Two graveyards and a monument en route to Glencree

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

In the late 1960s, early ‘70s while studying in Tallaght it was custom and practice for Dominican students to head to the hills on Thursdays.

We had some popular routes. In the summer there would be a long outing to Lugnaquilla, 925 metres high. It meant a 38 kilometre cycle to Donard, a trek up Ireland’s third highest mountain and then the return journey to Tallaght.

All done within 24 hours.

A less daunting outing was to the Glencree River, close to the Dublin Wicklow border.

On Saturday I decided to retrace my steps, or should I say my wheels, and off I set, with my Italian cycling companion to Glencree via the Featherbed.

Fifty years ago we might meet a handful of cars crossing the mountain. On Saturday it was car after car, followed by roaring motorbikes. But the hills and skies were as beautiful as they were 50 years ago.

We stopped at the Noel Lemass memorial.

Noel was Sean Lemass’ brother, who later served as a progressive taoiseach.

Both Sean and Noel fought on the anti-treaty side. They fought together at the Four Courts, where Noel was taken prisoner. He escaped and went to England before returning to Ireland after the ceasefire had been declared in 1923. 

He went back working in Dublin Corporation in his old job as an engineer. On July 3, 1923 he was kidnapped by Freestate soldiers. His body was found the following October on the Featherbed, where the monument now stands in his honour. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. Noel was 26 when he was killed.

Thankfully we have come a long way from those dark days and surely isn’t it good that the two civil war parties are at last healing old wounds.

Someone close to Fianna Fáil said to me when I was telling him that I had stopped at Noel Leamss’ monument, that Noel’s sad ending never defined his brother Sean’s progressive politics.

But it did strike me on Saturday that the monument could do with a tidy up.

If I remember correctly, fifty years ago there was a sign directing people to the monument. There is no sign there now.

And it was the same story at the Jewish graveyard en route to Kilakee. 

If my memory serves me rightly, back in the day, there was a clear sign informing people that this sacred place was a Jewish graveyard. 

There is no sign there now, and again, the gates could do with a coat of paint. There is a crude lock and chain keeping the gates securely closed.

Most likely for security reasons there is no sign there today. That tells its own story and something about the sad times in which we are living.

I’m wondering why Fianna Fáil isn’t taking better care of the Lemass monument on the Featherbed. And I’m also curious as to why the entrance to the Jewish  graveyard looks in such a poor state of upkeep.

It also struck me that the German graveyard in Glencree could do with some TLC.

But one thing is certain: the natural world right in front of our eyes is stunning.

The Lemass monument reminded me of The Wayfarer by Patrick Pearse. In the opening lines he writes: ‘The beauty of the world hath made me sad./This beauty that will pass.’

He wrote the poem in Kilmainham Gaol on the eve of his execution.

Later in the poem he talks about his own imminent demise. A fate we all share.

At the Noel Lemass monument on the Featherbed.

The peerless ability of Angela Merkel

The Guardian view on Germany taking the EU presidency: good timing
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/28/the-guardian-view-on-germany-taking-the-eu-presidency-good-timing?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The right names for the jobs

Karen Woods, is the operations manager with Coillte at Ticknock.

And Eamon Gallen is general manager at Irish Water.

Bridles, bits, saddles and stirrups at the Curragh yesterday

RTE Television journalist, reporting from the Derby meeting at the Curragh yesterday, commenting on the empty venue said: "It was a bit of an exception".

Did the reporter plan that pun?

Bolton cuts the ground from under Trump

This Guardian podcast is certainly well worth your ear.

Jonathan Freedland tells a good story.

Podcast 

 

How damaging is John Bolton's scathing account of Donald Trump's presidency?

The publication of John Bolton’s White House memoir has caused a sensation. Jonathan Freedland assesses the lurid claims of cosying up to authoritarian leaders as well as descriptions of ‘stunning’ ignorance 

 

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify

How damaging is John Bolton's scathing account of Donald Trump's presidency?

An open letter to the provincial of the Irish Dominicans

Dear Gregory Carroll,

Is it possible that the Irish Dominican Province would immediately disassociate itself from the free-sheet Alive.

