AN UPDATE

To begin I must tell you that I buried my mother, Joan, on Saturday May 28. She was 84 and her health had not been great for some time. It was not an easy time for my brother, sister and myself. Thanks be to God we had support from family and friends. We were with when she went. I offered the funeral Mass and prayers. I did what she asked of me and sent her off properly and in the Catholic way. Now she is in the mercy of God with my father. The loss of both parents is never easy, especially within a year of each other. It is not something I would wish on anyone. At least we had them for many years unlike those who lose them when they are young. Neither did they die suddenly. There was no knock at the door or phone call urging us to hurry to the hospital. We were all there with them when they went and they went consoled by our presence and the Sacraments of the Church. I anointed them both and buried them both. I remember them at Mass. Outside my prayers and sacrifices there is not much more that I can do save trying to get to heaven myself. The hard part is not knowing. I believe in the mercy of God and that they are in safe hands. I believe that He will remember their long years of faith, forgive their sins and failings, and keep His promise that those who believe and are faithful will be welcome in His Kingdom. That said it would be nice to know they are safe. It would be a consolation to know that my parents go on and are in heaven. Instead I stand in faith. I believe, I don't know. My faith that is a kind of seeing, a kind of knowing when it comes to God can give no such certainty when it comes to them. Instead I trust in Him and in His promises. My day will come to leave this world and until then my task is to prepare for that day as they did. It is when I look back that it strikes me how fast time is passing by. We have the phrases that we all use: "how time flies!" and "`where has the time gone?" but still we live in the blind illusion that there is plenty of time ahead. The deaths of my parents have been like sudden immersions in cold water or like the driver on the motorway who suddenly realises as he flashes past a stationary object just how fast he is travelling. It is a moment of sobriety. I am hurtling through since I came into existence and what have I done with it? Do not get me wrong. I am not questioning my vocation as either a religious or a priest. Celebrating Mass or Confession is enough to affirm the extraordinary gift of the priesthood. It is a questioning of my living of that vocation and a realisation that I do not have much time. That is part of the 'dark gift' of bereavement. Now I must reevaluate my living of the Christian life, of the Capuchin way of life, of my priesthood and of my familial life. Now I can clearly see that I only have my own two feet to stand on even though I must lean on the Lord.

THE GREAT SILENCE

Last night I watched 'The Sunset Limited' a film based on the play by Cormac McCarthy and starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. The story is simple: two men sit in an apartment. Black (Jackson) has saved White (Jones) from suicide and is trying to help him. White, a college professor, does not want to be helped. As the debate unfolds Black tells his own story of redemption, his efforts to help others and his relationship with God. White, whose life of privilege could not be more different from Black's, slowly reveals his own vision of the world. It is a world that has been emptied out so that only the shapes of things remain, a world of suffering and despair. White believes in nothing and longs for annihilation. In the end he does not want God and departs leaving Black in sorrow, mourning his failure and his lack of words that could reach White in his nihilism. It is a powerfully acted and grim film, alternatively sad and funny. It illustrates both the emptiness and hopelessness of atheism and the dark night of believers who struggle to live faithful lives in a secularised world. The 'Great Silence' is how I describe the mood of these days. Once the Blessed Sacrament has been moved to a secure place on Holy Thursday night there is an emptiness, a great 'lacking', that continues until the Easter Vigil. The churches are bare and empty of the Presence that one takes for granted. This is the world without God. This is religion with symbols and without Sacraments. The great silence is the sound of the great emptiness. Without God there is no meaning, no purpose, no morality, no eternity. Atheism must logically lead to nihilism - the denial of everything. As atheism spreads it also poisons. In the name of reason and science it tears down rationality and enthrones intolerance and prejudice. As Christ Himself deliberately walked into the darkness of that first Passover so we who are His followers must follow Him into the darkness of our age. We must endure the great silence of this age of unbelief and be the still small voice of God. We must stand in this emptiness and be His Presence. This is our dark night, our Passover, our Calvary. To those who are faithful He has promised us resurrection.

