Ballina Novena

Ballina Novena

On Monday, February 17th, I preached at the opening session of the Padre Pio Novena in Ballina.  The theme of the Novena this week is around “Coping with crosses in life” and my topic was linked with finding courage in face of the cross.  Earlier that evening, a lady called me who said she could not attend the Novena but wondered if I could share what I was going to say.  I told her I had some notes written but that if I could put them together, I’d place a few words on the blog today.  Hence this post.  I hope some of it might be helpful.

Many thanks to Frs Aidan, Tom and all at the Cathedral who made me feel so welcome last night.


In the very early years of being a priest, I attended the funeral of a young boy who had died.  I really had no clue as to what I could or should say in the circumstances and my heart went out to his family and to all who were so grief-stricken.  I stood in the Funeral Home, gazing into the open coffin and at his young face and words would not come.  I put my hand on the edge of the coffin, looked at his family and all gathered.  “These are the hardest prayers you will ever have to pray”, I said.  The boy’s father reached over, left his hand on top of mine and said; “We will pray them”.  I don’t know where he got the courage to say that but, in his saying those words, I too found courage and the praying began – and continues.

A priest I knew wrote a lovely reflection one time about the Religious Examiner visiting a school.  It was in the “Penny Catechism” days when questions and answers were the order of the day.  Each question had a set answer, an answer to be learned off, remembered and I suppose live by.  The reflection centred on the priest turning to a young lad in a classroom, much to the disappointment of his teacher who knew there were other pupils in her class who had memorised the answers and had a bit more interest.  This boy’s passion was sport and he didn’t always focus on the finer points of religion.  The priest travelled with a dog in his car and the young boy spotted the dog and made some reference to it as the priest began to question him.  The priest closed his book, looked at the boy and asked a question that was not part of the script: “Do you think Jesus had a dog?”  The answer was sincere: “No Father, because if he had it would have been with him on Calvary.”  The reflection concludes saying the young boy went home proudly pocketing a “ten shilling note”.  Rightly so!  The loyalty of the dog would have seen him at Jesus’ side, even on Calvary.

Nobody should have to face Calvary alone.

I’d like to spend a bit of time with some of the Stations of The Cross that are around the walls of this cathedral and, indeed all our churches.  They take different approaches to telling the story of Jesus’ journey with the cross.  Maybe we might find in them, moments of courage shared and opportunities to help others find courage.

A Galway Diocesan Priest, Fr Leo Morahan, now gone to his Eternal Reward, was a wonderful speaker.  I remember hearing him being interviewed on radio one night.  He spoke about an elderly lady who used to visit the local church, beside the school he attended, where she would pray the Stations Of The Cross.  He said the children would sneak in to watch her as she prayed because she never had any book with her.  She would walk to each station and stand for a while.  Sometimes she would say nothing but occasionally she would, for example, at the Seventh Station she might say “You’re down again”.  It was very personal to her.  He said the line she used that impacted most on him was at the Twelfth Station, Jesus dies on the cross.  He said she would stand there for what seemed like ages and then shaking her head she would say: “Upon my Soul, if the Gallaghers were there, it wouldn’t have happened you!”  There was something so real about this, a feeling that an injustice had been done and that, given the chance, her family would have prevented it.

Nobody should have to face Calvary alone.

One of the most difficult encounters recalled in the Stations is that of Jesus meeting his mother.  No words are exchanged but there is a reassurance offered.  Often, those carrying crosses in life, feel deeply for their loved ones and want to shield them from what is happening.  It is, of course a two-way journey, and the loved ones want also to shield and protect.  Often we wonder what we can or should say but this station maybe says to us, don’t worry about what you say.  Maybe silence is enough for it is rooted in being present to each other.  Perhaps courage is found in that silence too.

One of my favourite characters from the Stations is Veronica.  She wiped the face of Jesus with a towel.  It was the right and sensible thing to do.  She did not overthink it or discuss it with a committee.  She saw someone who needed help and she helped.  What a difference she must have made to him at that moment, when surrounded by hostility and confusion, a kindness is done.  I am reminded of a little girl whose father, also a very young man, was seriously ill.  He was using a walker to get around the house to help keep falls at bay.  His little girl, who had received a Kitchen Set for Christmas transformed it into a walker and walked around the house by his side, in her own “walking frame”.  Did she think she was Veronica?  Undoubtedly no, but in my book she was.  She showed kindness in a way she felt she could and offered support through that kindness.  Veronicas are still there, offering courage and support in times of uncertainty.

