necessary to say something of the Islamic calendar, known as the Hijri calendar. This calendar is named for the migration (Hijra or Hegira in European spelling) made by the Prophet Muhammad from his home town of Mecca to the city of Yathrib (later Medina) in 622 CE. This journey, around 200 miles

long, was made by the Prophet Muhammad to escape the persecution that he and the first Muslims were suffering in their home town as a result of preaching Islam. This migration was a key event in the life of both Muhammad and the Muslim community (the Umma), marking a transition from marginalisation and persecution, to one of expansion and the establishment of the first Islamic civil government. One might also note that the Islamic calendar takes as its starting point this key journey and a stage in the development of the community,

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rather than from the birth or the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Hijri calendar is strictly lunar (as opposed to the solar Gregorian calendar). Therefore a Hijri year is 11 to 12 days shorter than a solar year, and a particular date in the Hijri calendar will shift every solar year. The cycle repeats itself every thirty-three solar years. The Jewish ritual calendar is a luni-solar one –

that is, it is primarily lunar, but through a process known as intercalation (the insertion of leap days), it is not permitted to become too dissociated with the seasons – since most of the festivals of Judaism have some association with the agricultural year of ancient Israel (in addition to their association with events in Jewish sacred history). We can get some sense of this luni-solar calendar by the dating of Easter

(a movable feast) that has its roots in the Jewish festival of Passover (Pesach). However, there is no such intercalation in the Hijri calendar – it is strictly lunar. Indeed the Qur’an explicitly forbids intercalation (9:37).

The current Hijri year is 1437 ah (anno hegirae – in the year of the Hijra). The year 1436 began on Wednesday the October 14th 2015, and will end in or around October 3rd 2016.

Since Ramadan is the ninth of the twelve months of the Hijri calendar, it will begin this year in or around June 6th and end in or around July 5th. The beginning and end of an Islamic month depend on the sighting of the first crescent of the new moon,

hence the approximations given above. The Islamic day, like a Jewish one, begins at sunset and so, transcends two solar days.

FASTING AT RAMADAN Fasting is mentioned approximately fourteen times in the Qur’an, while the month of Ramadan is explicitly mentioned once only (2:185), not only as the month of fasting, but also the month in which the Qur’an was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad – creating a close association between the month of fasting and the very event of the Islamic revelation. The Qur’an points out the obligation of fasting during Ramadan and gives some guidance on the nature of the fast and its

obligations. To fully understand how God wishes them to observe the fast and conduct themselves during the month of Ramadan, however, Muslims must turn to the Hadith – that is, the written records of the Sunna (customary practice) of the Prophet Muhammad as remembered and transmitted by his peers. Here, as noted above, we observe the dynamic relationship between Scripture and Tradition in Islam: Scripture mandates fasting during the month of Ramadan and provides some guidance on what exactly that entails. For a fuller understanding of the fast, however, Tradition must also be consulted. Muhammad’s prophethood and centrality to the revelation of Islam make

his own method of conducting himself normative – his own life was, essentially, a practical, living interpretation of the Qur’an. The Hadith collections contain chapters relating how the Prophet observed the fast during Ramadan, and these, supplementing the directives of the Qur’an inform how Muslims do the same.

WHAT DOES FASTING MEAN? So what exactly does the Ramadan fast entail? In essence, a Muslim must refrain from a number of activities during the hours of daylight during this month. The most obvious of these activities is eating and drinking and the prohibition is absolute, in the sense that no food or drink may pass the lips of a Muslim during the daylight hours of Ramadan. A Muslim fast does not entail eating smaller amounts or avoiding certain foods or drinks – it involves complete abstinence. Sexual relations (licit only between married couples in Islam) and smoking are also prohibited during the hours of fasting.

The individual Muslim must also possess the intention to perform the fast: fasting without intention is considered invalid – empty ritual.

While the fast of Ramadan is one of Five Pillars of Islam, certain people are not required to undertake it. These include pre-pubescent children; those who because of age or serious

21

OT H E R FA I TH S

In addition to the abstinence the Ramadan fast involves, a number of additional activities are recommended and encouraged. These include generosity, improving familial relationships (and repairing them when necessary); recitation of the Qur’an, particular care in speaking with honesty, charity and integrity 22

of these points – for example: what exactly constitutes travel.

Muslims eat after they break their fast during Ramadan in Damascus, Syria

illness may endanger their lives; those suffering from mood disorders or mental illness and non-Muslims. These exemptions are total in that they do not need to be compensated for by fasting at a later date. Exemptions

REALITY JUNE 2016

that require fasting at a later date are given to those who are ill (not life-threateningly); travellers; menstruating women; pregnant and breast-feeding women. The legal scholars have offered very precise expansions

NOT JUST FASTING I n a d d iti o n to the abstinence the Ramadan fast involves, a number of additional activities are recommended and encouraged. These include generosity, improving familial relationships (and rep a i r i n g th em when necessary); recitation of the Qur’an, particular care in speaking with honesty, charity and integrity (always necessary for a Muslim, but particularly so in Ramadan); and time spent in spiritual retreat in the mosque.

The fact that Ramadan can

fall at any time of the solar year means that the period of fasting and abstinence can be very long or very short. Seasonal and geographical contexts play a role here. While observing Ramadan during long summer hours of daylight presents its own particular challenges, so too does fasting for a shorter period in a colder climate where greater energy is required to simply go about one’s day-to-day business.

Little allowance is made for those who are fasting (whether in Muslim-majority or Muslimminority countries): life goes on as usual with work and school remaining regular features of life.

During the month of Ramadan, the fast is broken after sunset – often after the Maghrib prayer (one of the five compulsory daily prayers) – with a meal known as iftar. Ideally, iftar is shared with others – emphasising the

communal nature of Ramadan.

Many Muslims will begin to break their fast by eating three dates, in emulation of the practice of the Prophet Muhammad.

Another meal (known as suhur) is consumed just before sunrise and the recommencement of the fast.

RAMADAN AND REVELATION As previously noted, the Qur’an mentions that it was during Ramadan that Muhammad received the first revelation of the Qur’an. This event is known as Laylat al-Qadr (‘the Night of Destiny’). The exact date of the first Laylat al-Qadr is unknown, but most Muslims believe it to have occurred during the last

ten days of Ramadan (the 21st, 23rd and 27th are seen as the most likely). Prayer on Laylat al-Qadr is seen as particularly efficacious: the Qur’an (97:3) states that Laylat al-Qadr ‘is better than a thousand months.’ Hence, many Muslims will endeavour to spend Laylat al-Qadr in prayer.

The fast of Ramadan ends with a celebratory festival known as Eid al-Fitr (‘the festival of the breaking of the fast’), lasting three or four days and marked by communal prayer, visiting friends and relatives and the giving of gifts. These are the most common features of Eid but local custom and practice give it its own particular flavour among the many cultural complexes of Islam.

While fasting is a feature of a number of religions and it can be helpful to make comparisons between how and why fasts are undertaken in these religions, we must – if we wish to be

respectful of Muslim narratives of Islam and its origins – beware of making assertions of the type that the fast of Ramadan is ‘inspired by’, ‘borrowed from’ or ‘influenced by’ fasts in Judaism in Christianity. While many historical-critical scholars of religion would hold this view, Muslims most certainly do not. They do not see Islam as something new – but rather as the restoration of the primordial religion of humanity. So if there are similarities between the fast of Ramadan and fasts in Judaism and Christianity it is because Islam restores these fasts to their correct form: one which has been lost by Jews and Christians.

Dr Jonathan Kearney teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, a College of Dublin City University Shiite Muslims hold the Quran above their heads as they observe the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan at Imam Hussein shrine in Kerbala, Iraq

23

F E AT U R E

PLACE

A LIMINAL

REMEMBERING A WORD FROM A THEOLOGY COURSE PROMPTS A REFLECTION ON LIVING WITH A HUSBAND’S LONG TERM ILLNESS.

BY MARGARITA SYNNOTT 24

One

of the pleasures of studying theology in All Hallows in the 1990s was the expansion of my vocabulary. At an early stage in my studies, I heard the term ‘liminal’. It was explained to me as the threshold, an in-between place, sometimes a place between one state and another. The term made a lot of sense to me, and indeed I recall writing a long essay on the liminal aspects of Holy Saturday.

However, I think I thought of liminal as a narrow place, temporary, transitory and fleeting.

JOURNEYING ON THE THRESHOLD In the last few years I have had to re-think my definition of the liminal state both personally and socially. Five years ago my husband was diagnosed with cancer which was already beginning to spread. Without treatment, there was no hope: with treatment he might have some time. I recall him saying that he had decided to ‘take whatever they can throw at this,’ and take it he did. Since that day, he has had radium, chemotherapy, a couple of minor surgeries and three major surgeries, and he has REALITY JUNE 2016

indeed been given extra time. During that time, he has battled the side effects of radium and chemo and clawed his way back to physical well being after the various surgeries. His life has been changed from well being and health to a life where he tires easily, has to plan any activity like family visits or late nights, and where he works very hard at retaining some level of fitness.

