Tis supposed to be the year of St Brigid. But with six months to go to the 1500th anniversary of her death, I was thinking there was a dearth of celebrations when a text came through about Brigid 1500.
To mark the year, Dana has just written and recorded a new song for St Brigid. It has a contemplative air and begins with the most beautiful line: “I choose Jesus!”
The Eurovision star is to debut it on Friday August 16 at St Brigid’s shrine, Faughart, where the saint was born. Faughart, County Louth is the birthplace of St Brigid, and her namesake, Sr Briege McKenna, the author of Miracles Do Happen and internationally renowned for her powerful healing ministry and intercession for priests. Sr Briege,and Fr Pablo are going to be at the shrine for the event which has been organised by the local people. God bless the laity!
It was Sr Briege – horrified by idolatrous attempts to “rebrand” the saint as a pagan goddess – who asked Dana to write the song. “I told her that other people had asked me to write the song,” said Dana, “and I couldn’t get any inspiration. But I told her I would try and you know the next day the whole song came to me.”
“My husband Damien asked me to play it for Sr Briege and she loved it and didn’t want to change a thing.”
“She said so many people lose that element of St Brigid – that she chose Jesus over everything else. For a religious, that is the starting point.”
That indeed is the starting point for us all – and one of the most painful aspects of our modern Church is the failure to recognise the importance of religious women who have prayed, served and spoken the truth.
Too often initiatives and prayers for vocations to the priesthood neglect to mention religious life for women, whose prayers give birth to, nourish and sustain this vital call.
Thank God for all the efforts so far to recognise St Brigid over the past six months. I attended a beautiful service at St Patrick’s Church, Downpatrick, last February, organised by the Catholic Guides of Ireland, Northern Province, spear-headed by women from St MacCartan’s Loughinisland Branch. Tradition holds that St Brigid is buried in the town, with St Colmcille and St Patrick, who had great respect for women and began his mission in Ireland in 432AD.
In Armagh, this weekend August 18th, the parish of Loughgilly is hosting a family fun day and liturgy in celebration of Brigid 1500. May many more parishes do likewise.
St Brigid, a woman of prayer, a woman of generosity and great virtue, a woman who gave all for Jesus, is a wonderful model for Irish women in a world that no longer knows what a woman truly is.
***
I have a cousin whose wife is rather house-proud and was highly amused when a mother and several wild children came to visit. His wife sat in horror, as the children jumped, kicked and climbed all over the furniture, coffee table included, while their mother, in between easy-going puffs of her cigarette, would say in a soft Belfast twang. “Staaaap that.” The children of course paid no heed to this appeal to “stop that” and I was reminded of the story as I listened to one Stormont politician in particular on radio appealing to those engaged in racially-motivated sporadic violence to stop. Homes and businesses were targeted by people who will not listen to reason.
I was also struck by an interview that BBC’s Stephen Nolan did with a man on Belfast’s Sandy Row, a traditionally loyalist stronghold, where the kerb stones are primitively painted in red, white and blue. The man told Nolan that this was a “white” area and should remain that way. Nolan’s interview was typically robust as he challenged this man. But I was sorry that Nolan did not ask him if he would accept Catholics living there. I wonder what he would have said. Racism is another form of sectarianism, which is deep-rooted and has festered for centuries, causing not just pogroms and church burnings but bloody murder on “both sides”.
I remember one unionist politician during the Troubles, war weary himself, could no longer be bothered to formulate words to express his horror. “Put me down for the usual condemnation.”
More than 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, sectarianism has yet to be seriously tackled. We have only paid lip service to this evil. I used to wonder what would happen when the Troubles ended and people from different nationalities arrived on our shores.
The vast majority of people are very welcoming but there is a petty small-mindedness. As a Belfast-born expat I endured a few barbs in the 1990s about “coming here taking our jobs”. When I said: “Let me get this straight, millions of you go to North America for jobs and one comes back and you are complaining?”
Anti-racist marches, like peace marches, come and go but the hatred lingers. Racism, like sectarianism, requires a Christian response. As Ven. Fulton Sheen used to say, there is no brotherhood of man without a Father.
***
The worst aspect of modern femininity is that we neglect our own amazing gifts in a cheap attempt to imitate men. Hence, the headline in the Daily Mail the other day: “Why shouldn’t we women ogle Olympic hunks in trunks?”
Maybe because we women, having experienced leering looks and uncomfortable remarks, don’t want to objectify men?
***
Sorry to hear of the untimely death of Archbishop Noel Treanor, who was an authority on St Columbanus. When he came to visit our Falls Road convent, there was great craic over coffee and cake and if I wanted to prolong the festivities, a quick question on the famous Irish saint would seal the deal. May Archbishop Noel rest in peace.