Sadly that man died some months later but his wife spoke to me of moments that stood out for her during her husband’s uninvited illness. She told me of being in Galway one day for a hospital appointment.  Parking was difficult, the weather was bad and it was a low moment.  Eventually she found a parking space and as she tried to help her husband from the car to a wheelchair, she was finding it very difficult – they both were.  A young man was walking down the street.  He was on his mobile phone and she heard him say “I’ll call you back”.  He walked over to her, helped her husband from the car and waited til they were on their way.  He interrupted his call to do the right thing.  We spoke of him at the Funeral Mass and wondered would he ever know how much that meant?  I speak of him here again tonight and wonder the same but, have no doubt, it made all the difference.  That man was, in so many ways, Simon of Cyrene, helping another carry a cross.  There is a reassurance here that there are people out there willing to help us.

Contrast him with another man, a man I don’t know but about whom I heard a woman speak one time.  I don’t know her either.  It was an interview and she was saying that she had a short time before the interview been shopping.  She had her two sons with her, one a baby in arms and the other who lives with Autism.  As they left the shop, her older child held on to the door of the shop and would not let go.  He began to scream and shout and to lash out at her.  All the while she tried to hold him, her shopping and her second child,  The older child kicked her, screamed and shouted.  Her shopping spilled out on the ground and as she bent, trying to gather it, a man approached her and said; “You need to put manners on that child”.  She said she lay on the path and cried.

A question!  Which side of the pavement would you wish to be on?  The side with the young man who ended a phonecall to offer help or with the man who judged a situation he clearly did not understand and offered useless advice rather than a helping hand?  I think we all know the answer to that.

The women of the Eighth Station remind me of people attending daily Mass.  Truth told, quite often the majority of those attending is women.  Each day they pray for intentions, remember people who are sick and respond “Lord graciously hear us” to prayers of intercession.  I believe Jesus notices these people as he noticed the women of the Eighth Station and he asks, as he did on the road to Emmaus, “What matters are you discussing as you walk along?”  He cares deeply about our cares and his interest is genuine.  I believe this too is a source of courage for all journeying with the cross.  Don’t be afraid to tell Jesus what you are discussing, the fears you have, the disappointments you feel and maybe the anger too.  He truly is listening.  “What matters are you discussing as you walk along?”

Anger and frustration are regularly linked with the cross and understandably so.  Jesus shared some of this in his cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  The question was real.  He found his answer in that man we now call “the good thief” who turned to him for mercy.  Surely if this man could recognise Jesus, at the lowest point of his life, as one who could save him, then Jesus’ ministry was successful, and he truly was not abandoned. This was his Father’s answer.  It says to Jesus that it is not the exterior frame that matters but the inner soul, the inner person where truth and spirit are found.  Maybe there is a consolation and source of courage for us in this, particularly as we see bodies in decline due to illness or pressure that there is a Soul and Spirit within that have their story to tell as well – a story of endurance and faith.

Nobody should have to face Calvary alone.

The Gospel Passage we read this evening, speaks of Jesus walking towards his disciples across stormy waters and saying to them “Courage, it is I.  Do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27)  That remains his message and his commitment to us all.

 Nobody need face the Cross alone. “The Gallaghers are here”.

 

Easter Thoughts

Easter Thoughts

This is the text of a homily included in “Homilies for April” in the Furrow


“Were you there when they found the empty tomb ….” so goes the old Spiritual and it leads us to that challenging line “sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble” … There are many versions of this hymn and many ways to sing it but the lyric is constant.  Questions in song:  “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” “Were you there when he died upon the cross, laid him in the tomb, when the sun refused to shine ….” and always leading to the tremble – the response.

Isn’t there something good about that?  There’s a response and a real one in trembling because it says something in us has been touched by an experience.  Someone once said the best remedy for “trembling legs” is to kneel!  To pray!  Respond!  At the heart of everything our faith is about and every word uttered by Christ is the desire for response.

