CONFERENCE ON BENEDICT XVI ON CHURCH ART AND ARCHITECTURE

The following conference is to be held in Cork Sunday week:

St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy
Fota II International Liturgy Conference

Benedict XVI on Church Art and Architecture
12-13 July 2009
Sheraton Hotel, Fota, Co. Cork
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PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME

Sunday, 12 July 2009



4 pm
Conference Opening
Chair: Prof. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD
Joesph Ratzinger on Aesthetics and the Liturgy

4.15 pm Dr. Joseph Murphy
The Fairest and the Formless: The Face of Christ as Criterion for Christian beauty according to Joesph Ratzinger

5 pm
Fr. Daniel Gallagher
The Liturgical Consequences of Thomistic Aesthetics: exploring some philosophical aspects of Joseph Ratzinger’s Aesthetics

6 pm
Dr. Janeth Rutherford
Eastern iconoclasm and the defence of divine beauty


Monday, 13 July 2009

9 am
Dr. Helen Dietz
The Nuptial Meaning of Classic Church Architecture

9.45
Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, Cong. Or.
Louis Bouyer and Church Architecture: Resourcing Benedict XVI’s Introduction to The Spirit of the Liturgy

11 am
Mass

3 pm
His Eminence George Cardinal Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
Benedict XVI on Beauty: Issues in the Tradition of Christian Aesthetics

4 pm
Prof. Duncan Stroik
The Church Building as an Image of Eternity: Cardinal Ratzinger and the Architecture of Ecclesia

5 pm
Mr. Ethan Anthony
The Third Revival: New Gothic and Romanesque Catholic Architecture in North America

6 pm
Dr. Alcuin Reid
‘Noble Simplicity’ Revisited

7 pm
Dr. Neil Roy
The Galilee Chapel: A Medieval Notion Comes of Age

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Further information is available at: colman.liturgy@yahoo.co.uk

Registration forms at: www.scscLiturgy.com

I hope to get to this myself and perhaps another brother will accompany me.

OLIVER PLUNKETT; A MODEL FOR CLERGY

I know the Holy Father is holding up St. John Vianney as a model for priests in this Year of the Priesthood. St. John was a member of the Franciscan Third Order and tried to join the Capuchins a number of times but was always sent back to his vocation: parish priest. There are many other saints who might also be held up as examples for imitation but for Ireland there can hardly be a better one than St. Oliver Plunkett (feast day July 1). He courageously and obediently returned from Rome to a country and a Church in chaos and turmoil. He had six dioceses in his care! He held a council and worked to support his few clergy and keep the faith alive. Betrayed by some of his own people he was taken to England for trial and despite his innocence (he wasn't even allowed to bring witnessed from Ireland) he was found guilty and hung, drawn and quartered. If I may be a little biased here but as someone once said such is British justice 'innocent until proven Irish' or in this case 'Irish Catholic'. He face death calmly and full of faith. He gave himself totally for his people.
The icon above is by Maria Gnikala who lives and works in Cavan.

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

This is our library at the moment. It was once the choir and a lovely one too by all accounts but then St. Bonaventures in Cork closed and the students came here along with the library. When I arrived as a newly solemnly professed friar in 1995 it had been the exclusive domain of an elderly friar until his incarceration in a nursing home. My job then was first to sort out the shelving and then the books. It's hard to believe but here am I on my second stint in Raheny and I'm still trying to sort it out. As we are facing either a redesign/new build scenario with the house it is also important to reduce the library to manageable size. Friars use libraries as dumping grounds. So my principal job has been weeding out the rubbish and reducing the library to its proper function; a resource for students of philosophy and theology. It's not all rubbish. In the past I have found books as old as 1648 (the sermons of St. Anthony of Padua in latin, wax cover) and newer books from the early 18th Cent. Some are beautifully illustrated and many are of particularly Irish interest but that's not what the libraries for. I have removed some books (such as Missalae Romanae to the Common Room). Some books have been given away. I hope to sell off the rest of the books we don't want or need to raise funds to buy more modern texts. It's dirty work but one comes up the occasional jewel such as Micahel Davies' Apologia for Marcel Lefebvre vol. I and The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 10th Edition, 1958 by Fortescue and O'Connell. We have the rubbish too - Kung, Haring etc but I'm the librarian not a censor. Stilll books do go missing...