Last evening's RTE's Prime Time featured an item on new nationalist political parties in Ireland.

The programme screened clips of talks given by Jemma O'Doherty and John Waters. It also included short interviews with far-right supporters.

The Prime Time programme showed worrying trends of how anti-racial sentiment is garnering support in the country. It included violent and vulgar words written by far-right sympathisers.

In the current issue of the free-sheet Alive John Waters writes a page-long rambling article on his opinions and views.

In the same piece Mr Waters is highly critical of Pope Francis on the matter of immigration.

That the Irish Dominican Province advertises for vocations on the free-sheet suggests the Dominicans are calling on far-right people to join the province.

As an Irish Dominican, I find it intolerable that Dominicans should  in any way whatsoever be associated with the free-sheet Alive.

I would appreciate a reply to this open letter so that I can be made aware of your opinion on the link between the free-sheet Alive and the Irish Dominican Province.

Best wishes.

Michael Commane.

A clerical church will never permit Reinhard Marx's views

The current issue of The Tablet reports on Munich's archbishop Reinhard Marx pleading for more women leaders in the church.

"For the sake of our credibility as a church and our credibility as bishops, we must do everything we possibly can to get women to take up leading positions in the church," Marx said.

He goes on to point out that young people simply do not believe that the church will treat women as equals.

Marx says that positions open to laymen in the church must also be open to laywomen.

But does Cardinal Marx get it? As long as there is an embedded clerical church, is any significant change possible.

A good example is the role of the parish pastoral council. It is up to the parish priest whether or not they have any say or power in the running of the parish.

Far to many parish pastoral councils are PR window-dressing operations, which means they are a waste of time and indeed in so many ways a lie.

US President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma

US President Donald Trump always finds an enemy. He talked about 'these people'. He set the crowd against journalists.

He suggests a law should be enacted that people who burn the US flag go to jail for a year.

He talks about people who break the law and refers to them as 'people who may not be from our nation'.

And this for logic: 'We're riding high because you know we are going to win in October.

He says this about someone: 'a very dumb son-of-a-bitch'.

At the beginning he talks about the billions he has spent on the military and then later in the speech he criticises the military-industrial complex.

This man is a street brawler but isn't that exactly what Adolf Hitler was. And like Hitler, Trump always has to have an enemy. For Hitler it was the Jews, the Poles, the Russians, anyone to insult, and that's what Trump does. Watch  Trump scream and roar and then read Max Frisch's 'The Scapegoat'. And the way Trump sneers. He exudes nastiness. But all so cleverly done. It appeals to an underbelly and he knows how to do that.

His similarities with Hitler become more evident with the passing of every day.

And then the roars of the people. They are infatuated with him.

What is it about violence and thuggery that appeals to people? And Trump has developed the dark art to perfection.

This from today's Guardian.

Earlier in the hearing, Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert testified that the country will be doing more Covid-19 testing, not less, hours after the president insisted he was serious when he said at a rally at the weekend that he had called for testing to slow down in the US.

Coronavirus cases have continued to rise in about half of US states, but Trump said at the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that increased testing was making the US look bad and that he had asked staff to slow down. His press secretary later said the remarks were “in jest” but the president stood by them on Tuesday, telling reporters that the comments weren’t a joke.

Coping with punctures and stunning scenery

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Have you noticed the number of people out on bicycles? It seems the entire country has taken to cycling.

The road I live on has become a busy cycleway. It’s great to see so many people out cycling. But I keep asking myself what were they doing before the arrival of Covid-19.

Bicycle shops must be experiencing the best business of their lives.

Because of Covid-19 cocooning restrictions I have been off my bicycle for many weeks, indeed it may have been my longest bicycle break in over 65 years.

A friend and I decided to take to the hills last Saturday week.

He is significantly younger than I, so there was a certain nervousness and trepidation on my part as to how I would manage.

We set off close to midday and before we had gone seven kilometres I felt that terrible sensation of flatness. No, not with my mood, but with my back wheel. I had a puncture. 

Fadó fadó I would always have had a repair kit with me. Not so in this modern sophisticated world of ours. This was a mess. 

