Dear Nuala

Dear Nuala

Nuala Hawkins

<p style=”text-align: justify;”> </p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>On Friday March 3rd, we celebrated the Funeral Mass of Nuala Hawkins in St Joesph’s Church, Urlaur.  Nuala had been very much involved in parish life since moving here with her husband in 2002, serving two terms as a member of our Parish Pastoral Council and, in more recent times, as Sacristan in St Joesph’s, Urlaur.  She died suddenly and unexpectedly in her own home on Tuesday last, February 28th, R.I.P.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>Her son, Fr Padraig, was Principal Celebrant at the Mass and he asked me to preach.  I decided to share a few thoughts by way of a letter to Nuala.</p><hr /><p>nuala
</p><hr /><p style=”text-align: justify;”>Dear Nuala,</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>You were always a great one for cards – making your own personalised cards for birthdays, Christmas and special occasions.  I’ve received them over the years but don’t think I’ve ever written back.  Today I feel the need to write to you.  I’m writing to you but reading it for others because I hope the words might, as words can, bring hope to what has been a very difficult few days for so many people, not least Mick, your sons Seán and Padraig, your daughters Paula, Michelle and Fionnuala, grandchildren Georgina, Dominic, Ciara, Samuel and Aeryn, your brothers and sisters and indeed for all gathered here today.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>I just read a Gospel Passage that you’d have heard many times.  It’s the one about Jesus visiting the home of Martha and Mary following the death of their brother Lazarus.  A few days earlier the sisters had sent word to him telling him “the man you love is ill.”  By the time Jesus arrived Lazarus had died and was buried.  The family was devastated, even to the point of annoyance: “If you had been here my brother would not have died”.  People watched to see how Jesus would react. His reaction paved the way for our own.  “He wept.” Later declaring himself “the Resurrection and the Life” but first he wept.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>A week ago Nuala, I’d have had a job to convince you that I’d weep over you.  If I had said to you when we said goodbye after Mass on Saturday last; “Nuala I’ll be crying over you within the week”, would you have believed me?  Yet, that’s the truth of it Nuala.  When I knelt to pray for you on Tuesday night, tears flowed and they have made their presence felt since.  Now I’m not ashamed of that because the man we’re all trying to follow wept too at the death of a friend and, quite likely for the heartbreak his people were feeling. There’s something healing in knowing that life matters and that death brings tears.  Jesus wept!  It leads to the question why?</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>The answer lies in knowing the value of friendship and loyalty.  It is found too in a deep awareness that something very final has taken place and that things done by the one who has died, will now be left undone or, at best, attended to in a different way.  On that front, Nuala, I have much to lament today.  Your care of this church, not in big brush strokes or heavy lifting, but in the attentiveness to the little bits that we could so easily miss.  The colours of the Church’s Seasons, Green, Red, Purple and White made their appearance and always on cue.  Some little bit that got broken or needed to be made “I’ll ask Mick to take a look at it”, the text asking if I wanted you to turn on heat or a light, the rotas for our readers and Ministers of Holy Communion and so much more … Your ideas around the Lenten and Easter Garden last year and the way you involved the little ones in bringing life to what looked like barren soil.  It all mattered Nuala.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>But it’s not for what you did in terms of work we miss you.  It’s the woman behind the work, the heart of that woman that was ultimately kind.  Somebody once said that the world is made up of givers and takers and, it’s worth naming it today, you were primarily among the givers. You touched many lives, shaped the very lives of the men and women here today who, despite their age remain at heart, your children.  