Sr Briege, Dana and St Brigid
Tis supposed to be the year of St Brigid. But with six months to go to the 1500th anniversary of her death, I was thinking there was a dearth of celebrations when a text came through about Brigid 1500.
To mark the year, Dana has just written and recorded a new song for St Brigid. It has a contemplative air and begins with the most beautiful line: “I choose Jesus!”
The Eurovision star is to debut it on Friday August 16 at St Brigid’s shrine, Faughart, where the saint was born. Faughart, County Louth is the birthplace of St Brigid, and her namesake, Sr Briege McKenna, the author of Miracles Do Happen and internationally renowned for her powerful healing ministry and intercession for priests. Sr Briege,and Fr Pablo are going to be at the shrine for the event which has been organised by the local people. God bless the laity!
It was Sr Briege – horrified by idolatrous attempts to “rebrand” the saint as a pagan goddess – who asked Dana to write the song. “I told her that other people had asked me to write the song,” said Dana, “and I couldn’t get any inspiration. But I told her I would try and you know the next day the whole song came to me.”
“My husband Damien asked me to play it for Sr Briege and she loved it and didn’t want to change a thing.”
“She said so many people lose that element of St Brigid – that she chose Jesus over everything else. For a religious, that is the starting point.”
That indeed is the starting point for us all – and one of the most painful aspects of our modern Church is the failure to recognise the importance of religious women who have prayed, served and spoken the truth.
Too often initiatives and prayers for vocations to the priesthood neglect to mention religious life for women, whose prayers give birth to, nourish and sustain this vital call.
Thank God for all the efforts so far to recognise St Brigid over the past six months. I attended a beautiful service at St Patrick’s Church, Downpatrick, last February, organised by the Catholic Guides of Ireland, Northern Province, spear-headed by women from St MacCartan’s Loughinisland Branch. Tradition holds that St Brigid is buried in the town, with St Colmcille and St Patrick, who had great respect for women and began his mission in Ireland in 432AD.
In Armagh, this weekend August 18th, the parish of Loughgilly is hosting a family fun day and liturgy in celebration of Brigid 1500. May many more parishes do likewise.
St Brigid, a woman of prayer, a woman of generosity and great virtue, a woman who gave all for Jesus, is a wonderful model for Irish women in a world that no longer knows what a woman truly is.
***
I have a cousin whose wife is rather house-proud and was highly amused when a mother and several wild children came to visit. His wife sat in horror, as the children jumped, kicked and climbed all over the furniture, coffee table included, while their mother, in between easy-going puffs of her cigarette, would say in a soft Belfast twang. “Staaaap that.” The children of course paid no heed to this appeal to “stop that” and I was reminded of the story as I listened to one Stormont politician in particular on radio appealing to those engaged in racially-motivated sporadic violence to stop. Homes and businesses were targeted by people who will not listen to reason.
I was also struck by an interview that BBC’s Stephen Nolan did with a man on Belfast’s Sandy Row, a traditionally loyalist stronghold, where the kerb stones are primitively painted in red, white and blue. The man told Nolan that this was a “white” area and should remain that way. Nolan’s interview was typically robust as he challenged this man. But I was sorry that Nolan did not ask him if he would accept Catholics living there. I wonder what he would have said. Racism is another form of sectarianism, which is deep-rooted and has festered for centuries, causing not just pogroms and church burnings but bloody murder on “both sides”.
I remember one unionist politician during the Troubles, war weary himself, could no longer be bothered to formulate words to express his horror. “Put me down for the usual condemnation.”
More than 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, sectarianism has yet to be seriously tackled. We have only paid lip service to this evil. I used to wonder what would happen when the Troubles ended and people from different nationalities arrived on our shores.
The vast majority of people are very welcoming but there is a petty small-mindedness. As a Belfast-born expat I endured a few barbs in the 1990s about “coming here taking our jobs”. When I said: “Let me get this straight, millions of you go to North America for jobs and one comes back and you are complaining?”
Anti-racist marches, like peace marches, come and go but the hatred lingers. Racism, like sectarianism, requires a Christian response. As Ven. Fulton Sheen used to say, there is no brotherhood of man without a Father.
***
The worst aspect of modern femininity is that we neglect our own amazing gifts in a cheap attempt to imitate men. Hence, the headline in the Daily Mail the other day: “Why shouldn’t we women ogle Olympic hunks in trunks?”
Maybe because we women, having experienced leering looks and uncomfortable remarks, don’t want to objectify men?
***
Sorry to hear of the untimely death of Archbishop Noel Treanor, who was an authority on St Columbanus. When he came to visit our Falls Road convent, there was great craic over coffee and cake and if I wanted to prolong the festivities, a quick question on the famous Irish saint would seal the deal. May Archbishop Noel rest in peace.
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