Séamus Ahearne: All through my life, the new sights of nature, made me rejoice like a child. (Marie Curie).                                                                             

A Quiet Day:  

It was Bank Holiday Monday with St Brigid. She is a fine woman who has improved with age, and has been modified to fit most agendas. That too is fine. It is amusing to recall that the Brigid’s Cross appeared at the opening of RTÉ TV. Would it now?  Everything and everyone was quiet on Monday, which was good. There were two funerals to arrange. Another six were being prepared by others. I had urgent requests for character references for the Court. It was as always, the last minute. The Court was on Tuesday. The Judges must be fed up with me. One was very serious. He got seven and a half years which his own wife thought, was rather shorter than she expected. It was a bad case but I knew the man, and both mentioned his good points, and his less than good ones. ‘When he is good; he is very good – but when he is bad, he is wicked.’

A Quiet Day continues with distractions:

The other young man was escaping from drugs and wanted a clean bill of health, to migrate to Australia. I haven’t heard how he has got on. I do wonder how many of such letters I have written (very carefully) over the past 27 years here in Finglas. I did one years ago, and the barrister rang up asking me to appear in Court, that this would be more effective. I asked him if had he read the letter (which he hadn’t). He rang back and told me that it was better that I wouldn’t. Mundane matters like money had to be sorted too on the day. So yes. It was a bank holiday. Some other time during that day, I was linked up with an avid reader from Clogher Head of the ACP website. This was her praise for the ACP:  “It helps me to cling on.”

Funerals:

I must go back to the funerals. It is privileged. It is overwhelming. It is our most precious moment. We meet people totally outside of our own circle and our language culture. Funerals need time. Four, five, six visits are almost essential for gentle preparation in the homes. Most often, people are now strangers to the Church, and to the ways of the Church. They are lost. I tell the families that I am the coordinator. I provide the scaffolding for the ceremony. I will call out the names. I will have all the back-up papers. We have to realise and accept that most people are unfamiliar with funerals and with rituals, and don’t know what to do, or when to do it, or how to do it. That is our job.

Our role in Funerals:

Our role is as an impresario. It is also the time to gather the story and the history, and to respect with deep reverence, the uniqueness of each person and family. It is so much better if we can go to a home, two by two (preferably female and male) to prepare. But we are running out of people who can do this, and there are no replacements, as we run out of the voluntary people in Church life. There are great ideas floating about on Funeral Leaders and all such plans. But where are the people? 

No escape at funerals into churchy language:

What is essential in our Church part of a funeral, is that we don’t hide away in the familiar Ritual. Holy Words are really mumbo jumbo for so many. We have to adapt to the lives of those who are there, for the person who is dead. That is the only way. It is clear that the priests no longer can go to the grave or the crematorium afterwards. But again where are the so called laity who can? We can’t just hand them the Book. Holy Prayers may sound good to us, but are often quite inappropriate. After the Funeral is over, how can we follow up? I find more and more than many a family is following me up. That is great. But I am very aware of how little more I can do. And then I know that our Parish has to be very realistic in working out how we can do Funerals. At 7 or 8 weekly? With how many priests? Changes are necessary and are immediately shouting for a solution. The plans have to be quite radical. Central administration can give us glossy ideas and lovely booklets but they are very detached from the reality.

The Statesman Trump:

I was trying to avoid the obvious. ‘Only people who are fit for the job should be given the job!’ Mr Trump had that to say after the airplane/helicopter crashed into the Potomac. (Washington). Such criteria, if applied to him, would surely say that he was never suitable for the job. His words on Gaza. His words at that crash. His pardoning of those at the Capitol. His appointments. His sacking of those who prosecuted him. His words on Panama and Greenland. But the Americans have got what they deserved and it is rather pathetic.

Hebrews speaking!

The school children have been at Mass these days. The ordinary Readings were totally unsuitable and we changed them. This morning, Jack was our Reader (without the children). He told us that he had read Heb 12:18-19, 21-24 ten times, and couldn’t make any sense of it. Francie was more taken up with  ‘being sent out two by two.’ His view was that we are all apostles. We see different slices of life. We notice things. We learn from each other. It is only together that we can ever see God. And so the discussion went. Where are our Holy Places? When are our Sacred Moments? How do we move from a sense of fear to a sense of awe? 

Hebrews and  the Holy:

We had a mention of – coming to Mass, and seeing the sun rise and the colour of nature (snow drops crocuses and daffodils). We had a mention of Holy Wells; of Faughart; of Knock; of Fatima; of Lourdes; of the Hill of Martyrs in Nagasaki (Miki and companions); of Benediction; of a baby. We moved back to the Hebrews words and wondered. They now made sense. Where are our own Sacred Moments and Places? Is there a problem in that, we have, or are losing, the sense of the Sacred; of the wonder of God; of the awesomeness of God in our lives? Are we looking? Are we seeing? How do we catch beauty and grace and wonder? Humanity is weakened if we lose the depth of awe. Prayer really has to somehow catch it. Liturgy needs much work for us to be truly in the oasis of Godliness. It is over-wordy and overwhelmed by these words. What can we do? We are ministers of the Sacred. I repeat as I often do, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words: Earth is crammed with heaven, only those who see, take off their shoes.

Seamus Ahearne osa

6^th February 2025.