Penitential Service

Penitential Service

Last night I had a virtual Penitential Service in Kilmovee. This was part of Easter preparation and in response to Pope Francis’ request that people be offered the opportunity to reflect on reconciliation and be assured of God’s merciful love.

“while still a long way off”

I share here an audio recording of the service and pray God’s merciful and bountiful blessing on you, one and all.

“I will leave this place and return to my father”
https://www.facebook.com/100049884751347/videos/104410681231757/
LIVE STREAM (RECORDING) FROM KILMOVEE PARISH CHURCH
Mothers’ Day

Mothers’ Day

Someone told me that the word “unprecedented” is beginning to annoy!!  I can see why.  Everything at the moment seems to be unprecedented, including Mothers’ Day.  At Mass today, I shared some lines I’d written for my mother back in 2002.  Were she here today, I’d like to think they’d more or less be the same words.

To all mothers, God bless you on this day and every day.

Mother's Day 2002


 

Leonard Cohen has lovely words about seeking reassurance from his mother.  They come to mind today …

This is from a song called “The Night Comes On”

Hard times

Hard times

Alone and hoping

I really don’t know how many people read this.  I do know that my “blog” is not the beginning and end of all blogs and that, in the wider scale of things, it has a minuscule part to play.  Still I enjoy it and the chance it gives to share a few thoughts.  I know these might reach more on FACEBOOK or something like that but, I like this little corner.  Thanks to those who come in and ramble from time to time.

It is not easy to know what to think, never mind say.  A week ago today, I was at a meeting with Fr Dermot Meehan, Diocesan Administrator, and some priests of our diocese.  We met to discuss how the diocese might respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and, more importantly, how it might help stem the spread.  Other dioceses had taken the hard decision to suspend the celebration of Public Masses in parishes, not just on Sundays but also weekdays.  As we met, it was likely we would make the same decision but it was not an easy one to contemplate, let alone make. One of the men present has celebrated daily Mass for close on fifty years and I could see in him a genuine sadness as he began to contemplate, like the rest of us, the possibility we would not be celebrating Mass with people for the immediate and, indeed, foreseeable future.  The decision was made and the message shared as quickly and fully as possible, firstly with our priests and then through media and website.  It was a sad moment but, maybe like Jesus in Gethsemane, a necessary one too because we had to face towards Calvary and the countless crosses being carried by people at this time.

On Sunday morning I stood before the Altar in Kilmovee Parish Church.  This would be the only Mass celebrated in the parish that weekend, when normally I would have four – two vigil Masses and two on Sunday – one each in Urlaur, Glann, Kilmovee and Kilkelly.  I took a photo of an empty church and me wearing the purple vestments for Mass.  The first picture I took, shocked me.  My face looked so sad and I thought I need to do this again.  The second picture (above) was an attempt to smile without pretending I was over the moon with delight.  For I was not.  My heart was broken, to be honest, and I wondered how long this would last.  I didn’t know then and neither do I know now.  What I knew was that faces, familiar and important to me, were not there.  No Altar Servers, having discussed at length who would do what.  No readers or Ministers of Holy Communion and an empty gallery.  The regulars were not there or the weekend visitors.  Just me!

As I walked out to say Mass I left my phone on the shelf in the sacristy and then thought maybe I should bring it with me and record the Mass.  I did, and am so glad I did.  In recording, I felt I was speaking to people and sharing God’s word and hopes for them.  After Mass I put the recording on our parish website and have done the same each day since.  No more than not knowing how many will read these lines, I am not sure how many listen but some responded and said it helped them.  I’m glad of that.

A week on now and no end in sight, I really don’t know what to say or think.  COVID-19 has punched way above its weight and what seemed so far away a few weeks ago is now in every moment of every day.  The world has truly become that “Global Village” people speak of and what happens on the streets of Barcelona or Boston, Shanghai or Sydney, Dublin or Dubai is all of concern to us.  We are truly frightened and vulnerable and isolation seems anything but social.

We need courage!  We need faith.  We need hope and we need love.  We need to mind one another and to allow ourselves be minded.  We need to realise that decisions taken have impacts and mistakes made have consequences.  There remains though, a real need to be able to trust – trust God and one another.  To have trust is maybe the gift we most need – trust that this hour, these days, weeks or months, will pass and that peace and health will be restored.

“They are the best years of your life”, people used to tell us about school when we were children.  “Yeah, right”, we might think but surely now we recognise the truth in those words.  Children should be able to enjoy the classroom and school yard where lessons are learned for and about life.  We look forward to the day when the sound of the school bell will be a welcome sound.

I look forward to hearing the servers decide who is doing what, I look forward to people rather than empty seats and the sound of a choir and congregation, rather than the echo of my solitary voice.  Please know, that I will use that voice to ask God to bless and protect all of us and to give us courage for this time.  I have been so pleased to walk into the churches of the parish and see there the signs of ongoing prayer – candles burning in the shrines, that gives me such amazing hope.

