Séamus Ahearne: I HAVE SPENT MY DAYS STRINGING AND UNSTRINGING MY INSTRUMENT, WHILE THE SONG I CAME TO SING REMAINS UNSUNG. (Tagore)
WHAT A HERO!
Aidan O’Brien – was celebrated during the week (again). He achieved his 400th Grade One winners, at Ascot with Auguste Rodin. He then won the Gold Cup with Kyprios on Thursday. Afterwards, he was his own delightful self. The interviewers now know that it is useless asking him about his role with the horses. It is always the lads (and lassies) back at the yard. They do all the work. He enjoys deflecting the attention away from himself, as he named so many of them. Aidan comes across as a shy man, but he exuded simplicity and happiness, on Thursday. He is a genius. I’m not sure whether he revealed his potential (or it was revealed) during his time at Good Counsel College, New Ross. The College was clearly more effective with him than it was with me. Now Kevin Doyle and Tadhg Furlong have done rather well too. I wonder is it the pioneer pin that is Aidan’s lucky charm or just a bold statement of his values?
THE YIPS:
Rory McIlroy almost got there. He stumbled at the US Open last weekend. Bryson De Chambeau held his nerve and deprived Rory of another Major (after ten years, he needed this one). The yips apparently overwhelmed Rory. What can we call it when our rugby lads – stumble? Munster and Leinster both had a bad weekend. We had hoped for a local derby but it wasn’t to be. The Bulls did it. Glasgow did it. And now today Glasgow completed the job.
A BLAST FROM THE PAST:
Rosemary Haughton has died. Her daughter Elizabeth, wrote about her in The Tablet (15th June 2024). Elizabeth gathered all the disparate aspects of her mother’s personality. Rosemary was a bright light and a type of gadfly, in our earlier days. She was a maverick and a very free spirit, but was also full of the Spirit. There is much to say on this prophetic woman and she wrote herself, on the nature of the prophet and prophecy back in 1967 (Slant).
‘After the prophets are dead we build monuments to them. In retrospect they are a respectable, acceptable part of our way of thinking—a good one but not a disturbing one, in the way they once were. But, at the time, each in their own time, the prophet is offensive and troublesome, a sword of division, a judgement. Christ was all this, and he still is, because unlike the older prophets his voice is not muted by history, but is as challenging now, as when it first sounded. I mean whenever and wherever the Word is taken up, and proclaimed in terms that speak the message authentically, in any cultural context, in any age since then. And this is what the Church is supposed to be doing—acting as prophet to the world, reminding people of what they are, and therefore what they are failing to be, what they should be, can be, and will inevitably suffer if they are not.’
ROSEMARY AND THE ACP:
I suggest that is (Rosemary and the Prophet) what the ACP set out to be. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a trade-union or a negative presence, but rather a group that taps into the best of everyone, and is provocative in a Good News way. I often quote Pádraig Daly (Glimpsing More). He says – ‘who can we disbelieve a world drenched in miracles?’ In these dark times and often drab and crude days, when anger and aggression fills the air. We need people to shout out their conviction of the wonder of God; the marvel of creation; to celebrate the prophetic element of church life; to splash vision and the laughter of faith everywhere. Jurgen Moltman died recently. His theology of hope was daring and very bold and did lift hearts despite his own experience of the war. He was definitely an exponent of the prophetic way of life, that is always needed. The ACP cannot be fault-finding or morose. It cannot just be highlighting problems. It has to go the way – of the song:
“Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative; latch onto the affirmative; don’t mess about with Mr Inbetween.”
Bing would be happy with that. What else can we now do? To become awkward and troublesome in a carefree way which shows a light-heartedness and a ‘ joie de vivre’?
BOOKS AND RELATED MATTERS:
I was meandering into some recent books and personalities of literature in the recent days. Ian McEwan spoke at Martin Amis’s Memorial Service (June 10th 24): “Martin had a sheer glee in creation.” “He was the funniest man I ever met.” I liked that. Salman Rushdie wrote “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.” How he returned to life, and why, seemed to be the tenderness and love, which surrounded him in his slow recovery. I liked that. The hope theme stirs us. If Rushdie could and can; why can’t we? Then there was The Paris Muse by Louisa Treger which tells the story of Dora Maar, one of the many women entangled in the world of Picasso. Her Catholicism endured and added more complexity to her life. Dora was a multi-talented woman who had much to give herself, but was submerged and overwhelmed by the aura of Picasso. And then there was the dissection and destruction of Posh and Becks; David and Victoria. ‘The House of Beckham.’ (Tom Bower.) Why is there such a need to destroy? There is something wrong in our society that it has got so angry. This Church that we live in, and the God we celebrate, surely demands that we rise about failure and dullness. Christ the Light of the World, has to be our vision. Cursing the darkness is not the way. Our challenge truly is to be counter-cultural in a manner that spreads beauty and laughter from the world of faith. We have perspective. And then those of us, who are seriously involved, need to brighten up our world. Now there is much work to be done. We are caught up in the accretions of history. Our Liturgies are quite wooden and overloaded. Our sense of Sacrament lacks heart and imagination. Our job description of our leaders (bishops and priests ) are culturally defined an have rusted over the years. But we can do things joyfully and in a relaxed way. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – “I’ve got vision but the rest of the world wears bifocals.”
UPSETS AND HIGHLIGHTS:
Our local upsets: Walls of some houses have been splashed again with graffiti. Of this order: ‘Irish only. No foreigners. Or be burned.’ (Usually the spelling isn’t right which annoys me!) We saw men arrive the following morning to continue their work on one house. These men were foreigners. What a sight. And what sadness that this should happen among us? We also had two stabbings and two deaths recently. However, we find also one woman who celebrated her birthday last Sunday. She was 92. She read during the week with total clarity despite all those warmongering stories and strange names. It was good. And then I was called to a Nursing Home to see Betty. She was 99. She was dying. But she opened her eyes and immediately said: Fr Séamus from the South! We did a little praying. I was called again two days later and she had died. Some of the family told me she wasn’t pleased with me two days previously. I hadn’t brought Communion! I could only smile. She wasn’t fit to take Communion but that she wanted to – was wonderful.
Seamus Ahearne osa
22nd June 2024.