Is God There?

Is God There?

When I was young I had my our Christian faith. The question that kept teasing my mind, because I did not find any satisfactory answer to it, was: “Why was God so hidden from us?” I used to see written on the altar-covers in the churches: “Truly thou art a hidden God’: Sometimes it was in Latin: “… Deus absconditus”. To me it seemed unfair. If during our life on earth we were on trial and our future life for all eternity depended on the outcome, surely God could at least make us certain that he existed perhaps by occasionally speaking down from heaven. Some wise people reminded me that God’s ways are not our ways, but I felt sure there must be a better answer. There is. It took me years to find it. Some truths are so big that it is not enough to hear them. One has to grow into them.

A Man Claims to be God

Of course I came to learn in time that God has revealed himself to us in the best possible way, by becoming one of us. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God at our human level. Surely this is better than a voice from heaven and far more extraordinary. When one thinks of a man claiming to be God, one can only be astonished. The greater the claim the more easily it is demolished. Can a man
appearing in the midst of sinful men possibly measure up to the perfection we expect of a divine being? Yet through the centuries millions have believed that Jesus Christ is God and countless numbers have given their lives for this belief.

No End to Love

I remember the questions and answers of my catechism: “In what are we like to God? In our soul. In what is our soul like to God? In being a spirit and immortal and in being capable of knowing and loving God.” You see, though we are finite, there is something infinite about our knowing and loving. There is no end to our knowing, no limit to our loving. We are made to one day see God face to face, to know him as he is and to love him totally and completely. “This is eternal life, to know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” It was comforting to know this.

I think it was the Dominican Priest Fr. McNabb who gave me an insight into God’s attitude when he spoke of God’s rever ence for us. It seemed an extraordinary idea. God is love and God’s love for us we accept. After all he died for us. He loves us even while we are still sinners. But reverence? Yet, the more we reflect on this, the truer it seems.

God has made us in his image and perhaps the most god-like thing about us is that we, though creatures, are free.

God Gives us Freedom

As Vatican II puts it: “Authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man.” (Gaudium et Spes No. 17). We are so free that we can choose to offend the very creator without whose continued support we could not exist. God has given us this freedom. All our dignity as persons is based on it. The choice is ours. He will not force us against our will. But he does all in his power to freely win our love by showing the greatness of his love for us, summed up in the Cross-Christ suffering and dying for us. His love for us calls us, invites us, motivates us to love in return. But it respects our freedom, our dignity. This is the reverence Fr. McNabb speaks of. Because we are free, we can honour God by choosing him. Without this freedom there would be no honour for God.

Our Responsibility is Great

But there is another great aspect to this. Because God lets us free, our responsibility is great. God has chosen to depend on us for the spread of his Kingdom. It is not only God’s work but ours also. While God has taken the initiative and continues to work in us and in those to whom his word is announ- ced, he has respected our freedom and dignity. How do we respond? Will we work with him to spread the Good News? In Christ’s time there were those who saw in his love and compassion, his humility and forgiveness, in his sublime doctrine and utterly selfless life, one so wonderful that they exclaimed: “Indeed, this is the Son of God” and they became his followers and imitators.

We Are Filled with Hope

Because we are caught up in his actions we are filled with hope. His Kingdom will certainly come, but its coming will depend on how well we, his followers, bear witness in our lives to Christ and make present to the world his goodness, love and mercy. If we were all other Christs, his Kingdom would be already among us. A boy who was asked: “What is a saint?” thought of those in the stained-glass windows of the Church and replied: “A saint is someone through whom the light shines.” Not only the light of God’s truth but the fire of God’s love is experienced when we meet really holy people. To be with them is to be in the presence of God. Doubts of faith melt away when the goodness of God is made present through the holiness of men and women. In them God is revealed, not in the sense of an answer to an intellectual difficulty, but in the revelation of the love and goodness of those who serve him generously. Only the truth that is lived convinces. Only the love poured out in service enkindles love. The spirit of truth and love is here. God is revealed, not in an overpowering way that would make us less, but in the gentle way that reveals the delicacy of God’s dealings with us. Perhaps in this way we can see the hiddenness of God, no longer as a problem, but as God’s rever- ence for those he has made in his own image, the children to whom he has given freedom, knowledge and love.

Questions And Answers

Question 1. Why attend Mass on Sunday?

Answer:

On December 13th Pope Francis gave us this answer (Abbreviated)
The Sunday celebration of the Eucharist is at the centre of the life of the Church (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2177). We Christians go to Mass on Sundays to meet the Risen Lord, or rather to let ourselves be met by Him, to listen to His word, be nourished at His table, and thus become Church, or rather His mystical living Body in the world today. From the first hour the disciples of Jesus understood Him; they celebrated the Eucharistic encounter with the Lord on the day of the week that the Jews called “the first of the week” and the Romans “day of the sun.” Without Christ we are condemned to be dominated by the fatigue of everyday life, with its worries, and by the fear of tomorrow. The Sunday meeting with the Lord gives us the strength to live today with trust and courage and to move forward with hope.