Maybe that’s enough for now … at least I found a few words and when I sat here I didn’t think I would .  We will find our words, all of us, and they might well prove to be words of kindness and appreciation, of gratitude and giving – words of faith.

 

 

One Boss acknowledges another!

One Boss acknowledges another!


I watched “Springsteen on Broadway” on Netflix during the week.  It’s a recording of a sold out stage show on Broadway where Bruce Springsteen comes on stage with guitar and piano and just talks to and sings for his audience.  It’s a very powerful show and Bruce speaks from the heart about his background, his home town, family and faith.

His love for music is palpable and the sincerity of the story told, unquestionable. Through that story he speaks of his relationship with his father saying he was his greatest hero and greatest foe.  A tension, for sure, but one that does not blind Springsteen to the role his father played and continues to play in his life. He said when he looked for a voice he found his father’s because “there was something sacred in it”.  He said he had a dream after his father’s death of him performing on stage but leaving the stage and going to his father in the audience, kneeling beside him, brushing his forearm and, with his father, looking at himself on stage – the “man on fire” – and then telling his father: “Look dad, that man on stage, that’s how I see you.”  He speaks near the end of the show about his father arriving to visit him, unannounced, a few days before the birth of Springsteen’s first child.  He says it is as if his father is encouraging him to be a good father – maybe in a way, he hadn’t been.  He said it was an apology of sorts without apology ever being mentioned.

Through it all he sings – sings well known hits in a way that maybe we’d not hear them before but spellbinding.  He is honest that many of the things he sings about are not things he knows first hand.  He speaks about being drafted for Vietnam but being lucky enough not to be sent.  A sadness comes over him and he said he often wonders who went in his place.  He then sings “Born in The USA” … something very real about it.  He talked about being like most young people and reacting against his home town and rallying to get away from it, shake it off and leave it all behind.  Now he says he lives “ten minutes” from that home town and would want to be nowhere else!  Life teaches us lessons but it can take us a while to let them in.

I think the most remarkable moment of the show comes near the end when he speaks again about the local church.  He grew up beside it, the convent, priests’ house and local school – St Rose of Lima.  As a child he said the sense of church and family was everything to him.  He said he was surrounded by God.  Towards the end he comes back to this.  Says that they say “Catholics are never let go” – and that what was given to us in childhood stays with us forever.  He says he remembers saying prayers and singing hymns that meant nothing to him.  Maybe he even resented them but standing near the church, remembering his father and all that is important to him, he said these words came to him – words that are ingrained.   The camera x-rays his face – his Soul and he speaks – no, he prays:

“Our father
who art in Heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy Kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day ……

The words then become his – “Just give us this day ….. forgive us our sins … our trespasses
as we forgive those who might trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil – all of us, for ever and ever.. Amen”

Wonderful.  The camera holds, the face is solid, the heart is touched and he blesses his audience: “May God bless you, your families and all those you love; and thanks for coming out tonight.”

I’m so glad I watched this.  I don’t know much about Bruce or listen much to his music but he reached me.  I had hoped to see this show sometime but it’s over now and was fully sold out so glad to have been able to see it in this way.

A story in everything

A story in everything

My aunt was washing the dishes and, I think, feared I might drop something so she left me the job of drying.  Each cup and saucer, each spoon, fork or knife, was washed with a tenderness of touch that was something to behold.  I knew that she knew these dishes to and from a depth, I most likely could never begin to understand.

“In my memory I will always see ….”

Turning around, I pulled the dish-towel from its neat and tidy “parking spot” on the handle of the cooker.  I took a saucer from her and began to dry – she looked at me and then at the dish-towel in my hand; “Mama made that for me in 1946”, she said.  I was holding a piece of material and she was living a memory.  “I wanted a red and white kitchen when I was young”, she told me “and Mama made this for me”.  She saw beyond where we stood and looked into, what someone called, “A room named remember” and I was happy to stand in it with her.  She was standing on “holy ground” and that’s good ground to stand on.

I was reminded of this moment recently, at a diocesan gathering, when a woman spoke to us of renovating her old family home.  She spoke of the many tussles she had in wondering what to let go of and what to keep.  In a wonderful description, she spoke of moving various bits and pieces along the hallway, towards the skip and then pausing, leaving them in the hallway and pondering some more.  It took a long time for the journey to the skip to be made, if indeed it was made at all.

There’s something being said to me in these stories about the sadness I feel – that many feel – when our church’s traditions are belittled and people hasten to the “skip” to throw there all the perceived shackles and trappings of faith.  I recently heard a radio presenter saying to a guest who was discussing (in sincerity) the feelings of guilt he had around his parents and not wanting to do anything that would hurt or embarrass them – “Try being an Irish Catholic”!  There followed a laugh and I so wanted to shout “Maybe you should – try being an Irish Catholic” because if you did, you’d see and understand something of the hurt and confusion felt by many who wear that badge with honour and humility, with questions and answers, in good days and in bad.

It’s difficult to see people trample on the floors of our “holy ground” with little, if any regard, for the hurt and damage they cause.

All that from a tea-towel!  We need to remember, respect and re-imagine.

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