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Seamus Ahearne reminds us that grace filled moments can come about in chance encounters, even in the sad and bitter memories from the past. “He still can’t grasp how those in the Institutions and those out on the farms, who were full of God and faith, never displayed anything of the God of love.  That haunts him. He doesn’t feel bitter about anything else.  It is the model of God presented, that hurts most deeply.  Mass, Benediction and prayers were very important but there wasn’t any sign of the God of love.”   ….. ” A new Church is needed. New worship is needed. New vision is needed.  No one else is going to do it.  We have to get on with it.”

Thomas O Loughlin challenges us to think more deeply about our attitudes towards liturgy as some shortcomings in understanding are being highlighted by the COVID-19 lock downs.
The article first appeared in La-croix International

Prof. Thomas O’Loughlin suggests a home liturgy for celebrating Ascension Day.
Perhaps consideration could be given this year to celebrating Ascension on Thursday, 21 May – the day that is forty days after Easter Sunday?

Seamus Ahearne has expanded his exercise zone as per guidelines and gets to observe to behaviour of birds on his walks. But he also considers what the pandemic may mean for us.
“It asks us big questions:  What am I about? What is important? Who matters to me?  Do I matter to anyone? … For us as ministers, it is quite dangerous and can undermine our very existence. Do we need ‘them’ (them=our faith community) more than ‘they’ need us?   We feel very ‘useful’ normally. We are very busy. Now many of us can do very little. We don’t like it.”

UPDATED with sample of guidelines from Diocese of Santa Fe, USA

Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, has contacted parishes suggesting “a list of the questions that each parish should be asking at this stage as it prepares its own plan and reflects on the personnel needs required to put that plan into action.”  

Two items:
1. Interview with Mattie Long by Monica Morley of Faith Alive on Mid West Radio about some of the issues that need to be considered before the re-opening of churches on 20 July.
2. Pádraig McCarthy draws our attention to a statement issued on Friday 01 May by the leaders of Churches in Ireland on church reopening.

Prof. Thomas O’Loughlin, in a version of a piece published last week in La Croix International, tells us that “If we believe that the Spirit is moving in the community of the baptised, then a ‘vocations crisis’ is nonsense. It is only a crisis of us failing to look, train, and empower.”

Seamus Ahearne is thinking about what is to come. “Vocation is a big word. It isn’t limited to the wonderland of priesthood. Parenting. Frontline folk. This is ministry.  Any return from exile, needs an expansive exploration of Church, Sacrament, Priesthood, Ministry.  We cannot come back to celebrate what was. We come from the desert and the wilderness.”

We are Church present a Zoom event with Amanda Dillon on the topic of “Lydia, Phoebe and the women of the Early Christian Churches”. Monday 25 May 2020 7.30 p.m….

Joe Mulvaney questions the use of the imagery of sheep and shepherd in the modern world for the type of ministry that is now required.
“there are lots of alternative words and concepts which could be used more meaningfully today e.g. servant leader, influencer, inspirer, animator, coordinator of parish services, moderator, facilitator, Christian community leader for shepherd and People of God or Friends of Jesus instead of sheep. You have many better words.” ….. “We Catholics are honest people. Let us speak out for reform in the Catholic Church using every modern means available to us.”

Chris McDonnell in The Catholic Times contrasts the picture of nurses celebrating in 1945 at the end of World War 2 to current images of, often young, hospital staff clad in PPE, administering comfort and care to their patients in the ICUs of our hospitals.

A report in Global Sisters Report outlines grave discomfort being expressed by many in the Catholic church in the U.S.A. at the expressions of admiration for President Trump’s leadership by Cardinal Dolan. It would appear that many women religious are offering leadership on this issue.
” ….. while politicians look for votes by saying the right thing, a Christian has got to stand in the shoes of immigrants,” she paraphrased. “I expect that from our leadership — not this pandering to power.”

The Government has announced a plan for the phased lifting of restrictions that were introduced to help stop the spread of the corona virus.

Seamus Ahearne is wrestling with God, an angel or life itself.
Seamus can become distracted during the live streaming of Mass.
“The Virtual Mass is an Invitation into the life of a Community.  It is hospitable.  I should be gracious and respectful.  But the Sanctuary (of those churches) speaks aggressively.  I look around.  The contradictions of many Sanctuaries attacks my senses. The Re-Ordering that happened some fifty years ago shouts and sometimes even screams. There was the compromise effort. It wasn’t a re-ordering; it was a disordering. The old was kept. The new was added. It doesn’t work.  …  The utter clutter is confusing. Surely it is now time to get this right.”  

Dublin diocese Scripture Summer School will be held online.
The cost is €40. Each participant will receive access to all eighteen presentations with full notes and study questions as well as being able to take part in all five Zoom conferences. 

Liam Power, in daring to hope, reminds us that “in the midst of the chaos precipitated by this virus, we must struggle to discover some meaning, some basis for our hope.”

After an unanimous ruling by seven high court judges Cardinal George Pell will walk free from prison today after the High Court of Australia ruled he was wrongly jailed for child sexual abuse.

Helen Bond, a leading academic, explores the New Testament for clues to women’s involvement in Jesus’ ministry. 
Thanks to Paddy Ferry and to Mary Cullen who edits Open House. This article is in the current edition of Open House.
Helen Bond is Professor of Christian Origins and Head of School, Divinity at the University of Edinburgh.

Seamus Ahearne reports from his cocoon. “I wonder will those of us cocooned emerge as beautiful butterflies or their equivalent?”
“‘bread is broken in many different ways and is done daily.   Even in the lock up days of the cocooned. … ‘Bread is broken’ on the phone.  In the papers dropped in the door. In the messages. In the shared videos. In the sheer goodness of people.”

Chris McDonnell writes in the Catholic Times of Dorothy Day, the American Christian Socialist, who “asked questions that, at the time, society was unwilling to contemplate, questions of injustice that fell on deaf ears.
Many of those questions remain unanswered in our present days, now brought into sharp focus by the world-wide COVID crisis that is indifferent to race, colour or wealth, a crisis that ignores passport controls”