I cycled circa four kilometres to a bicycle shop, a silly thing to do but there was a tiny drop of air still in the tube. A new tube fitted. All done in less than 30 minutes. We’re off again, this time with a solid back tyre. 

Four kilometres later what happens? Another puncture, this time the front wheel. No chance of cycling this time as there’s not a whiff of air in the tube. Luckily it was only two kilometres to the next bicycle shop, where another tube is fitted.

The best part of an hour wasted and €29 poorer, we’re on the road.

While waiting for the two tubes to be fitted I’m thinking how my late father would be turning in his grave if he knew I was not fixing my own punctures. And the idea that no one fixes punctures any longer would make him turn even faster.

Within an hour, we are cycling through the Bohernabreena reservoir, just a short distance south of Tallaght. It is an exquisite place, magic for walking and cycling. 

I’m surprised how so few people are about. It had rained during the night and there was a mist or haze floating just above the water. You could even smell it and it certainly added to the beauty of the place.

We got chatting to a man who was about to go trout-fishing on the lake. One thing led to another and just before we parted company he said that if we were coming back later in the day, and he had caught a few trout, we would be welcome to them. Is there anything like a freshly caught trout, and fried with a knob of butter?

Alas, we would not be coming back this way later in the day. What a pity, though, I was tempted to change our route for the sake of a trout supper.

We cycled along the side of the reservoir, out on to the road, back down to Tallaght and home.

It was magic. But the magic doesn’t end once you get off the bicycle. For the next day or so I was walking about on air, oops, that reminds me of those punctures. But even the punctures added to the story of the day.

We covered 45 glorious kilometres and I was delighted with myself. My companion had no problem keeping up with me.

 

The magic of the Dublin-Wicklow Hills when the sun shines

You may remember Saturday was a sun-filled day, at least in Dublin.

When living in Tallaght it was part of the staple diet for Dominican students to head to the hills on Thursdays.

One of the cycles was to Glencree via Killakee and then on over the Featherbed and down into the valley. We cycled on some miles, as they were then, and cooked our food at the side of the Glencree River.

Great days.

On Saturday an Italian friend and I took more or less the same route. He starting in Ranelagh and I in Rathgar. 

Back in the late 1960s, early '70s there were so few cars on the road. Last Saturday it was a very different story. As if the place had been discovered.

Glencree is still a charming place. Our destination was the German graveyard, where we 'wined and dined' before heading back over the Featherbed.

The memorial to Noel Lemass needs some restorative work and a tidy-up. As indeed, does the German graveyard at Glencree. It is well nigh impossible to read what's written on the headstones.

But whether the sun shines or not, the Dublin-Wicklow Hills are always magic, especially from the viewpoint of a bicycle.

And all so close to Dublin.

The memorial to Noel Lemass on the Featherbed.

The longest day

Apologies. No blogpost today as blogger is indisposed.

Though worth noting it is the longest day of the year.

Winter is on the way. But there’s much to be done before then.

What does sin mean to you?

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Before writing this piece, I asked a number of people what sin meant for them. A journalist colleague said he found some forms of unkindness sinful. Two of my fellow priests said that sin meant missing the target.

What is sin? The concept of sin only makes sense in the context of a relationship with a personal God. Sin is the damaging of the integrity of our friendship with God. And that also includes our relationship with other people and the world about us.

In tomorrow’s liturgy St Paul (Romans 5: 12 - 15) tells us that sin existed in the world long before the law was laid down. The prophet Jeremiah (20: 10 - 13) writes that the Lord has delivered the souls of the needy from the hands of evil men. And in the Gospel reading from St Matthew (10: 26 - 33), Jesus assures us that, “if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my father in heaven”.

As often happens in our lives, the old adage about carrot and stick applies. Is it better to stress the reward aspect than to put the emphasis on punishment? 

My sense is that Christ is more interested in the sinner than in the sin. Might it be possible that by placing an over-emphasis on law, rules and regulations, we are placing too much emphasis on the sin and moving away from mercy and empathy for the sinner?