We do not go to Mass to give something to God, but to receive from Him what we really need. In conclusion, why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church; this helps to preserve its value, but it is not enough alone. We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with His living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice His commandment, and thus be His credible witnesses.

Question 2. Am I right in thinking that St Patrick is becoming more a symbol of nationality rather than a patron Saint?

Answer:

A Symbol of Nationality or Patron Saint? Perhaps, as you say, for most he is now a sym- bol of Nationality. But long before he became a national symbol he was revered for his holiness and for bringing us the faith. Reading his Confession gives us a reveal- ing picture of the saint. We read that, as a slave, he discovered God on the mountainside, how he grew in the faith, how he became conscious of God’s blessings on him and of the fact that God loved him, had called him and given him many gifts. Prayer sustained him throughout his captivity and strengthened him for his later work of bringing the faith to the Irish. We his spiritual children have a lot to learn from Patrick. On the day we celebrate his feast we should, in the first place, thank God for this extraordinary man, this great saint who brought us the faith and, by his life, taught us how to live it. By all means let him be for us a symbol of nationality, but first and foremost let us recognise that he would never now be a symbol of nationality, were it not for the fact that he brought us the faith and, with it, the hope that faith gives us all. We celebrate his feast day in thanksgiving for that.

Question 3. We are told time and again that God loves us and this is very consoling to know. We receive a share in His life at Baptism and keep it up to the moment we commit a mortal (grave) sin. When we lose the state of grace, or the life of God within us, do we not also lose his love? Is His love for us not dependent on our not separating ourselves from Him by serious sin? (A frequent source of worry for people).

Answer:

God still loves us no matter what we do. When we sin seriously (grave sin) we lose the Divine life which we received at our Baptism or, as we used to describe it, we lapse from the state of Grace and this can only be regained by contrition and the resolution, with God’s help, not to sin again. But while we may be unfaithful ‘God is always faithful.’ He remains unchanged. God is love.(1 John 4:8) He continues to love us with an everlasting love. ‘God loved us so much that he sent his only begotten son to save us. Our sin does not mean he cuts off relations with us. He never ceases to love us. So we must never despair of our sin. Our God loves us and welcomes us back with open arms when we repent of our sin and seek Him again.

The Industrial Revolution

Human society has passed through two huge and lasting changes during our history. The first, the Neolithic Revolution began around 8000 BC and continued through thousands of years. Its effect was to settle people on the land; making peasant agriculture the standard everyday activity of the human species. The second is one of the most important and productive periods of history the Industrial Revolution. This was the period of time during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the face of industry changed dramatically. These changes had a tremendous and long lasting impact on the economies of the world and the lives of the average person.

From Fields to Factories

Before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, most people resided in small, rural communities where their daily existences revolved around farming. Life for the average person was difficult, as incomes were meagre, and malnourishment and disease were common. People produced the bulk of their own food, clothing, furniture and tools. Most manufacturing was done in homes or small, rural shops, using hand tools or simple machines.

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes closely linked to a num- ber of innovations developed in Britain in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines and the rise of the factory system. A number of factors contributed to Britain’s role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revo- lution. For one, it had great deposits of coal and iron ore, which proved essential for industrialisation. Additionally, Britain was a politically stable society, as well as the world’s leading colonial power, which meant its colonies could serve as a source for raw materials, as well as a mar- ketplace for manufactured goods.

As demand for British goods increased, merchants needed more cost-effective methods of production, which led to the rise of industrialisation in mechanised manufacturing, transport, and farming.

The Textile Industry

The textile industry, in particular, was transformed by industrialisation. Before mechanisation and factories, textiles were made mainly in people’s homes using flax and wool. Weaving was a family activity. The children and women would card the fibre to break up and clean the disorgan- ised fluff into long bundles. The women would then spin these rough narrow bundles into yarn wound on a spindle. The male weaver would then use a frame loom to weave this into cloth. However, the rapid growth of the textile industry during the eighteenth century resulted in a succession of mechanical inventions to speed up the processes of man- ufacture. Spinning and weaving, the two very ancient crafts involved in the production of textiles, were both well suited to this mechanisation.

Weaving was the first industry to benefit from being mechanised. In 1733 John Kay, son of the owner of a Lancashire woollen producer, patented the Flying Shuttle, the first of the devices which revolutionised the textile industry. He devised a method for the shuttle to be thrown mechani- cally back and forth across the loom. This greatly speeded up the previous hand process, and halved the labour force. Where a broad- cloth loom previously required a weaver on each side, it could now be worked by a single operator. With Kay’s innovation in wide use by the 1750s, the need grew for spinners to increase their own pro- duction. Either by employing many more spinners, or spinning machines must now be developed to achieve a similar increase in productivity.

