Matt Talbot – A Man For All Seasons
Vincent Travers OP
When I was in infants’ class, We used to sing fadify with the words ‘1,2,3,4,5,6,seven, all good children go to heaven.’ ‘Good’ was the key word. What does ‘good’ look like? The best answer is someone good. Matt Talbot was a good man. There was a time in his life when Matt was not good. He was trouble! He was a hard man. He was known as ‘Matt the Man’!
Matt Talbot was born on the 2nd of May 1856. He was baptized in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin’s inner city. He was one of 12 children. His father was a heavy drinker and so were his brothers and, as a result, the family grew
up in dire poverty.
Back in those days in Ireland, children were not obliged to go to school. Matt left school after one year unable to read or write. He started work at the age of 12 in a brewery. That was where he got the taste for drink. He would drain the liquor dregs in bottles. At the age of 13 he was considered a hopeless alcoholic. By the time he was 16, he came home drunk regularly. Drink was his only interest in life. By the time he was 28 his life was in ruins. Then something happened that changed his life.
Moment of Truth
He was standing outside a pub close to his home without a penny in his pocket, waiting impatiently for his drinking friends to come along and buy him a drink. They owed him! Whenever they had no money, and he had, he would buy them drinks. But, on that never- to-be-forgotten day, his drinking friends came along, one by one, and ignored him on their way into the pub. Maybe he had begged and scrounged money from them too often. Nonetheless, Matt was stunned and shocked and felt totally rejected. Afterwards, on reflection, he said that was his moment of truth.
He made his way home slowly. His mother was preparing the midday meal. When he arrived home sober she could not believe her eyes. He said, “Ma, I am going to give up the booze for life.” He talked it over with a priest who suggested that he give it a go for 90 days. Those 90 days were sheer hell. He would say to his mother, “Ma, I will drink again when the 90 days are up.” To fill in time after work and to keep his pledge, he would take long walks on his way home to avoid pubs and drinking companions.
Life-Changing Decision
Towards the end of the 90 days, he passed a pub that had just opened. The smell of liquor was too much. It did his head in. He stepped inside. He stood at the counter waiting to be served, but the barman ignored him. He felt hurt and rejected and stormed out of the bar and went to the Jesuit Church in Gardiner Street, a short distance away. There and then, he made a solemn pledge to abstain from drink for the rest of his life. There may be failure in life but there was no quit in Matt. For the next 40 years, he never drank again.
Same but Different
He was employed as a labourer in Martin’s Timber Yard on the Dublin’s Docks Yard. In his youth, he wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he began pray- ing. He asked God to help him in his struggle to keep his pledge. He started going to mass. His fellow workers noticed the change that came over Matt. He was still the same hard-working man but different. He became a deeply spiritual man. God was a real person in his life. His daily routine was work, prayer, penance, and daily Mass. He no longer cursed. The men on the job, out of respect, watched their language, and stopped cursing in his presence.
Matt’s House
I am writing these lines in Matt’s house the name I call ‘Talbot House’. When we gather for the main meal of the day we pray together. We recite the beautiful grace before meals:
For Food in a world where many walk in hunger,
For Faith in a world where many walk in fear,
For Friends in a world where many walk alone,
We give you thanks, O Lord. Amen.
‘Matt the Man’ would surely approve! He was a familiar figure in the streets of Dublin. Humble and unassuming, Matt became an inspiration to countless people, just being true to himself, doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. The ordinary folk of Dublin’s inner city believed he was a saint. He is honoured in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where a long term residential centre for men, who seek recovery from addiction is named after him.
Matt died suddenly from a heart attack on Granby Lane on his way to the 7.00am mass in St. Saviour’s, Dominican Church, on the feast of the Blessed Trinity, 7 June 1925 A cross was placed on the wall opposite to mark the spot where Matt died. No one passed the cross without touching it and blessing themselves. I served mass as a boy in St. Saviour’s. Like everyone else, I too, blessed myself. In that way we were keeping alive Matt’s memory. As a mark of respect, his remains were laid to rest in his parish church, Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean McDermott Street, in Dublin’s inner city where Matt lived his entire life. His body now rests in Glasnevin Cemetery. Today, he is venerated as a candidate for sainthood.
