Brendan O’ReganI enjoyed several thought-provoking interviews last Sunday. First up, on Sunday Sequence (BBC Radio Ulster) was philosopher Julian Baggini, author of a new book, The Edge of Reason.
I could relate to his notion that public debate nowadays is very often guided by emotion or poorly thought out ideas rather than rational thought. He made an interesting distinction between thinking for yourself and thinking things out for yourself – the latter approach suggesting responsibility and rigour, putting effort into your thinking and opinion forming.
He also thought rationality could go too far, leading to an overly narrow approach that could end up being dismissive of faith. He urged caution in relation to experts, and to be alert when ‘expert opinion’ was funded by particular groups.
On populism he warned of our consumerist society with political parties competing to give us what we think we want, when maybe they needed to be challenging us more. Such nuanced and finely balanced ideas needed more time to be teased out thoroughly, but this interview was a good taster.
Later that Sunday morning I was also impressed by Sunday With Miriam (RTÉ Radio 1) featuring inspiring guests Sr Consilio of Cuan Mhuire and Fr Kevin of the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin. Miriam o’Callaghan was hugely impressed by her guests – describing them as “two of the country’s greatest heroes”.
Vocation
I love to hear vocation stories and wasn’t disappointed – Sr Consilio always felt she’d be a nun and eventually joined after training as a nurse. As a nun she continued to nurse and came across many people with addictions. Her desire to do something for them led to the setting up of the recovery centre Cuan Mhuire – initially it was mostly alcohol problems, but now the advent of widespread drug abuse made addiction more complex.
She was hugely thankful to her benefactors and to Our Lady. Now, 50 years later, her work continued and she found time to write a book of simple spirituality, The Harbour Within. She inspired people to recover their sense of goodness and giftedness and to get over their feelings of being rejected – “all rejection becomes self-rejection”.
Bro. Kevin had worked with CIÉ initially but felt a strong calling, a sense that he was being selfish and not giving time to what he should be doing. Working with the Capuchins in Dublin around 50 years ago he noticed people leaving the hostels every morning, cold and with nowhere to go, which led to the setting up of the day centre, which now feeds hundreds every day, many more than when it started. He found it appalling that to see the levels of poverty and homelessness in 2016, and was particularly concerned with the children who were homeless.
That Sunday evening Joanne O’Riordan was guest on The Meaning of Life With Gay Byrne (RTÉ 1) and it was a most engaging interview, full of cheerful contradictions. Joanne is the girl with no limbs but that condition wasn’t going to define her.
There wasn’t an ounce of self-pity – she said she never asked the ‘why me?’ question. Like many young people she had given up on Mass in her mid-teens, said she didn’t really pray, but did say a frequent ‘thank you’ pointed at the heavens. If she met God at the end of her life the main thing she would say would be ‘thank you’.
Vague notion
For her the ‘meaning of life’ was to fulfil what she was on earth to do. She had a vague notion of God, sensed that someone was looking after her, whether angel or grandparent, and had the hope that there would be an afterlife, where she would have no desire to lose her disability.
Byrne pressed her on the abortion issue – effectively she was one of those diagnosed with what Byrne called a “fatal foetal abnormality”, but was glad her parents gave her the chance to live.
Though taking a pro-choice stance at one level, she would be against abortion if she was going to have a child with a disability, thought it was “horrible” that so many Downs Syndrome babies were aborted. She thought the medical profession was often (including in her own case) too negative towards pregnancies where a severe disability was diagnosed, and regretted how the unborn baby was depersonalised in these cases, just regarded as ‘a thing growing inside you that will die’.
Pick of the week
HOW TO PRAY FOR YOUR SONS and DAUGHTERS and LOVED ONES
EWTN Saturday, November 12, 3.30 pm
We need to pray for not only our loved ones to return to Mass, but that they will experience ‘a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God’.
VOX NOSTRA WITH VLAD SMISHKEWYCH
RTE Lyric FM, Sunday, November 13, 7am
Despite the theological borders between Catholicism and Protestantism, a more ecumenical spirit permeates the musical expression of these two Christian faiths.
EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND
Channel 4 Monday, November 14, 8am
The Barones meet their priest (Charles Durning).