The woman at the well

The woman at the well

This has been a strange day and, sadly there are more like it to follow.

Yesterday, our diocese, like many other dioceses in Ireland and throughout the world, took the decision to suspend the celebration of Public Masses.  This decision, not easily taken, was to help in universal efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19.  During the week, our Taoiseach called for no further indoor gatherings of crowds in excess of one hundred people.  To support this call, the decision was taken to suspend public celebrations of Mass where it can happen that crowds in excess of that number gather.  In most parishes, daily Mass would not attract congregations reaching that number but, when reflected upon, the decision taken included the suspension of daily Masses as well to facilitate people not gathering in number and to help in the avoidance of situations where the virus could unwittingly be shared and to help in reducing the number of those who might need medical attention, given the immense pressure already placed upon medical personnel.

So this strange day began with the realisation I would not be celebrating Masses this evening with the people of Urlaur and Glann, nor tomorrow with the people of Kilmovee and Kilkelly.  Though I will celebrate Mass, it will just be one and on my own, without congregation.  This seems so alien to me since I believe Mass is the great gatherer of people and I have, throughout my priesthood, relished those gatherings and been enriched and blessed through them.  We are designed to interact with other humans so to be alone flies in the face of my understanding.

Yet, of course, our belief is that we are not alone.  Angels, Saints, people of our past who have gone before us and the friendships and connections we have with people will stand with every priest these days as he reads God’s word, prays for forgiveness and reaches upward as he hold host and chalice in hand.  As he reaches upwards, God reaches down and gathers the prayers offered and pours out blessings on those in need.  So I have to get my head around that and believe that when I say “The Lord be with you”, there is a thunderous response “and with your Spirit”.

Often wonderful things happen when two people seek to encounter something meaningful and the gospel we read this weekend is one such example.  The woman at the well.  We are all familiar with her and the banter exchanged between she and Jesus.  “Give me a drink of water”, he asks.  “You have no bucket”, she replies “and the well is deep”.  She was telling him he hadn’t a chance and she relished it!  He knew the well was deep but not the one they sat beside.  The well was her soul and her spirit and he knew he had to reach long and dig deep to get to the heart of her, and bring to the surface the goodness in her.

He did!  She found that goodness and went to call others to meet “a man who told me everything I ever did” – and yet, knowing everything she ever did, he sat comfortably with her and brought her to a better place.

In these days of COVID-19 when we are asked to be socially distant, there is no denying the wisdom in that since, like our decision to suspend public Masses, it allows room and lessens the risk of transmission of illness but we must long for closeness again and never lose sight of the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well.  You could not imagine them shouting at each other with six feet between them.  This was a close and personal conversation and ultimately led to a place of joy and gathering where even more people were brought into the moment.  They came, listened and were convinced to a point where they said to the woman: “We no longer believe just because of what you told us – we have seen and heard him ourselves and know that he is the Messiah”.

Let us long for and do all in our power to hasten the day when people can sit side by side again and where strangers need have no fear of one another or striking up a conversation.

I look forward to the congregations again, the choirs, the music and the faces.  I hope too, that I’ll have the eyes to spot the face in the crowd that might need to sit by the well and chat.

God bless you all. God protect us all.

There was music there

There was music there

On Sunday, May 20th, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass in St Patrick’s Church, Oram. It was a Month’s Mind Mass for Tom McBride – Big Tom, who had been a family friend since my childhood.  I was happy to be asked and grateful to the local priests for making me feel welcome.  I did not know what to expect but had assumed it would be family and perhaps a few locals and friends.  I was shocked to find the church filled to capacity with people from all over Ireland and possibly overseas as well as some people outside the church.  On my way to Oram, I had tried to think a few thoughts I might share.  They weren’t written down but I thought I’d try to remember them now and include them here.  I think this more or less reflects what was said yesterday.  I am thankful to Tom and Rose’s family for asking me to be celebrant at this Mass.  It gave me the opportunity to give back something to a man who had much to give and gave it freely.  May he rest in peace.  Amen.

There was music there in the Derry air 
like a language that we all could understand 
I remember the day when I earned my first pay 
And I played in a small pick-up band 
There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth 
I was sad to leave it all behind me 
For I learned about life and I’d found a wife 
in the town I loved so well

I used those words earlier today, speaking at Mass in Kilkelly.  I used them for this Pentecost Day when we’re told that people could hear God’s word spoken clearly and meaningfully to them in their own language.  This surprised and encouraged them.

Phil Coulter taps into this in his memory of his home town of Derry, describing the music as a language “we could all understand”.  What was that music?  It must have been a sense of place and belonging, a feeling of being at home and with people who mattered and people to whom you mattered.  It’s a good description.  The music invites lyric – words wrapped around it and through it that meaning may come through.