The Spinning Jenny and The Water Frame,

The first of these came in 1764, when Englishman James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, an entirely hand-operated machine. that enabled an individual to produce multiple spools of threads simultaneously and was one of the key developments in the industrialisation of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. His first version was a simple, wooden framed machine that worked 40 spindles and was used mainly by home spinners. However, Hargreaves set up a small cotton mill in Notting ham using his invention. By the time of his death, in 1778, the latest versions of his machine worked eighty spindles each and over 20,000 Jennies were in use in cottages and mills across Britain.

The next essential development was the application of power. This was solved by Richard Arkwright. Arkwright’s innovation was the drawing out of the cotton by means of rollers before it is twisted into yarn. He succeeded first with a machine worked by a horse, but two years later in 1771 Arkwright took several steps of great significance. He built an entirely new mill at Cromford, on the River Derwent in Derbyshire, where he successfully adapted his spinning machine, making it work by the much greater power of the river and a mill wheel, and naming it the Water Frame.

Arkwright eventually built cottages to house his workers in the immediate vicinity; thus creating the first factory environment where his workers were a community centred on the factory. Within the factory, Arkwright’s employees were essentially unskilled and did basic and badly paid work; but each specialised in different tasks, providing his or her own particular service. Children were also employed as they could crawl underneath mach- inery to do repairs even as the machines worked.

Discipline was essential, for the machines could not be left untended. But it was no longer the variable discipline of sunrise and harvest working out in the open. It was the inflexible and harsh pressure of clock and overseer and working in a potentially health damaging environment.

Arkwright eventually went on to build more cotton mills on suitable rivers elsewhere in the country, even as far away as Scotland.

The Spinning Mule and the Lancashire Loom

The technologies of Arkwright and Hargreaves complemented each other for a few years until the principles of each were combined and improved on by Samuel Crompton, a worker in a Lancashire spinning mill. Crompton’s machine, called the Spinning Mule, was able to pro- duce finer thread at considerably more speed in large quantities and at a lower cost. It was used extensively from the late eighteenth to early twentieth century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere.

Another key innovation in the mechanisation of weaving cloth was the first water-driven power loom, powered by a line shaft a rotating shaft powered from a water wheel or a windmill. It dramatically changed the way cloth was woven by making it much easier. However, it was refined over the next 47 years by other inventors before a design by Kenworthy and Bullough a firm of textile machine manufacturers in Lan- cashire made the operation completely automatic. By 1850 there were 260,000 power looms in operation in England.

Major changes came to the textile industry during the twentieth century, with continuing technological innovations in machinery, synthetic fibre, logistics, and the globalisation of the business. Textile production in England had peaked in 1926, and as mills were decommissioned, many of the scrapped mules and looms were bought up and shipped for use in India. Textiles were the first industry in the Industrial Revolution to use modern production methods; but it is just one of the hundreds of inventions and innovations developed during this time period. Innovations in Ironmaking, Steam Power, and Transport also made an impact. Those I will save for next month.

Oscar Shindler Unlikely Hero

Valerie Reilly

Oscar Schindler must surely be one of history’s most interesting and paradoxical heroes. His transformation from profligate, profiteering Nazi to revered saviour of 1200 Jews is the subject of a bestselling novel and an award winning film.

The early years

His story began on 28th April 1908 with his birth in Moravia, at the time a crown-land in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and afterwards part of the Czech Republic. His parents were German Catholics and the household was a deeply religious one. On leaving school, Oscar took courses in several trades and worked in his father’s farm machinery business for three years. He married aged 19 and held various jobs over the next few years during which time he was arrested on several occasions for public drunkenness. He was a philanderer and fathered two children in the course of one of his many extra-marital affairs.

The Move to Poland

He became a spy for Nazi intelligence in 1936, reportedly for financial reasons as he was heavily in debt, and went on to become a member of the Nazi Party in 1939. That same year he moved to Krakow in Poland and acquired an enamelware factory, which at its peak employed 1,750 workers including 1000 Jews. He employed Jews because they were cheaper than Poles, the wages having been set by the occupying Nazi regime. Due to his connections with the Nazi Party, he was able to obtain lucrative contracts to produce enamel cookware for the military, and he enjoyed a lavish, hedonistic lifestyle.

Change of heart

In 1940, when the Jews were forced to move to a walled ghetto in the city, they continued to walk to the factory which Schindler enlarged to include an outpatient clinic, a co-op, and a kitchen and dining room for his workers. This move from blatant opportunism to concerned benevolence became more apparent as persecution of Jews outside his factory escalated, and Schindler saved his workers from deportation to the camps by claiming that their labour was essential to the war effort.