GOD'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS NOT AN INDIFFERENT LOVE

Recently I heard someone declare that he believed in God's unconditional love for him and that God loved him just as he was. I have no quibble with the unconditional love bit. God does love unconditionally. His love for us is not dependent on our behaviour, individually or collectively, but is a free, unmerited and unasked for, unimaginable gift. But to say that God loves unconditionally is not the same as saying that God loves indifferently. To say that God's love is not lessened by sin is not the same as saying that God does not care about sin. God loves me not as I am but as He intends me to be i.e. in perfect union with Him. He loves that I exist and all that is good in me but not the evil, not the sin. God hates sin. God hates sin because it makes me less than human. Sin damages and destroys my relationship with Him, with my neighbour, with myself and with His Creation. Sin is a choice away from God's plan, away from being truly human. God cannot love that. God cannot love what makes me less than He created and redeemed me to be. These three days are the holiest of the year because they celebrate just how deeply God's love will go for us. During these three days we celebrate His victory over sin and death. Tonight we begin with His institution of His Church: the Mass and the Priesthood. Tomorrow we remember how He revealed, and saved us through, the Son's love for the Father on the Cross and in embracing suffering and death. On Saturday night we will remember the Father's response: the raising of the Son from the dead.

A LITTLE PIECE OF ART

Above is a piece of work made by one of our students. I don't know the girl, a junior, but it illustrates the talent that our young people have. All it needs is channeling in the right direction, encouragement and support and they can produce such beautiful things. The Merit awards in the school where I work are given not for academic achievement but to recognise the contributions students make to other parts of school life: the Meitheal who look after the First years, Community Care that raises funds for charity, or Cool Fm that entertains the school with music on every second friday to name a few. It was amazing to see the number of students who do that bit extra for others and the ones who are involved in many different areas. They have so much potential and such generosity.

RTE HEAD OF NEWS QUITS

According to the Belfast Telegraph Ed Mulhall, RTE's Head of News has quit and 'Prime Time Investigates' taken off-air for the foreseeable future because of the 'Mission to Prey' program that defamed Fr. Reynolds. What will happen to those others who were involved?

INTERVIEW WITH AN ARCHBISHOP

Watch this, it's powerful to see an Archbishop, my Archbishop, in tears over the abuse of children. It shows what drives this man to do what he does. I hear he does not have the support of his clergy that he might like and I don't agree with him on everything but he is obviously a man who cares and wants to do the right thing. He is right that this will not be over soon. Even when all the abusers among the clergy have been identified and dealt with there is still the abusers among the laity. The victims and their families still carry their pain and the hurt from that spreads. It feeds indifference, scepticism and hatred. It distorts relationships and places blocks on the path to God and His Church. I think too this report is a little too heavy on the Vatican. It's as if the interviewer wanted the Archbishop to blame Rome for everything. The bishops had all the canon law they needed (the Murphy Report said so) but they did not use it. The were 'pastoral' with the abusers and failed to be shepherds to the victims. The acquiesced with the psychologist of the age and forgot the wisdom of the ages: that sin needs to be named, confronted and dealt with especially among the clergy. Why though did they pick a parish like Allihies, Co Cork (Diocese of Kerry)? Why go to the back end of the country when they were interviewing the Archbishop of Dublin? Was there no parish in Dublin that might give an interview?

THIRD STATION OF THE CROSS: JESUS FALLS THE FIRST TIME

Whenever a penitent in the confessional tells me a particularly gruelling litany of sins or is weighed down with guilt I usually begin my response with "Welcome to the human race". We are all in the same boat, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. Christ falls three times on this journey to Calvary and death. He does not fall into sin but he falls because there is a limit even to what His perfect human body can endure. He has been beaten, tortured and abused. He has endured unjust imprisonment, an illegal trial and condemnation. They who ought to have welcomed Him and worshipped Him have rejected Him and chosen another. Christ stumbles under the weight of such appalling suffering and He falls. Yet there is more to this. He wishes to console us. Christ falls too so that we do not despair in the midst of our trials but He gets back up so that we do not stay down. That's the difference between sinners and saints, the saints get back up after they fall. Of course we do not get back up by our own power but by His grace and our grace-empowered will. We have to choose to keep on going. We have to choose not to despair in the face of our own limitedness and failure. We should not expect that the cross is easy to bear. Others may or may not want us to change, to be converted. Even when they do they may want us to change according to their standards. True conversion is according to the standards of God. It is the will of the Father that we must seek and do. We may be buffeted and abused by friend and foe, our efforts judged harshly, opposed, or impeded. We may find our path blocked and redirected with those we had thought on our side letting us down and turning away from us at the very time we feel most in need of support. We may come to believe we are on our own. Christ has already walked this path and the saints have followed Him. It is He who carries us and it is He who picks us up. We are never alone. We are always in His arms.