Christians learning together

Young flag-carriers at Celebrating Our Nations
(photo Padraig O Flannabhra)

Nenagh Churches Together
Nenagh Churches Together is the name chosen by a group of lay Christians from different denominations in and around Nenagh, who come together to work on common projects. Last year we organised two events involving Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and Church of Ireland people: a Day of Prayer for Climate Change in October; and a Prayer Vigil for Copenhagen in December, using and adapting materials prepared by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI). Both were lovely, well-attended, prayerful events, and gave a powerful witness to the faith we all share. I also enjoyed meeting and getting to know the organisers from the other churches - it was a real learning experience for all of us, working together, developing trust, discovering each others gifts – and it was fun!

This year lay members of the Nenagh Roman Catholic Pastoral Council invited Nenagh Churches Together to help organise an ecumenical service to celebrate the diversity of our Nenagh community and to welcome newcomers from so many different countries and church traditions to the town. Once again we shared the pleasure of working with and learning from each other, and making new friends in an even larger and more diverse group.

A Celebration of Our Nations
The service, entitled ‘A Celebration of Our Nations’, was held in St Mary’s of the Rosary Catholic church on 29th April. It was attended by close to 350 people, both native Irish and many foreign nationals, and all agreed it was a great success – a truly worthy celebration of God-given diversity.

Flags of many nations at Celebrating Our Nations
(photo Padraig O Flannabhra)

We began with a colourful procession of 22 foreign flags, most carried by natives of the country concerned, followed by our own Irish flag, and lastly the UN flag, carried by Nenagh Town Mayor Hughie McGrath, representing the Civic sphere. Nenagh Catholic priest Fr Tom Whelan then welcomed everyone to his church, including Nenagh Rector Rev Marie Rowley-Brooke – Methodist, Baptist and Romanian Orthodox ministers were unable to attend, but sent their apologies.

There followed five themed sections, each with a scripture reading, a prayer and music: congregational hymns, solos - even a colourful liturgical dance! The themes were:

All Christian Churches: We celebrated the glorious diversity of our Christian churches and traditions – yet diverse as we are, we are united as followers of Jesus Christ.
The Nations of the World: We celebrated our many homelands, and our diverse races, languages and cultures – yet for all our diversity, we are all united in our common humanity.
God’s Creation: We gave thanks for the diverse universe God has made, and for the miracle of our living world, which provides so bountifully for all our needs – yet underlying this diversity, science reveals a deep unity in creation.
Our Community: We reflected on how our lives in our communities of Nenagh and North Tipperary are so enriched by those amongst whom we live and work, whether native Irish or from other countries.
Those in Need: We prayed for all those in need, both locally and around the world, and we prayed that we might ourselves become agents of God’s transforming love, working to relieve the suffering of others.

Among the marvellous variety of readers and musicians involved were: students from the town’s primary and secondary schools; people from England, Russia, India, Poland, South Africa, Romania and Ireland; members of the Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Romanian Orthodox churches, and the Living Water non-denominational prayer group; a harpist, a soloist with guitar accompaniment, a creative dance troupe, and the joint choirs of the Catholic and Church of Ireland parishes.

At the end, as we prepared to go out together as God’s people, we joined in the Lord’s Prayer, each in our own language - a powerful symbol of shared faith, reflecting the experience of the first Pentecost in Jerusalem. The clergy present then pronounced blessings and led the people in saying a Community Blessing together:

Blessed are we when we sing God’s praises
and walk together faithfully on God’s earth.
Blessed are we when we proclaim God’s justice
and enjoy together the fruits of creation.
Blessed are we when we are guided by God’s wisdom
and live in harmony with God’s world.

Finally we were all invited to join in refreshments prepared by the ladies of the Catholic parish. The hall was packed, we met old friends and new, the craic was mighty, and the refreshments were delicious – I can confirm there is no truth in the old adage that protestant cakes taste better!