In writing this column I’m reminded of an incident that happened my late mother: when baking  a cake on a Good Friday, she absentmindedly tasted some ingredients. She later phoned the local priest to know if she could receive Holy Communion later that day. He said  that she couldn’t and that it would be sinful if she did. That’s a long time ago. The unfeeling response to a woman trying to live her faith still troubles me. But what does it say about the priest and the theology he had been taught? 

I find it more helpful to see sin as falling short of living up to the Christian ideal. Sin is intrinsically linked to putting ourselves first and above everyone, including God. 

Most of all it’s important to stress that God  in his mercy is always ready to offer forgiveness to the sinner. And that’s far stronger than the most persuasive seductions that come our way.

 

Remember, Jesus has died on a cross for you and me and the Holy Spirit is among us.

Everything to do with God is surrounded by mystery. That does not prevent us from trying to say something about God, and how we damage our relationship with God. 

I remember in theology class a lecturer saying that sin was the breaking of a relationship with God. It has stayed with me. Just as our faith is essentially a relationship with God and one another, so too is sin the damaging of that relationship.’

‘Breaking Bad’, which was screened in the US between 2008 and 2013, is said to be one of the best TV drama series. The finale was watched by over 10.3 million people in the US. I have come to the TV series late. It’s the story of Walter White, a chemistry teacher, who is short of cash. He gets into the drug trade. Over the 62-episode series he moves from being a good person to being evil. It is inevitable that the choices he makes will lead to his doom. 

The series charts how he destroys his relationships with those whom he loves.

Watching the series I am struck by the fact that it is a tale about falling from grace. Walter White loses out on living a good or worthwhile life. 

He totally relies on his own intelligence and cunning. He causes untold damage to himself and those close to him. 

And isn’t that exactly what sin is, a falling away from the grace that God offers us, the damaging of our relationship with God and others. 

When St Dominic founded the Dominican Order in the 13th century he insisted that the constitutions of the Order were not binding under sin.

An over-emphasis on sin is not at all the message of the Gospel.

Jesuit priest, Alfred Delp, who was murdered by the German authorities in January 1945, wrote in prison: “We believe more in our own unworthiness than in the creative impulse of God.”

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's open letter to Trump

The world is indeed made up of all sorts. The link below is an open letter of Carlo Maria Viganò to US President Donald Trump.

That this man was promoted to papal nuncio must make one wonder.

Is it mad? Is it insulting? What is it? Is it funny? But there is a lot of it about.

If the free-sheet Alive had an editorial board Carlo Maria Viganò would make a perfect fit.

Viganò looks uncannily like Dominic Cummings.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/archbishop-viganos-powerful-letter-to-president-trump-eternal-struggle-between-good-and-evil-playing-out-right-now

The article below is from last week's issue of The Tablet.

Archbishop Viganò, left, and President Trump 
Photo: CNS, Paul Haring; CNS/Reuters, Kevin Lamarque

They are dismissed as further evidence of the fondness of Americans for cults and conspiracies. But the followers of the enigmatic Q are said to include close advisers to President Trump – and some on the conservative fringes of the Catholic Church

In August 2018, during Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican nuncio in Washington D.C., published an 11-page “testimony” claiming that Francis and several American cardinals and archbishops had teamed up over the years to cover up sexual abuse by clerics, and in particular had failed to address the crimes and misdemeanours of Theodore McCarrick, who had been appointed as Archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2001 in spite of several warnings about his behaviour. 

Archbishop Viganò blamed (and named) several Church leaders who had protected a widespread “homosexual current” in the Vatican and said that Francis must resign. A lengthy Vatican report into how McCarrick rose so high in the Church is apparently ready to be released.

In the midst of the global Covid-19 lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter protests and associated riots in the United States, precipitated by the horrifying murder by a Minneapolis policeman of the African American George Floyd on 25 May, Viganò has crackled and dazzled his way back into the news. He first published an excoriating personal attack on the current Archbishop of Washington, the African American Wilton Gregory, who had denounced Donald Trump’s visit to the St John Paul II Shrine in Washington as an attempt to manipulate the symbolism of a sacred space for a partisan objective.

Viganò kicked back, slamming Archbishop Gregory and other US religious leaders aligned with him as “subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those who want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches”. Viganò concluded: “Do not follow [false shepherds], as they lead you to perdition.” 