During that time, he and I have been blessed with the support of family and friends who have done so much to help. It has been a journey which we have undertaken as a couple and as individuals. Recently I realised that, in a peculiar way, those long months of supporting my husband through his various treatments were ‘easy.’ In this case, easy is a relative term.

The long weeks of nursing and caring for him were certainly demanding - physically, mentally and emotionally – but they were easy because I could ‘do’ something for him. Nursing him, cooking something to tempt his appetite, finding ways of making him comfortable all took a lot of ‘doing’ and I am a doer. We also spent long hours listening to each other, as we travelled

through the long days and the longer nights.

There were times of triumph as my husband reached mile stones we never expected to see.

Joyous occasions of new grandchildren and their mile stones and all the while we have known he and we are on borrowed time. Now, however, we are in a different place. It’s definitely a liminal place.

DOUBLE DOORS Another joy of doing theology in All Hallows, was the campus with its beautiful chapel, trees and greens and Drumcondra House, which lies at the centre of the campus. Built between 1726 and 1727, it is one of the finest examples of early Irish Georgian architecture. Many of the rooms have what I can only describe as double doors. There is a door which opens into a small, liminal space, about two feet in depth, then another door opens into the room proper. I have no idea why Lovett Pearce, the architect of Drumcondra House, designed this liminal space: perhaps it was a way of excluding draughts, or perhaps a servant might stand there, ready to enter the main salon on the bidding of

Fro RE CO

the master. Whatever its use, I have become more and more aware of the metaphor of liminal space in my life and I often think of that space between the doors in All Hallows.

Far from being a fleeting or transitory space, it seems to me that my husband’s illness has brought us both to a semi-permanent liminal space. He has not died from cancer, he is living with it, but living in a very different way to the way we imagined these years. Our life together, as we knew it, has ended.

We have a different life. It is a life of regular hospital appointments, ongoing chemo, sudden tiredness, a life where there is little spontaneity. Living with cancer means that, while he is not very ill all the time, neither is he very well for much of the time.

We are also at a place where I can no longer ‘do’ a lot of things to help. Medication helps, but I am no longer busy with the chores of nursing and caring because he is not very ill, and we thank God for that.

We stand in this liminal place, this metaphorical place between the double doors. The door to the past is not quite closed. We can look back but we cannot go there. I have been amazed at the

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My husband’s illness has brought us both to a semi-permanent liminal space Posed by models

grace with which my husband has accepted the limits which his illness puts upon him. He doesn’t complain or speak longingly of the past, he lives very much in the present of today.

The door to the next stage of Frank’s illness is not quite open, and neither of us is rushing to that place where death awaits, and yet, we know it’s there. Today, some people would encourage us to kick down the door to the future, to take charge by way of assisted suicide, Dignitas or some such

place. That will never be a choice, life is sweet even in its limits. It seems to me that our task, right now, is to find love and joy in this small liminal space. Of their nature liminal spaces are not large, they don’t lend themselves to crowds or to lots of decoration and beauty. They are just in between, on the way to and from other places. But, that is where we are and that is where our life together is calling us right now. To live and find joy in the in between.

THE DOOR of MERCY The new ‘Jubilee of Mercy’ announced by Pope Francis is of great significance. Drawing from his biography, his motto, interviews, homilies, and messages, here we learn how Francis sees himself as a pilgrim in need of mercy. Further, we are all pilgrims, called to pass through the ‘door of mercy’ opening before us in this Holy Year. In a world that sits lightly to love and forgiveness, where many feel they are beyond forgiveness, this is an invitation to start out on a personal journey to discover what mercy truly is.

We are pilgrims, called to pass through the “door of mercy” in this Year of Mercy. In a world where many feel beyond forgiveness, let’s start out to discover what mercy truly is.

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Q U E ST I O N S TO JESUS 7

ARE WE TO SPEND TWO HUNDRED DAYS’ WAGES ON BREAD?

BY MIKE DALEY

I

26

have a friend who, after my various complaints about how rough I have it, likes to say, “First World Problem.” Need a new microwave. First World Problem. Have to add a kid to car insurance. First World Problem. Internet service is down. First Word Problem. Honestly, in the First World, “problems” are more like “privileges.”

Often our focusing on them can easily lead to what Pope Francis has called the “globalisation of indifference.” Speaking to both the residents and the migrants who sought refuge on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a primary entry point for migrants coming to Europe, Pope Francis said: “So many of us, even including myself, are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we don’t care, we don’t protect that which God has created for all, and we are unable to care for one another.”

As I await dinner, another significant problem in the world is hunger. Yet, my full stomach and easy access to food don’t allow me to admit it. According to the World Food Programme, the food assistance branch of the United Nations, however, hunger is an ongoing challenge and reality. Some of the facts and figures are unsettling to say the least. For example, close to 795 million people, almost one in nine people on the earth, do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. The majority of those persons live in developing countries.

Sadly, but not surprising, children suffer the most when it comes to hunger. Nearly half of the deaths of children under five each year are due to poor nutrition. In developing countries one out of six children is underweight. There, as well, close to one in three are stunted. Associated with children are women, who, if they had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry would be reduced by up to 150 million.

So many of us, even including myself, are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we don’t care, we don’t protect that which God has created for all, and we are unable to care for one another Pope Francis

REALITY JUNE 2016

TAKE, BLESS, BREAK, AND GIVE Hunger, of course, not only exists today, but was part of Jesus’ time and world as well.

Perhaps the most famous and familiar story of Jesus and hunger is the feeding of the 5,000. It is a story that appears in all four Gospels (Mk 6:34-44; Mt 14:13-21; Lk 9:10-17; and Jn 6:1-15). As the story goes, Jesus had been teaching a crowd for a long period. His disciples, due to the late evening and desert location, encourage him to dismiss them so they can go to nearby farms and villages to buy themselves something to eat. Jesus responds, “Give them some food yourselves.”

To which his disciples reply, “Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?” (Mk 6:37).

Countering his disciples’ rather prudent economic hesitation, Jesus asks, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

They eventually find five loaves and two fish, but they insist “what good are these for so many?” (Jn 6:9). Sitting the people in rows by hundreds and by fifties, Jesus says the blessing, breaks the loaves and divides the fish, and gives them to his disciples to set before the people. All who ate were satisfied with much food leftover.

On behalf of Caritas International, a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations operating worldwide and their campaign of “One Human Family, Food for All,” Pope Francis said, “When the Apostles said to Jesus that the people who had come to listen to his words were hungry, He invited them to go and look for food. Being poor themselves, all they found were five loaves and two fish. But with the grace of God, they managed to feed a multitude of people, even managing to collect what was left over and avoiding that it went to waste.

“We are in front of a global scandal of around one billion – one billion people who still suffer from hunger today. We cannot look the other way and pretend this does not exist. The food available in the world is enough to feed everyone. The parable of the multiplication of the loaves and fish teaches us exactly this: that if there is the will, what we have never ends. On the contrary, it abounds and does not get wasted.”

WHAT TYPE OF MIRACLE? In response to the feeding of the 5,000, it has long been explained, “It’s a miracle.” More importantly, though, is of what? Multiplication or sharing?

Recalling the time when God fed the Israelites manna in the desert (Ex 16:4-15) and the prophet Elisha fed the one hundred (2 Kings 4:42-44), many see Jesus’ action as another sign of God’s dramatic intervention in history and confirmation of him as God’s favoured son. Multiplication indeed.

What were once empty baskets are now full.

Likewise, emphasising the extraordinary nature of the event, some see the event as a prefigurement of the Eucharist where ordinary bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Still, there are others who see another miracle at work. Taking seriously the warning of a too rationalistic explanation or of a modernisation in a liberal fashion, Jesuit William Reiser suggests in Talking About Jesus Today: An Introduction to the Story Behind Our Faith that the more compelling kingdom sign may be “the breaking down of fear and greed which might lead people to hoard food and possessions, and prevent them from seeing others, who had likewise come to hear the word of God, as their true family.”

Which understanding of the feeding of the

5,000 should take us into the future: A one-time miracle of God’s abundance never to be repeated or a challenge as to how we are supposed to be in gracious relationship with one another? With respect to sharing, South African Dominican Albert Nolan argues in Jesus before Christianity that “the first Christian community in Jerusalem made the same discovery when they tried to share their possessions [Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-36]. Luke may have given us a somewhat idealised picture of this community. Nevertheless even that would be an extremely good testimony to what the early Christians understood Jesus’ intentions to be.

AND THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN I would be remiss if I didn’t speak to a problematic phrase at the end of Matthew’s telling of the feeding of the 5,000—“not counting women and children” (14:21). It kind of makes you cringe and laugh at the same time. With some distance removed from Jesus’ very male-dominated culture, we know women and children count. All persons, equally, are made in the image and likeness of God. When women and children are added in the feeding actually explodes in number anywhere from 25 to 35 thousand. This awkward and seemingly embarrassing phrase call us to be mindful of those who are marginalised and forgotten; those we would rather dismiss.

Returning to the disciples’ question--“Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?”—I think our response is that we have to do something to alleviate those who are hungry in our midst either through direct service or social action.