We gather to remember a man who knew that language and who had the ability to speak it and sing it to people all over Ireland and beyond in a way that all could understand.  It’s a wonderful gift and a gift freely accepted by Tom and put to lasting good use by him.  It’s that music – that lyric that brings us here today. I firmly believe in the power of music and slong and that God has a central part in the power of both to bring people to a peaceful and certain place – often at times that are not peaceful and in situations that are not certain.

The disciples, we are told, were locked away in a room.  Everything in them knew it’s not where they should be, nor was it where they were needed but fear prevented them from going outside.  Into that room, on this Pentecost Day, came the power, the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, throwing open the doors of the locked room and sending the apostles out to be the people they needed to be – preachers of the word, players of the music, shapers of the lyric so that his message could reach the ends of the earth.

We gather with Tom’s family today.  We know that they can feel that sense of being locked in the room – locked in a room called “grief”.  Few of us here, have not had this experience but for Tom’s family, the experience is doubled by the loss of Rose as well.  They are here today as children who have lost their parents, grandchildren who have lost their grandparents, sister who has lost a brother – as people in grief.  Like the apostles, it is understandable that they would find it difficult to leave this room, no matter how much they might want to. It’s a difficult room and a difficult place.  While we could say that Tom and Rose were not especially young, equally we could say they were not especially old.  Age is not the issue today.  Loss is.  The loss of parents, grandparents, brother – ones very much loving and loved.  When my own parents died, people might have asked how old they were.  I’d say my mother was eighty-six and there’d be a look almost saying “well what did you expect?”  Even moreso when my father died at ninety-one.  Of course there’s truth in long lives lived but the reality is their ages don’t matter.  They are still a massive loss to us.  Parents, the ones who gave us life and shaped our journey.

So we are asking today, that the doors of this room called grief might be opened for Tom’s family.  Allowing them move again, be happy and content again and strength-filled again.  This is what they deserve.  They, like all who loved Tom, must listen for the music in the air – that language we can all understand.

Since Tom’s death, I’ve looked at a lot of YouTube videos – more that I might have looked at were he alive and I’ve enjoyed them.  One in particular, where he was playing music and was accompanied by  one of his grandsons.  I thought it a lovely moment and a real reminder that the gift had been passed on.  There’s comfort in that today.  The tune must be shared and must be carried beyond locked doors that it gives joy to people again as it has so surely done in the past.

Coulter finishes his song with an acknowledgement that things have changed forever and that there’s no going back but that hope remains.  I believe that’s where we are at today.  Tom’s life will live on in that music – that lyric – that language that we can all understand.

Now the music’s gone but they carry on 
For their spirit’s been bruised, never broken 
They will not forget but their hearts are set 
on tomorrow and peace once again 
For what’s done is done and what’s won is won 
and what’s lost is lost and gone forever 
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day 
in the town I loved so well ….

For the man – the song – the music we all loved so well.

Five years on …

Five years on …

Dear Donal,

I went to Knock yesterday.  I wasn’t at all clued in to what was going to happen there.  Your mother mentioned a few months ago that there’d be Mass for your Fifth Anniversary and that if I was free, I’d be welcome to join in.  I planned on keeping the day free and am so glad I did.

I arrived in Knock about an hour before the time I thought Mass was taking place.  Happily I was very early as the Mass was set for an hour and half later than I had been told by your mother!!  (Wonder was she always good at times????)  I met Fr Richard Gibbons as I walked towards the Basilica and he told me the Mass was at 1.30.  I had a cup of coffee with him and went over a while later.  As I walked into the Basilica I met hundreds of students walking out. They looked so happy and sounded so cheerful.  I had no idea where they were going but heard mention of “workshops” so figured they were going to hear and share a bit more somewhere or other.  When I got inside there were still hundreds, if not thousands, of school-goers there – from all over the country.  School crests and uniforms identifying the broad canvas of this gathering.  It looked so impressive.

I saw the bishop of your diocese there and nodded to him.  I took a seat and listened to a recently ordained priest speak of you.  He, like me, had never met you but was clearly impressed by your story.  He shared his – a soccer player who thought he had his dreams fulfilled only to realise he is still living his dream and has more road to travel or, as you might say, “hills” to climb.  I realised later that others had spoken before him – spoken words of encouragement that you’d have been proud of.

I met your father and mother and, for the first time, your sister.  We didn’t have much chance to talk but their pride in you was palpable. I’m sure they remembered that night you spoke to us through a camera lens and asked us to value life and how, in particular, you called on your own peers to treasure and cherish the gift that is theirs in the opportunity for life and love, faith and adventure.