Question Box
Question 1. Who is the Patron Saint of Charitable Societies?
Answer:
The patron saint of Charitable Societies is St. Vincent de Paul. We celebrate his feastday on the 27th of September. Here are some facts about his life. He was born in 1581 in France and ordained at the age of twenty. He received spiritual direc- tion from St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Francis Chantal. This man who has become an example of love and compassion was not born a saint. It was the grace of God which made him tender, loving and always con- cerned for the needs of others. Some say that it was at the deathbed of a peasant that he became aware of the spiritual needs of the working poor of France. From then on his life began to change. The sick, the poor, the pris- oners, were the object of his special care and concern. He was joined by other lay people and they went into the streets and the homes of the poor. He founded the Vncentian Congre- gation of Priests which devoted itself to missionary work and also the Sisters of Charity set up to care for the poor and to provide hospital care for them. He died at the age of 60 and was canonised 77 years later.
Question 2 . A friend of mine, a non- catholic (a good person) said to me recently that praying to Our Lady and to Saints may turn us away from God and from Christ our one and only Saviour. I wasn’t able to answer him. Can you help?
Answer:
There are people, like your A friend, who think like that and who are also good, sincere people. However if we think and reflect on Lourdes, Knock or any Marian Shrine we will see that the devotions practised there all lead us to God and Jesus. We are guided to prayer and repentance for our sins and the highlight of each day is the celebration of the Eucharist. We are also called to a giving of self, to forget self and to con- sider the poor, the sick and to listen with a deeper awareness to Christ’s words, ‘Every time you did it for them, you also did it for me’. Sincere devotion to Saints like Martin, Bernadette and Padre Pio will ask of us that we sincerely imitiate their faith, generosity and love.
Pope John XXIII And The Crucifix
Jack Quinn
Most people will agree that Pope John XXIII was one of the most admired popes of all time. There were many stories told and written about Pope John 23rd, about his life and about his teaching. My story here about him happened in the last few days of his life. He became ill and after a short time it was obvious that he had not much time left in this world. The Vatican officials prepared for his death, because the death of a pope is not only very important religiously, it is very important politically as well. Everything had to be absolutely correct.
While all this was going on, he lay in his bed. He had lapsed into a semicoma. Although he did not speak, he seemed to be conscious of what was going on around him.
Various dignitaries, both of church and state, came to visit his room. He gave no sign that he noticed any of them. Then one day when a few of them were standing around his bed, he suddenly became agitated. Nobody could understand what the problem was, and no one knew what to do.
Then one of his staff who was in the habit of looking after him, saw what was wrong. One of the visitors had gone to the end of his bed and was standing there. There was a cross hanging on the wall behind his back. He did not realize he was standing between the pope and the cross, with the result that the pope, who never seemed to take his eyes off the cross, could no longer see it. His own words in his ‘Journal of a Soul’ help us understand his agitation at not being able to see the crucifix; I feel ever more strongly a love for my Lord’s cross’ and …The life still left for me to live here below must draw its strength at the foot of the Cross of Jesus crucified.’ The habit of a lifetime of prayer at the foot of the cross was not to be denied in his dying moments.
It is said that the hotel and hospitality industry is one of the oldest commercial ventures in the world. There is evidence to suggest that it goes back to the time when people felt the urge to travel after the invention of the wheel and began travelling for trade, religion, family, immigration, education and recreation. Facilities offering hospitality to travellers have been a feature of the earliest civilisations. For instance, we know from the depiction in the Bible of Mary and Joseph’s arrival in Bethlehem where they were told that there was “no room at the inn”; that inns were certainly in evidence during biblical times.
