Walk In The Ways Of The Lord

Walk In The Ways Of The Lord

“What matters most of all is that we respond, graciously and gratefully, to God’s amazing grace. Amazing grace is beauty that saves the world.”

The God of the Pharisees we meet in the gospels is, for the most part, a cross God, judgemental and easily vexed. Religion for Pharisees demanded impeccably good behaviour. They had zero tolerance for those who did not conform to their particular standards and practices. The God they believed in was a reward/ punishment God, a God who had to be pleased and appeased, more feared than loved.

The reward/punishment God is alive and well in the lives of many good people. He is a false god. To live sane, authentic, Christian lives, we need to get rid of our false gods, or as scripture puts it, we must banish “strange gods before us”, and replace them with the one true God of Jesus.

God is not a Referee

The reward/punishment approach to religion sees Religion as a kind of scorecard. God keeps the score on our behaviour. He marks our card. He is like the insufferable Nurse Ratched in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She ran the institution on a reward/ punishment system. Nurse Ratched was eager to find fault and punish severely anyone who incurred her displeasure.

Good News or Bad News

What kind of God do we believe in? A vindictive God, a punishing God, or a God of love and mercy? A vindictive God, a punishing God, is bad news. A God of love and mercy who never with draws his favour is good news. The gospel is good news. God loves us already. We already enjoy God’s favour. We don’t have to win God’s love and favour. We don’t have to impress God with good behaviour and good deeds. He is not interested in keeping a scorecard. And if by any chance, God keeps a score card, he tears it up, and tosses it to the four winds.The message of Jesus is that we not have to dazzle God with our prayers and good works. Indeed, if we spend our entire lives trying to earn God’s love, instead of responding to it, I am afraid our best efforts are doomed to fail miserably.

Alive and Well

I, like many others of my generation, was brought up on a reward/punishment idea God. It was a simple, straightforward approach to religion. God was someone we had to please and appease. If we behaved, God was pleased, God rewarded us. If we behaved badly, God was displeased. God would punish us. It was important to keep on God’s good side.

Pharisee in Each of Us

The God of the Pharisees is the opposite of the God of Jesus. They are outraged, apoplectic with anger, when Jesus says, “I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21: 31- 32). Sinners are not their type of people. These people, and their ilk, whom Jesus befriended, are unclean. They condemned Jesus as being like the company he kept. A little warning here: Let’s not rush to judgment on the Pharisees of long ago. Let’s be honest. There is a bit of a Pharisee in each of us. The question is: How much? The answer, like the answer to all important questions, must come from within!

Everybody – No Exemptions

For the Pharisees, we are judged by God on the basis of our behaviour. Behaviour comes first. For Jesus, love comes first, love of everybody, everybody without exception, regardless of religion, nationality, or colour. Each of us is God’s chosen one, his special one, his beloved one. God does not make mistakes. We are no accident. God’s love is unilateral. God does not withdraw his love. His love is everlasting. We know God but we don’t understand God. We don’t appreciate God’s forever love. God is not moody. God is not fickle. The message of Jesus is strong, consistent, and unrelenting: God loves all of his creation. There are no exceptions. The Pharisees, in rejecting Jesus and his message, got it all wrong. So do many of his followers.

Before the Creation of the Universe

Think for a moment of time before the universe began. God saw you and me, individually. He saw the whole story of our lives unfolding before his eyes and yet despite what he saw despite our faults and failings, despite our weaknesses and sins, however serious God still loved us so much that he created us .Creation is an act of love. God is still creating us with a love and passion that comes from deep within his own sacred heart. God dotes on us. God wants to share his life and happiness with us. God loved us before we committed any sin and God will love us after we have committed all the sins we will ever commit. Even if I com- mitted all the sins of human kind, my sins cannot change God. To think we can influence God is presumption. And presumption is a sin!!!

God is not Shockable

God is not some kind of super human being whom we can control or influence by our behaviour. God decides for God; not us. We cannot shock God. God is not shockable. A ‘shockable’ God is a strange and false God. At the risk of repeating myself, I will repeat: We must get rid of strange and false gods. Am I being soft on sin? That is material for another St. Martin Magazine article. I can’t cover it all in one article! The gospel of grace is a joyful and glorious mystery. The grace of God is a gift of God. A gift is only a gift if we accept it, embrace it, cherish it, nourish it, nurture it, own it, and make it part of our lives. God’s favour rests on us always. There is never a moment when God’s favour is not resting on each of us. What matters most of all is that we respond, graciously and gratefully, to God’s amazing grace. Amazing grace is beauty that saves the world.