We have it in abundance in all our Scripture and Liturgy of the past few days.  “Behold the wood of the cross on which hung the saviour of the world”.  “Come let us worship”.  “The Light of Christ” “Thanks be to God”.  “Do you reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises?” “I do”.  Cornelius’ household addressed by Peter “you must have heard about the recent happenings in Judea”  (Response).”This day was made by the Lord” “We rejoice and are glad” (Response). “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ you must look for the things that are in heaven” (Response) “Get rid of all the old yeast” (Response).  Early that Easter morning they went to the tomb (Response).  When they found it empty they went in search of the others (Response) and hearing the women’s story two disciples run to the tomb (Response).  On seeing the tomb emptied, the truth dawned “Till that moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead”. (Response)

If the women didn’t go to the tomb how could we have known it was empty?  If the apostles didn’t run to the empty tomb how could the truth have dawned for them?  If Peter didn’t bother speaking to Cornelius and his household how could a conversion take place?  If the men hadn’t walked and talked on the road to Emmaus how could he have joined their conversation? If there’s no response – meaningful response – to this day, to the journey we’ve been on since Palm Sunday, no since Ash Wednesday, something will be missing from our lives and a Sacred Story will go un-shared.

This Easter Day is an invitation to faith in the Risen Christ and to the lasting consolation that is the empty tomb.  It is a day to hear and keep close to the heart the Easter Day stories of slowly coming to realise that He is risen. Like all invitations, some are more welcome and expected than others but out of courtesy and better again friendship, there is a need to reply. He is inviting you to the celebration in its entirety, the celebration of life and love that is around us.  In a strange way too, of course, he is inviting us to “the afters”!  When the living is done, the journey complete the invitation does not end.  “I go,”, he told them “to prepare a place for you …. that where I am you may be too.”

It’s mighty that we are here.  It’s mighty that you are all here – we have heard it all again, gone through those days again, stood at the Cross and the Empty Tomb again and now there’s only one thing needed – Response! Respond with faith, through faith and in faith.

Sometimes it causes me, causes us (and it should) to tremble, tremble, tremble ….

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>

The Dawning of THE DAY

The Dawning of THE DAY

For the third year, we gathered on Easter Sunday Morning for a Dawn Mass in the grounds of Urlaur Abbey.  There was a fine gathering of people from the parish and beyond – some from Ballymote, Curry, Charlestown, Carracastle, Knock, Kiltimagh, Ballaghaderreen, Monasteraden and, I’m sure, other places.  It was lovely to see so many come together to welcome “hope” on Easter Sunday.

I shared a few words there, as I had done at the Vigil Mass and, again at the later Masses of Easter Day.

I mentioned that I was moving a bookcase in my bedroom earlier in the week and that a bank card fell on the ground.  I felt it wasn’t mine but I stooped to pick it up and noticed it was a card of my mother’s.  It expired in 2008, a year before she herself entered Eternity.  I said I looked at the card for a while and it was the standard issue – embossed lettering giving her name, the expiry date and other details, the logo of the bank and the little security tag.  In effect, a piece of plastic.

It was when I turned it over its full story unfolded.  On the back I saw my mother’s signature.  The writing was shaky but the name and signature hers.  I found myself sitting back on my bed and crying.  I cried, not flowing or endless tears, but those tears that well up in the eyes, burn a little and surprise you by their arrival. Real tears nonetheless that both shocked and reassured me. Shocked insofar as they were not expected and reassured to the degree I realised yet again, the strong bond that exists within family and among loved ones.  It is a bond that transcends time and bursts open graves.  There was a presence in that signature.

What struck me most was remembering my mother say to me many times; “Nobody will ever love you as much as I do”.  I have two brothers and I have no doubt her love for them was as strong but I suspect she may have said this to me more often since they have families of their own.  It struck me, as I looked at the bank card, that she was saying to me I’d never be alone and that her love would always be there.  (So too, and I know this for certain, my father’s, R.I.P.)

I wondered though how seriously I took her words to heart when she spoke them.  Did I really allow them in?  Did I fully believe what she was saying?  Though, I’m happy enough I believed it, chances are I didn’t fully understand.

That’s the link with the Easter Story in my mind this weekend. The women go to the tomb on Easter Sunday morning, not to meet the Risen Christ but to anoint a dead body.  Time had denied them the opportunity on the Friday evening in the shadow of the approaching Sabbath so he was buried without the customary anointing.  They felt badly about this and wanted to set things right.  So, it was to visit the dead they went that morning, not to witness the central teaching of our Faith, that “he is risen”.  The Angels told the women that he had, in fact, risen and added “as he said he would”.  That’s the line that hit me very much this weekend – “as he said he would”.