The Future of Churches Together
Those of us involved in Nenagh Churches Together certainly hope to continue working together on future projects. It would be wonderful if our work on ecumenical events were to lead on to joint outreach in our community, bringing the love of Christ to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged.

There are many ways in which people are already involved ecumenically. Clergy organise ecumenical services during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. There are ecumenical Bible Study groups in many places. And there is the marvellous Oak House inter-church fellowship which has been meeting for many years in East Galway. With no desire to diminish these, but to complement them, I suggest you might consider forming a local ‘Churches Together’ group in your own town.

The ‘Churches Together’ model of local, lay-led, practical ecumenical action is working well for us, and would be a good model for others too, I think:

• It unlocks the energies and gifts of a host of committed lay Christians, largely because it is lay led with clergy support.
• It strengthens Christian mission to the wider community by the joint witness of different denominations. We are stronger together – as Paul puts it, the body of Christ needs all its parts.
• It encourages people from different denominations to learn from each other as they work together. They grow as disciples – they grow together in love - and they enjoy doing so.
• Most denominations are members of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), which provides a host of useful approved materials, and gives legitimacy to the name.
• All you need to make a start are one or two enthusiastic lay people, with tacit clergy support, who will work to organise an ecumenical event with similarly enthusiastic lay people in one or two other churches, while reaching out to others – see http://www.ctbi.org.uk/ for ideas.
  

A View from the Pew – Will you take the 10:10 Challenge?

This article appeared in the May 2010 edition of Newslink, the diocesan magazine of the diocese of Limerick & Killaloe.

As I noted last month, the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming are a consequence of the personal choices and decisions of countless individuals around the world – particularly those of us in rich countries. Perhaps it is because world leaders doubt they can get their peoples to change those choices and decisions that they failed so dismally to agree in Copenhagen last December what to do about it. Let’s hope and pray they do agree effective and just action soon, before it is too late. We now know for certain that unless we act quickly to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, our descendents will face terrible problems in years to come.

But their failure to agree shows it’s now time for ordinary people to step in to defend our children’s futures. And as Christians we have a particular responsibility to take the lead. As the bishops of our Anglican Communion reflected at the last Lambeth Conference:

‘If we say that “The earth is the Lord’s…”, we must be prepared to live as if that is true! We can not misuse a gift from the Lord. If we are to call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ, we must be prepared for radical discipleship by “living simply, so that others may simply live.” Safeguarding creation is a spiritual issue.’

The first step is for each one of us to take personal responsibility – if we don’t, no one else will. Just suppose each one of us made a pledge to cut 10% of our greenhouse gas emissions in 2010? What if we got everyone we know to do the same? And what if all this made governments sit up and take notice? That could be the first step towards a brighter future for us all.

Cutting 10% in one year is a bold target, but for most of us it’s achievable – and would save us money too! Here are some ideas for what you and your family can do.

1 Save on heating – and bills Turn down your thermostat - 1°C less can save 10% by itself! Turn off radiators in hallways and rooms you don’t use. If you need them, more jumpers and warm underwear all round. Fix those draughts. Then apply for a grant to insulate your loft and walls. You’ll be warm & cosy!

2 Drive less – be healthier Think before you make that short drive. Walk, cycle or take public transport when you can. Leave your car at home one day a week. Share the school run and car-pool with a colleague or two to get to work. Eco-driving guidelines can save 5-15% of fuel: drive smoothly, control your speed and stick to the limits (driving at 70 uses 15% more fuel than driving at 50, and cruising at 80 uses 25% more than at 70), change gear up as early as you can, and turn off heated rear windscreens, demister blowers and headlights when you don’t need them.

3 Save on electricity – be bright Change over to low-wattage light bulbs. Turn off unnecessary lights, and turn off TVs, computers, battery chargers etc when not in use. Consider replacing old inefficient fridges and freezers, and always buy appliances with a good energy rating.

4 Fly less - holiday more Swap the plane for boat and train, when you can. Holiday nearer to home and take fewer but longer trips – same tanning time, dramatically less carbon emissions.