Questions And Answers

Question 1. Who is the patron saint of Catholic Universities and students? I would like to know some- thing about him.

Answer:

The saint whose name you are looking for is St. Thomas Aquinas. He was a Dominican Friar, who lived in the 13th century. He joined the Dominican Order despite strong opposition from his family. He spent his life studying, lecturing and writing incessantly until his death at the early age of 49. He was a deeply prayerful and con- templative man who had an intense power of concentration and is said to have dictated to four secretaries at the one time. His greatest work was his ‘Summa Theologica’ which is a synthesis of theology. His entire ministry as a teacher and a preacher was a matter of giving to others what he had contemplated himself. In spite of his great intel- lectual acumen, he was universal- ly admired for his modesty and humility and for his prayer life and deep spiritual insights. He was canonised in 1323, less than fifty years after his death. His feast day is on January 28th.

Question 2. In many churches you will find a picture of an anchor. What does it symbolize?

Answer:

The anchor, almost as far back A as we go in human history, has been a symbol or a sign of security and hope. The Jews used this symbol even before the time of Christ. The Christians picked up this sign very early as an expression of their hope and the sense of security their faith brought them. Often the anchor is joined with the fish, the symbol of Christ (and of Christians). This joint symbol expresses the belief that our faith and hope, our anchor, is ultimately Jesus himself. The letter to the Hebrews in the Bible says that our hope in Jesus Christ and in his high priesthood are like ‘a sure and firm anchor’.

Question 3. In the favours published in the magazine some people express their thanks first to St. Martin and then to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady. Are they putting St. Martin before the Lord ?

Answer:

Thank you for your question. Let me begin to answer you by pointing out that from the earliest times of the Church, people have always prayed to the saints and asked the saints to intercède for them to put in a word for them with God. Just as here on earth we pray for one another, so we can also ask the saints to pray for us. They are in God’s presence, nearer to God than our friends and neighbours here on earth. It is only natural that we ask their help for anything important to us. Their prayers for us are more powerful than the prayers of anyone here on earth because they are already in the presence of God.

I believe our readers understand that and do not intend to give any saint priority over the Lord, no matter how they word their thanks. People do not express themselves like theologians, not indeed do they have the words to do so, but I believe that they know and believe in their hearts that every blessing or help they receive comes first and foremost from the Lord. They invoke their friends the saints to join with them in their prayer. God is the giver of all good things, our supreme lover, our supreme benefactor. St. Martin and the other saints to whom we pray intercede with the Lord for all those who ask their prayers.

Question 4. What’s the point in making New Year Resolutions? I don’t bother making them anymore because usually break them after a few days, sometimes almost immediately.

Answer:

There are many who feel the same about New Year resolutions. What’s the point? We made resolutions in the past and we did not keep them. Perhaps not, or not as well as we would have wished, but it is important to make them even it is only to know that failure is part of the human condition, that without God in our lives we will fail, that we need His grace and strength in our lives.

To my joy, next month sees the start of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games scheduled to take place from 9 to 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. Just like the Summer Olympics its something I look forward to every four years. However, I recently discovered that the first Winter Olympics didn’t originate at the same time as the modern Summer Olympic Games in 1896. It didn’t make its appearance until 1924, twenty-eight years later, so I thought it might be interesting to find out why. It seems the organisers of the modern Olympics had wanted to have winter games as well; but couldn’t find a venue that would support the kinds of sports that they wanted. Also, the leaders of the countries who had gathered for the 1896 Olympics couldn’t agree on how such games would be organised. Figure skating was included in the Olympics for the first time in the 1908 Summer Games in London, although the skating competition was not actually held until October, some three months after the other events were over.

The Nordic Games

The first organised international competition involving winter sports was introduced just five years after the birth of the modern Olympics. This competition wasn’t the Winter Olympics, it was called the Nordic Games, and included only athletes from Scandinavian countries and was held in Sweden every four years from 1901. However, in 1911, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposed the staging of a separate winter competition for the 1912 Stockholm Games, but Sweden, wanting to protect the popularity of the Nor- dic Games, declined. The idea was resur- rected for the 1916 Games, which were to be held in Berlin, Germany. A winter sports week was planned with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, and Military patrol a team winter sport in which athletes competed in cross-country skiing, ski mountaineering and rifle shooting, but both were cancelled after the outbreak of World War I.