You loved their children and never forgot a significant moment in their lives.  You touched the heart of Mick too well over forty years ago and said yes to him and he to you in that sign – that Sacrament – that is marriage.  You were good to and for each other, complemented each other.  As Forrest Gump said in the famous movie, describing Jennie, the woman he always loved, “Jennie and me were like peas and carrots”.  Very different in shape and colour but always, always on the same plate, the same page and that page was one of sharing a journey, often in the Volvo, seldom in the air but always in the heart and from the Soul.  You can see why you’re missed.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>In the Community Centre, for many years, you were its voice and face, the point of contact and ever efficient.  People – men and women, boys and girls, were the stuff of your day and interaction was important.  Respectful, honest, committed and, in the interests of honesty and transparency, stubborn on occasions were the building blocks and the cement that made you the person we came to know, trust, respect and love.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>“Tears” it has been said “are the price we pay for love”.  It’s a price worth paying.  That’s part of the reason Jesus wept Nuala, because he loved and loves all of us.  I’m convinced He was there for you and with you to welcome and reassure you.  He was in Mick who, shocked and all as he was, began to build the blocks and shape the moment of your death by making the calls he needed to make, calling the priest, the Gardai and gathering your family and your neighbours so that we can be here today to pray around and for you.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>“Let my prayer rise before you like incense” is a consoling image and in our Funeral Mass, your son has allowed that happen.  With the thurible and its charcoal and incense he has enveloped the Altar and all of us in a haze of prayer and a scent that lingers to remind us, prayer always rises, can be a slow process but, given time, it brings the answers we seek.  You know where I’m going with this Nuala.  As I draw these lines to a close I want to remind you and all here that we spoke last Saturday night about this very thurible.  The build-up of burnt charcoal had taken something of a toll.  You noticed it at Nora Conroy’s Funeral but didn’t say anything to me.  You did a bit of research about the best way to clean a thurible, searching on line and talking to some of your colleagues in the Community Centre.  When you felt you had an idea where to go with this, you involved me and told me you were taking it home.  I had no worries about that.  Ironically you said to me that you hoped there’d be no funeral before you got the job done.  How little did we know and surely there’s a message in here for us all today – how little we know about the future and the absolute need, with God’s help and in His name, to do our best with each and every day.  Many know it now but I want to say it again, Nuala died while she was cleaning this thurible.  The little dish was held between thumb and index finger and I believe that little dish has a message for us today, because it says to me that Nuala died doing a good thing, that she died peacefully though unexpectedly and that the prayer of her final act of service was among the most blessed she ever prayed.  That prayer is interwoven with ours today and will so remain forever in the rising incense blessed and shared in this church.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>I’d never fit all that on a card Nuala, not even one of your specially commissioned cards but I believe these words are important.  It seems appropriate to write to you since the Post Office was your point of contact with so many people, letters stamped and sent and words shared. The final word on behalf of all of us, having prayed for your Eternal Rest, has to be “Thanks”.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>God Bless you Nuala. May Jesus who wept console your family and all, myself included, who numbered you among their friends.</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>Vincent</p><p style=”text-align: justify;”>PS You made a real difference. I’m glad we met.</p>