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

27

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

In this series we tell some of their stories.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN THE FRENCH JESUIT, PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, TRAINED AS A GEOLOGIST AND PALEONTOLOGIST, STUDYING FOSSILS. HE IS BEST-KNOWN FOR HIS THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS WHICH RADICALLY REDEFINED THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

BY SUSAN GATELY

The 28

Jesuit paleontologist and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is seen by many as occupying a vital crossroads between science and faith. Although he was a fine paleontologist and stratigrapher, Teilhard's real greatness perhaps lies in his creative integration of the theory of evolution with the doctrine of the incarnation.

Born in 1881 to an aristocratic family in central France, Teilhard de Chardin gained a love of botany and geology from his father, and a strong faith from his mother. As a child he watched a lock of his cut hair burn in the fire. This prompted the question in him 'what holds things together?' and a strong interest in hard, enduring things like rocks. As his studies in philosophy progressed, so too did his interest in geology. Fourth in a family of eleven, he was educated by the Jesuits and joined the order, aged 18. “ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER IN CHRIST�

Studying theology as a Jesuit student in Hastings, England in 1908, Teilhard was struck by St Paul's words in the Letter to the Colossians (1:17), "All things hold together in Him[Christ]." At that time he was reading Creative Evolution by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. "The coincidence of these two experiences helped spark in him the germ of his synthesis," says Kathleen Duffy in her book Teilhard's Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face REALITY JUNE 2016

of Evolution. He felt matter, life and energy found a potential outlet in synthesis in the theory of evolution.

At age 30, Teilhard was ordained a priest, and for two years worked in the paleontology laboratory of the National History Museum in Paris. At the outbreak of WW1, he signed up as a stretcher bearer receiving citations for valour. He was later to write "...the war was a meeting ... with the Absolute."

By 1916, Teilhard had developed the idea of a cosmic and directed evolutionary force. Lecturing in Geology in the Catholic Institute in Paris, where he became assistant professor after obtaining his

Teilhard at the dig at Chou-Kou-Tien

doctorate, he reflected on original sin.

"At the time he began speaking and writing, the Church was still concerned about how the theory of evolution would affect its doctrine," says Kathleen Duffy. "Teilhard was a popular lecturer, sharing his ideas with students and seminarians.

When someone found his short essay on original sin and sent it to Rome, Church authorities became suspicious. He was told never to publish his ideas about evolution and theology," says Duffy.

WORKING IN CHINA His resignation from his teaching post and subsequent mission to the Gobi desert in China in

PIONEER OF CATHOLIC EVOLUTIONISM 1923 turned out to be fortuitous. Teilhard had been impressed by lectures on the concept of the biosphere. Now he began to develop the concept of the noosphere (sphere of thought) - a higher stage of evolutionary development. In 1926 he set down his ideas in The Divine Milieu, in which he posits the theme of the human being as the culmination of the evolutionary impulse.

Meanwhile as a palaeontologist he was carrying out his greatest scientific work with a team of scientists who discovered the fossils of Peking Man (homo erectus) in Chou-Kou-Tien, near Peking.

"Being a stratigrapher (expert in the layers of rock), he recognized the cave where the fossils were eventually found, making the discovery possible," comments Duffy.

From 1926 to 1935, Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China, synthesising the continental geography of Asia. His scientific papers fill ten volumes. His fellow Jesuit, Fr Pierre Leroy described his personality at that time.

"Buoyant and vivacious, he was the life and soul of our gatherings. In addition to the originality of his thought and his personal charm, he had a rare quality: he could listen to others."

In 1938, inspired by the cosmic hymns of St. Paul in Colossians and Ephesians, Teilhard wrote his major philosophical work – The Phenomenon of Man. The Teilhardian thesis is "not a scientific theory but, rather, a philosophical world view based on certain themes drawn from the evolutionary synthesis and expressed in mystical, often poetic, terms," writes Professor Thomas Glick in the Dictionary of Science.

Teilhard discerned in the historical development

Peking Man

of the cosmos a law of “complexity-consciousness" where each successive stage in the evolutionary process is marked, first, by an increasing degree of complexity in organisation and, second, by a corresponding increase in degree of consciousness.

Evolution thus proceeds from the inorganic to the organic, from less complex to more highly organised forms of life, through the process of hominisation (becoming human) and beyond to “planetisation,” whereby all members of the species homo sapiens are to achieve collectively an ultra-human convergence, seen symbolically as a final Omega Point, he writes.

This is the maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which Teilhard believed the universe was evolving - a reunion with Christ IN THE WILDERNESS After the Second World War, he sought permission to publish his work. It was denied.

"The Vatican was concerned that Teilhard seemed to be denying the specifically human or spiritual aspect by placing human beings within an evolutionary context, without sorting out the question of where the human spirit, which isn't material, comes from," comments Fr Brendan

Purcell, Adjunct Professor in Philosophy, Notre Dame University, Sydney. "Added to that was the problem - had he left any room for the Fall from grace and for salvation?"

Forbidden to take a teaching post in the College de France, despite being nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, in 1951 Teilhard went to live in New York, devoting himself to studies in anthropology with the Wenner Gren Foundation.

He had told friends he wanted to die on Easter Sunday. While talking to his personal assistant on Easter Sunday 1955, Teilhard suffered a heart attack and died. He is buried in New York State.

His friend, Jeanne Mortier, inherited his writings and immediately began to publish them, beginning with The Phenomenon of Man which became a bestseller, despite the censure of the Holy See. Recent Popes have praised Teilhard de Chardin and Pope Francis noted his contributions to theology in Laudato si.

Ursula King notes that the heart of his spirituality lies in a deep love for Christ, succinctly summarised in his essay “How I Believe”: "I believe that the universe is an evolution.

I believe that evolution proceeds toward spirit.

I believe that the spirit is fully realised in a form of personality.

I believe that the supremely personal is the universal Christ."

Suan Gately is author of God’s Surprise - the New Movements in the Church, published by Veritas and is a regular contributor to Reality

29

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COMMENT FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS CARMEL WYNNE

HOW TO BECOME HAPPIER

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE INCREASINGLY SHOWS HOW ENGAGING IN EVEN SIMPLE EXERCISE GREATLY ENHANCES OUR SENSE OF WELL BEING. Isn’t it wonderful that science can teach people to become happier?

Shawn Achor is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success.

At Harvard University he saw that some of the best and brightest students were willing to sacrifice happiness for success because they had been taught that, if you work hard you will be successful, and only then, when you are successful, will you be happy.

More than a decade of groundbreaking research in the fields of positive psychology and neuroscience has proved that it works the other way round. We now have scientific evidence that shows how people can become happier and pessimists can become optimists. Supported by some of the most rigorous and cutting-edge research in neuroscience, we now know that brain change is possible.

Achor conducted one of the largest studies on happiness ever performed on students at Harvard.

His research showed that waiting to be happy limits the brain’s potential because happiness is the precursor to success.

One of the most famous longitudinal studies on happiness was done with 180 nuns from the Sisters of Notre Dame. All born before 1917, the sisters were asked to write down their thoughts in autobiographical journal entries.

Over 50 years, later a group of researchers coded the entries for positive emotional content, and found that the level of positivity as 20 year-olds, predicted how the rest of their lives turned out.

The women whose journal entries

The groups were tested again 6 months later to assess their relapse rate. Of the patients who had taken only the anti-depressants, 38% had slipped back into depression.

Those in the combination group did a little better with a 31% relapse rate. The biggest surprise was that the relapse rate of the group who exercised was 9%.

were positive and joyful lived nearly a decade longer than the nuns whose entries were negative or neutral. By age 85 only 34% of the least happy sisters were still alive but 90% of the happiest enjoyed superior health. Their longer lifespan was a result of happiness not the cause.

Scientists once believed that happiness was genetically pre-determined. It has now been discovered that is not so.

Researchers have found that happiness is subjective and different for everyone and that what is called “person activity fit” is as important as the activity itself. Find your activity fit, find what makes you happy. It doesn’t matter if you walk, run, hike, jump, swim, what’s important is that you get moving and the exercise will lift your mood.

In the minutes immediately after a very brief five minute meditation, people experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. Research shows

that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness, lower stress and even improve immune function. Neuroscientists have studied monks who have spent years practising meditation. The prefrontal cortex, the part of their brains most responsible for feeling happy, grew.

Researcher and author Sonja Lyubomirsky found that individuals who complete five acts of kindness over the course of a day report feeling much happier than control groups and the feelings last for subsequent days after the exercise is over. One of Achor’s favourite acts is to pay the toll for the car behind him.

A fascinating study was done with three groups of depressed patients.

One group took antidepressant medication. One group exercised for 45 minutes three times a week.

The third group did a combination of both. After 4 months all groups experienced similar improvements in happiness. What is hopeful is that exercise proved just as effective as anti-depressants.

Exercise releases pleasure inducing chemicals called endorphins as well as reducing stress and anxiety. Making the time to go for a 20 minute walk has been shown to boost positive moods, broaden thinking and improve working memory. There is scientific evidence to show that allowing ourselves to engage in activities we enjoy can greatly enhance our experience in work?

Isn’t it wonderful that you can learn to be happier in a deceptively simple way? You can train your brain to practise focusing on positive experiences. Write down a list of three enjoyable things that happen each day. They can be as simple as the sun shone, you enjoyed an ice cream, and you had a drink with a friend.