First “Winter” Olympics

In 1920, two years after the war ended, the Olympics resumed; although Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned from competing. Ice hockey joined figure skating as an official Olympic event, despite continuing protests from the Scandinavian countries. Nordic nations dominated the figure skating events, but Canada took home the first of many hockey gold medals.

At the IOC Congress held the following year it was decided tha the host nation of the 1924 Summer Olympics, France, would host a separate “International Winter Opening of the “International Winter Sports Week” which was retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympic Games, Chamonix, France 1924.

Sports Week”. Chamonix was chosen to host this “week” (actually 11 days) of events. The Games under the patronage of the IOC proved to be a success with more than 250 athletes from 16 nations competing in 16 events. Germany, however, remained banned until the 1928 games, and instead hosted a series of games called Deutsche Kampfspiele which lasted between 1922 to 1934.

In 1925 the IOC decided to create a separate Olympic Winter Games and the 1924 Games in Chamonix was retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympics. Three years later in 1928, St. Moritz, Switzerland, was appointed by the IOC to host the second Olympic Winter Games. The third in 1932 was held in Lake Placid in the United States. It was the first to be hosted outside of Europe. Seventeen nations and 252 athletes participated. The fourth, the 1936 Winter Olympics was held in the market town of Garmisch Partenkirchen in Bavaria, Germany. Germany also hosted that year’s Summer Olympics in Berlin. It was the last year in which the Summer and Winter Games were both held in the same country, It was also the last games held before World War II broke out. The 1940 Games had been awarded to Sapporo, Japan, but the decision was rescinded in 1938 because of the Japanese invasion of China. The Games were then to be held at Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, but the 1940 Games were cancelled following the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Due to the ongoing war, the 1944 Games, originally scheduled for Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, were cancelled. St. Moritz was selected to host the first post- war Games in 1948. Switzerland’s neutrality had protected the town during World War II, and most of the venues were in place from the 1928 Games, which made St. Moritz a logical choice.

Winter Games evolution

The Winter Games have evolved tremendously since their inception. Until 1992 the Winter and Summer Olympic Games were held in the same years. However, because of a decision in 1986 by IOC to place the Summer and Winter Games on separate alternating even numbered four-year cycles, the next Winter Olympics after 1992 was in 1994.

Some sports and disciplines including curling and bobsleigh, have been discontinued and later reintroduced; others have been permanently discontinued, such as military patrol, though the modern Winter Olympic sport of biathlon is descended from it. Others have been added and some of them, such as Alpine skiing, luge, short track speed skating, freestyle skiing, skeleton, and snowboarding, have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic programme. The addition of these events has broadened the appeal of the Winter Olympics beyond Europe and North America. The results are more interest in the Winter Olympics and a higher glob- al participation. While European powers such as Norway and Germany still dominate the traditional Winter Olympic sports, countries such as Australia, Canada, South Korea and other Asian countries are finding success in the new sports.

Over the years, eleven countries in three continents have hosted the Winter Olympics. These countries are the United States, France, Japan, Norway, Italy, Canada, Switzer- land, Yugoslavia, Germany, Russia, and Austria. The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, took place from 7 to 23 February 2014. A record 2,800 participants from 88 countries competed. As I mentioned earlier, the 2018 host of the Winter Olympics will be South Korea, and Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Beijing will be the first city to hold both Summer and Winter Olympics.

Every sport and discipline in the Winter Olympics from the graceful athleticism of ice skaters to the amazing sight of ski jumpers flying through the air from extreme heights is so fantastic to see. That is why, come February you will find me ensconced in front of the TV watching every single one of them.

Johannes (Jan) Vermeer: (1632-1675) Dutch Painter

Deirdre Powell

Johannes (Jan) Vermeer is one of the most highly regarded Dutch artists of all time. His paintings are among the most revered and beloved in art history. Only about 36 of the artist’s pictures survive, but they are among the greatest treasures in the world’s finest museums.

Much of Vermeer’s life remains a mystery, although his works have been a source of inspiration and fascination for centuries. He was born in Delft, The Nether lands, circa October 31, 1632. His father, Reynier, came from a family of craftsmen in Delft, while his mother, Digna, had a Flemish background.

Vermeer was baptised in Delft’s Nieuwe Kerk (“New Church”), and it is thought that he was raised as a Calvinist. Not much is known about his early life, but he inherited his father’s inn and art-dealing business as a result of Reynier’s death in October 1652. Vermeer married Catherina Bolnes, a young Catholic woman, in April 1653, and, as a result, he converted to Catholicism.

