Two Headline News Stories

The above two photos are taken from this week's Irish Catholic newspaper published last Thursday 20th. The events they illustrate are certainly worth recording here. The top photo shows Fr Michael Shortall (left) presiding for the first time as President of Maynooth College at the annual conferring ceremony. On the right is Archbishop Eamon Martin who, as Chancellor of the University whose degress were being awarded (i.e. SPPU, St Patrick's Pontifical University), presented these to the happy students one by one. (The caption, I'm afraid, gets the roles mixed up -- it is Archbishop Eamon who is Chancellor, not Rev. Dr Michael.)

The other photo shows Archbishop Dermot Farrell announcing a truly historic event, i.e. the recognition by Rome of Dublin's Pro-Cathedral as a cathedral in the full sense of the word, no longer hyphenated somewhat awkwardly and puzzlingly for so long but a cathedral now with all the high status that comes with such a title. 

And so we have the students in SPPU overjoyed on receiving their award from Rome in the form of a degree and Archbishop Dermot (former President of Maynooth) jubilantly sharing another document from Rome granting the Archdiocese of Dublin a cathedral at last. Everyone happy then -- a degree for the students of the college and a papal decree for the Catholic faithful of Dublin!

Fr Andrew Hart's 210th Anniversary, died 20.11.1815

Ten years ago we celebrated the bicentenary of the death of Fr Andrew Hart, P.P. of the United Parishes of Saggart, Rathcoole and Newcastle. He died at the age of 30 after only three years in office. His striking and life-like effigy is to be seen in St Mary's on the right-hand side of the nave, head turned towards the altar. The pull-up nearby (designed by the writer) gives us a summary of his short but fruitful life. (For more reading, about Andrew Hart's bicentenary as well as about the bicentenary two years earlier of the church which he erected, i.e. St Finian's, Newcastle, use the Search box on this page.)

Now we have something small but very original to mark this 210th. It is the brief but eloquent announcement of his death in Saunders's News Letter, Tuesday, 21st November 1815, here being re-read in the original (now digitized) for the first time since its publication. The holdings for this paper in our National Library are from 1828 (see here), whereas the British Library ones are complete.

From www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

As well, then, as our parishioners being remembered this month at special Masses (tomorrow in Rathcoole, near 'Greenoak' (i.e. Greenogue)), we can spare a thought and prayer for the deceased of times gone by, even very long gone by, as is the case with Andrew Hart. 

Feast of All Souls, Sunday 2nd November

We remember at this time of year our loved ones who have left us. They lived out their vocation as best they could and, in doing so, contributed a small but inestimably valuable part to mankind's onward progress -- in Christian terms, the building up of the mystical body of Christ. We will remember them on Sunday, the Feast of All Souls, and throughout the month, in particular at the annual Masses for the Dead taking place in Newcastle (Friday 14th., 7.30 p.m.) and Rathcoole (Friday 21st, 7.30 p.m.). 

Each person, lay or clerical, has an unfathomably rich and mysterious life-story or vocaton. We focused in our last post on vocations to the diocesan priesthood yesterday and today. The photo of the Clonliffe students in 1960 showed our own John Jacob (died 8th March this year). Martin Tierney was ordained in the same year as Fr John (1964). From Clare, he served in the diocese of Dublin. He can be seen on the very right, fourth row from the front (with glasses). He wrote several books, two of them in his final years (click on photos below to enlarge): No Second Chance: Reflections of a Dublin Priest (Columba Press, 2010) and Battling the Storm: A Cancer Patient's Diary (written as a series for the Irish Catholic newspaper in 2009, published in 2010 by Veritas after his death that year in May, aged 71 -- click on the Read More bar below for final two pages, 102-03).

Each one of us sees (or 'discerns') a chance or opportunity (offered by Providence, as faith says and hope clings to) and goes on to live out their life in service to others as best they can, finding fulfilment in what comes but also, at times, no doubt, like Fr Martin here, 'battling storms'. 'I am left trying to answer the deeper questions like, what is God's plan for my life? I must believe that, somehow, God is directing what is happening at the moment.'  Over the coming weeks we will remember in our thoughts and prayers all those in our parish cemeteries and beyond who followed their call (all the time trying to make it out more clearly) and gave it their all.