Caravanserai
One of the earliest places of hospitality for travellers were the Caravanserai dotted along the inland routes of the Silk Roads which ran across countries from Turkey to China. Caravanserai were large guest houses or hostels designed to welcome travelling merchants and their caravans as they made their way along these trade routes. They were ideally positioned within a day’s journey of each other, so as to prevent merchants (and more particularly, their precious cargos) from spending nights exposed to the dangers of the road. They provided not only a regular opportunity for merchants to eat well, rest and prepare themselves in safety for their onward journey; but also to exchange goods, trade with local markets, and to meet other merchant travellers; and in doing so, to exchange cultures, languages and ideas. Scattered in their thousands across Central Asia, they not only provided safety and rest to the merchants that traversed these routes, but were of great economic, social and cultural significance to the regions in which they were based. Bringing travellers together from east and west, they not only provided safety and rest to the merchants that traversed these routes, but were of great economic, social and cultural significance to the regions in which they were based. Bringing travellers together from east and west, they facilitated an unprecedented process of exchange in culture, language, religion and customs that has become the basis of many of the cultures of Central Asia today.
There is relatively little known about the origins of the caravanserai. The word is a combination of the Persian kārvān, meaning caravan or group of travellers, and sara, a palace or enclosed building. One of the earliest examples of such a building up until recently, could be found in the oasis city of Palmyra, in Syria, which developed from the third century BC as a place of refuge for travellers crossing the Syrian desert. But unfortunately, its spectacular ruins which stood as a monument to the intersection of trade routes from Persia, India, China and the Roman Empire, has more than likely been destroyed in the recent conflict there.
As trade routes developed and became more lucrative, caravanserais became more of a necessity, and their construction seems to have intensified across Central Asia from the tenth century and continued until as late as the nineteenth century. This resulted in a network of caravanserais that stretched from China to the Indian subcontinent, Iran, the Caucasus, Turkey, and as far as North Africa, Russia and Eastern Europe, many of which still stand today.
A room at the Inn
The earliest Inns were nothing more than private homes opened to the public; usually run by a husband and wife team who provided large halls for travellers to make their own bed and sleep on the floor. They also provided
modest food and wine. The precursor to the modern hotel possibly dates back to the rule of Ancient Rome over two thousand years ago. When the Romans built their system of roads throughout their empire, they also built special mansions or “mansio” along these roads and in main towns to provide accommodation for not only travellers on government business but also for the pleasure traveler. Under the influence of the Roman Empire, inns also began catering to the pleasure traveler in an effort to encourage customers to their establishment, providing not only food and lodging, but also stabling and fodder for the travellers’ horses.
During the Middle Ages, inns multiplied across Europe. At the same time, numerous refuges sprang up for pilgrims and crusaders on their way to the Holy Land. Monasteries and abbeys. were the first to offer refuge to these travellers; opening up in market towns, at a place of pilgrimage, or at key points along the road or river routes that pilgrims might take. Eventually, private inns also began to grow up along these pilgrimage routes, and an embryonic hotel industry began to develop.
The Coaching Inn
At the end of the 1600s, the first stage coaches following a regular timetable started operating in England; and for a period of about the next 200 years, many inns became coaching inns serving as a stopover for coach travellers. Coaching inns, which could be found in all main towns and along the routes, provided two facilities for mail and stage coaches. Firstly they allo- wed teams of horses to be changed for fresh ones and they also served the stage coach passengers with a place to sleep and eat. Some English towns had as many as ten such inns and rivalry between them was intense, not only for the income from the stage coach operators but for the revenue for lodgings, food and drink sup- plied to the wealthy passengers.
By the end of the century, coaching inns were being run more professionally, with a regular timetable being followed and fixed menus for food. Inns began to cater for richer clients in the mideighteenth century, and consequently grew in grandeur and the level of service provided.
Hotels
It wasn’t until the nineteenth 19th century that the traditional type of hotels we know of these days began to rise. The term “Hotel” came into existence in England in the year 1760. It is derived from the French word hotel which referred to a building seeing frequent visitors, and providing care.
The nations of Europe had taken the lead in hotel keeping throughout the eighteenth century, especially in Switzerland and Copenhagen. However, the real growth of the modern hotel industry took place in the USA with the opening of “The City Hotel” in New York in the year 1794; it was the first building especially constructed for hotel purpose. It offered inside toilets, locks on the doors and an “à la carte” menu.
