Dear Editor, I welcome the contribution which The Irish Catholic is making to the mission of the laity with Greg Daly’s article (IC 23/03/2017). It would be good to hear more on the topic of lay-led liturgies. It was pointed out in his well-researched article, it is fraught with difficulties if not approached from a sacred, as opposed to secular, manner.
The laity has been leading devotions (Rosary, Divine Mercy chaplet etc.) all over the country. However, the clericalisation of the laity needs to be resisted as highlighted by Patrick Morgan in the Letters page (06/04/2017), where “Eucharistic Ministers being further trained…to perform daily non-consecration Mass liturgies”.
Last year I attended a rural church one Friday hoping to ‘get Mass’ as we say in Ireland.
The parish website stated that Mass was to be celebrated that evening. It wasn’t.
What we had was a ‘priestess’ trying to say Mass. We had devotion beforehand, the Rosary and Adoration led by the sacristan and two ladies. We really did not need a Communion service led by the laity.
This secular approach to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass gives people the wrong understanding of the true meaning of what the Eucharist is. Should we still continue with the diaconate when people, even clerics, see them as mini-priests?
Sound catechesis is very necessary in the area of lay-led liturgies.
Yours etc.,
Declan Cooney,
Birr, Co. Offaly.
Baby in womb a measure of innate rights
Dear Editor, Having chosen Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth film for my Holy Week viewing, something struck me that had never registered before. However, before revealing it let us backtrack a little on the ‘story,’ where the Blessed Virgin Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth in Ain Karim, Judea. This is where an astonishing communication from ‘womb to womb’ occurred through Mary’s greeting. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and the child in her womb, St John the Baptist, leapt for joy, purified then and there in the womb. The embryonic Christ activated his ministry through the Blessed Mary’s voice. This point alone communicates the importance of life in the womb.
Now we all know that Christ Jesus attended the wedding feast of Cana where he changed water into wine. However, how many of us reflect on the fact that Christ Jesus was present in the womb as an embryonic God-Person at the wedding of Blessed Mary and St Joseph, a wedding blessed by the Triune God? This shot out at me from the film!
Our Coptic brothers and sisters are right now standing up to be counted. Where are we in Ireland where the oxygen flow to the Church is being subtly strangled? The baby in the womb is the measure of all of our innate human rights. Bear in mind that the original Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors, but now watered down, contained the words “I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.” Now is our moment of choice.
Yours etc.,
Nollaig M. Ni Mhaoileoin,
Maynooth,
Co. Kildare
Catholic schools need strong ethos statement
Dear Editor, It would be great if there was displayed in a prominent place in every Catholic primary and secondary school a plaque on which is inscribed in bold, clear lettering the following three-sentence belief and ethos mission statement:
‘We will always strive in the classroom, staff room and games’ fields to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ, True God and True Perfect Man, the Saviour of mankind, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
‘Jesus said, ‘If anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare for him in the presence of my Father in Heaven (Matthew 10:32,33).
‘We pledge our love, loyalty, service and adoration to the One True God in three Divine Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
The greatest crisis in the Church today is the large number of baptised people who have lost or are losing their belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Preachers and teachers should use every suitable opportunity to proclaim the divinity of Jesus using the many texts in the Gospels in which Jesus speaks about himself.
The outstanding compassion, courage, mercy, forgiveness, energy, passion for truth and justice, accessibility and sociability of Jesus with all classes of people – including fishermen and tax collectors, women, children, rich and poor, sinners and Pharisees – should be stressed as well as the superb and unrivalled moral teaching.
We should all be ambassadors for the Lord Jesus.
Yours etc.,
Fr Sean O’Shaughnessy CSSp,
Kimmage,
Dublin 12.
Lifting Good Friday ban deeply ironic
Dear Editor, I cannot be alone amongst the electorate in thinking that there is something deeply ironic in regard to the Government’s stated intention that it will agree to the inclusion of a repeal of Ireland’s longstanding ban on the sale of alcohol on Good Friday, within a broader bill with the stated aim of which is to reduce general alcohol consumption in Ireland!
Given that allowing more people to get drunk on Good Friday is unlikely to reduce the overall level of alcohol consumption, one has to conclude that the chief motivation for abolishing the ban is to remove another piece of Ireland’s Catholic heritage, even though there are non-Catholic majority countries who also ban alcohol sales on Good Friday (such as New Zealand, for example).
Is New Zealand a backward and old-fashioned country for maintaining this ban, as Ireland is often labelled by those within Ireland who hold a deep antipathy toward the Catholic faith?
Another argument put forward by those who want to repeal the ban is that Christian traditions such as this are apparently not “reflective” of modern Ireland.
By this logic, the public holiday over the Easter long weekend should also be abolished because the reason why we have an Easter holiday in the first place is because we are celebrating the sacrifice and resurrection of Our Lord.
However, the citizens of Ireland would hardly tolerate the removal of the Easter holiday and so our brave politicians will steer clear of such intellectual consistency.
Finally, the question must be asked: who is really asking for the removal of the Good Friday alcohol sales ban?
I would suggest that if an abolition of the ban was put to a referendum the proposal would be rejected, on the basis of it being another unnecessary attack on Ireland’s traditions.
Yours etc.,
Phillip Cooney,
Drogheda,
Co. Louth.
Congratulations to Notebook writer
Dear Editor, May I please say congratulations to Fr Conor McDonough OP for his God-inspired message in The Irish Catholic of March 9. He gave as his title: “It’s all so blindingly obvious.”
Fr McDonough is truly in the tradition of St Thomas Aquinas who composed such beautiful hymn-prayers as ‘O Bread of Heaven’.
The Irish Catholic has had a long-standing place in the home of my childhood.
Yours etc.,
Nan Morris,
Foxford,
Co. Mayo.
Speak up on children’s hospital
Dear Editor, Well done to Bishop Phonsie Cullinan in Waterford (IC 06/04/2017) for speaking out on the ridiculous situation, where the Government seems determined to build the national children’s hospital in a city centre location that no one can access in an emergency. I can’t understand the stubbornness of carrying on with this plan when anyone can see that it is not suitable. Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown makes sense on so many levels – it is accessible from the M50, has ample parking and green space. Parents need to make their voices heard on this issue before it is too late.
Yours etc.,
Rosaleen Murtagh,
Salthill, Galway.
More men needed in church
Dear Editor, Mary Kenny says “More women in church? It’s more men we need” (IC 13/04/2017).
For some strange reason, the number of men at the extraordinary form of the Mass at 10.30am on Sundays in St Kevin’s, Harrington Street, Dublin 8, always vastly exceeds the number of women there (even when mothers of choristers attend Mass).
As the Americans say: Go figure!
Yours etc.,
Kieron Wood,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.