5 Eat better In-season fruit & veg produce the least emissions – and the less processed the better. Buy locally produced food when you can, to support your neighbour and save food miles. Grow your own – nothing tastes like it!

6 Buy good stuff Less stuff made = less emissions = less climate change. So buy high-quality things that last, repair if possible rather than chucking, buy and sell second hand. Ignore pointless changes in fashion. And borrow your neighbour’s mower!

7 Dump less Avoid excess packaging and buying pointless stuff that goes straight in the bin. Recycle everything possible. Compost your scraps – the garden will love you!

8 Don’t waste food… The average Irish family throws away loads of food every month. So don’t buy or cook more than you need. And eat up those tasty leftovers with a smile on your face!

9 …or water Your tap water uses lots of energy – and heating it uses loads more – so take showers rather than baths, be careful watering plants and only run full dishwashers & washing machines.

10 Pass on the word! Monitor your carbon footprint (Google ‘Power of One’ to find a calculator). Persuade family and friends to join you in saving 10% in 2010. Take the 10:10 pledge. And get your parish to do the same!

For more information and to take the 10:10 pledge see http://www.1010.ie/.

Here in Nenagh, the group that followed an ecumenical Lent course on climate change last year has formed Nenagh Carbon Watchers (see http://www.nenaghcarbonwatchers.blogspot.com/). We aim both to support each other in our personal efforts to reduce emissions, and to promote transition to a sustainable life style in our local communities. As part of this, I have been monitoring my own household’s carbon emissions, and after 11 months I am confident that we will have saved around 25% of emissions with insignificant capital expenditure (that excludes the flights we have not taken).

After a false start last year, I am determined this year to invest in better home insulation and heating controls. This will not only reduce our emissions further, but by reducing heating bills provide a much better return on my money than I could get in any bank, as well as give employment to local tradespeople. And for 2011 I have my eye on one of those electric cars we are hearing about… I’ll keep you posted on how we get on!

A Celebration of our Nations

At the initiative of the Nenagh Catholic parish, Nenagh Churches Together are organising a service to celebrate the cultural diversity of our Nenagh community and its varied churches. It will include a procession of the flags of many nations, hymns, music and dance, and readings and prayers - all offered to the glory of God by people drawn from many nations and faith traditions.

The service will take place at 7.30 pm on Thursday 29th April in St Mary's of the Rosary, Church Rd, Nenagh Co Tipperary. It will be followed by refreshments in the Pastoral Centre.

All will be very welcome, from whatever nation, including Ireland!

If you are in the vicinity why not come and join us?

Wishing You Every Blessing for Easter

Going to Emmaus, Robert Zünd, 1877, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us,
while he was talking to us on the road,
while he was opening the scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32

The long road to the kingdom

This article appeared in the April 2010 edition of Newslink, the diocesan magazine of the diocese of Limerick & Killaloe

The Penitents (Los Penitentes)

Ice melting at the foot of a glacier near the south wall of Aconcagua in the Argentine Andes, the highest mountain in the Americas - the Aconcagua glaciers have reduced in area by 20% since 1955 as a result of global warming. Photo by Lucas Hirschegger.

Bravo, Paddy Anglican!

Canon Stephen Neil hit the nail on the head in his article last month when he wrote, ‘The task we face is how to reintegrate (politics, economics, religion and environmental stewardship) and create a sustainable and healthy society for all Creation’. That is a vision of the kingdom of heaven. It’s a big ask, isn’t it? But Christ announces the kingdom is coming and calls us, his followers, to build it.

The four-fold crisis we are living through – political, economic, religious and environmental – is very deep. Building the kingdom will be neither quick nor easy. We the people are confused, demoralised and angry at what has happened to us. Our leaders remain for the most part deep in denial about their responsibility for landing us in the mess. I don’t think much will change until they move beyond denial. For recovery to take place, they will surely have to make way for fresh faces that are not compromised by past misdeeds and errors and can command the respect of the people. But we the people will have to change too, because all of us bear some responsibility.