Loaves, Fishes and Generosity

Loaves, Fishes and Generosity

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Thinking of the Gospel about feeding the 5000 reminds me of the Post Communion Reflection used at my father’s Funeral Mass in Cloonloo.  It’s elsewhere on this blog but thought I might post here again.

They asked me why I did it?

The truth is I don’t know – it just seemed the right thing to do.  We had been standing there for hours.  He had spoken so much, said so much – time just went by.  People were hungry.  You could see it in them and yet nobody wanted to leave.  There was a muttering through the crowd – “he wants to feed us” – “With what?” someone said – “there’s no food here”.

That’s when I heard myself saying “I have something”  – my voice seemed so loud.  I was only a child but my voice rose above all others.  “I have something”.  A man asked what had I and I said “five loaves and two fish” – he smiled.  I suppose now I would think it was a dismissive smile but that day I thought he was pleased.  He passed on the message “There’s a small boy here with five loaves and two fish” – my heart sank when he added “but what is that between so many?”  I blushed and even with my childish counting of two and two making four, I could see he was right.  The man who had been talking to us did not agree.  “Bring it to me”, he said and they took my food.  I’ll never know how it happened but the feeding began.  Bread and fish fed to five thousand.

“Why did you do it?”  I’ve often thought about that.  I did it because my father would have done it.  He was always sharing bread with people at home.  I grew up seeing him do that.  Truth be told, it was he who had given me the few loves and fish before I left the house.  I did it because he would have done it.  It was the right thing to do.

There’s nothing to beat a father’s good example.  Thanks Bill!  We will not forget.

Digging by Seamus Heaney

[youtube=http://youtu.be/dIzJgbNANzk?rel=0]

Between my finger and my thumb  
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
 
Under my window, a clean rasping sound  
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:  
My father, digging. I look down
 
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds  
Bends low, comes up twenty years away  
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills  
Where he was digging.
 
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft  
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
 
By God, the old man could handle a spade.  
Just like his old man.
 
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
 
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
 
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
 

Seamus Heaney, “Digging” from Death of a Naturalist. Copyright 1966 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.

Source: Death of a Naturalist (1966)

HOMILY OF MONSIGNOR BRENDAN DEVLIN

Homily of Monsignor Brendan Devlin at Funeral Mass for Seamus Heaney

 

Just as I hold that it is not for a Christian minister to embark on eulogy or to praise the talents and achievements of those who have  gone from us, neither is it for me to audit the virtues and good works of  Seamus Heaney, (after all, as Wisdom tells us of great men, “ their good works go before them”.) And yet, when we read that series of sharp witted paradoxes that we call the Eight Beatitudes and which are the core of the Sermon on the Mount, what you might call the identikit portrait of the ideal Christian, it cannot but strike us how many of them apply readily to our memories of Seamus Heaney.

“How blest are those of gentle spirit; those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; those who show mercy to others; those who want to see peace established.”

How much of that is a description of the man we knew, of the brilliant literary critic, of the articulater of the years of pain in the North.

But understand me well, this not my effort to recuperate him, as the French say, to harness him in the ranks of the soldiers of Christ. How unsufferably patronising that would be! I think rather of something more deep-seated than such easy conformism. I remember something he wrote a lifetime ago when he recalled the early stirrings of a poetic imagination as he recited as an altar boy the words of the Litany: “Mystical Rose, Tower of David, Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Ark of the Covenant, Morning Star.” I too recall such stirrings at devotions in the twilight of a May evening. Like many of our generation we had both inherited, he on the plains of South Derry, I in the hills of Tyrone, the imagination and with it the memory of a community. What was important was not so much the prayers we did or did not say as the prayers that had been said before us for generations, generations whose hard won loyalties were so authentically embodied in the man and so vibrantly expressed in his work.

Therefore as we commend Seamus Heaney to the mercy of the Lord, which is the primary purpose of a Catholic funeral Mass, we do so in the faith and hope of an age-old community, who lived their lives and died their death in the Lord Jesus and who, still living in that same Lord, await us their descendants and heirs in that eternal life which we hold to be sealed in us by our common baptism.

In that sense, all of us have long since been given to God by our forefathers in the Faith and by the hope which nourished them and which they looked to see fulfilled in us. The Gospel of Saint John quotes Jesus as saying: “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will not cast out,” and as repeating: “Father, of those you have given me I have not lost anyone.”

In our natural consternation in the presence of death and the termination of our earthly supports, we can only turn our eyes on life in that spirit of Christian optimism which, it seems to me, breathes in much of the work of Seamus Heaney and which I believe to be his inheritance from our troubled past.

It was in similarly troubling circumstances, as the shadows of evening descended on that Upper Room of the Last Supper that Christ’s disciples heard him speak the words that we have just read in the Gospel. Amid the foreboding of those last days in the life of Jesus with their crowding events, commands and prophecies, they were urged by their Lord to overcome their sorrow through a renewal of their faith and trust in God.

“Let not your hearts be troubled,” He said. “I go to prepare a place for you and if I do so, I will come back to bring you with me, so that where I am, you also may be. And as for the way there, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. “

As we part from Seamus Heaney for a while and send him from us on that way, what our forefathers called “slí na firinne”, we accompany him in faith and hope and with the viaticum of our prayers.

