Quo Vadis?
Speaking in Milwaukee on August 17th the Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, spoke of the “smaller but more authentic Church” he sees for the Ireland of tomorrow. While expressing his worries about the “shift to superficiality in Irish culture” the Archbishop seemed enthuased after recent trends show a revival in spiritual awareness amongst the Irish. So….we can stop worrying then I suppose.
The Catholic Church is in recession in Ireland…, as are all other Christian communities. This much is obvious. The question is: ‘Will it go on……is Catholic Ireland to die with this generation?’ The Archbishop’s answer is a resounding ‘No’ and I’m only too happy to agree.
A simple example of such reviving interest in the Church is the rising numbers of Irelands youth making the long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela each year. This says a lot….especially because such an undertaking is a minimum of 5 weeks. So it seems the Archbishop is right. Mass attendance is falling amongst my generation but we will travel the globe for our faith. Is this not progress?
We were a nation of standers and kneelers. We said the right words and moved the right ways at the right moments but… was that enough? Many holy men and women came from this emerald isle of ours and our faith was real but today someones faith is their own, not their parents’.
Back then it was too easy to be a ‘Catholic’ and most were content with their weekly obligation. Today those of us who are called to faith must fight for it and so ours is stronger for it. More and more are realising today that something is missing in this materialistic society. More and more are moving towards faith and more and more are discovering the Church….just as their ancestors had to.
To be a young ‘Catholic’ in Ireland today is looked on with scepticism…just as it was in the land of saints and scholars. Get ready for another go.
Sunday, August 19th, 2007 and is filed under Views on News.
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daniel Says:
yes the catholic church seems to be in decline in ireland and here in britain. however, when i mention
a spiritual experience i had after returning from ireland with some momentos any lapsed catholic listening and especially if they are irish focus in on every word and detail of what happened. it seems to rekindle something within them when they
are confonted with details of such events that are beyond human explanation. maybe thats why they happen and maybe why such events should be told
as they rekindle a latent spirituality back home.
August 19th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Ann Says:
If we, who make up the mystical body, were more conscious of our role- modelling commission, perhaps we would attract even more young people. There is a great onus on us, isn’t there, but like you, I’m encouraged by Ireland’s growing numbers of discerning youth.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
daniel Says:
if you require i will elaborate on the experiences i had. just let me know ?
August 20th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
daniel Says:
i am a lapsed catholic. am i right in thinking that the mystical body is the collective lay congregation ? i believe that any church will have periods where the collective wavers, drifts away and experiences, reflects and then returns. this may be part of the human condition where the collective psychi comes into play or is this concept an area that is out of bounds. maybe understanding it and the power of a cohesive harmonised worldwide congregation should be pondered on by the powers that be for as you say there is an onus on us. maybe god is waiting for us to utilise whatever acceptable means we can bring to our disposal to be effective.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Ann Says:
Daniel, My understanding ( though I am no expert in these matters) of Mystical Body is this: The faithful on earth, the blessed in heaven, and the souls in purgatory united in one Mystical Body with Christ as the Head. I believe we can serve Christ better if we understand this concept, knowing He lives in us and we in Him, makes us all the more conscious of our actions and how they impact on others. We are in the world now for Him, and it is our duty to witness to His abundant and abiding love as best we can, no matter what our occupation, if indeed any. And yes, the way you think of the Church is similar to my thinking, a bit like a boat that gets tossed and rocked in turbulence leaving those on board considerably shaken. But when this happens in the Church we look as we have always done, to the helm, towards the Holy Spirit whom God sent with the promise that He would be with us until the end of time. This is further proof of His love for us, and all He asks is that we love Him in return.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:14 pm
daniel Says:
what is love. please define it. you make it sound like
it can be conjured up at will a bit like you scratch my back oh lord and ill scratch yours.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:53 am
Ann Says:
Oh, Daniel, Trust me to get landed with a tricky question. Seiously though, I don’t think it’s a case of conjuring up anything. It’s more a question of opening up, of recognising our need to be loved while believing at the same time we are truly loveable. Sometimes that’s the greatest stumbling block of all, when someone convinces themselves that they are not worthy of love, anybody’s love, and especially not God’s. As for its definition, I’m not sure if I would be capable of finding the right words But I would describe it as a capacity, a goodness within us that has the potential to draw us out of ourselves towards others and towards the source of all goodness. Sadly there are many who through no fault of their own have had few if any encounters with goodness and that’s why I said earlier the onus is on us to bring God’s love and light to others in any way we can. We are here in His name. I hope this all makes sense and I would like you to know that I , too, was a lapsed Catholic and coming back to God was the most fulfilling experience of my life.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:01 am
daniel Says:
i shall ponder your response. but i suppose i would define love as caring for someone else more than you do for oneself, unconditionally. its a chemistry
that comes into play on meeting with someone.