On December 29, 1653, Vermeer registered as a master painter in the Guild of Saint Luke at Delft. However, the identity of his master(s) remains a mystery, as do the nature of his training and the period of his apprenticeship. Vermeer’s early work depicted large scale biblical and mythological scenes. He is most renowned, however, for his ability to capture scenes of daily life in interior settings. These works convey a serene and timeless sense of dignity and are remarkable for their purity of light and form. In addition, Vermeer painted allegorical scenes and cityscapes.

Not well Known during his lifetime

As an artist, Johannes enjoyed some success in his native Delft and sold his works to a small number of local collectors. Although he served as head of the local artistic guild, he was not well-known out side of his own circle during his lifetime.

Toward the end of his life, Vermeer’s fortunes deteriorated drastically, as a result of the disastrous economic climate in The Netherlands following the country’s invasion by French troops in 1672. Johannes Vermeer died on December 16, 1675, leaving behind a wife, 11 children and huge debts. Although many of Vermeer’s paintings focus on daily living and the interiors of dwellings, he also painted works with an allegorical religious character. Two of these works are “Woman with a Balance” (painted ca. 1664) and the more abstract “Allegory of the Catholic Faith” (painted ca. 1670-72).

In “Woman with a Balance”, a woman dressed in a blue jacket with fur trim is holding a scales at equilibrium. In the background, there is a large painting of The Last Judgement. The religious implications of this work appear to be related to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola: prior to meditating, the faithful first examine their conscience and weigh their sins as though they are facing Judgement Day. As a result, this leads to virtuous choices in life. This work, therefore, urges people to conduct their lives with moderation and temperance.

In the painting “Allegory of the Catholic Faith,” the work is atypical in that it employs a style that was more abstract to suit the intellectual subject. Faith is represented as a woman who has “the world at her feet,” and she casts her eyes to Heaven, which is symbolized by a glass sphere. Also present in the painting is the apple of Original Sin that sits near a serpent (Satan), who is crushed by the “cornerstone” of the church, namely Christ. Consistent with other pictures by Vermeer, this work depicts an interior, i.e. a room that looks like a chapel set up in a private house; the room is revealed behind a Flemish tapestry and probably refers to the “hidden churches” of that time where Catholics worshipped.

Vermeer’s popularity grew over the centuries

During his lifetime, Vermeer’s fame was not widespread, mainly because local patrons collected his paintings and because his creative output was small. However, the artist’s popularity has only increased across the generations. He preferred to allow each viewer to contemplate the significance of each picture, as opposed to explaining the painting’s exact meaning. As a result, contemporary observers are fully engaged by his mas- terpieces, much as viewers must have been fascinated by his work during his lifetime.

Epiphany-Good News For All Of Humanity

“Some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east. ‘Where is the infant King of the Jews? they asked. We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage….

And going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then opening their treasures they offered him gifts of gold, and frankincense and myrrh…”

Matthew 2: 2-11

Down at the local coffee shop two farmers were arguing out loud about the validity of their respective religions. A third farmer listened and then observed, “I’ve been bringing my wheat here to this same mill for over 40 years. Now there are two roads that lead up to the mill. Never once friends has the miller asked me which road I take. The only thing he ever asks me is ‘How good is your wheat?””

The Jewish people at the time of Jesus were very conscious and proud of their religious identity. Their relationship with God defined them as a people and set them apart from other people. They believed that they were God’s chosen people and understood this to mean that God loved them in a way that he didn’t love other people. That God was theirs alone and did not belong to anybody else. They were possessive of God. And that understanding was reflected in the way they treated people of other nations. They wanted nothing to do with the outsider. Outsiders were known as gentiles a derogatory term. In fact they despised the outsider. But the love of God present in Jesus challenged all of that. Jesus worked as a bridge builder trying to bring Jews and Gentiles into relationship and into friendship. And you can see this even at the beginning of his life as an infant in the crib. The wise men came from the east, they were non-Jews; they belonged to different cultures and traditions, and yet they felt at home in the presence of the Christ child; their gifts were graciously received, and their visit deeply appreciated. Mary and Joseph welcomed and cherished their visit and their offerings recognizing that the child Jesus was a gift from God, not only for Jews, but for all peoples, for humanity.

Collaboration with People of all Religions.