Then last Saturday Viganò published a remarkable – even by his standards – open letter to President Trump, purporting to explain the causes of the world’s current malaise. What is going on, he asserts, is an attempt by the malign “deep state” to hold on to power by all means possible, in the face of the concerted efforts by President Trump to bring it down. At bottom, the struggle is a spiritual one. An elite is determined “to demolish the family and the nation, exploit workers ... foment internal divisions and wars, and accumulate power and money”. And “just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God. Thus the Invisible Enemy, whom good rulers fight against in public affairs, is also fought against by good shepherds in the ecclesiastical sphere.” 

The world is at a crossroads, the battle has to be won, Viganò declares. “I dare to believe,” he tells Trump, “that both of us are on the same side in this battle, albeit with different weapons.”

The open letter to Trump, dated 7 June, Trinity Sunday, was first published on the Canadian ultra-conservative Catholic LifeSiteNews website at 11.59 am Eastern Time on 6 June. At 2.32 Eastern Time a link to the PDF of the letter was posted on the QAnon message board. The link was placed above an extended quote from Ephesians 6: 10-18 – a favourite Biblical reference of Q’s – urging followers to “put on the armor of God”, since the struggle is “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil on the heavenly realms”. Sentiments eerily echoed in Viganò’s letter to Trump. 

So who is Q? His (or her or their) followers do not know, but many of them believe that Q is a team of ten or so high-level military intelligence operatives who are close informants and advisers to Trump. Since emerging on the internet in October 2017 Q has amassed millions of followers, in the US and overseas. Running through Q’s posts is a loathing of the media other than conservative outlets such as Fox News (though they are not always to be trusted, either); a visceral disgust of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and all things Democrat; and a Christian evangelical reading of the spiritual battle between good and evil in the world. In recent months, inevitably, Q’s followers have claimed that the coronavirus might not be real; or, if it is, it has been created by the shadowy elite that secretly runs the world and is now drumming up a public health panic in order to damage Trump’s re-election chances. The eventual destruction of the global cabal is imminent, they belive, but can only be accomplished with the support of patriots. A new golden age will follow the “storm” we are now entering, and a “Great Awakening” is coming that will overcome the evil forces.

It looks as if Viganò wants to tell President Trump, the Q team, and Q followers, that he is one of them. One of Q’s favourite phrases is “Dark to Light”. Viganò talks about the “mercenaries” who are “allies of the children of darkness and hate the children of light”, among other dark-light references. In referring to the promised storm, Q likes to post the scene from the 2009 vigilante thriller Law Abiding Citizen, with the clip in which Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) declares: “I’m going to bring the whole f***ing diseased corrupt temple down on your head. It’s going to be biblical.” Viganò uses the term “biblical” twice, and italicises it. And Trump’s controversial holding-up of the Bible outside St John’s church was immediately seen by Q followers as a promise to his enemies: “It’s going to be biblical.”

There is talk of mutiny in elements of the US military. Fortifications around the White House are being built for fear it might be stormed. But the followers of Q – and, it seems, Archbishop Viganò – believe that, led by their champion and saviour, Trump, what will fall is not the “temple” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but the deep state itself, with arrests and imprisonment of its top operatives. This unlikely coalition of Trumpians, conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics is looking forward with relish to seeing Clyde Shelton’s prediction that it will be “biblical” realised. One of Q’s favourite phrases is, “Enjoy the show.” It’s meant as a reference to a coming apocalypse. 

And then there is this Russia priest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/russian-priest-who-called-coronavirus-a-pseudo-pandemic-seizes-convent?CMP=share_btn_link

John Waters' 'Alive' article echoes Enoch Powell's views

On reading the June-July issue of the free-sheet Alive, it's clear to see that it supports Donald Trump, Mike Pence the Hungarian government, Duda, John Waters, George Pell, et al.

There is no place or room in the free-sheet for any opposing views.

And then there is a full page piece, which is a long ramble, by John Waters, who is an associate of Jemma O'Doherty.

The John Waters piece is as close as one can get to the philosophy of the late Conservative MP Enoch Powell. In his article Waters accuses Pope Francis of expressing at least two opposing views on the migration crisis. 