This practice trains your brain to become more skilled at noticing possibilities for happiness. Because we can only focus on so much at once our brains push the small annoyances and frustration to the background. Isn’t it wonderful that when you focus on finding positive experiences you make yourself happier?

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

31

F E AT U R E

A STAR CONFINED INTO A TOMB A CHILDHOOD MEMORY LEADS THROUGH POETRY TO A RECOGNITION OF THE DEPTH OF THE COSMIC CHRIST

BY JOHN F DEANE

The

32

evening was dark; it was raining heavily outside. Granny had just lit the oil lamp and placed it on the kitchen table. There was a pleasing smell of paraffin and a vaguely white smoke was lifting over the lamp; everything was dim and a little spectral. Granny had gone to sit by the open fire and I, small and secure in my Achill Island childhood, went to sit by her, for comfort and care before I headed up to bed. She was abstracted, leafing through her missal which was stuffed full of memoriam cards. She sniffed a little and I suspected she was crying. Then one of the cards fell on the flagged floor and I picked it up and looked at it. There was a small, sepia photograph of her daughter Patricia, who had died from TB at the age of twenty-three. There was a crucifix, stylized and in black, and the card was framed in black. I turned it over and read the line: They are all gone into the world of light. . . Grandfather Ted had died just a few months ago. I was ten. I was sad for my Granny and now I was smitten by that line, They are all gone into the world of light.

REALITY JUNE 2016

DISCOVERING A POEM The line nestled into my soul and waited. It waited until I came across it again during my studies in English literature. I found the poem, by a poet from Wales called Henry Vaughan and now I fell in love with the entire poem.

They are all gone into the world of light!

And I alone sit ling’ring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear.

He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest, may know At first sight, if the bird be flown ; But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is dress’d, After the sun’s remove.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.

I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days: My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays.

If a star were confin’d into a tomb, Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room, She’ll shine through all the sphere.

O holy Hope! and high Humility, High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have show’d them me, To kindle my cold love.

O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under Thee!

Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just, Shining nowhere, but in the dark ; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark!

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass: Or else remove me hence unto that hill Where I shall need no glass.

33

I found in the poem that mixture of sorrow and hope that is the essence of Christian living. I noted that our world is seen as dark and in thrall to darkness, like a star held in a tomb (what a strange and stirring image!), and that those we have loved and have lost are gone into a mysterious place where the light tramples down our world’s mere glimmerings and decays. Vaughan’s poem, rich and immediate in its metaphors, a little forced in its rhetoric, but clear as bird-song in its rhymes and rhythms, stirs me still.

THE POET When I went a little deeper and studied Vaughan’s life and times, straddling the seventeenth century with its wars and religious bigotries and oppressions, I found that this Welshman had a distaste for this world and its fall from innocence, that he revelled in traces of a ‘memory’ of a better world, that which he intuited from childhood, and that he longed for that other world where light is glory. That world is to be found only in death, and it is God’s way and will to bring the cautious and prayerful

soul to that world. Vaughan is therefore an example of that Christian outlook that despises the earth we move on and seeks freedom and fulfillment in the next. The troubles of the times, the wars and strife that were common, the religious persecutions and the doubts about practice and ritual, all contributed, no doubt, to his approach. But it is an approach to the relationship between this world and the next that lasted far too long in the poetry of faith, and the faith of poetry. If peace is only to be found in the next world, what point is there

in striving to make anything perfect in this?

AND ANOTHER POEM And then I found a poem of Seamus Heaney’s that made me bristle. It comes from his collection of 1991 called Seeing Things, and from the lovely ambiguities of the title, one might expect a new vision, a seeing of things he had not seen before. The piece that stirred me is part of a long sequence, and begins:

continued on page 34

F E AT U R E

All gone into the world of light?

Perhaps As we read the line sheer forms do crowd The starry vestibule.

Otherwise They do not.

34

This struck me at once as an absence of vision, of not seeing things. Heaney was brought up a Catholic and his poetry is alive with Christian imagery although he said that he had lost faith in an afterlife. I asked him once to write me a poem for an issue of Poetry Ireland Review I was editing, an issue I wanted to subtitle: “Who do you say that I am?”, requesting new poems that would offer a personal response to the person of Christ. I think I may have been trying to provoke our poets to see a Christ beyond Christianity, a going beyond the ‘Churchy’ Christ, a focusing on the contents of the container rather than on the container itself. And Heaney responded very positively with a poem based on the story of the “palsied”, or stricken, man being lowered to the feet of Christ through a hole in the roof in order to be healed. In the poem he wrote, Heaney puts himself in the place of Christ as the one offering healing. Here are some lines from that poem, “The Latecomers”: He saw them come, then halt behind the crowd That wailed and plucked and ringed him, and was glad They kept their distance.

Hedged on every side, REALITY JUNE 2016

Harried and responsive to their need, Each hand that stretched, each brief hysteric squeal – However he assisted and paid heed, A sudden blank letdown was what he’d feel Unmanning him when he met the pain of loss In the eyes of those his reach had failed to bless. . .

Exhaustion and the imperatives of love Vied in him. To judge, instruct, reprove, And ease them body and soul.

Not to abandon but to lay on hands.

Make time. Make whole.

Forgive.

This was Seamus himself in his latter years, when everybody vied to take from him, to grow great in the glow of his fame and his generosity and he so often found himself incapable of responding as he would have wished. An understanding of the person of Jesus, through Heaney’s own suffering from the effects of a stroke and the demands of others, shines across this poem. I have no doubt his awareness of and even love for the person of Christ remained real and vibrant.

THE COSMIC CHRIST I see Henry Vaughan in his poetry as more free from dogma and religious rules: commandments of the Church and suchlike, and more aware of what we call now the “Cosmic Christ”, a Christ

that in His incarnation as Jesus, a man of flesh and blood, was the Christ of Wisdom, that being John spoke of in the beginning of his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. . . Through Him all things were made. . .” In a poem called “The Bird”, Vaughan outlines an awareness of this Christ: So hills and valleys into singing break And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue While active winds and streams both run and speak, Yet stones are deep in admiration.

Thus Praise and Prayer here beneath the sun Make lesser mornings, when the great are done.

For each enclosèd spirit is a star Inlighting his own little sphere, Whose light, though fetched and borrowed from afar, Both mornings makes and evenings there.

Vaughan, a poet of the heart, as was Seamus Heaney, takes his inspiration not from intellect or dogmas or religious institutions, but from personal experience allied to a rich imagination.

His upbringing in religion, (rather than in faith) pushed Heaney beyond the container of Christian truths into his own, perhaps deeper, more cosmic awareness. A Christianity beyond Christ? The rule of heart over head? I believe this was the case with both Vaughan and Heaney,

both of them “enclosed spirits” that were stars lighting up their own spheres. They were, in themselves, their own “worlds of light”.

My Granny, in her spirit of love and faith, held mightily to that line that eases the sense of loss: They are all gone into the world of light, and it was with those words I saw her lips move, silently, and the tears come, softly. Hers was a world of hope and trust, hers was a faith based on the scriptures and their imaginative hold upon our living. Her Jesus was the one in whom was life and that life was the light of the world. Her Christ was the Word who once said to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life”. There by the old fireplace, as she treasured her Missal, Granny was weeping softly out of a sense of loss, out of love, and with a great burden of hope; for her beloved dead, she believed, were “walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on our days.”

John F Deane is a native of Achill. He is a writer and poet. He is a member of Aosdána. His faith memoir, Give Dust a Tongue, was published in 2015.

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A RESOURCE FOR THE YEAR OF MERCY JOURNEYING WITH JONAH –THE STRUGGLE TO FIND YOURSELF By Fr Denis McBride CSsR In this new book Fr Denis has chosen to explore the character of Jonah – a somewhat unlikely hero. The prophet Jonah is a sympathetic partner, albeit a curious one, to help us review our lives. Although a believer in God, Jonah struggles to come to terms with the awful strangeness of God’s choices, particularly God’s mercy; he grapples to find his true self and purpose in life; he tries to flee from the presence of God; he is angry when he finds that God is not angry but all-merciful. Jonah is offered to us as an unusual teacher – awkward, reluctant, disobedient, opinionated, fearful, flighty: the prophet who remains stubborn to the end. But his story celebrates the beauty of the indiscriminate mercy of God, a message for our time.“ There is one constant in the book of Jonah: Jonah’s belief that God’s indiscriminate mercy extended to the pagans of Nineveh is not only inappropriate but incomprehensible: Jonah is scandalised by God’s mercy. Our minor prophet has to learn as we all do, that mercy is indivisible: we cannot plead for mercy for ourselves and then deny it to others.”

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CH R I ST I A N LIVING

LOVE AND GIVING THANKS

The song — which, by the way, was cowritten by Charles Dawes, a Chicago banker who became Vice President of the United States — talks about the spats that two lovers are bound to have:

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GRATITUDE COMES FROM LOOKING AT THE GOOD. IT CAN HUMBLE US TO DISCOVER HOW MUCH RICHNESS AND BEAUTY WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. GRATITUDE CAN BECOME THE LENS THROUGH WHICH WE VIEW THE WORLD

BY PATRICK T. REARDON

It

all comes back to love. Gratitude does, like everything else that is good in the world.