They heard him say it but seemingly it hadn’t sunken into their hearts.  Yes, they believed but, no more than my mother’s words, they hadn’t fully grasped that he absolutely meant what he was saying.

Jesus used words well.  He would have been quite at home in the world of “Twitter” and “SMS” where a few characters tell a story that far outweighs their numbers.  It’s not that Jesus was mean with his words or careful how much he said.  He said what needed to be said and, more than that, he meant it.

Maybe we need to hear his words again – perhaps some of our favourite phrases from the Scripture – and allow them sink in, be real, understood and believed.

I told the people on the shore in Urlaur (and at other Easter Masses last weekend) that I’ve told them many times I am proud of them, happy to be with them, grateful to them and I wondered did they really believe me or think these were just words falling from an open mouth?  I mentioned my classmate, Archbishop Eamon Martin, whom I’d seen on TV during the week.  He was speaking at a presentation of awards to young people in the Archdiocese of Armagh and said that the young people were not our “future” but were, more vitally, our “present”.  I had not thought of it in that way before.  I said that I had tried to encourage young people over the years to be involved in parish life since they are the new generation and the builders of the church of tomorrow but, listening to Eamon, I had it wrong – they are our “now” – it is today we need them, depend on them, hope in them and call them to life in the Faith.  Again, I did not want these to be words they hear but don’t believe.  I’d like to think, I’m saying what I believe, despite my own confusions and uncertainties from time to time.

“Nobody will ever love you as much as I do” …. a plastic card, a shaky signature but a totally TRUE statement.

“Lord, increase our faith …..”

33rd Sunday of the year

(Another of The Furrow installments!!)

Within walking distance of Ground Zero, New York, is found a memorial to the victims of the Irish Famine.  It’s an amazing piece of work – approaching it from one side you see a high wall with place names, quotations from accounts of the famine, statistics and details of the impact it had on our country.  The counties and many place names of Ireland are included.  Many might see this as the memorial but, in reality, that’s only the backdrop.  It is literally the reverse side of the intended memorial – yes, of course, part and parcel of the design but you could almost say a “lean-to” to the main focus of the memorial.

The memorial is best approached from the other side and, it’s on that approach, the reality is best displayed.  It is a fallen down cottage, nested on a little hill that gives life to hungry rushes, patches of grass and all that is familiar to anyone who has ever wandered through, never mind lived in rural Ireland.  It’s so real.  The cottage, taken stone by stone, from a townland in the parish of Attymass, Co. Mayo was re-birthed in its adopted surrounds of Battery Park, New York.  Re-birthed like so many who travelled from Mayo and the other 31 counties of our country in search of new life and hope.  As they went, they left the cottages behind and, in the words of another tune; “Castles tall, houses small, left alone, all fall down” – that’s what the memorial represents – the emptiness left behind, the falling in of the house, the quenching of the fire … stones left to crumble.

Surely that’s what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel passage.  The admired temple, it too without love and left alone, will fall in on itself.  It is truly dependant on people’s love – literally the movement of feet in prayerful attendance to keep it alive, relevant and fresh in the hearts and minds of people.  If just looked at from a distance, admired as a piece of art, its full potential will not be reached.  That house in Attymass was once a temple.  Its kitchen table, the alar – its s rooms the sacristy, its door the entrance to a place of prayer and worship.  Its floor the concrete kneeling board where family prayer found its launch and, its family, the congregation called to faithful service and mission.  It emptied though, hunger and death – worry and emigration took a lasting toll.

It took a lot to transport that fallen cottage from its Attymass foundation but it sits well and speaks a sad but pride-filled message in its new setting.  It took a keen eye to see the potential of that cottage to tell a story to people who might otherwise never hear.  Whatever it took, it was worth it and necessary.

Is there, as we near the end of the Church’s Year of Faith, a call here to protect the building, not just admire it – to be partakers not just onlookers and to recognise the true beauty of our Church which, like the Famine Memorial in the shadow of the fallen and desecrated towers, is best approached from the other side where the view reminds us of home, calls us home and makes us better people?  Is there a need for the imaginative and creative eye that can see us in a better setting where the story can be told?

Like the Mayo Cottage, the church in which we now gather has a story to tell also.  As long as we gather to hear and share that story it will be safe, solid and present for in our gathering it is not left alone, it is not unloved – it lives and breathes.

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