Information on the Irish Dominican Province is peppered through the free-sheet and at the bottom of the front page there is a disclaimer to the effect that Alive does not necessarily represent the views of the Irish Dominican Province.

Alive is associated with the Irish Dominicans. It is a far-right free-sheet that constantly attacks and criticises everything to do with the European Union and many aspects of Irish life. It sneers at those who have different opinions.

Who is the editor of Alive? It tries hard to mimic Fox News. 

Surely it is well time for the provincial of the Irish Dominicans to take a stand and expressly disassociate the province from Alive.

I, as an Irish Dominican, am ashamed of the nexus there is between the free-sheet Alive and the Irish Dominicans.

Nobody is speaking out openly, criticising Alive, while all the time a nasty far-right, anti- EU grouping gains more and more control.

The Irish Dominicans will pay the price.

The unimaginable horror of living in an Ireland approved by Alive.

James Joyce on God and Ireland

A day late.

If James Joyce were alive today what would he say to his own words?

No God for Ireland! he cried. We have had too much God in Ireland. Away with God!

From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

We are all in relationship

This week's Independent New & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

It’s four years since a nurse in the hospital, where I am working, suggested to me that I watch ‘Breaking Bad’.

I took her advice and watched two or three episodes before deciding it was not for me.

On one of the first days after the cocooning regulations had been lifted I was out walking with a friend. During our walk we were talking about time spent watching screens during the pandemic. One thing led to another before my friend asked me if I had ever watched ‘Breaking Bad’. I told him my story. He suggested I give it another try because he thought I’d enjoy it.

I am now an addict. Oops, no, not to drugs, but to the series.

Most evenings I watch one episode but once or twice I have done some binge viewing and watched two episodes. 

If you haven’t seen it, then I strongly recommend viewing. I’m watching it on Netflix. It aired between 2008 and 2013. It’s made up of 62 episodes spread over five seasons. 

The series finale was watched by over 10.3 million people in the US. It is regarded by many experts as one of the best ever television series.

It’s the story of fictional Walter White, a chemistry teacher, who has learned that he has lung cancer. 

He is a highly gifted chemist and teacher. He has a wife and a son with cerebral palsy. Early in the series his wife is pregnant.

He needs money to finance his cancer treatment and to support his family.

Walt sets out to do what he does best and manufactures methamphetamine. He makes the best crystal meth in Albuquerque. 

And the series is about all that that entails, killings, crimes, wrong-doing of every shape and size. At times I have to turn away from the violence. There are also funny aspects to it and plenty of black humour. But a continuing theme right through the series is that of relationship. And I find that intriguing. 

Last Sunday week, June 7, Christians celebrated the feast of the Trinity, which is about the mystery of three persons in one God. It might sound quite mad, especially to non-Christians, but once we try to say anything about God, language breaks down, almost. The Trinity is about relationship in God.

Has it ever crossed your mind that everything we do in our lives involves us in relationships? Our parents, our children, our spouses, our lovers. The place where we work involves us in relationships. Indeed, we have a relationship with the sea, with the air we breathe. 

It really is extraordinary. Some relationships are more important than others. There are relationships that enhance our lives and there are those that damage and can indeed, destroy us.

Christianity offers us an extraordinary insight into our own humanity. 

I’m often baffled how we can so easily dismiss as boring and of no relevance to our lives so many of the themes of the Christian faith.

I’ve not yet seen an episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ that does not involve a serious study of relationship.

And then to think that the ultimate living out of a perfect relationship is to be found in God, surely that has to set in front of us an extraordinary ideal, something to which each one of us can aspire? 

Yes, everything about God is extraordinary. So what? 

Remember those lines from Oscar Wilde? ‘Never love anybody who treats you like you are ordinary’.

Wise words. None of us is ordinary.

It's important to highlight inefficiency and mismanagement

In the 1950s, '60s and into the 1970s Fianna Fáil supporters bought the now-defunct The Irish Press and Fine Gael supporters went for The Irish Independent. The Irish Press ceased publication in 1995.

Did that mean that readers read exclusively the news that supported 'their side'?