Thomas Merton writes that gratitude “takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder….”

His subject is the relationship that human beings share with God, but he could just as well be talking about the relationship that two people share when they love each other.

Indeed, he’s talking about love of all sorts.

Young lovers can’t get enough of each other.

They want to be together all the time, share every experience, know everything there is to know about the beloved. They are intensely aware of the goodness and richness in the loved one — the humour, the compassion,

REALITY JUNE 2016

the beauty, the intelligence, the sweetness.

They can’t help but feel wonder — and gratitude.

LOVE IS BLIND And the imperfections of the loved one?

These are recognised, of course. He may be moody or lazy or, well, a little overweight.

She may be a couch potato or high-strung or spend too much on clothes.

Knowing each other so well and learning more and more each day, the lovers can’t ignore these imperfections. They can’t pretend they don’t exist. Indeed, these flaws will lead to friction and to anger, fights and tears. But, as the song says, “It’s all in the game.”

Once in a while, he won’t call, but it’s all in the game.

Soon he’ll be there by your side with a small bouquet.

And he’ll kiss your lips and caress your waiting fingertips And your heart will fly away.

GROWING IN LOVE Of course, young love matures. The initial wonder and delight are too intense to last forever. Life together falls into a routine. And this is a time when love can wither.

The relationship won’t grow on its own. It needs to be nurtured by each lover. If one partner crawls into a shell, forget it; the love will shrivel. But, if both work at love, it will blossom.

Working at love is a choice the lovers have to make, and it involves many things, such as coping with the imperfections that, during the courtship, were minor irritations. In a long life together, those irritations can become major stumbling blocks. And they will be unless the lovers keep themselves open to the richness of the other — unless, in other words, they keep in mind all they have to be grateful for.

The flip-side of this is the recognition on the part of the lovers of their own imperfections.

All of us are flawed. All of us do selfish things, say mean words. If we look at ourselves with honest eyes, we can only be humble.

And we can’t help but realise how much we owe those who love us. With all our scars, twists, tics and errors, they still hold us in their hearts. We can’t help but be thankful.

It’s the same between a parent and a child.

A newborn baby fills everyone around her with unalloyed affection and delight. But, when that baby has grown into a teenager, she’s going to bang heads with her parents.

It’s her job, in a way. It’s what she needs to do in the process of growing into her own person.

HOW MUCH WE HAVE SHARED That can be destructive to a family. It won’t be, though, if it’s counter-balanced by an

awareness — on the part of the teen and of her parents — of the good, rich life they have shared. Of how, in spite of each other’s flaws, they have loved and cherished each other.

There will still be anger over disagreements, but it won’t be overwhelming. As aggravated as you may be, you can’t write off someone who has brought so much happiness, peace and acceptance to your life.

But this is where the work comes in, whether between two lovers or between a parent and a child or between one friend and another — or between us and God. It takes an act of the will, a decision, to keep in mind these good gifts from the other — to be grateful.

Unfortunately, there is much in our human hard-wiring that leads us to want to look at the negative. So looking at the good, at the positive, is something we have to decide to do.

And it’s not something you do for a day or a month. It’s the work of a lifetime.

The pay-off of looking at the good — of being grateful for the good — is a life in which we’re constantly aware of the richness and beauty that we’ve been given. It’s a frame of mind with which to view the world.

Rather than dwelling over-long on the bus we missed or the job we failed to get, we are

37 open enough to look at the world with wonder and awe — to note the colour of the rising sun on the red bricks of the building across the street or take in the smell of new mown grass or recognise the look of affection in a friend’s eye.

At the heart of this way of experiencing the world is our relationship with God — our love affair with God. The love we share with God, like any other love, requires us to be open and responsive to the goodness and richness that God brings into our lives. And, after all, as Merton notes, everything we have — from the air we breathe to the talent we’re born with — comes from God. As imperfect as we are, God still loves us. Like any love, it’s a mystery. And it’s a wonder.

And the more we recognise that wonder — the more we realise just how much we have to be thankful for — the deeper will be the love we share with God. And the happier our lives will be.

Patrick T. Reardon, who was a writer with the Chicago Tribune for more than 30 years, is the author of Catholic and Starting Out.

F E AT U R E

JULIAN OF NORWICH

OPTIMIST AND MYSTIC WE KNOW LITTLE ABOUT THE LIFE OF THE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH WOMAN MYSTIC, JULIAN OF NORWICH BUT PEOPLE CONTINUE TO FIND HOPE AND INSPIRATION IN HER VISIONARY INSIGHTS INTO THE LOVE OF GOD.

BY NAOMI KLOSS

A

new day has dawned.

The sun bathes the earth.

Summer time conjures up images of scooping ice-cream and playful times by the beach.

The summer glow has a positive, psychological affect on everyone. The bright morning sun enriches the earth and engulfs us in a spirit of joyfulness signifying the light of Jesus on each one of us. This light, centred on Jesus, is at the heart of the gospel message of love, mercy, justice and hope. The seeds of new growth are being sown centuries after Pentecost. This natural world of growth stands in stark contrast to the perennial drip feed of negativity and fear that envelopes our world.

One such advocate for God’s mercy and love in the midst of the darkness of Medieval England was Julian of Norwich.

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WHO WAS JULIAN OF NORWICH? Little definite is known about REALITY JUNE 2016

Julian of Norwich. Even her real name is unknown, for she takes the name Julian from the title of the church of St Julian where she lived in a cell. She was probably born about 1342 in the reign of Edward III at a time of chaos, disorder and political instability. Life was scarred by the Hundred Years War and later by a Great Plague. She was educated by the Benedictine nuns at Carrow Abbey.

When she was about thirty, she suffered from a severe illness. When the priest came to give her the last rites on May 7, 1373 and held up the crucifix for her to look at, Julian reported that she was losing her sight and that she felt physically numb.

As she gazed on the crucifix, she saw the figure of Jesus begin to bleed. Over the next several hours, she had a series of 16 visions of Christ which ended by the time she recovered from her illness about a week later. She wrote an account of her visions which speak even now into our commercially driven, twentieth first century world with an optimism deeper than any positive psychology textbook.

Julian of Norwich was one of the world’s first optimists energised by a deep Godcentredness, propelled by a love which passes all human comprehension.

Church of St Julian in Norwich where Julian had her cell

JULIAN’S WORLD Julian lived at a time of both disorder and opportunity. Her native town of Norwich was an important centre for wool manufacturing with many merchants come to buy and sell. It was also a place of pilgrimage. The religious and secular spheres of life were interchangeable. The message of Jesus’ suffering on the cross spoke volumes to this often struggling community, where it was difficult to make a fortune, or even for many, to eke out a living at subsistence level. The people were drained by high taxes and later by the bubonic plague which indiscriminately struck the poor and rich alike.

For Julian, trust was the highest prayer; “The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God knowing that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.”

(Enfolded in Love) She revives the notion that God is interested in human concerns and that God will support our every need, even in the most traumatic and difficult of situations. Her message was that God should be seen as bigger and wider than our deepest imaginings. She emphasises in a multitude of ways how God is love. All roads lead to love and for Julian, “love is His meaning.” God is not distant or absent from our concerns. In spite of the chaos and disorder that surrounded her, she wrote about the love which was central to her life. “But all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

AND ALL SHALL BE WELL In her own time, Julian was restoring the notion of hope, something that is often absent from our own world of today.

Centuries after they were written, her meditations inspire us because she saw God’s handprint everywhere.

God is calling us to a new state of being.

Julian’s emphasis on love connects the Old and the New Testaments. It is central to Jesus’ message and it has been highlighted by saints throughout the centuries. St. Augustine wrote that “love is the beauty of the soul.” Through love, St Francis sought to be an instrument of peace in a war torn world and similarly, we remember recent turmoil in Syria. We also think of the droves of wandering refugees, broken and torn by war. Equally, too, Julian of Norwich was well aware of the pain and sufferings in the world.

Julian was overcome by a sense of the mercy of God, the bedrock of God’s love.

It is especially useful to revisit her message

in the Church’s designated Year of Mercy.

Julian argues that mercy “springs from the goodness of God.” Mercy is needed in a world beset by disorder, pain and injustice.

Julian encourages us to embark on our own spiritual journeys where we trust in God’s power to strengthen and comfort us in times of need, trauma and personal tragedy until such time, as she powerfully imagines, when “ we see Him face to face.” This is powerful in the darkened, medieval and disease laden world of the fourteenth century. Equally, it speaks to us centuries on as God is the essence of Love.

In the dark times in which she lived, Julian was aware that love is God’s meaning. Her world was very different from that of Jesus, but there were many similarities. For many of the inhabitants of first century Palestine or of fourteenth century Norwich, it was a case of the survival of the fittest. People were often materially hungry and in need. To read Julian’s work, even in a popular collection like Enfolded in Love- Daily Readings with Julian of Norwich (2004,) brings us closer to Jesus’ message centred on love. Julian tells us how she saw the beautiful image of a hazelnut as round as a ball. She marvelled at it as if it were all that is made. In this small object, she saw the power of God’s wondrous creation.