On 13th March 1943, Schindler witnessed the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and was horrified by the savage brutality. Knowing in advance of this planned liquidation from his Nazi contacts, he kept his workers in his factory overnight to safeguard them from death and deportation and from that time onwards, devoted his life and enormous fortune to saving as many Jews as he could. When the Nazis closed the eastern concen- tration camps in 1944 due to the advancing Russian army, and planned to close all factories not directly involved in the war effort, Schindler switched to munitions production and bribed SS officials to allow him to relocate his factory eastwards in the Sudetenland in an effort to save his Jewish workers from the gas chambers of Auschwitz. He spent huge sums purchasing black market armaments to pass off as those produced by his workers along with food and medicine for them.

After the war

At the end of the war, Schindler was virtually penniless as a result of this expenditure. He escaped to Switzerland and eventually to Bavaria, along with his loyal wife Emilie, who had supported his efforts to help the Jews. His grate- ful workforce had given him a statement attesting to his efforts to save Jewish lives along with a gold ring bearing the inscription ‘Whoever saves one life saves the entire world’. In later years when asked why he did what he did he said he hated the brutality, the sadism and the insanity of the Nazis. He said he simply could not have done otherwise than to treat the Jews as human beings.

Schindler’s post-war years saw a number of failed business ven- tures, both in Germany and in Argentina, and he was saved time and again by donations both from Jewish organisations and from individual survivors. He was des- pised and persecuted by his fellow Germans for whom he was an uncomfortable reminder that it had, after all, been possible to help the Jews.

Oscar Schindler died on 9th October 1974 and he has the distinction of being the only member of the Nazi Party to be buried in Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Know Yourself

“By grace you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God, not by anything you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God had pre- pared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Eph 2:10)

St. Catherine of Siena was one of the great wise women in the Christian Church. She said that self-knowledge is extremely imp- ortant. In the world today we are encouraged to look out for ourselves, to put ourselves first it is an approach to life that is called “individualism” and it is doing enormous harm to individuals and to the world at large. St. Catherine helps us to look at our- selves in a wonderfully whole some way.

Jesus said that when we pray we should go into our private room and shut the door. Catherine called that room a cell, the cell of self-knowledge. She was a mystic and had many deep reli- gious experiences. In her first experience of being in that cell, Jesus said to her, “I am the one who is, you are the one who is not.” This sounds like a harsh put-down, as much as to say, you are nothing.” But it cannot mean that. It means something much deeper.

Life and breath

When Moses asked God what was his name, God replied, “I am.” God always was and always will be and does not depend on anyone for existence. We on the other hand, depend completely on God for our existence and for everything.

St. Paul told the pagan scholars in Athens that God gives every body everything, including life and breath. We are not nothing; we are alive and breathing, but we depend completely on God for our life and for our breath. When we go into our cell of self knowledge then, the first thing we know is that we are completely depen- dent on God. We need to go into that cell often because we are quick to forget and always inclined to think that we can man- age on our own.

I fell in love with your beauty

In the cell of self-knowledge we also discover our greatness. St. Catherine said this in her prayer to God: “You, eternal God, saw me and knew me in yourself. And because you saw me in your light, you fell in love with your creature and drew her out of yourself and created her in your own image and likeness.” Catherine then heard God replying: “It was with providence that I created you, and when I contemplated my creature in myself, I fell in love with the beauty of my creation.” Notice how extraordinary these words are: God is saying to each of us: “I created you. Then I contemplated you. I fell in love with your beauty.” God says something similar to us through the prophet Isaiah: “I have called you by your name, you are mine. You are precious in my eyes; you are honoured and I love you” (Is 43:1-4). In our cell of self-knowledge then we can be at home with our God and with our own selves. We admit our dependence and our sinfulness. We rejoice in the assurance that we were created by God and are loved by God.

We are God’s work of art

Scripture says one more thing about who we are: “We are God’s work of art.” (Eph 2:10). Each of us is an original, not a copy. We are unique in our physical make- up and in our basic moods, in our family background and in how it has influenced the way we think, feel, speak and look at life. We are original in the thousands of circumstances and events that have shaped our lives.

We are created in Christ Jesus, we are part of the Body of Christ; we make present and visible some aspects of Jesus his love, courage, endurance, integrity. We are created “to do the good works that God prepared to be our way of life.” (Eph 2:10) That is to say, before we were born God had already prepared the way of life he had in mind for us and the particular good works he wanted us to do.

Prayer from Psalm 139

O Lord, it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you for the wonder of my being. for the wonders of all your creation.

No Shortcut To Glory

Francis Walsh

We read about the Transfiguration of Christ at the beginning of Lent. We can easily get the impres sion that everything was different for Christ. All he had to do was push a button, say a word or wave his hand. After all he was God’s Son. But even tho’ he was instantly transfigured in the presence of his disciples and seen for a short time in His Glory by them we know from those same disciples that Christ’s Glory only finally came to him after a lifetime of obedience to the father… a life that ended in pain, shame and death. Through His passion and death he finally attained his glory. There is no shortcut to glory. No easy way. Conversion is a lifetime work. Sometimes we may feel like giving up we sin so often and with such regularity when we expect to have improved but conversion and change for the better is a slow process and it needs a lifetime dedication. We pray for the grace of perseverance.