The Mass was, as it should be, amazing and inviting. The priests in the entrance procession were accompanied by young people carrying colourful flags.  I asked the girl beside me her name and where she was from.  “Tralee”, she said. We smiled and I knew she was proud to be from your town.  A large number of priests concelebrated, as did your bishop and the Papal Nuncio presided.  Your name sounded strange from his lips but it was clear he knew about whom he spoke and in whose memory we had gathered.  Your reach has been far Donal, and it continues.

I thought again of Fr Walsh’s words to you – when you asked what Heaven would be like.  He said it would be a better place with you in it.  He was right.  I often think of Knock as a place where “Heaven met earth” in the quiet presence of Our Lady as she offered reassurance to our people on that August evening in in 1879.  I equally had a sense of the two meeting yesterday and you were deeply embedded in that quiet presence.

They walked last night Donal, from darkness to light – in towns and villages all over Ireland and beyond, begging for deliverance from the scourge of death by suicide.  Alas, I didn’t walk this year, but it’s a message we need to proclaim and your voice is found in every word of that message as is the determination of your family to deliver that message in your name. Some of your Tralee friends sang for us yesterday and surely their powerful voices and music and willingness to be there to share their talents, offer a mighty message of hope.  If only people can take a few more steps to get over the hill and see more clearly the goodness that’s to be seen and the help that’s available.

I’ve been in Knock many times through the years Donal but there was something very special about yesterday.  A wonderful gathering took place in your name and though I’m much older than the ones gathered in their thousands, I was glad to be there.

Keep up the good work.  Heaven and earth are better places because of it.

Vincent

Sunday thoughts

Sunday thoughts

Just attended Sunday Mass. a gentle and welcoming priest made us all feel at home. The church was large, unlike the congregation, and the atmosphere one of joy and worship.

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The priests in our group; Paul, Eddie, Dominic, Michael and myself concekebrated. The other members together with Trocaire staff were also present for what was an uplifting celebration of Eucharist.

After the Offertory gifts were presented a young couple stood at the foot of the Altar. The man cradled a baby and the priest went to them, took the baby in his arms and raised it to the Heavens and then showed the baby to the congregation. There was a round of applause that was more than the clapping of hands. It was pure welcome. Later we discovered the baby is forty days old and this is the ceremony of presentation.

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At the Sign of Peace a small boy ran to the Altar and shook hands with us all. I thought this was an isolated incident and was pleased his parents didn’t feel they had to run after him.  It wasn’t! Every child in the church ran to the Altar and greeted us all. A lovely moment.

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Eddie spoke on behalf of the group and, in Spanish, thanked all for the welcome and spoke of Trocaire’s work.

A worthy celebration and glad to be part of it.

 

Daily Lenten Thought March 11th

Daily Lenten Thought March 11th

“Well Tony?”  I think that’s as much as I said to him.

It was last Monday, just after the funeral of Jack Roddy (mentioned in another daily thought) and I was walking back to the sacristy.  Tony was walking towards his car, having prayed with me and many others for Jack’s Soul.  He nodded to me and I spoke briefly as I went past.

A few months ago Tony came to see me to arrange his wife’s Anniversary Mass.  As he often did, he came in and sat down for a while.  He chatted about the Mass and then wondered if he could ask a favour.  I assured him he could.

“You like to sing”, he told me “and I love to listen to you.  Now at Bernie’s Mass, would you do something for me?”  Preparing myself I wondered what song (from my all too limited repertoire he might want) and wondered if the song would be a song or a hymn. Would it be appropriate?  I knew, were it possible, I’d not say no to anything he might have asked.

“Your friend, Fr McDonagh, he does a mighty job on the Waves of Kilkee.  Could you play that on a CD for me?”  Alas, my repertoire would not be required after all:)

I told that story the night of the Mass and gave McDonagh his moment – well nearly six minutes to be more accurate.  Tony was right, he and his accompanying musicians do a fine job on that tune.  Tony was happy.

On Tuesday evening I was at a meeting and someone told me Tony was in hospital.  I said I hadn’t heard.  The news was not good.  I called his son and, sure enough, Tony had been given 24 hours.  He was dead in less, R.I.P.

I’m glad we played The Waves of Kilkee.  I’m glad Tony felt he could ask me that. I’m sorry I didn’t say a bit more to him on Monday last.  Had I known it would be the last opportunity, I’m sure I would have done so.

The thought then … when you meet your friends and loved ones, spend time with them, talk to them, waste and pass time with them.  Someday it might be too late.

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