When someone praises a piece of writing are they agreeing with what is written or are they appreciating the style of the writing?

On the sidebar of this blog there are two short paragraphs attempting to say what the blog tries to do.

If readers of this blog disagree with comment, surely the best approach is to say it openly and directly on these pages.

What's wrong with being critical, what's wrong with being critical towards an organisation to which one is a member?

Are people expected to stay silent when they see crass inefficiency and mismanagement?

People are afraid to speak their minds in public far too often. Dictatorships don't tolerate diversity of opinion.

The late Dominican priest John O'Gorman often said that the biggest problem with the Catholic Church and priesthood was crass inefficiency.

Crass inefficiency and mismanagement is alive and well.

Surely it's good to highlight all forms of inefficiency and mismanagement, bullying too?

There is far too much secret criticism within organisations. It's not healthy or wise.

It goes on in the Catholic Church too, and in religious congregations.

This blog never wants to publish inaccurate or incorrect information. If a reader ever is aware of errors, please inform the blog administrator.

Cycling on a summer's day in the Dublin hills

All during the Covid-19 lockdown the sun shone across Ireland, indeed, so much so that there is now a hosepipe ban in the country. And then, once the first restrictions are lifted, what happens, the rain comes.

But we are still dangerously short of water. The reservoir at Bohernabreena is low as are all the reservoirs on the island.

Thursday and Friday the rains came and Thursday night it was heavy, even the colour of the Dodder changed to brownish. You knew by the look of it that there had been rain.

Prayers went out on Friday for a rainless Saturday. And so it happened. The rain stayed away.

A friend and I cycled from Rathgar to Tallaght, on to the reservoir at Bohernabreena, also known as the water works, though I did hear someone call it the dam. From there, towards the Featherbed and back down to Tallaght, on to Templeogue, through Terenure and home. A round trip of 45 kilometres. Every kilometre magic.

There was an early hitch: two punctures. One fixed in Rathgar, the other in Templeogue, €14 a pop. If my late father knew that I left a bicycle into a shop to fix a puncture he would swivel in his grave at great speed. And even faster, if he realised shops don't repair punctures, instead  replace the tube.

While it may not have been all blue skies, it was an afternoon of magic, wonder and delight. There was a mist on the mountains, we could smell it.

And the people we met, a man fishing for trout. He promised us some if we came back his way. A man in his 70s heading for Kippure, a walking group. But surprising how few people in the waterworks.

Why would anyone want to take off on a jet plane and those hills within cycling distance of Dublin City centre?

Errors and clarification concerning Fr Malachy O'Dwyer

Apologies for the two errors published in the short reference to Fr Malachy O'Dwyer in Wednesday's blogpost.

I have a history of errors on this one.

Below is an appreciation that was posted on this blog on Monday, June 23, 2014 on the death of Fr Malachy O'Dwyer. Also a letter that appeared days after the appreciation appeared in The Irish Times

Monday, June 23, 2014

Malachy O'Dwyer OP

The piece below appers in today's Irish Times. It is an appreciation of Malachy O'Dwyer OP, who died on Friday, June 13 in Dublin.

Michael Commane
Malachy O’Dwyer, baptised Jeremiah, was born in Dublin in 1932 and attended CBS O’Connell Secondary School. He joined the Dominicans in 1954 and was ordained a priest in 1960 after which he moved to Rome where he studied canon law.

He taught canon law in Argentina, and at the Dominican house of studies in Tallaght. He taught theology in Nagpur in India.

A former student remarked that Malachy made it his business to know the name of every person he taught.

When Malachy made a decision he was firm. His yes meant a real yes and no meant a real no. If it was no, it was difficult for him to change his stance.

On hearing the news of Malachy’s death the community at Santa Sabina in Rome prayed for him the next day at Mass. The Gospel ended with the line: “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Anything more is from the evil one. (Matthew: 5:37)

Malachy was always punctual. He would stop a meeting in mid-sentence if the time was up, to the relief of many.

He played a major role in re-establishing the Dominican Order in India in the 1980s.

He learnt to assimilate himself in the country and greatly enjoyed Indian food. He learnt the local language Hindi in a short time. He wrote his doctoral thesis in canon law in Latin.