I remember during my time in Trinidad and Tobago being hugely impressed by the work of the Inter Religious Organization (IRO). It was made up of the leaders and representatives of all the main religions and churches on the Island – Hindus, Muslims, Christians Anglicans and Catholics, Pentecostals etc. They met together on a regular basis to pray and to address real social issues such as crime, drug abuse, unemployment etc. which affect all the peoples on the Island. And they did so from their different perspectives. They were working together to serve all the people of that country and to build a more just, peaceful and harmonious society. I think it offers a beacon of hope for the world at this time. The feast of the Epiphany reminds us that in this work of co-operating and collaborating with other religions to build a better world we are fully with Jesus and Jesus is fully with us.

Mutual Acceptance, Respect and Love.

And it is not that we have to water down or compromise any aspect of the essentials of our faith: we know where we come from, and we know what we believe in, and because we are so convinced in our faith we can pray and work together with those who are different.

Several years ago during the crises in Bosnia Herzegovina, John Paul II brought together religious leaders representing the different factions involved in the conflict there: Muslims, Jews and Christians, and after a time of prayer (each praying in their own tradition) he spoke these revolutionary words: “In the mutual acceptance of each other, in mutual respect, made more pro- found by love lies the secret of a humanity finally reconciled.”

Isn’t that exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said “love one another”. He didn’t say “Love your fellow Catholics.” He said love everybody – and that includes people of all religions and none. And that includes lapsed Catholics too and people who would describe themselves as atheist.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

The feast of the Epiphany reminds us that that God’s love and saving work are present in other churches, in other religions and indeed in people who profess no religion at all. God is bigger than the Catholic Church. And thank God for that! God’s love extends way beyond the Catholic people. Jesus is not only ours; he belongs to the whole of humanity.

The feast of the epiphany is an invitation to a deep respect and reverence for people of other churches and traditions, inviting us to dialogue with them, to work with them and to strive with them for the building up of God’s king- dom. Epiphany invites us to receive their gifts of gold, frank- incense and myrrh and in turn to be ready to share our gifts with them.

Mary’s Power Of Intercession Story

Fr. Andrew Greeley is credited with the following story. He said that when he was young in Chicago he learned it from the nuns who taught him.

One day God made a tour of heaven to check out the recent arrivals. He was taken aback at the quality of many of those allowed in and he went out to confront St. Peter about it.

‘You’ve let me down again’ he told Peter.
‘What’s wrong now?’ Peter asked.
‘You have let a lot of people in that shouldn’t be there.’
‘I didn’t let them in’ said Peter.
‘Well who did?’
When I turned them away at the front door, they went round the back and your mother let them in.’

That is only a story for children to let them see the importance that Mary has in our lives, and how powerful her intercession is before God. Mary’s importance, Marys’ power of intercession comes from her role as Mother of God, the feast we celebrate on January 1st.

On 24 August 1968 the first of the civil rights marchs took place from Coalisland to Dungannon in Northern Ireland. One of the marchers recalls that he had a pocket radio with him on which he was listening to news of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. On 21 August some 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops had entered the country to suppress a reform movement, the so called ‘Prague Spring’, begun with the appointment of Alexander Dubcek as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslo vakia on 5 January 1968.

Alexander Dubcek: Party man

By the mid 1960s the Czechoslovak economy was in a state of collapse under the weight of the Stalinist economic system. As limited economic reforms gave way to wider demands for change, an internal Communist Party struggle culminated in the victory of reform-minded party members with Dubček’s appointment in 1968. Although Alexander Dubček was born in Czechoslovakia in 1921, his formative years were spent in the Soviet Union. The family only returned in 1938 in time for the young Dubček to fight against the pro German Slovak government during the Second World War. A lifelong member of the Communist Party, after the war he rose through the ranks to serve in parliament as a member of the National Assembly. From 1953 to 1958 he studied at the centre of Soviet power in Moscow. Though a member of the party’s reformist group his appointment in 1968 was approved by the Kremlin: he was after all one of their own.

Rising out of its own momentum

What had begun as a movement for economic reform snowballed with calls for emocratic reforms from the disenfranchised Czechoslo- vak majority who were not members of the Communist Party. Dubček promised to use Nikita Khrushchev’s phrase, ‘socialism with a human face’ to guarantee certain freedoms, including the easing of press censorship and travel restrictions. Freedom of speech, he asserted, was indispensable for a modern economy and argued that the exercise of authority should be rooted in expertise and knowledge and not party affiliation. At the same time, he privately assured his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev that any electoral reforms would be framed in such manner as to ensure a communist majority. Dubček attempted to kick start the economy by improving trade relations with the West. During March and April a series of electric and barbed wire fences along the West German border were taken down. A daily flood of 40,000 tourists from West Germany entered the country to the disquiet of the Politburo in Moscow who feared that the Czechoslovak army would be weakened by the influx.