She thought of it crumbling to nothing. It is, after all, so small but she realised that “it lasts and ever shall because God loves it. And all things have being through the love of God” This powerful message is for all of us; through God’s love, we can feel the warmth of the summer every day in our lives.

Naomi Kloss lives in Wexford. She teaches English, Classics and History.

The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God knowing that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need Enfolded in Love

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DE V E LO P M E NT IN ACTION Refugees travel on vehicles with their belongings as they flee fighting in Kachin

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TRÓCAIRE HAS BEEN WORKING WITH LOCAL PARTNERS IN MYANMAR (FORMERLY BURMA) SINCE 1995.

BEFORE 2008, MOST OF THE WORK FOCUSED O N SUPP O RT I N G REFUGEES LIVING ON THE THAILAND-MYANMAR BORDER. SINCE THEN, IT FOCUSES ON GENDER EQUALITY, LAND RIGHTS AND PEACE BUILDING, WORKING THROUGH LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL SOCIETY AND ENSURE RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.

BY SEÁN FARRELL

REALITY JUNE 2016

AN ATTACK ON TW For

the past five years, the people of Kachin - a large state in northern Myanmar (formerly Burma), home to 1.7 million people - have had their lives wracked by conflict.

Over 100,000 have had to flee their homes, seeking sanctuary in the many camps that dot the landscape.

This journey into displacement has brought terror, poverty, desperation and anger. Many people forced from their villages have lost their homes, their farms, their valuable few animals.

Today, they sit in crowded conditions, supported by food aid, often flooded during monsoon season, thinking of a better time when they lived on their farms many miles away.

Even in the midst of the twists and changes in the conflict, some have chosen to make the journey out of the camps and return to the place they know as home.

A small community from a village called Nam Zaw Yang are one such community. Of the 52 households from this community, ten of them have decided to leave the squalid relative safety of camp life and set up again in their home village.

And as they have made the journey home after years of camp life, a second attack on them has started.

Sitting in a small bamboo hut, as tea boils on

the open fire, they speak of this second attack on them. Their land has been seized. Where they once farmed, a banana plantation now sits on 600 acres, dominating the landscape and diminishing their future prospects.

This was their land. Their trees and plants and crops grew here. Their place of worship and place of education stood here. They buried their dead on this land. And it provided the water and soil that sustained life.

Today, their land is covered by a banana plantation, their school abandoned and forlorn, their water source poisoned by the chemical run off from the plantation and their graveyard hidden and lost amidst the fields of banana.

They speak slowly, but with anger, of how the plantation now sucks much of the water from the area, poisoning the fish they used to catch in the streams and even bringing death to the water buffalo that are so essential for keeping their rice paddies ploughed and productive. They talk about how their rice plants now turn black and decayed as a result of the chemical flow off from the banana plantation nearby. They reflect on the ending of their rural way of life.

As I walk around the plantation listening to their quiet voices, I can see how this place has changed so horribly. This land is now owned by

People from the Nam Zaw Yang community in Myanmar at the banana plantation that now covers their land

N TWO FRONTS

attack Where ow sits pe and

nts and d place r dead nd soil

anana orlorn, emical veyard ana. ow the r from atch in e water eir rice ey talk ck and ff from ect on

ning to ce has ned by

a Chinese businessman. The bananas produced will end up in markets in China, bringing wealth to a small number of people. The poor will be pitted against one another as desperate migrants from Southern Myanmar work the long plantation hours and will stand in the front line if this abuse of a community spills over into violence.

We see this too often in our work with Trócaire.

The areas and local conditions may be different but the common features - land grabs, illegal land acquisitions, mining concessions and forced displacement - are the same. These features are the result of the overt and brutal use of power.

It comes in different forms, but its intention is always the same: to suppress dissent and ensure the benefits accrue to the few at the expense of the many.

And as always, it is infused with a belief that power becomes alive in two ways – either from the gun or from the dollar.

But sitting here in this hut with its thatched roof and smell of tea poured in simple cups fashioned from bamboo, one definite truth hangs in the air: real power comes from within. As long as this community bonds together, strives as one and believes in the power of perseverance and in the reality of truth, they have a chance.

The test for them is that they will have to do this under sustained pressure. And the nearer they get to success, the more the pressure applied.

For us as Trócaire, our work is to build a global movement of people who believe in and work for justice. It is about bringing people together to bind their centres of power to effect real and lasting change. It is about linking the actions of these rural farmers driven from lands their forefathers and foremothers held for generations with the actions of those in Ireland who deeply care.

In essence it is about building a bridge of support, stretching across thousands of miles, from Ireland to Myanmar, ensuring that these rural communities have a fighting chance. Through local partner organisations, Trócaire is supporting this community to raise awareness of their legal entitlements, to document complaints, and to organise and mobilise in defence of their land.

There was not much they could do about the war that drove them into the camps.

This new war on their land however is one they can do something about. And sitting looking at the determined lines in their solemn faces, it’s clear they will.

Seán Farrell is Director of Trócaire’s International Division.

41 Trócaire in Mayanmar works through local partnerships to strengthen civil society and ensure respect for human rights in the Yangon and Tanitharyi Region, in Mon State, as well as in Kachin and Shan State where people affected by fighting and displacement are supported.

To find out more visit www.trocaire.org

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE TWO BOOKS ON BIBLICAL THEMES REVIEWED BY BRENDAN McCONVERY

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Wilfrid Harrington is without question the doyen of Irish Catholic biblical scholarship.

Much sought after as a teacher, he has taught in all the Catholic theological institutes of the Dublin area, as well as in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute for the training of prospective clergy and lay leaders. Early in his career as a lector in the Dominican studium in Tallaght, Dublin, he began writing books of comprehensive, yet incisive, biblical scholarship, aimed for the most part at a popular, rather than scholarly audience. More than fifty years later, the result is an impressive bibliography of at least fifty book titles, not to mention many articles that run from the popular to the highly scholarly and technical. His most recent offering, Our Merciful God, written as he approaches his ninetieth birthday, is an example of his deceptively simple style that channels for readers a living stream of intense biblical knowledge. In the opening lines of his preface, he writes: “I have become increasingly conscious of the absolute importance of our image of God ...it determines our response to God and how we live out that response.” This is not the first time he has attempted a synthetic picture of God based on the scriptural evidence. One thinks for instance of The Tears of God: our benevolent Creator

REALITY JUNE 2016

Fr Wilfrid Harrington OP

and Human Suffering (1982) or The Prodigal Father (1982) or the more recent The Loving God (2012), based for the most part on retrieving the image of God’s love from the sometimes forbidding pages of the Old Testament.

This is very much a book to reflect upon during the Holy Year of Mercy. Six brief chapters, with an introduction on the face of mercy (a reflection on Misericordiae Vultus, the document that convoked the Holy Year), and an appendix that lays out the biblical terminology of mercy, treat many aspects of the mystery of divine mercy.

He notes that Pope Francis had specifically chosen December 8th as the day for inaugurating the holy year as it was the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of Vatican II and quotes with warm approval the Pope’s words that it was at that Council that “the walls which for so long had

made the Church a kind of fortress were thrown down and the time had come to proclaim the Gospel in a new way.”

Although a younger generation might hanker for the imagined serenity of a more regimented institution, Harrington remarks that the Vatican II generation know better and “we have tasted freedom. Never would we return to that past – a dead past in any case,” and despite an orchestrated policy of restoration, the windows that John XXIII have not been completely closed (p 10-11).

We are never in any doubt that, for Fr Harrington, God’s love and mercy are boundless.

In his final chapter, he discusses briefly the universality of the offer of salvation. Matthew’s last judgement scene might appear to challenge Paul’s hope for salvation for all as outlined in Romans 9-11, so how are we to read the Matthew passage? As myth, says Harrington, for the last judgement is taking place in our lives here and now. He quotes with approval the words of his Belgian confrere, Edward Schillebeeckx: “I believe and I say it with some hesitation – that at the last judgement, perhaps everyone will stand at the right hand side of the Son of Man. Come all you beloved people, blessed of the Father, for despite all your inhumanity, you once gave a glass of water when I was in need” (p 74).

Denis McBride, a Scots-born Redemptorist, came later to the task of writing than did Wilfrid Harrington. After many years as director of Hawkstone Hall, the renewal centre run by his province, he is now director of Redemptorist Publications, and has produced 14 books in addition to many CDs, most of them on biblical themes. Most of Fr McBride’s writing has been in the area of New Testament, so a commentary on a whole book of the Old Testament from his pen is unexpected. Journeying with Jonah: the Struggle to Find Yourself follows the outline of the Book of Jonah carefully, and the text from the New Revised Standard Version is helpfully included at the end of the book.

It is a beautifully produced book.

The type font is very clear and it is well illustrated by Jonathan Thompson in a series of handdrawn images in which the predominant colours are shades of black and blue. There are also some very fine photographs from the bas reliefs in the Palace of Ashurbanipal of Assyria, now in the British Museum. Their usefulness would have been further enhanced had there been even a very brief explanatory caption attached to each.