Malachy was appointed procurator general of the Order in 1989. The procurator’s job is to liaise between the Order and the Vatican. Malachy was the perfect link man.

Many Dominicans, who left the Order, speak highly of how Malachy dealt so deftly with their laicisation process.

English Dominican and a former Master of the Order, Timothy Radcliffe says of Malachy: “He taught me the importance of trusting in the brothers, even when they made mistakes. He showed me that the constitutions were vital for the life of the Order and even, to my surprise, that canon law is filled with wisdom and beautiful theology. He was a great Dominican, and a wonderful Christian.”

A Dominican who later left the Order said about Malachy on hearing of his death: “I see him as being kind of eternal, always centred and radiating all that’s good in life, so I’m struggling to come to terms with his death. I pray to him that he may share some of his peace with me.

He had eclectic tastes and hobbies. He was well versed in English literature, made a large proportion of the furniture for the extension to the Dominican Priory in Tallaght, which was completed in 1957.

He was also a great walker. While living in Santa Sabina in Rome he regularly walked the perimeter of the old walls of the city, which is approximately 40 kilometres.

Malachy had a wonderful ability and great sense to use his knowledge, his faith, his understanding of theology and canon law to help people on their journey in life. He genuinely believed in the quality and aspirations of other people and he made no exceptions.

He died on Friday, June 13 in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin after a long illness, having returned from India just six weeks earlier.

He is survived by his sisters, Rita Kelly, Kitty Kelly and Betty McCorry, and predeceased by Nancy Brooks.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Remembering Malachy Jeremiah O'Dwyer OP

The letter below appears in today's Irish Times.

Sir, – Last Monday’s Irish Times carried an appreciation of Dominican priest Malachy O’Dwyer.

On the day of its appearance it was brought to my attention that Malachy, who had written his doctoral thesis in Latin in canon law, never completed secondary school. On the early death of his father he left school at a young age to support the family.

He worked in a builders’ providers and did his Leaving Cert at night in a one-classroom school, all grades together with one teacher. Malachy often recalled to friends how excellent the teacher was.

A man in Paraná in Argentina, talking about Malachy, 30 years after first encountering him, remembers how well he preached: “Short, full of content and obviously well prepared”.

My late father always sat up in the seat when he saw Malachy come out to celebrate Mass in St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, in the 1970s. He knew he was in for some wise words, well crafted.

When Malachy was asked to go to India he was somewhat reluctant as he would much prefer to have gone back to Argentina. He went to India, helped reestablish the Dominicans in the country and made it his new home. – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL COMMANE,

Orwell Gardens,

Dublin 14.

Reviving economies, two wheels at a time

From the New York Times With reopening, governments aim to bolster their economies, but they can’t rely on public transportation to get workers to their jobs while the virus is still circulating.

Enter the humble bike, which is playing a central role in getting Europe’s work force moving again — and speeding the environmental transition away from cars.  As the weekend begins, we look at the “corona cycleways” of Paris. Today is the sixth anniversary of the death of Dominican priest Malachy O’Dwyer. He died in Dublin in 2014, having spent many years before his death in India. He was a special person, an outstanding man.

Yugoslav refugee's prize-winning book tells a great tale

Saša Stanišić won the German Book Prize last year for his novel Herkunft (Origin).

At his acceptance speech he was critical of  Peter Handke being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature because of his support for Serbian nationalists.

Stanišić was born in 1978 in the former Yugoslavia. In 1992 he fled with his parents to Germany as a refugee of the Bosnian War.

Herkunft is a novel about what it means to be born somewhere. Stanišić argues that where we are born is an accident.

When we ask someone where they are from what are we doing? Is it a neutral question? Often it's loaded with intrigue

In an interview on German television he recalls how as a young teenager in school in Germany a teacher spotted that he had talent. And one day the teacher praised him. He said it was the moment when he realised he had worth, that he could do something special. At the time he was learning German.

Herkunft is considered a modern German masterpiece.

US commentator critical of what's happening his country

An interesting interview with Bill Moyers on CNN where he talks about truth being the oxygen of democracy.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/tv/2020/06/09/amanpour-bill-moyers.cnn