An anti-communist direction

Dubček believed that by pursuing his reform agenda and by installing reformminded individuals to positions of authority he could rebuild the public’s confidence in the party. The Kremlin, recalling the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, was cocerned that events were moving in an anticommunist’ direction and could undermine not only Czechoslovakia but contribute to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. At a meeting in Dresden in March 1968 the Czechoslovak delegation was given warning by the Soviets and their client states. An editorial in Pravda the official Communist Party newspaper highlighted an ‘atmosphere of disorder, vacillation, and uncertainty’ within official circles in Czechoslovakia. Throughout early summer pressure was brought to bear on Dubček. But as one historian has put it, he was taken hostage by his people who were so energized by the prospect of reform that he could not step back from the path he had taken. A series of training exercises were organised in Czechoslovakiaby the countries of the Warsaw Pact on 20 June in an attempt to intimidate the government and population. A final meeting took place between both sides in late July.

Soviet invasion and velvet revolution

On the 22 August as Russian tanks rolled into Cesky Krumlov, a provincial town near the Austrian border, a young Irish journalist on his first assignment was there to greet them. Vincent Browne was on the phone to RTE when from the window of his hotel room he saw a tank drive over his rented Volkswagen Beetle! For his part, Dubček was taken to Russia where he was forced to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Soviet regime and was reinstalled as Czechoslovak First Secretary on 27 August. And Browne was present in the Prague Opera house the night he returned. He recalls Dubček coming into a the atre box near the front and the audience standing, cheering and applauding, for what seemed like a half hour’. In a reference to the general non violent mobilisation of the population against the occupation which significantly delayed the Soviet takeover Browne remarks, ‘It seemed then that the popular resistance had won’. However within the year Dubček was gone and the process of dismantling his reforms was well under way what the regime referred to as normalization. ‘Hope’, said Vaclav Havel, poet and playwright turned dissident leader by the events of the Prague Spring, ‘is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.’ In 1989 following the collapse of Communist governments throughout Europe the hope of 1968 was finally realised with the ending of 41 years of one party rule in Czechoslovakia. Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of parliament and Vaclav Havel, president on 28 and 29 December respectively.

The Garden This Month

Deirdre Anglim

Birds feast on scarlet berries of cotoneaster. Sprays of winter jas-Bmine fall to the ground nearby. Yellow primroses peep out from under the forsythia bush.

Purple osteospermum has bloomed most of the year at the front gate. A pale pink variety has established itself on the other side of the path. Last summer I transferred them from their pots into the ground.

Daffodil shoots are above ground. Snowdrops are in bud. Spring is on the way.

Bougainvillea continues to bloom. It has pride of place in the porch. How is your poinsettia doing? The best place for this beautiful plant is in a cool room or hall away from the overheated living room. Wait till the soil is almost dry before you water it. Over watering can kill. Check your plants for diseased/dead leaves and remove. Most houseplants like plenty of light. A bowl of water placed nearby will prevent a too dry atmosphere. Wrap up warmly before you head out into the garden to see what needs to be done. Choose essential jobs. Clear all fallen leaves and debris from nooks and corners. Rake the leaves from the lawn too. Check drainage holes in pots and tubs. An old knit- ting needle works well. Large terracotta containers may crack on frosty nights so wrap them in bubble wrap or an old rug/carpet.

Roses can be lightly pruned on mild dry days. The aim is to let air and light into the centre of the bush so remove those dead branches. Cut away any growth that is too weak to produce strong shoots.

This is the time to consider the changes you want to make in the garden for spring/summer. The bare bones of the garden are before you. Bring the notebook with you and jot down your ideas. On dreary days gaze out the kitchen window and plan your new layout. Watch the birds bathing in the bin lid. We have a young fox who regularly wanders through the back garden as if he owns it!

Make a pot of tea/coffee. Sit at the kitchen table and study those catalogues. Keep the notebook handy to list which wonderful new- comers you intend to plant next year. Happy planning!