Archbishop Joe Cassidy, R.I.P.

Archbishop Joe Cassidy, R.I.P.

Archbishop Joseph Cassidy, R.I.P.

Archbishop Joseph Cassidy, R.I.P.

Earlier today I attended the Funeral Mass of Archbishop Joe Cassidy, the retired Archbishop of Tuam and former Parish Priest of Moore-Clonfad Parish.

Ordained in 1959 for the Diocese of Achonry, the Charlestown native was sent to the Diocese of Clonfert on loan and, as events transpired, was never to return to our diocese.  He taught in St Joseph’s College (Garbally) for nearly twenty years, was its President for two and then was appointed Bishop of Clonfert and later Archbishop of Tuam from 1987-1995.  He didn’t enjoy great health and retired as Archbishop but, anxious to maintain pastoral ministry, he moved to the parish 0f Moore-Clonfad where he remained until his final retirement in 2009. He died on January 31st.

A gifted preacher and communicator, he did much to share the Gospel message and Church teaching – doing so in his own way and with a personal touch.  I liked him and his style very much and though I didn’t know him very well he was the sort of a man you felt at home with – he had a good way with him.  May he rest in peace.

I just took a look at the Tuam Archdiocesan website and am happy to see the text of Archbishop Neary’s homily there so thought I might share.

Communicator of the Word of God

St Francis of Assisi once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words”. Joseph Cassidy was a master of words.  Words, to paraphrase Yeats, ‘obeyed his call’.  Their master’s strong, compelling voice is silent now. A voice that once summoned them to serve the Gospel is heard no more. Wherever the good news of Jesus Christ was heard through the words of Archbishop Cassidy his translation was clear, challenging and fresh.  He was a word man, a man who crafted words so that when the Gospel was heard none of us could say that the Scriptures were tired and predictable. The word of God became flesh in a striking way when he spoke.  They broke into our world, spoke to our poverty, whispered to our pain and loneliness, reassured us in our brokenness.

The Teacher

Just before dawn, on the feast of St. John Bosco, his own pain ended. The feast could not have been more poignantly significant. John Bosco, the teacher. Twenty years of Joseph Cassidy’s priesthood had been spent in education. Like St. John Bosco he communicated a great love for wisdom and particularly for English literature. He influenced and helped to form young men, introducing them to English literature, enabling them to enjoy its riches.  He was gifted with great patience, understanding and sympathy which enabled his students to identify with him and to trust in him. Today, many of those students will acknowledge the extraordinary influence which he had on them as he introduced them to drama, debating and public speaking.

Spokesperson

As Bishop he was a very articulate spokesman for the Bishop’s Conference. He could communicate theological ideas in a way that was understandable and in the language of everyday life. He will be remembered by different people for different things. However he will be remembered by everyone who has heard him speak as one of the outstanding preachers of our time. In his homilies he made contact with real life which is there in our streets, our hospital beds, in broken homes and breaking hearts where love and hate, war and peace, grace and despair intermingle.

Spéis sa Ghaeilge

Bhí spéis faoi leith ag an Ard-easpaig Seosamh Ó Casaide sa Ghaeilge.  Is cuma an raibh sé ag labhairt i mBéarla nó i nGaeilge bhí bua na cumarsáide go smior ann.  Cainteoir den scoth a bhí ann.

Creativity and Imagination

As a proclaimer of God’s word, Joseph Cassidy was involved in a search –  a searing search for God and the human person through systematic reflection on experience. He relived the language of Job who struggled with God, bewildered, confused, not understanding why terrible things had happened. As a weaver of words, Joseph Cassidy had few equals. His creative imagination found expression in his power of story, where we recognised our own pilgrimages, and in painting pictures which were true to life.  Life, with all its paradoxes and contradictions, its sorrows and its joys.