While Denis McBride is thoroughly conversant with recent literature on the Book of Jonah, he brings the biblical prophet into dialogue with

Fr Denis McBride CSsR

SUMMER

some of the deeper and more intractable problems of modern culture. There is a sense in which Jonah is a troubling book that subverts the certainties on which most of the canonical prophetic tradition is based (e.g. Israel as God’s chosen people, YHWH as

the avenger / champion of Israel) in favour of a more radical and universalist view of God and less blinkered view of the failings of God’s chosen people. Discussing the problematic passage where Jonah goes to sleep on his bunk while the storm begins to rise, McBride disagrees with St Jerome who saw this as a sign that the prophet was at peace: “this is not peaceful rest but anguished withdrawal, the compulsion to remove himself from the gloom and growing threat of his surrounding world” (p 54).

This dialogue with the world of literature and psychology is fascinating and while the footnotes are useful for keeping account of the sources, an

index would have been useful.

The words of Harold Robson, the celebrated London theatre critic, on Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot ring equally true for Jonah: “such dramatic movement as there is is not towards a climax, but towards a perpetual postponement” (p 139). Speaking about Jonah’s final sulk with God, McBride writes: “Our modern Jonah is sensitive about issues on ecology while he fails to have compassion for a city of foreigners. His sensitivity is not about a tree, of course, but about the comfort it afforded him.”

Both these books deserve to be read attentively and pondered for the way in which they reveal the wonders of the Word of God.

Ennismore Retreat Centre

26th June – 2nd July Res - €465 Individually Guided Retreat Fr. Frank Downes OP & Sr. Peggy Cronin

4th – 8th July Res - €385 The Eucharist. Mystery of Life.

Fr. Benedict Hegarty OP. 22nd – 24th July Res- €165 Non/Res €100 Prayer & Healing Retreat Fr John Keane 28th Aug – 1st Sept Res €420 –Non/Res €300 Conference with Edwina Gateley “Call to Personal and Global Transformation”

ST DOMINIC’S

10th September - €55 10.30am – 4.30pm The Spirit of Leadership - from Ego to Spirit.

Empowering Ourselves to Lead with greater Self-Awareness, Discernment, Compassion and Intuition Patrick Sheehan MA Psych.

IAHP

New Double CD Beyond Mindfulness: Meditation and Soothing Lyrics.

Pat and Martina Lehane Sheehan (For Sale in Ennismore, Veritas and other Outlets)

Ennismore Retreat Centre is set in 30 acres of wood, field and garden overlooking Lough Mahon on the River Lee. It’s the ideal place for some time-out, reflection and prayer.

For ongoing programmes please contact the Secretary or visit our website Tel: 021-4502520 Fax: 021-4502712 E-mail: ennismore@eircom.net www.ennismore.ie

Wilfrid Harrington: Our Merciful God. Dublin: Dominican Publications 2016, 79pp. €8.99

Denis McBride: Journeying with Jonah.

The Struggle to find Yourself. Redemptorist Publications, 2016, pp 172. €12.95 Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR is editor of Reality

REALITY CHECK PETER McVERRY SJ

OWNING YOUR OWN HOME

OWNING A HOUSE OF YOUR OWN WAS THE AMBITION OF MOST IRISH FAMILIES. THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF RECENT TIMES HAS MADE IT MORE AND MORE UNREALISABLE.

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In the years to come, the big division in Irish society will be between a minority who can afford to own their own home and a majority who can never even dream of owning their own home.

Owning your own home has been an aspiration for most Irish people since independence. Perhaps it was the centuries of British rule, during which Irish people were mostly tenants on land owned by British people, but with independence came a sense of pride, that now the land belonged to us. Owning your home was an affirmation of our Irishness.

For the past 50 years, almost everyone in Ireland could aspire to owning their own home. In the private sector, one modest wage was sufficient to secure a mortgage.

Even those who could not afford a mortgage went on to a social housing waiting list, and after a few years, were allocated a house which, if they wished, they could purchase from the local authority.

However, that dream was destroyed for many during the Celtic Tiger years. It became harder and harder for mid-income households to afford a mortgage. In 1994, the average price of a new home was 4.2 times the average industrial wage; by 2006, it was 9.8 times (and, in Dublin, 13.3 times). The Government refused to implement the recommendations of the reports it had itself commissioned, which could have helped to control the price of housing. Several tribunals later, we know why. A golden circle of politicians, bankers, developers REALITY JUNE 2016

and builders were making a lot of money from rising house prices and the Government coffers were overflowing. That legacy continues today. A household now requires two good incomes to get a mortgage; to purchase a house worth €300,000, a household requires an income of at least €75,000 per annum and a deposit of €38,000. Many such households are currently living in the private rented sector, where rents are often higher than mortgage repayments, and are consequently unable to save the deposit.

If getting on to the housing ladder now seems impossible for many, falling off the housing ladder now seems very likely for many of the 37,000 households who are more than two years in mortgage arrears.

And for those on low incomes, accessing social housing has become more and more difficult, with longer and longer waiting lists.

Before the Celtic Tiger years, Ireland was building thousands of social houses, even in years of recession, creating large housing estates such as Crumlin, Tallaght, Ballymun, and Ballyfermot. In 1975, 8,800 social housing units were built (33% of all new housing); in 1985, 6,500 social housing units were built (27% of all new housing). But the number of additional social housing units dropped during the Tiger years to a net 1,790 each year. The number of households on the social housing waiting list jumped from 27,000 in 1996 to over 100,000 today, many waiting for ten years or more to access social housing.

That the Government should build houses for people who need them and cannot afford to purchase them on the market seems blindingly obvious. But Government policy now is to push most people on low incomes into the private rented sector.

In the Social Housing Strategy announced in November 2014, the Fine Gael/ Labour Government committed to providing 110,000 new social housing units by 2020.

But 75,000 of them were to be provided in the private rented sector under the Housing Assistance Programme, where the local authority pays the landlord, and the tenant pays the local authority.

Those households are then struck off the housing waiting list! The coalition Government announced in January that 13,000 new social housing units had been provided in 2015. But a close reading showed that only 1,300 were new social houses; 7,500 units were in the private rented sector.

Most people on low incomes do not want to be housed in the private rented sector, because of lack of security of tenure. In Ireland, tenancies are normally for 6 to 12 months, whereas in other European countries, they are often 5 or 10 years or even life-long. Tenants can be evicted at short notice if a landlord says that they intend to sell the house or that they need it to accommodate a family member.

Hence, a family living in private rented accommodation, whose children go to the local school, cannot be sure that they will still be living beside their children’s school in twelve months time.

Housing is such a basic human need that a Government which fails to ensure that every household has appropriate accommodation, at a price they can afford, is a failed Government.

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH

45

YOUNG MAN, GET UP! The story of the raising of the widow’s son is only found in the Gospel of Luke. The story is quite 10TH SUNDAY IN straightforward: a young ORDINARY TIME man has died and his body is being brought out for burial. In Palestine, burial took place immediately after death. When a person died, the body was washed, wrapped in a shroud and brought by neighbours and friends to the place of burial, usually a cave with a stone at its mouth. The Greek word in the text suggests this is a young adult rather than a child. For any mother to lose her only son is a tragic event. In that culture, a woman without a man in the family – husband or son – was in a vulnerable position. The widow’s

JUNE

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plight has attracted the sympathy of her friends and neighbours. Jesus is deeply moved what he sees. First he comforts the mother.

Then he signals to the bearers to stop. Finally, he speaks to the young man, telling him to get up. This is the same word (‘arise’) that will be used for Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. Jesus ‘gives him back to his mother’. Miracle stories end by noting the effect on the people. Here it is fear or awe as they recognise that, for a fleeting moment at least, they have been in the presence of God. There are only three stories in the gospels about dead people being raised to life – this one, Lazarus (John 11) and the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22ff, the only one found in all three synoptic Gospels. Bringing the dead back to life is the most spectacular example of Jesus’ healing. Many people in Jesus’ time

that, when the Messiah came, he would “heal the wounded and revive the dead, and bring good news to the poor.”

In all the Gospel stories of raising the dead, all those who are raised are young people.

In today’s culture, some young people take a path of self-destruction fuelled by drugtaking and alcoholism. For them, it seems to be the only escape from an existence without meaning, and it often literally results in death. It is to them that Jesus speaks and says, “Young man / young woman, I tell you to arise, to come back to genuine, true life.”

Today’s Readings 1 Kings 17:17-24 Galatians 1:11-19 Gospel: Luke 7:11-17

God’s Word continues on page 46

GOD’S WORD THIS MONTH MANY SINS MUST HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN HER JUNE In today’s Gospel, Jesus is invited to a meal by one of his critics, Simon the Pharisee. Pharisees often 11TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME entertained their guests after the synagogue service. They placed special emphasis on strict observance of the rules of purity that applied to the food, to the dishes and the cleanliness of the guests. Simon’s carefully created wall of purity around his table is smashed by the arrival of an unwelcome guest. Pharisee’s meals were ‘men only’ parties: even wives and daughters did not join the company when guests were entertained. This gate-crasher is a woman ‘who had a bad name in the town.’ In Jesus’ time, guests stretched themselves out on couches around the table, propped up on cushions,

with their feet dangling over the end of the couch. Ignoring the scowls that meet her, she goes up behind Jesus, lets her tears fall on his feet, wipes them with her hair and kisses them before rubbing them with costly perfumed oil.