i would guess it would be rather more difficult to do that or should i say for that to happen on the contents of a book namely the bible or via
evangelisation. but then was it not said by JC that
one could go direct to god i take that as by passing institutions.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Ronan Says:
If I could add something to this discussion I would just suggest that love is not a tangible concept which can be easily described….and so I won’t begin to try.
Where God’s love is concerned if you’re interested you could read Pope Benedict’s encyclical: ‘Deus Caritas Est’. If nothing else this helped me to understand the different forms of love as one concept.
“God is Love” and we believe in the Trinity. So it is with love: there are many faces, realities, that are ‘love’.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Conchubhar Says:
Many years ago, I experienced great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady in the Anglican church, and in Ireland as well. What we were told in school about other Christian traditions was lacking in reality and was more in common with recent pronouncements about the lack of authenticity about other Christian Churches that the Vatican has spent so much time recently on.
No wonder that for most Irish people who are disillusioned with the institution of the Catholic Church in Ireland apostasy is the easy option.
We have been obsessed with ourselves as having “the one, true Church” with all other Christians cast aside as heretics that we have lost the ability to see Grace in our friends and neighbours who we “believe” are not “Catholic” but who themselves believe that they are part of the One, Holy and Apostolic Church. Is religious belief among Irish Catholics on the same level as Glasgow Celtic versus Glasgow Rangers? If that is so, should Christians be surprised that the Institution is failing many of us?
I feel absolutely no connection with my local Church. I am not a parent, do not agree with the right wing EWTN articles reprinted in the local Parish newsletter, despair of genuine ecumenism locally, and have no way of making my voice heard, except in a very small way here. We are not all sheep to be driven to the slaughter. Why were we given brains and education if in a significant part of our lives, perhaps the most important part of them, we are not allowed to use them?
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 pm
daniel Says:
is faith desperation clinging onto every angle or percievement so as to ‘hang in there’ hoping that god will not see it as grovelling but as a sincere gesture of true faith. so god is love, thats ok. its many faces are tedious to fathom, so much so that droves of people can’t handle it, hence the emptying churches. i dont know if JC had a mortgage or had to worry about the different aspects of being a self employed carpentor but
from what parts of his life is recorded vino and food played a part. where did the money come from to pay for it all ? thinking about that i dont recall any priests dying of hunger during the irish famine.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
daniel Says:
god bless our pope
August 24th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Ann Says:
Amen.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Martin Tierney Says:
i was interested to read that mother teresa of calcutta suffered doubts against faith for a major part of her life. yet she didn’t let that stop her tending the poor and destitute. i think for all of us our journey is a pilgrimage through light and darkness. i remember st therese of lisieu, who also suffered doubts against the faith recording that all she could say was, ‘beyond the dark cloud my sun is still shining.’ perhaps too many of us stop the journey when darkness descends?
martin
August 27th, 2007 at 9:27 am
daniel Says:
is christian faith a pre requisite to wanting to tend to the poor and destitute? no, mother teresa may well have done the same as a humanitarian, a quaker, a buddhist or a muslim. when a dark cloud descends as a temporary low or a depression the sun eventually shines through. people had lows before the advent of christianity. however, absolutism that might be associated with devote christian belief in itself may trigger dispair because as humans we are endowed with a logic and rational and part of that function is to continually question, re-evaulate and reframe our situation. that component part of our psychi has allowed us to survive as a species, as god helps those who help themselves. it may follow through that ‘goodness’ will eventually be a dominent trait
in all men as a matter of evolution.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
daniel Says:
year ago i took an interest in the turin shroud and had a personal understanding that if it was genuine beyond all reasonable doubt i would endeavour to reimbrace catholism. at that point it was declared a clever fake and i lost interest. years later and after a traumatic spiritual paranormal experience i was watching clouds race across a wintery sky. a cluster of cloud caught my eye different in colour and they formed a crude face i then became transfixed and a great calm came over me the cloud cluster then turned into the look alike turin negative and then into a real face of a bearded man with closed eyes. it then reverted back into clouds.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:37 pm