Railway Hotels
With the arrival of the railways and the industrial revolution, people began travelling more frequently and the railway companies themselves took the lead by building a series of “railway hotels” near to their stations to accommodate travellers. In London, the resulting grand buildings were status symbols for the massive railway firms, the richest businesses in the country at the time. From there a surge of hotels flooded England, America, and the rest of the world with prominent names such as Radisson, Marriot and Hilton; names that are synonymous with hotels even today.
Next month I will tell you more about some of these magnificent historical buildings and the hotel business up to modern times.
The Nearness Of God
Stephen Cummins OP
In our world we are witnessing the presence of two dominant movements: the rise of individualism and the ‘infallibility’ of group think. In economics, it is individualism, as evidenced in the free-market. In the media, it is group think. Alternative opinions are not welcome. The result is that all conversation is prevented Politically, we are seeing a breakdown of communities and a rise in narrow nationalism. Recently, some European countries were found not to have admitted a single refugee or asylum seeker under the revised guidelines for welcoming them into Europe. We saw in the UK election the suggestion to suspend human rights in order to preserve our free-market Western way of life. You might recall Margaret Thatcher’s famous comment, “There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals”. We hear the same attitude in the selfisolation cliché by President Trump, ‘America First’ mutual selfgiving; God as emptying himself of divinity. We are celebrating the nearness of God who chose to be born in Jesus of Nazareth and to remain with us in the gift of the Spirit. This makes our faith in the Trinity to be both subversive and countercultural.
God as Three in One Against this backdrop of heightened individualism, we Christians celebrate God as Trinity. We celebrate God as society; God as community; God as Three; God as
The Trinity is a model for Society and for human relationships.
At the centre of Christian teaching on the Trinity is respect for the per- son: the person-in-relationship. God as Father, Son and Spirit is God in a mutual and equal relation- ship. There is no talk of patriarchy in the Trinity; no one is subservient to the other: the Father is not superior to the Son or the Son to the Spirit. In this, the Trinity is a model for society and for human relationships. It is also the model for the Church’s social justice teaching and action.
The Trinity is a model for our interior lives
Secondly, and more importantly on a personal level, the Trinity is a model for our interior lives. Celebrating the Trinity implies that we are not having a relationship with a cold, removed and distant God. On the contrary, we are linked to the God who desires to come close to us in Jesus and the Spirit. In the famous Rublev icon of the Trinity, the three are in an open circle sitting around a table. There is room for a fourth seat, to join them. It is an open not a closed circle. The open space is an invitation for us to sit and meditate with this icon, and to allow ourselves be drawn into this Trinity who invites us to occupy that vacant space at the table.
God wants to be near us
The openness of God invites us to sit and come close to he who desires us. It may surprise you to hear me say the following: this nearness of God makes some people nervous. They like a remote God. A remote God asks nothing of us. We simply live in fear with no need to interact. By contrast, Rublev’s Trinity tells us the opposite, namely, that God wants to be near us. God, in Jesus of Nazareth, has, so to speak, come to our level. So, in the Trinity there is no distant God. Unless we create our own version of God! God emp- ties himself of anything which makes him remote. The Word became Flesh and lived amongst us as one of us.
In his poem ‘Fluent’, the late John O Donohue wrote:
I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding”
The Trinity is God’s ‘own unfold- ing’. Corpus Christi, also celebrates the nearness of God. The proces- sion of the Host on our streets and country roads: God near us.
The Trinity urges us to build Community
So, to conclude, the good news is that we do not have to follow the voices of those preaching individu- alism at the expense of building community. We need no longer live in voluntary isolation. The Trinity urges us to build community. We are not condemned to a solo run, depending on our own energies. Let us trust the nearness of God and its own unfolding’ with us, moving us toward building community wherever we find an opportunity to do so with others. Glory to the Father, Son and Spirit.
Triumph Of The Cross
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved.”
Jn 3:14-15
Several rounds of mortar landed on a Vietnam orphanage, wounding several of the children. An American navy doctor arrived on the scene and saw that one of the girls needed an immediate blood transfusion. Quickly several unharmed children were tested to see if they had the right blood type. Using pidgin Vietnamese the doctor explained to the eligible children the need for blood and asked if anyone would give it. At first no one responded. Then a small boy slowly raised his hand. The doctor immediately swabbed the boy’s arm with alcohol, inserted the needle and withdrew the blood. After it was all over the boy began to cry inconsolably. No amount of hugging would console him. Later it was discovered why. The boy had misunderstood that by giving his blood he himself would die. When asked why he gave his blood he said “The girl was my friend.”