Simon is so shocked when Jesus offers no resistance to the woman’s attentions that he concludes he is a charlatan. The conversation takes a new turn. Jesus embarks on giving the kind of wise teaching that was expected of him, even it is unpalatable to Simon and his friends.

“Is it more generous to forgive someone who owes you fifty pounds or someone who owes you five hundred?” he asks. Simon falls into the trap Jesus has so neatly set. Both Simon and the woman are forgiven sinners. Simon, who has spent his life trying to be good, needs the relief and joy that comes from forgiveness every bit as much as she does but a sense of his own righteousness holds him back.

Jesus’ words of to the woman are a little difficult. They are often taken to mean ‘many sins have been forgiven her because she has shown so much love.’ It is more likely that Jesus intended ‘many sins must have been forgiven her or else she would not have been capable of showing such great love.’ The first makes forgiveness depend on us. The second realises that the joy of knowing that an intolerable burden of guilt has been lifted from our shoulders makes it possible to do daring things, like barging in to a dining room where you are not welcome or shocking the pious company at a dinner party by the extravagance of your love.

HOW TO BECOME A DISCIPLE JUNE Today’s short Gospel has three parts. First, Jesus asks his disciples TH who people believe 12 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME him to be. They give fairly stock answers he could be John the Baptist come back to life, or Elijah, returning as the prophet of the final days or some other great prophetic figure risen from the dead. He then asks a more searching question: ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter replies on behalf of all of them that he is the messiah.

The second part follows this confession of Peter. The popular picture of the messiah was that he would come as a glorious conquering king, leading an army of liberation to throw off Roman dominion of Palestine. Jesus speaks instead of a suffering Son of Man, who would be rejected, put to death and raised on the third day. This is the first of Jesus’ three predictions of his forth-coming passion.

The third part is an instruction on how to

become a true disciple of Jesus. Discipleship begins when you can forget self. ‘Deny one’s self,’ might suggest giving things up, like drink or sweets during Lent. Jesus intends something much more radical: the word ‘deny’ it really means something like ‘take no account of yourself’ and embark instead on the radical road of love that will lead through the Cross every day. The only way disciples of Jesus will save their lives is by giving them away in love, just as he did. To give one’s life away in this fashion is really to win it in freedom.

Let’s not pass over the Gospel’s opening words too quickly: ‘one day while he was praying alone.’ More than any other Gospel writer, Luke stresses the importance of Jesus’ prayer. He seems to suggest that it is in prayer that Jesus realises the deepest truth about his mission and what it was going to cost him.

It cannot have been easy for a man in his prime to face the truth that the path God was leading him would end in rejection, in shameful death as an outcast, rejected by those to whom he sought to offer the gift of salvation. If we over-emphasise the divinity

of Jesus, we can unconsciously ignore a great truth about his humanity. This truth is that human beings only discover the truth about themselves gradually and often painfully, and that suffering and pain are part of the human cost of that discovery, especially the pain of realising what it means to be a limited, fragile human being. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews put it beautifully when he described how Jesus prayed: ‘in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:7-8). Those ‘loud cries and tears’ were not just a pretence.

The best account we have of his prayer is of the anguished prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. It is in prayer that we too will learn how to follow Jesus.

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REALITY JUNE 2016

Today’s Readings 2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13 Galatians 2:16, 19-21 Gospel: Luke 7:36—8:3

Today’s Readings Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1 Galatians 3:26-29 Gospel: Luke 9:18-24

THE REALITY CROSSWORD NUMBER 5, JUNE 2016

FOLLOW ME During his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus had to pass JUNE through the hostile territory of the Samaritans. He sends two messengers ahead to announce his arrival, but they are rejected. The Zebedee brothers, James and John, who want tough action to be taken, have 13TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME entirely missed the point Jesus was making that he is not power-mongering messiah but someone ready to give his life as a ransom The next part of the Gospel is made up three little incidents involving prospective disciples. In each case, the most important thing is the word spoken by Jesus. First, a volunteer confidently proclaims he will follow Jesus wherever he goes. It takes only a word about the sleeping arrangements of Jesus and his followers to turn his mind elsewhere: foxes have dens, birds have nests, but Jesus sleeps wherever he will. Another person is invited to join the band of disciples. He is willing enough but there is a problem: his father has just died. Burial in Palestine usually took place on the same day a person died. Jesus’ answer to leave the dead to bury the dead may well strike us as inhuman, but its point is the urgency of the Kingdom of God. The third person seems to be making a reasonable request – he is willing to follow, but first wants to say good bye to the folks at home. Jesus answers with a proverb about laying the hand to the plough and looking back. These three stories of would-be disciples are challenging. One way of seeing the bigger picture might be to read today’s first reading (1 Kings 19:16, 19-21) that tells how Elijah called Elisha to be his follower. Call to God’s service is a privilege; it is also a challenge to how much we are willing to change.

These three short stories about would-be disciples could be described as ‘vocation stories’. It is hardly news to say that there is a vocations crisis in the Church today. In Ireland this year, seventeen men entered the seminary and six men made final profession of vows. Orders of men and women, that only a generation ago attracted generous young people to work in Ireland and abroad, are aging. Parishes, which once had several curates, are reduced to one, and prospects for the future look bleaker still. This is of concern not just for bishops but for all of us. Is the day approaching when there might be no regular Sunday mass in your church and you will have to seek one elsewhere, or no ordained chaplains will be available for schools or hospitals? The clearest thing to emerge from these stories about Jesus and his would-be disciples is his call to generosity, even to heroism. He is not offering an easy life. It takes courage to follow the call to priestly or religious life today, when even friends and family wonder aloud that you might be wasting your life. If they are to follow it, they need the help of your prayers and your encouragement. And what if you suspect the call is addressed to you? Have you the imagination and the courage to respond generously?

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Today’s Readings

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 3 ACROSS: Across: 1. Gagged, 5. Locate, 10. Ottoman, 11. Quorums, 12. Keen, 13. Devil, 15. Sari, 17.

Lid, 19. Duping, 21. Ebbing, 22. Goliath, 23. Zagreb, 25. Covets, 28. Egg, 30. Maul, 31. Arson, 32.

Leaf, 35. Inertia, 36. Pompeii, 37. Temped, 38. Legate.

DOWN: 2. Antwerp, 3. Gems, 4. Daniel, 5. Liquid, 6. Crow, 7. Tsunami, 8. Soaked, 9. Asking, 14.

Vikings, 16. Angel, 18. Abhor, 20. Gob, 21. Etc, 23. Zambia, 24. Gruyère, 26. Everest, 27. Soffit, 28.

Errand, 29. Gospel, 33. Step, 34. Smug.

Winner of Crossword No. 3 Dervila Keogh-Clarke, Co. Dublin

ACROSS 1. Look at with sullen annoyance or anger.

(6) 5. Divide something into two equal parts. (6) 10. Reorganise after a setback/ (7) 11. The eighth planet from the Sun. (7) 12. Devotional painting of a holy figure, often on wood. (4) 13. King with the golden touch. (5) 15. Toupees, hairpieces. (4) 17. A Latin king. (3) 19. Highest point of a mountain. (6) 21. Not working correctly, having defects. (6) 22. .va (7) 23. Celebrated Polish computer. (6) 25. Piece of cloth or paper used at table. (6) 28. Short-lived craze. (3) 30. Unproductive habits that are hard to change. (4) 31. A member of Swift's rude and loud race (5) 32. At some time in the past. (4) 35. Russian urn used to boil water for tea. (7) 36. Archangel who appeared to Daniel. (7) 37. Outpatient department of a specialist nature. (6) 38. Golf iron used for lofting. (6)

DOWN 2. Foot space when you are sitting behind another seat. (7) 3. Tree area. (4) 4. Restore to a working condition. (6) 5. Ruin, incapacitate or break. (6) 6. Subdivision of a clan in Ireland. (4) 7. Decisive or critical. (7) 8. Soothsayers of the ancient Celtic religion. (6) 9. Knitted garment with long sleeves. (6) 14. Biblical character who weakened Samson. (7) 16. Bright and distinct. (5) 18. Drearily commonplace and predictable.

(5) 20. Yellowish-brown colour. (3) 21. Cooling machine. (3) 23. Jesus of Nazareth. (6) 24. Best point for obtaining a given result, the most favourable conditions. (7) 26. Thor Heyerdahl's ocean-crossing raft.

(3,4) 27. Provoke with a thin pointed piece of metal. (6) 28. Cloth produced by weaving or knitting textile fibres. (6) 29. Crashing car. (6) 33. Shakespeare's hometown river. (4) 34. Tall bird with a long bill. (4)

Entry Form for Crossword No.5, June 2016 Name: Address: Telephone:

1 Kings 19:16b, 19-2 Gal 5:1, 13-18 Gospel: Luke 9:51-62 All entries must reach us by June 30, 2016 One €35 prize is offered for the first correct solutions opened. The Editor’s decision on all matters concerning this competition will be final. Do not include correspondence on any other subject with your entry which should be addressed to: Reality Crossword No. 5, Redemptorist Communications, Unit A6, Santry Business Park, Swords Road, Dublin 09 X651

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