The Maynooth Mission To Australia

David Bracken

On 24 March 1838 the Cecilia left England bound for the great southern land of Australia, arriving in Sydney four months later on 15 July. The Sydney Gazette reported that there were eight Catholic priests on board, ‘Rev. Messrs. F. Murphy, J. Regney, Michael O’Riley, Charles (John) Fitzpatrick, Michael Brennan, John Lynch, Edmond Mahoney and Thomas Slattery’. They were not the first Irish priests to serve in New South Wales: Irish priest- convicts and chaplains appointed by government had ministered in the colony since 1800. This was,
however, the first significant group of Irish priests enlisted to serve the fledgling Catholic church: in total fourteen Irish clergy were recruited for the mission in 1838. In December of that year five Irish Sisters of Charity also arrived from Dublin. Together they formed the nucleus of a nascent Australian clergy which would be Irish in culture and character for at least a century.

Convict priests: Frs Dixon, O’Neil and Harold

The first priests in the colony were convicts. Frs James Dixon, Peter O’Neil and James Harold were transported to New South Wales after the 1798 Rebellion. In 1803 Fr Dixon was granted per- mission by the authorities to function as a priest. However his licence to minister was revoked in 1804 following a rising of Irish convicts and, while for a time he continued to carry out his duties, he returned to his native Wexford in 1808. In November 1817 Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn arrived in Sydney. A colourful, self-appointed missionary from Kerry, who had come to grief with his bishop in the West Indies, he had neither sanction of church nor state. He was deported in May 1818 despite the protests of four hundred free Catholics and the representations of some leading Protestants.

Fr John Therry and the official Catholic chaplains

The British government finally acknowledged the needs of the Catholic community in 1820, appointing Frs John Therry and Philip Connolly as official chaplains to New South Wales, which had been entrusted to the care of the English Benedictines. A year after their arrival from Cork, Fr Connolly left for Van Diemen’s Land leaving Fr Therry the only priest on the mainland. Ministering to scattered Catholic communities, convicts and members of the Aboriginal community, Therry travelled constantly, sometimes using three or four horses in a day. He described his priestly work as ‘one of incessant labour very often accompanied by painful anxiety’. Fr Therry was removed as official chaplain by Governor Macquarie in 1825 but persevered in his ministry without the salary or status of official chaplain. He was replaced by Fr Daniel Power who died in 1830 and in turn by Fr Christopher Dowling a Dominican from Dublin and the first member of a religious order to minister in Australia – who was followed by Fr John McEnroe in 1832. At no time during these years were there more than three priests in the colony. Fr McEnroe writing to Archbishop James Murray of Dublin in 1832 remarked that, ‘There are 16,000 or 18,000 Catholics in this colony, not one half of whom hardly ever see a priest’ and called for the appointment of a bishop to oversee matters.

English Benedictines

The Downside Benedictine, John Bede Polding was named vicar apostolic in 1834 arriving in Australia in 1835, together with a small number of Benedictine students. His confrère and protégé, William Bernard Ullathorne had preceded him in February 1833 and had done much to put the affairs of the young church in order, with an authority that belied his twenty-six years. The newly completed St Mary’s in Sydney was consecrated as the Cathedral in 1835. The work of the frontier mission continued apace: by 1836 thirteen primary schools had been established but progress was hampered for want of money, school teachers and priests. That same year Fr Ullathorne was dispatched to Europe by Bishop Polding to supply those needs which, in the event, were met in great measure by the Irish church.

Maynooth Missionaries

Fr Francis Murphy from Navan, ordained in Maynooth in 1825, was working in Liverpool when he was persuaded by Ullathorne to volunteer. It seems that Murphy was instrumental in recruiting the group who departed Gravesend in March 1838. At least five of the missioners were ordained in Maynooth College in 1837. Fr John Rigney from Ballinasloe, Dublin man Fr John Fitzpatrick and Fr Michael Brennan, Limerick, were ordained priests on 30 December. While Michael O’Reilly from Meath and John Lynch, Dublin were ordained to the diaconate and subdiaconate respectively. Fr Thomas Slattery of Limerick, a Maynooth graduate, was also ordained in 1837. There is no doubt that the student body in the College was actively canvassed by Ullathorne with Murphy’s help, resulting in the first Maynooth mission overseas. Francis Murphy, the first bishop of Adelaide and the first Catholic bishop to be consecrated in Australia, wrote after taking up his episcopal appointment in December 1844, ‘I found my mission utterly destitute of church, chapel or school’. His fellow passenger on the Cecilia, Fr Rigney who established the missionary district of the Illawara, averaged over 3,250 miles on horseback every year in his ministry to dispersed groups of Catholics. Together these neophytes built a church in the most unforgiving circumstances of the Australian bush. And many more followed. By 1900 over 2,000 priests had come to Australia and of these nearly 1,400 were Irish.