That small boy gives us a glimpse into the self-giving and self-sacrificing love that we see manifest in Jesus on the cross. We find the same motivation in both: love that the other might not be lost.
Motivated by Love
When we ask the question “why did Jesus die on the cross?” the ready answer is what we learned from the catechism: “he died on the cross for our sins, to save us from our sins”. But it is important that we understand that properly, because sometimes this has been wrongly interpreted to mean that he died on the cross to save us from the punishment due to us for our sins. That Jesus died on the cross to appease the Father’s anger; that the cross was some form of reparation for offences or injuries that our sins caused to God; a satisfaction of a debt, to settle accounts as it were, in order to regain God’s favour and good will. What a petty and miserable being that would make God out to be A God who requires blood sacrifices to cool his anger? Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the understanding of God revealed to us in Jesus: a God whose name is love, faithful love, a loving Father, a Father passionately involved and committed to the well being and happiness of all his children. That is what we see on the cross: A Father who would go to any lengths to show us how much we are loved “God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. I remember an old poster that hung on the wall of my room as a student. It was a picture of a crucifix Jesus on the cross, superimposed on planet earth, and the caption read, “I asked God, ‘how much do you love me?’, and he opened his arms on the cross and said ‘this much’ and he died.”
Loved to the end.
Here in the Dominican church in Newry on Good Friday, our representation of Calvary depicts a cross with a line of bright red candles running the length and width of it. That is so meaningful. In the darkness of crucifixion the little lights of love continued to flicker. It was his love that chose the way of the cross; it was his love that shouldered that cross on the road to Calvary; it was his love that held him nailed to the cross. What motivated Jesus was the conviction that in his suffering he was revealing the depth of the Father’s love for humanity. That is why we can speak today of the triumph of the cross. We are not talking about the triumph of Easter Sunday and the resurrection. We are talking about the victory on the cross, of Good Friday: In the midst of all the terror and horror of crucifixion this man Jesus Christ remained loving – humble, compassionate and for- giving to the end.
Heroes of self-giving Love.
The passage invites us to cele- brate with gratitude people we have known who have given of themselves generously and faith- fully in love so that we might find life that we might know our- selves secure in their love. We think of parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, community leaders, ministers in the church community. We remember carers in our families and communities, those who are caring for a family member, relative or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or has special needs. Freely and generously they continue to give of themselves in love in spite of exhaustion, stress and anxiety; sometimes frustration too with the inadequacy of health services; and many of them keep going even though they are sometimes in poor health themselves. These carers just get on with it, twenty four seven. And they do it out of love so that the other might know that he/she is valued, important, cherished even at the lowest and most vulnerable moments of life. I often think that these are the real heroes in our
society and world today. So often hidden and invisible, they don’t get much notice or attention and just carry on without fuss. I remember Sheila who every afternoon for over 10 years made her way to the nursing home, to sit at the bedside of her husband suffering from Alzheimer’s dis- ease, to talk, to touch, to hold, to feed and to embrace, most of the time not knowing whether her husband was aware she was there or not. I think Sheila’s love, and the many more like her, put us in touch with the truth of God’s love who “gave his only son”- gave up that which was most precious to him – so that others might find life, security, contentment and salvation. In them we see the triumph of the cross living again today.
And so we pray in the words. of that beautiful hymn:
“O cross of Christ, immortal tree, on which our Saviour died, the world is sheltered by your arms, that bore the crucified.
From bitter death and barren wood, the tree of life is made, its branches bear unfailing fruit, and leaves that never fade.”
Fr John Kearney OFM And The Cloth Of Gold
David Bracken BA, BD, MESL, MA
It happened on the 20 September 1642 that the Irish Franciscan John Kearney was ordained priest in Louvain. The adventure that he embarked on that day was to lead ultimately to the scaffold in Clonmel a short eleven years later in March 1653 where he was executed for the simple exercise of his priestly ministry. He was one of seventeen Irish martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1992. In the twenty-five years that have elapsed since the beatification of the Irish martyrs the landscape of the Irish church has changed more than we could ever have imagined. We call to mind the golden thread of Fr John Kearney’s life of thirty-four years from Cashel to Clonmel via Louvain that we might draw strength and inspiration for the time and the changes that are to come.