APOLOGIA

My previous post explains, in part, my absence from 'bloggerland'. Kayleigh's death was the fourth school-related death in less than two weeks. We buried the lovely and dearly missed Kayleigh on Saturday and everything went 'well', that is, people, especially the family were happy and no one was offended - which is the basic minimum at a funeral. The music was not liturgical, there were many there who hadn't seen the inside of a church in a while but we shared a common grief and, I am convinced, God's grace was extended to all to comfort and to call them to trust in Him. It was so intense that it constituted a kind of 'dark high'. I did not want to be burying any sixteen year old least of all Kayleigh but it was a privilege and a profound moment of shared pain that brought everyone into a bond. When I got home it was like no one really appreciated what had happened or what I had experienced - only those who had been there could understand. I hope and pray this is the start of a grace for this particular year group, their Ceann Ti (Year Head) and their teachers. Let's just say that not a few in this year have 'had their moments'. In these dark days for the Church, the priesthood and religious life in Ireland it was good to be part of the Church at her best - supporting, comforting and inviting to faith. Perhaps as time and events unfold and the coming storm reaches its climax and passes on the people of Ireland will remember this side of the Church and forgive our failures, will allow us to mediate the healing mercy of God and discover anew their faith in Christ.

KAYLEIGH FLYNN RIP JUNE 24, 2009

This is Kayleigh Flynn. She was sixteen and would have been seventeen in August. She drowned yesterday while out having fun with her friends at the Strawberry Beds on the Liffey. As a student she was never going to light up the academic world she wouldn't want to. Instead her dream was to care for children particularly the disabled and she had the talent and the heart for it. As part of our school's Community Care group Kayleigh volunteered and showed up for everything. Once she was helping others she was in her element. Her loss reaches out far into the community of Blanchardstown and it is heaven's gain. Kayleigh will be greatly missed.

San Damiano Crucifix

I haven't blogged in a week or more. I was busy last week with an icon-painting course. I am working on the above Crucifix of San Damiano, the one that spoke to St. Francis. It's a slow job. I started it three years ago but only now am I approaching completion. I have other pieces to finish too.

KEVIN or CAOIMHIN, A PATRON OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBLIN

Kevin is the anglicization of Caoimhin (pronounced either kee-veen or kwee veen) from the Old irish Coemghen meaning 'the Fair- begotten'. Little original material about his life survives. He was born about 498 into a family which belonged to the Dál Messe Corb, a noble Leinster people who lived in what is now West Wicklow.

Kevin or Coemghen is said to have been baptised by St. Crónán and studied for the priesthood in Cell na Manach (Killnamanagh or 'Church of the Monks'), now a suburb of Dublin. After Bishop Lugidus ordained Kevin a priest he left Killnamanagh and set out to find his own hermitage. On arrival in Glendalough (the Valley of the Two Lakes) Kevin chose the area of the upper lake and settled on the south side of the foot of that lake in St. Kevin's Bed, an artificial cave about thirty feet above the level of the lake which was originally a Bronze Age tomb. Kevin lived the life of a hermit there with an extraordinary closeness to nature and his companions were the animals and birds all around him. He lived as a hermit for seven years wearing only animal skins, sleeping on stones and eating very sparingly.

Disciples were soon attracted to Kevin and lead to the the establishment of a further settlement enclosed by a wall, called Kevin's Cell and Reefert Church, situated nearer the lakeshore. All this building and expansion would have bothered Kevin who never really wanted to leave his hermit's life and seemed to have sought solitude and the life of a hermit whenever possible. By 540 Saint Kevin's fame as a teacher and holy man had spread far and wide. Many people came to seek his help and guidance.In time Glendalough grew into a renowned seminary of saints and scholars.

In 544 Kevin went to the Hill of Uisneach in Co.Westmeath to establish a league of brotherly friendship with other holy abbots. Until his death around 618 Kevin presided over his monastery in Glendalough, living his life by fasting, praying and teaching.

St Kevin is one of the patron saints of the diocese of Dublin and we badly need his intercession and spirit of prayer and penance now.

The name is, of course quite common in Ireland. To my knowledge, the female variant exists only in Irish and is spelt Caoimhe and pronounced kee-veh or kwee-veh. As a surname it appears in O'Cuiv or O'Keefe.