The Garden This Month

Deirdre Anglim

Shamrock survived the winter in the tub outside the kitchen door. It Sis almost ready for picking.

Spring is here at last. Daffodils are everywhere, in parks, public places, gardens. Their golden flowers lift our hearts as we journey towards Easter. Yellow forsythia is glorious in the back garden. Freed from the shadow of a towering cordyline a few months ago, it soared skywards and is host to a variety of little birds. I’ll cut it back once it has finished flowering. Grape hyacinths have reappeared underneath. My basket of dwarf narcissi has flowered again. A gift for Mother’s Day years ago, it continues to give pleasure.

Ornamental grasses were cut back earlier this year but I look forward to a wonderful re-growth in a few weeks time. I removed a large section of euphorbia from the front bed and planted extra tulip bulbs in the vacant space. This can be a treacherous month so do wrap up warmly before you go outdoors to work in the garden. I know, I’m always telling you, but there’s no point in getting sick. You won’t be able to do any jobs if you are confined to bed!

Bring the garden notebook and pen with you as you stroll around the garden. Take a note of what you want to remove/replace in the beds. Visualise what will look perfect in summertime. Lift perenni- als and divide them (if you haven’t done so already). Discard the old woody centre and use the rooted green shoots when replanting. My hope this year is that I’ll do what I am always advising you. Golden rod, Michaelmas daisies and delphinium are my dream plants.

Houseplants can be watered a little from now on don’t overwater. Examine each houseplant for signs of disease. Remove dead leaves. Be ruthless, if the plant is tired, get rid of it onto the compost heap. Invest in healthy new specimens. Buy from your local nursery/garden centre. There’s a huge variety of exotic plants on sale at reasonable prices. Why not request a gift of a plant for Easter, instead of the usual box of fattening chocolates! Just a thought…

Mary Ward (Mrs Humphrey Ward) Victorian Novelist, Philanthropist And Lobbyist

Helen Morgan

She was the highest earning English novelist of her day; one of Britain’s first female magistrates, and an ardent supporter for social reform, yet despite the enormous philanthropic legacy she left behind, Mrs. Humphrey Ward still remains a controversial figure today. Her outspoken support for the Anti-Suffrage movement led to her decline in popularity and delayed the vote for women by seven years. But who was the real Mrs. Humphrey Ward and how much of the criticism directed at her was deserved?

Mary Augusta Arnold was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on the 11th June 1851 to Thomas Arnold; a professor of literature, and his wife Julia Sorell. She was the niece of the celebrated poet, Matthew Arnold.

Following Thomas Arnold’s conversion to Catholicism in 1856, the family returned to England. Thomas moved to Dublin to take up a tutorship at the Catholic University secured for him by John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman). He was accompanied by his family apart from Mary who remained in England. She later re-joined her family in Oxford, where her father had secured a university teaching post following his temporary return to the Anglican Church.

Mary studied Spanish history while starting her career as a writer. On the 6th April 1872, she married (Thomas) Humphrey Ward; a Fellow of Brasenose College. The couple had 3 chil- dren. Now calling herself “Mrs. Humphrey Ward” Mary acquired influential friends among them, Walter Pater; English Essayist and Critic.

In 1873, Mrs. Ward was instru- mental in setting up Lectures for the Women Committee; an initiative which led to the establishment in 1879 of Somerville Hall (later Somerville College).

Established as a leading journalist

In 1881, Humphrey Ward gave up his academic career and moved to London where he took up a position with The Times. Over the next few years, Mary established her- self as a leading journalist and lit- erary hostess. Her first novel enti- tled Miss Bretherton was pub- lished in 1884 but it was her sec- ond novel, Robert Elsmere; a drama of religious faith and doubt, published in 1888, which made her name as a writer. She followed its success with another 20 novels.

Worked for poor and disadvantaged

In addition to her writing career, Mrs. Ward worked tirelessly for the poor and disadvantaged. Her compassion and common sense were expressed in the establish- ment of a Settlement for the work- ing classes in St. Pancras, London. Initially founded on Unitarian principles, it was the forerunner of the Passmore Edwards Settlement; an educational establishment for the poor. Now called the Mary Ward Centre and located at Queen Square, it was originally founded as a place of “education, social intercourse, music, art and literature.”

Mrs. Ward successfully lobbied Parliament for proper educational facilities for disabled children; she founded an after-school club, a youth club and a centre for prenatal and antenatal advice as well as a legal centre. It was thanks to Mrs. Ward’s vision that children’s play centres were set up enabling women to work full- time.

1908 saw the beginning of Mrs. Ward’s downfall when she consented to head the Women’s Anti-Suffrage Association. Her political views began to infiltrate her novels and led to a decline in her popularity.

Despite her rapidly deteriorating health, Mrs. Ward continued to write, to work tirelessly for the poor and to head the Anti- Suffrage Movement. In 1919, she received a CBE and in 1920, an Honorary Degree from Edinburgh University.