The Adventure of Priesthood John Kearney, the scion of a prominent County Tipperary merchant and ecclesiastical family, was born into a resurgent Catholic Counter Reformation culture in Cashel in 1619. Schooled by the Jesuits, he was catechized by the Franciscans who had re-established a presence in the town in 1618. The young John Kearney entered the Franciscans in Kilkenny together with his childhood friend Joseph Sall before going to St Anthony’s College, Louvain to study for priesthood, arriving there in 1638. Ordained in 1642, he was arrested as he attempted to return to Ireland on completion of his studies in 1644 – the ship on which he was travelling was intercepted by English Parliamentarians. He was imprisoned in London for three months and as a Franciscan friar and a Catholic priest, was condemned to death. The night before sentence was to be carried out, however, he escaped to France and from there went to Cashel, where for two years he taught philosophy in the town’s friary.
Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths
During the 1640s Catholics had reoccupied churches in cities and Town and Rock of Cashel, eo. Tipperary towns across Munster, including Waterford, where by 1647 Fr Kearney was resident in the city’s Franciscan friary as novice master and preacher. He was surely familiar with one of the great treasures of the city, a set of richly decorated cloth of gold vestments made in Bruges in the fifteenth century for the chantry chapel of the cathedral and used on high days and holy days. To borrow from W.B. Yeats, they were embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light, the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and the halflight’. In August 1649 Oliver Cromwell landed in Dublin arriving at the gates of Waterford on 24 November. While he failed to take the city, Waterford surrendered to General Ireton on 6 August 1650 but not before the cloth of gold vestments were buried under the cathedral floor for safekeeping. The burial of the vestments symbolized the interment of a whole culture in the face of the Cromwellian conquest. The remnants of the great medieval culture that had created the garments in the first instance and the tentative renewal of the Irish church as evidenced by the emergence of a diocesan system, with religious orders beginning to live again in community- were all buried by a furious Puritan onslaught.
The Crime of Priesthood
The Cromwellian Act of Settlement (1652) which followed the military conquest allowed for no toleration of Catholics in matters of property or religion. In January 1653 the commissioners for the purposes of government, the country had been divided into four administrative divisions in 1650, one centered in Clonmel issued a decree banishing all Catholic clergy from Ireland with severe penalties for those who refused to comply. In March Fr Kearney who had continued to minister in secret in the lower Suir valley in 1650 he had been appointed Guardian of the friary in Carrick-on- Suir fell into the hands of the authorities at Cashel. He was taken to Clonmel where he was tried and sentenced to death by the military governor, Colonel Jerome Sankey. On Friday morning, 21 March new style 1653 he was executed for the crime of priest- hood. His body was brought by his friends to the chapter hall of the suppressed Franciscan friary in his native Cashel for Christian burial.
That’s How the Light Gets in
The cloth of gold vestments remained hidden under the cathedral’s pavement for 123 years until they were rediscovered by architect
John Roberts during demolition works on the medieval edifice in the 1770s to make way for the new Church of Ireland cathedral. And in a gesture of sublime generosity, were presented by the then Anglican bishop, Richard Chen- evix to the Catholic community for use in the liturgy. In 2011, after ten years of conservation by Cliodna Devitt, the vestments were placed on permanent display in Water ford’s Medieval Museum on behalf of the diocese of Waterford and Lismore. The story of the martyr John Kearney and Waterford’s cloth of gold – buried in despair and forgotten in darkness – speaks of Jesus forsaken on the cross. This great act of love allows the light to break into even the darkest of human situations, transforming them. When circumstances seem to overwhelm us, when the cultural landscape is bleak, the light will get in somehow, somewhere, even if it takes 123 years and more for it to be uncovered!