Trees

“The trees have haircuts!” she said, her eyes wide with amazement. I looked over the wall and yes they had. Trees and shrubs had been clipped into a variety of shapes: cones, cylinders, wedges, lollipops. They just stood there, looking ridiculous. One felt more ashamed for the trees than for the shrubs: trees were the adults in the garden, and it is embarrassing to see adults treated like children. They stood motionless, constrained; they had none of that easy movement that normal trees have in the wind; they looked like artefacts. “What are like great and lesser heroes, they for?” she asked. The question confirmed that they looked like artefacts: no one would ask such a question about a normal tree.

“Imagine the mind of the person who would do that to a tree!” she said. We imagined it. At first we thought it must be a very complicated one, but in a moment we agreed that it was a mind far simpler than the normal. There is practically no limit to the number of shapes that trees can take, but here was a gardener who had lacerated that abundance down to five or six.

How vulnerable trees are!

For relief we look at the others, the trees that escaped. How well they keep themselves! More: they stand assuring us of some noble triumph far above our heads. Their full majesty appeared to us in contrast to the desecration of the others. How vulnerable trees are! How easy it is to love them: they are splendid beings, rapt in silence, and yet totally vulnerable, because they are alive. They show us, in some way, the heart of existence.

And how well they hold their secret! Their roots search deeply into the earth, a world of darkness, stillness and silence; no one has ever seen all their roots, no one is capable of following their infinite search. And how discreetly they reveal the secret! They raise their powerful bodies and intricate arms into the sky, intertwining the world below with the world above, giving form and meaning to what is formless: the darkness under- ground, too terrible to contemplate, they transform, without destroying it, into a hundred colours and shades; the rigidity of the earth they soften into an easy motion; its silence they interpret into music with the wind. When we come to die we can say: I have seen wonderful trees, in every season.

A simple man, used to raking leaves, went too far and grieved the living with the dead. Failing to hear the yearning voices of the earth he cut their throats with a shears. Mechanical order and regularity are for the dead alone. There is a living order too, but it is different, as a tree is different from an artefact. When we model our minds and lives on the machine we make ourselves enemies of every living thing.

Our oldest Neighbours

More ancient than technology, more ancient even than philosophy, trees looked down on dinosaurs, they were present at the birth of our race, they are our oldest neighbours. They know something wondrous about God, and they carry the weight of our religious aspiration: the oak of Mamre, the Bodhi tree, the Cross of Christ.

A stricken tree is strangely like a badly used human being…

Or like a wounded God, mocked and pierced and left to die.

Minnie Louise Haskins:

Poet, Author and Industrial Welfare Promotor

Helen Morgan

In 1908, when Minnie Haskins wrote the poem, God Knows, little did she realise that 31 years later her inspirational words would be spoken by the King of England in his Christmas Day radio broadcast. A modest, humble and deeply religious woman, Minnie’s sole purpose in writing poetry was to bring her readers closer to God.

Minnie Louise Haskins was born near Bristol, England on 12th May 1875 to Joseph Haskins, a grocer and his wife Louisa. The second of 9 children, Minnie was educated at the Clarendon Collegiate School in Clifton before studying informally at University College Bristol.

Minnie’s career in welfare began with voluntary work for the Congregational Church in her local community. By 1903, she was working with the Springfield Hall Wesleyan Methodist mission in the slums of London. From 1907, Minnie worked in Madras, India with the Methodist MissionarySociety’s “zenana missions to women.” The zenana movement consisted of female missionaries who were trained doctors and nurses. To raise funds for the work Minnie published, privately, a small volume of poems entitled The Desert which included her poem, God Knows, adding an introductory passage which read “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!”

In 1915, Minnie returned to England where she ran a munitions workers’ hostel in Woolwich. Following this she spent 3 years supervising the labour management department of a controlled factory in West Ham. In 1918, she published a second volume of poetry entitled The Potter.

At the end of the war, Minnie aged 43, enrolled in the London School of Economics (LSE) where she studied under Agatha Harrison, the county’s first specialist in industrial welfare. In 1919, Minnie was awarded a Social Science Certificate followed a year later by a Diploma in Sociology: both with distinction.

Minnie joined the staff at the LSE as an assistant in the Social Science Department (later the Institute of Personnel Development), becoming a tutor in 1934. She retired in 1939 but was reappointed the following year and continued until 1944.

A Woman of Unusual Capacity and Character

Minnie was a very intelligent woman, a dedicated and inspirational teacher. A senior tutor at the LSE once described her as “a woman of unusual capacity and character… a rare understanding and sympathy and infinite patience, combined with a great deal of love and interest in people.”

In 1921, Minnie co-wrote with Eleanor T Kelly a book entitled Foundations of Industrial Welfare in Economica in which the authors promoted a “spirit of co-operation” between worker and employer.