Completely disabled by heart disease, bronchitis and neuritis, Mary Augusta Ward; novelist, philanthropist and political lobbyist died in London on the 24th March 1920.

Mrs. Ward’s decision to support the Anti-Suffrage movement cost her dearly. The tremendous work she did on behalf of the poor was completely overlooked following her one error of judgement. Today, The Mary Ward Adult Education Centre remains a lasting memorial to this great lady.

Long ago when the world was young and many of today’s clever things had not yet been thought of, there was a king who had a son to whom he was greatly attached. So solicitous was he that he had the whole palace carpeted with sheepskins, to protect the royal baby feet from the hardness of the floors (shoes had not yet been invented). When he got a little bigger, the child wanted to romp outside, so his father gave orders to carpet the entire grounds of the palace with sheepskins. This meant that many hundreds of sheep had to be slaughtered, but nothing was too much when it came to the little prince’s comfort. When the prince was seventeen years old his father arranged to send him on business. to another kingdom, and ordered that his path should be carpeted in the usual way. The man in charge of the sheep was distraught at the prospect of so much slaughter, and he went away quietly to think what he could do. Next day he returned, and his eyes were bright with intelligence. He went to the king and said, “Your Majesty, instead of slaughtering thousands of sheep why don’t we kill just one, and cut out two patches of its hide, and attach them to the prince’s feet?” The king, being an intelligent man, saw the wisdom of this immediately; and so it was done. And that is how shoes were invented.

Many inventions, as we know, turn out to have a wider application than appeared at first. Generalising the insight that gave rise to the world’s first pair of shoes, you could state the following:

• A small change in yourself is equivalent to a big change in reality.
• Unless you change yourself, all the other changes you bring about will be pointless and repetitive.

Alcibiades, a vain young man in ancient Greece, told Socrates that he was off to see the world. “You will not see it,” said Socrates, “unless you leave Alcibiades at home.” You will not only be unable to change anything, you will not even be able to see anything clearly unless you change yourself.

But why change? Am I not all right as I am?

Everything changes continually Yes! But everything is changing continually, and if you stop you. will be in the way. In sober reality you too are changing, whether you like it or not; you are getting older every hour; you are on the high seas and the wind is blowing; how could you dream of remain- ing unchanged? To live is to change, someone said, and to live deeply is to have changed much. You are changing, never fear! The trouble is that you are not chang- ing enough: you are continually defending yourself, and defending everything you ever did, always trying to prove that you are right. You don’t need to do that! If you try to change other people (and things) without changing yourself, the results will be disastrous. The greatest damage is done to the world by revolutionaries who want to change everything except themselves. This is the boring thing about revolutions: the wheel does the full circle and the revolutionaries become in turn the oppressors.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon-shot!

A beggar on horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

W. B. Yeats

Change is always ambiguous, never more so than when I try to change myself. The problem is this ‘I’ that changes according to its own standard. That standard may be high or low, but it is certainly partisan; it is my idea of who I am, and my idea of who I want to be. When I have changed according to my own idea of change, it is likely that the change is more apparent than real; there still has been no leave-taking, no abandonment of the self.

The Gospel says eternal life is “to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17). This is the only revolution that can work, because it begins by challenging that persistent ‘I’ and all its plans for itself. “When you were young,” said Jesus to Peter, “you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go” (John 21).

The Sermon

Aideen Clifford

Before I commenced my weekly shopping last Wednesday I decided to give some time to matters spiritual so I went to Mass in the nearby church. Now, week day Mass does not usually include a sermon but in this case it did. The Gospel of the day was the tale of the lepers; remember there were ten of them, all were cured of the terrible disease but only one of them returned to give thanks. An ungrateful lot. Anyhow the preacher rambled through Samaria and Galilee to explain the locale, then he pointed out subtleties of difference between versions by Mark, Luke and other interpreters and in the end just said a few words about the impor- tance of gratitude. As I looked about me I wondered about the relevance of all this The congregation consisted of some twenty or thirty people, most of them like myself, not young but interested enough and religious enough to go to Mass to relate to God. Just how many of them were ever in the Holy Land? What was the point of all the geographic details about Samaria or wherever it was? Sometimes the background of a story matters but you could find ten sick men anywhere and circumstances could be similar. Likewise how many Biblical scholars were around? Did we care or did it matter whether Luke or Mark were the authors of the story? And so much time went on these two points. But we could have done with a few more words about gratitude. Was it all not a lost opportunity?