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half- light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
The Garden This Month
Deirdre Anglim
What a glorious month this tings of your favourites in case frost is! Colour is everywhere. Scented wild woodbine climbs through the pittasporum tree in the back garden. Yellow gladioli stand tall and stately. Golden alstromeria blooms in the tub. Purple osteospermum continues to spread. Pink and white clusters of fuchsia dangle from hanging baskets. Snowberry bushes are laden with white berries. Ornamental grasses shimmer in shades of red and orange in the sun. Nasturtium tumbles over the wall. Honesty pennies are ripening up.
Cut back perennials once they have finished flowering. Take cutdestroys the parent plants. Collect seed from aquilegia, dancing ladies, and snapdragon. Place in separate envelopes, seal and label each variety clearly. Store the envelopes in an airtight container/ box. Write down what you have saved and where you have placed the box in your garden notebook. You will need the information next spring when you decide to sow the seeds.
Water those hanging baskets, tubs, containers and window boxes daily. Deadhead fading flowers as you stroll around admiring your own bit of heaven. Drench shrubs with the hose. I am optimistic we will enjoy an Indian summer.
Edge the lawn. It is amazing how much it improves the appearance of the whole garden. Dad always maintained it was as important as weeding. Tackle those too wherever you find them.
Spray rose bushes to control black spot. Spray tops and undersides of the leaves. Pay particular attention to the base of the bushes, the disease attacks here first. Repeat spraying after rain. Gather any black spotted leaves and destroy. Do not leave the spotted leaves on the ground next year’s growth will be contaminated. Remove those tiny unopened buds now. Cut off any extra long shoots.
Have you ordered extra spring bulbs? Check in your local garden centre/nursery for quality bulbs. Buy the best you can afford. There are so many varieties of daffodils; invest in some newcomers to delight you in a few months time.
Irishman – First Archbishop Of New York
Sean Ryan
The first Catholic Archbishop of New York was honoured with a blue plaque in his native County Tyrone recently. Born in County Tyrone to a poor farming family on June 24th, 1797, John Joseph Hughes grew up to become the leading cleric of his day in the United States. He was the fourth Bishop and first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, serving between 1842 and his death in 1864. The third son of seven children, Hughes began his life in the townland of Anna-loughan near Augher. He emigrated to America at the age of 20 in 1817 working as a gardener in Mount St Mary’s seminary in Emmitsburg, Mary- land.
In 1826 Hughes was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Conwell at St. Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia, serving as curate at St Augustine’s Church in Phila- delphia, where he founded the ‘Catholic Herald’ newspaper. Twelve years later he arrived in New York and was appointed administrator of the diocese before being consecrated bishop in the old cathedral of St Patrick’s in 1842. When New York was made an archdiocese in 1850, he became archbishop. He lectured to Congress and was praised by Abraham Lincoln for his support of the Union during the American Civil War.
While bishop of New York he was involved in numerous pro- jects. On his 44th birthday in 1841, he founded St John’s College which is now known as Fordham University, the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeastern US. Partly because of a lack of funds, he described it as a “daring and dangerous under- taking” but it thrived. Within a few years it became a Jesuit institution and in 2016 celebrated its 175th anniversary. He made numerous return visits to Ireland and famously preached at Saint Macartan’s Cathedral in 1846.
His Best Known Work
He is best known for his work in founding St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. On August 15th, 1858, he laid the cornerstone of the new uptown cathedral on Fifth Avenue before a crowd of 100,000. Archbishop Hughes died at 66 from Bright’s disease on January 3rd, 1864. His remains were initially interred in the old cathedral, but 19 years later they were transferred to their final resting place under the altar of the new cathedral on Fifth Avenue, which he never lived to see completed
In a statement the Ulster History Circle which erects blue plaques to men and women of achievement said it would be commemorating his birth in St Macartan’s Church in Augher in County Tyrone with the erection of a blue Plaque. Paying tribute the Circle said in a statement “On the 220th anniversary of his birth the Ulster History Circle is delighted to commemorate Archbishop Hughes with a blue plaque at the very place in his native parish where he returned to preach in 1846”. The plaque was erected by the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland Dr Eamon Martin.