Minnie’s first novel, Through Beds of Stone, was published in 1928. Her other works include A Few People (1932) and a volume of poetry entitled Smoking Flax (1942). It was, however, through her earlier work that Minnie came to public attention.

In December 1939, at the end of his Christmas Day radio broadcast, King George VI quoted a verse by a then unknown author beginning with the words “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year…” The quotation had earlier appeared in The Times (9th Sept 1939) having been sent in by a reader. According to press reports it was HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who introduced the poem to her husband.

Minnie’s words struck a chord with the King who was facing an uncertain future at the outbreak of WW2. Immediate efforts were made to identify the author and when Minnie reluctantly came forward, her unsought fame was assured. Minnie gave all the royalties from any subsequent interest in her poem to charity.

Minnie Haskins, poet, author and welfare promotor died in hospital from cancer in Tunbridge Wells, Kent on the 3rd February 1957 aged 81 years.

The Ordination Of Karl Leisner

Margaret Smith

In 1939, Karl Leisner was due to be ordained but a diagnosis of tuberculosis in both lungs delayed this for five years. When he was ordained, it was under the strangest circumstances; the first ever ordination to take place in a Concentration Camp with a young German priest being ordained by a French Bishop at a time when their two countries were at war with each other.

Born into a devout Catholic family in 1915, Karl became an altar boy, member of the local Catholic Youth group and, later, leader of the St. Werner Youth group. But, in 1933 things were to change dramatically, the National Socialists came to power and Catholic Youth groups were regarded as “enemies of the State”. The secret police took a close interest in Karl, particularly after his comment on New Year’s Eve 1937 when he said “We love Christ and will die for Christ”. Soon, many of his journals and diaries were confiscated by the Gestapo.

By this time, Karl had decided that he wanted to join the pries hood, entering the Borromaum in Munster, a centre for those intending to become priests. After further studies at Freiburg, he was ordained Deacon by Bishop van Galen of Munster. Then came the news that he had tuberculosis. The normal “treatment” for this was good food and fresh air and he was sent to a sanatorium in the Black Forest to recuperate.

On 9th November 1939, news reached the medical centre that an attempt had been made on Hitler’s life. When Karl’s roommate joyfully announced that Hitler had survived, Karl replied “Too bad he made it”. This was enough for him to be denounced to the authorities and, within hours he had been arrested and found himself in prison. A few months later, “Karl Leisner” didn’t exist, he was number 17520, an inmate of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, his head shaved and wearing the striped pyjamas of internees.

Moved to Dachau

When Himmler decreed that all priests should be confined in the same place, Karl was moved to Dachau, a place initially designed for 5,000 but which, after 1942, never held less than 12,000. Despite government hostility to religious observance, the clerics obtained permission for a chapel to be built within the camp in Block 26. There, on 20th January 1940, with an “altar” made of two tables, the first Mass was held.

The harsh conditions, particularly the prolonged roll call, often in wet and freezing weather, did little to help Karl’s health. He was admitted to the infirmary suffering from a ruptured blood vessel and in October 1942 his name appeared on the list for extermination in the gas chamber though, thankfully, other priests managed to get his name removed. Amongst a group of French deportees who arrived in 1944 was Bishop Gabriel Piguet, a man authorised to confer the sacrament of ordination.

Karl had never wavered in his hope for ordination but, permission had to be sought from Bishop van Galen and Cardinal Faulhaber. Surveillance of mail became less strict as Germany lost more land to the allies and this enabled Josefa Imma Mack, later a nun, to smuggle correspondence in and out of Dachau via the food “market” where internees sold their produce.

Ordained Priest in Concentration Camp

With permission now granted, Karl was ordained priest on 17th December 1944. Everything required was provided by internees. A Trappist monk made a crozier. Father Durand, the only British priest at Dachau, provided a mitre and a ring and cross came from prisoners working at the Messerschmitt factory. A Jewish violinist played outside “to divert the attention of inopportune visits” and Guillaume Zelden, later wrote that the ceremony “Made a lasting impression on all the priests present”

Although still weak and frail, Karl celebrated his first Mass on 26th December, sadly it was to be his last. After the American liberated Dachau in April 1945, Karl was taken to a hospital where he wrote, “Alone in a room of my own, what bliss”. The tuberculosis though had taken its toll and he died on 12th August, having told his parents, “I know I am going to die but I am happy”. In 1966 he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

Saint Martin Replies

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