The Purpose of a Sermon

Makes one wonder what exactly is the purpose of the sermon? It is all very grandiose to say that itenlightens the congregation; it is a reiteration of the Word of God; it explains in more detail the content of the day’s gospel, but I pre- fer to regard it as an opportunity to extract from the day’s reading some central idea, some kernel of knowledge that can be related to the congregation who is hearing it. Some one thought’ that would, perhaps, make one stop and think about one’s values, one’s priorities. Granted it is not easy sometimes for the preacher, as some of the Gospel tales are a bit puzzling take the labourers in the vine yard, all got the same pay whether they worked one hour in the heat or all day, all of twelve hours whither Trade Unionism? The values of the Gospel are not those of the market place we know but was the boss going too far? Or the story about the ten wise and the ten foolish virgins – the wise ones kept oil in their lamps while they waited for the chief guest to arrive but the foolish ones used it all up and had nothing for the big occasion were they really wise or just mean?

But the preacher at last Wednesday’s Mass had it made: no arcane subject matter, no biblical complications but a tale that could speak to every one of us there in the church, a simple tale about the need for gratitude And gratitude matters. There can be something cold even patronizing about charity at times but never about gratitude. None of us like to be taken for granted; we all like a modicum of gratitude. In simple words we liked to be thanked. Even for the little things, the small acts of acknowledgment, of help, of kindness that seat given up on the bus, that parking space forfeited, that helping hand with the packing of the groceries at the supermarket, that simple compliment you’re looking great’ even that deserves a ‘thank you’.

That morning as I looked around the sparse congregation, I wondered were we like the lepers, not appreciative of all that morning had brought. Should we not be grateful to God that we were able to be present at Mass, while so many of our contemporaries were stuck at home with Arthritis or some other ailment. Should we not be grateful too to have our warm homes to return to, while so many of our fellow citiizens are homeless? Are we not lucky to have friends, family, relatives who care about us, while so many are lonely and alone? But the preacher missed that chance to point out all these important things to us that morning he forgot his Shakespeare too and that apt quotation from Henry VI: ‘O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness’.

Saint Martin Replies

• Galway: I had a blood test done because I had not been feeling well for a few weeks. The results came back and the doctor said that there were problems with my liver and prostate. I prayed to St Martin and said his novena Prayer for healing. After the second blood test my liver was complete- ly clear. I still have some health issues but I place all my trust in St Martin and I know everything will be alright.
• Waterford: I am writing to thank St Martin for all the favours he has granted me and my family over the years. He never lets me down. The most recent being the success of 2 operations my daughter had on her spine. Thank God she is fine now. I had some sun damage to my face which was operated on successfully. I have been praying to St Martin all my life and will continue to do so. Thanks Our Lord, Our Lady of Knock and dear St Martin
• Offaly: I wish to thank St Martin for all the prayers he has answered for me. My niece had cancer and she has now got the all clear. We had a terrible accident and lost our beloved grandson, but thanks to St Martin, the Sacred Heart and his Beloved Mother we are learning to cope with the loss. I pray to him daily and He never ceases to answer my prayers.
• Clare: Please publish my sincere thanks to St Martin the Sacred Heart and our Mother Mary for many favours received over the years, especially for my husband’s recovery after a serious operation, for good exam results, employment and health. I am praying to St Martin since I was a teenager and he has been a great friend. Forever grateful for his powerful intercession on my behalf.
• Belfast: My son was very depressed, no job, and marriage problems. I begged St Martin and St Joseph to work a miracle for him. Within two days he went to his doctor for help and received word about the job. Keep him in your prayers.
• Northern Ireland: My son has a young dog who means the world to him. When he took her to the vet to get her yearly booster she suffered some form of seizure getting out of the car. This happened a second time. As a result she was put on a lot of medication but ended up in a coma for eleven hours. The vet warned us to prepare for the worst as she was terribly ill and might not make it until morning. My son who is called Martin prayed and stormed Heaven and his Patron to intercede for his dear pet. The next day the news was good she had pulled through. My son puts her recovery down to the intercession of St Martin
• Dublin: Please publish my sincere and overdue thanks and gratitude to St Martin, the Divine Mercy and St Faustina for the many great blessings my family and I received over the years. Most recent of these was when my son was referred for tests for cancer. Just after Christmas we received the wonderful news that all the tests were clear.
• Leitrim: Sincere thanks to St Martin for many favours going back a long time. Most recently a marvellous recovery for one of my children. Also a member of family secured the job they had been looking for for years. It was a great year. Thanks are due to St Martin, Our Lady and most of all the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I am starting another novena and I know St Martin will come to the rescue again.
• Derry: I want to thank St Martin for all the favours I have received. I have been praying to him since I was a teenager and I have just turned 90 years of age. He has granted me favours from help with sickness, exams and work for family members including something we thought impossible where our business was concerned, and many more. I will always be so thankful to him. From one who trusts in him.
• Longford: I prayed and begged St Martin to help my sister who has Dementia and her husband who was her carer but who had a very serious road accident. His spine and leg were smashed and he was on life support. He also had internal injuries. Through praying to St Martin, Our Lady of the Green Scapular, St Anthony and St Padre Pio he has made good progress. He was brought home for Christmas in a wheelchair and was able to be there with his family. He now has power in one leg and hopefully will make a full recovery.