The blue plaque is the second major memorial to Archbishop Hughes to mark his memory. In 2015, a bust of Archbishop Hughes sculpted by Rowan Gillespie, was dedicated and blessed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. It was produced as part of the Irish Giants series and stands on top of a fourmetre column in Lower Manhattan near the old cathedral. Aside from his name and dates, it simply states: “Immigrant”.
‘I Swear To Tell The Truth’
Michael Clifford
Every day they walk in and hold the bible in their right hand and swear by almighty God to tell, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Who are they? Witnesses in any court the length and breadth of the country. In recent years we have seen people drawn from the top levels of society do the same thing in any one of a number of tribunals. In each case, the witness is automatically offered the bible on which to swear an oath, and nearly always it is accepted by the witness and sworn. Despite the presence of the bible, it is an unfortunate fact that people lie in court.
Telling the truth – exception rather than the rule
Lying is an impulse that many can’t resist. The consequences for telling the truth can often be painful, therefore the only road taken is to lie instead. If, in the course of a court case, a witness is asked whether he threw a punch on the night in question, he will have weighed up the consequences of his reply and most likely come down on the side of lying if it saves his hide. That’s the way things are.
Not all people lie when under pressure. Some hold higher standards and tell the truth whatever the consequences. Sometimes in news- paper reports, it is stated that a judge in a particular case com- mended a certain witness on the evidence given under difficult circumstances. The commendation alone, however, suggests that such a course of action is the exception rather than the rule. So lying is a way of life in dealing with the law. And if a liar gets caught out, the chances of any sanction are highly remote. The law on perjury is ancient and seldom used. It is also very difficult to prove that a wit- ness was intentionally lying. The result is that there is no real deter- rent to lying under oath.
Why is the Bible used?
So why is the bible used to swear a law-abiding oath? The practice goes back centuries and is based on the idea that any God-fearing person would not condemn him or herself to eternal damnation by lying on the bible. There was a time when this held true. Until recent decades it could be argued that use of the bible in this manner had a very positive outcome. A witness who might be inclined to lie, to save his skin, or to twist a tale in his favour, would desist from doing so for fear of the con- sequences. We lived in a more religious era back then. Patience was a virtue. The suffering in this world could be endured on the basis of promise for the next. In such times, to meddle with your chances of eternal reward by insulting the bible, just wasn’t on. To lie while under oath was to risk eternal damnation. The Church recognised the importance of the bible as a weapon of the truth by classifying a lie under oath as a sin that could only be absolved by a bishop. Calling God to witness an untruth was a very grave sin.
Why Continue to Swear in Court?
We live in different times now. Is the bible still a deterrent to lie? Ask anybody who works or frequently visits the courts and they will laugh at the suggestion. If anything, it is those who decline to swear on the bible that are more likely to tell the truth. It could be argued that a witness who merely affirms instead, is taking his or her duty more seriously than those who avail of the habitual route of swearing. All of which leads to the serious question about the use of the bible in courts. Why use it? It is no longer a deterrent to stop people lying. More importantly though, it cheapens the bible.
A book that is a central tenet to the lives of millions is being insulted, day in, day out, by people who swear on it and then lie. Why should this continue? What would be wrong with offering witnesses the choice of the bible without presenting it as the normal exercise? Surely, in a secular society, something so vital to the lives of so many of the population should be accorded proper respect rather than lip service.
Parable Of The Spoons
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like. “The Lord led the holy man to two doors.
He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, “You have seen Hell.”
They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The holy man said, “I don’t understand.” “It is simple” said the Lord, “it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other. While the greedy think only of themselves.”
The Triumph Of The Cross
We celebrate this feast on the 14th September and in so doing commemorate the victory which Our Lord accomplished through his death and resurrection. The cross, a mark of great suffering and humiliation, is a horrific symbol which we adore because through the cross we have been redeemed, and in the cross we see Christ’s great love for us. It could have become a symbol of shame for Christians, because it brought about the death of Christ. However, faith in the Resurrection made the cross a symbol of pride. And so as we honor the cross which Christ bore for us, we pray that we might find in his example the strength to bear our own burdens with patience and to triumph over our own difficulties assisted by strength that comes from above.
Saint Martin Replies
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