Ability to make a text come alive

Few preachers speak with quite the power of imagination that was his. He brought to his preaching the precision of a careful scholar and gave life to these dry bones with all the narrative skills of a novelist and the powerful imagery of a poet. In him we found a rare combination of warmth, insight, and vitality. He comforted and challenged, as he communicated with mind, heart and conscience. His unique story-telling style insured an attentive congregation as they listened to a message that was profound and contemporary. He was witty, touchy, full of humanity and wisdom.

Master of Language

He used language with care, with discrimination and with feeling. He loved to play on words and to pun. His homilies were not only education but entertainment. His language was fresh, his vision poetic. Measured syllables, rhetorical balance all contributed to a gentle yet forceful Christian persuasion. And through his warm and appealing personality, he demonstrated that God’s grace is not a quality given only to a select few. It is a gift, a spiritual resource, if you will, available to each and every one of us. In his proclaiming of the word of God we recognise that God is to be found in the bits and pieces of daily life, whether local, national or global. Joe was sensitive to where people are and where they are going.

Archbishop of Tuam

Recognising the pressure under which marriage and the family operate today he set up the Family Centre in Castlebar with an outreach to the various parishes. When he became the Archbishop of Tuam in 1987 he realised what emigration was doing to the West of Ireland and became very involved in the movement to develop the West together and provided a great source of inspiration and encouragement to all involved.

An Dúlra agus an Timpeallacht

Bhí suim faoi leith an an Ard-esapaig Seosamh sa Ghaeltacht agus sna hOiléain.  Bhí árd-mheas aige ar áilleacht an dúlra agus an ceantar mór-thimpeall san Ard-deoise seo, go háirithe Cruach Phádraig.  D’oibrigh sé go dícheallach an áilleacht agus naofacht nádúrtha sin a chaomhnú ar ’chuile bhealach.

Coping with the cross and suffering

For all that, perhaps the most eloquent sermon of his life is not the words stored in someone’s memory or found in the written word of his homilies but rather in the way he lived through the pain of the last year and particularly during the last few months when his voice was silent.  This was the testing period for all his words and he proved that his preaching was not just directed at others but that he had taken deeply into his own life the directions he had placed before us all. In those months of  suffering he brought a sense of patience and trust to all who kept that lonely vigil at his side.  The best sermons do not use words.  In these last months, Joseph Cassidy preached very well.

Feast of the Presentation

As we lay Archbishop Joe to rest on this day, we are reminded that this is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  The feast is typified by light, at once a delicate, mysterious element as well as an overpowering and blinding force. Candles are blessed today. When lighted, their wicks can be easily snuffed out. Yet these candles symbolise Jesus, our eternal light, our sun that illumines the path of our existence, our pillar of fire which cannot ever be put out.

Theology of Presentation

Today’s feast offers that most special grace to expend our lives heroically for God in kindness and in love. God is seeking to transform us into our very best selves, so that our entire lives will please the Lord.  The book of Exodus prescribed that every first born Israelite son belonged to God. The Jesus who is presented in the temple is the living word of the Father and a friend and companion for our journey. Jesus, who speaks to us in human words, is, in the mysterious depth of his being, one with God. He opens our horizons to and through the possibilities God has given us, so that we too can be one with him.

Thanksgiving

As we celebrate this feast we return the precious gift that God has given us in Archbishop Joseph Cassidy. We thank God for his ministry as priest and bishop and for all those whose lives have been influenced and inspired by him.  He who commanded words has answered the living Word and has returned to him.  May he rest in peace.

Condolences and sympathies

Joining with the whole congregation gathered here in prayer I offer my sincere smypahty and the support of my prayers to his sisters Concie, Angela, Mary, Bernadette, Patricia and Imelda.  To his brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, and his wide circle of friends.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilís!

joe cassidy funeral

THE LAST WORD

On Sunday, February 3rd, Mid West Radio’s “FAITH ALIVE” paid tribute to Archbishop Cassidy.

The greater part of the show centred on the replaying of an interview that had taken place with Monica Morley, Brendan Hoban and Colm Kilcoyne over twenty yeas ago. I hope they don’t mind (and I will check!!) but I made a recording of the replayed programme and will include some of it here.

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