The psychology is important, I think. Human beings must pass through distinct psychological stages in order to process guilt: initial denial is followed by shame, then penitence in which hearts change, before recovery is possible. How far down this road have we travelled so far?

The Golden Circle
The tent at the Galway races is long gone, but lives on in memory as the enduring symbol of the golden circle of venal politicians, megalomaniac developers and grasping bankers. Bankers anticipating bonuses borrowed short on international markets and lent long to fund developers’ ever more grandiose projects. Both greased the palms of politicians, who in turn obliged with light touch regulation and rezoning, and bought our votes with goodies paid for from windfall stamp duties. The greed of all three worked together to inflate an asset price bubble which was bound to burst. Similar cycles of greed were at work in other countries, but few were as intense as ours. As the rest of the world begins a faltering recovery after the global crash, Ireland remains stuck in recession. Incomes continue to fall, services are being cut further, young families struggle to pay the mortgage on homes worth a fraction of what they paid, youth unemployment balloons and another lost generation emigrates. As I see it, the golden circle is the main cause of our economic woes, though most of us colluded in it.

Many developers have gone bust and lost personal fortunes. Most senior bankers have been forced to resign and one has been questioned by the Gardai. I confess to a certain guilty pleasure, what the Germans call schadenfreude. Some show signs of shame, but most not – and certainly no penitence. They scrabble to keep as much as they can of the personal fortunes they made during the bubble they engineered, even as they look to the rest of us to recapitalise their banks and buy their bad debts through NAMA.

And what of the politicians? Fianna Fáil has led coalition governments since 1997. Brian Cowan was Minister of Finance from 2004 until he became Taoiseach in 2008, presiding over the golden circle at its most manic. He and his party must bear the lion’s share of political responsibility for what has happened. Yet they are in complete denial and shamelessly cling to office – I am lost for words! But let’s not forget who voted them there – we the people did. And they cling on in hope that we will do so again.

Time for a ‘Velvet Reformation’?
As we all know, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has been in ever deepening crisis since the Murphy report was published last year. It was bad enough to learn over many years how some priests and religious abused children both sexually and physically. But the Murphy report revealed that this evil was compounded by a culture of secrecy and cover up at the highest level, which allowed the perpetrators to continue their abuse. Bishops criticised in the report tried at first to deny they had done anything wrong, though four have since resigned. In March it was revealed that Cardinal Sean Brady himself swore two abused children to secrecy 35 years ago.

Faithful Roman Catholic laity and priests are as shocked as the rest of us. They feel angry and betrayed by their leadership. Perhaps part of their anger is with themselves, because very many in their heart of hearts must know that they colluded in the evil by not shouting stop. Fr Enda McDonagh, former professor of Moral Theology at Maynooth, has proposed a 12-step recovery programme, involving laity in the process of healing the church. Pope Benedict has just issued his long awaited pastoral letter - in it he points to grave errors of judgment and failures of leadership by his brother bishops. Garry O’Sullivan the editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper has called for a ‘Velvet Reformation’ in which the entire hierarchy is replaced.

It is too early to know how all this will play out, but it does appear that the outrage of laity and lower clergy is forcing the hierarchy out of denial to admit shame for the damaging culture they presided over. It is a good sign, but time will tell whether they can move on to true penitence, a prerequisite for renewal, which will probably require wholesale changes in personnel and a shift of power from clergy to laity.

We Anglicans may feel tempted to thank God that we are not like them. But that would be to behave like the Pharisee who thanked God publicly that he was not like other men – Jesus you will remember preferred the private contrition of the humble publican. We should remember that there are skeletons in our cupboard too, and that many of us used the excuse that it was none of our business to keep silence when we heard rumours of what was happening. Rather we should show solidarity and come to the aid of faithful Roman Catholics in ecumenical prayer as they struggle to reform their church.

Who is responsible for Global Warming?
The fourth part of the crisis is the failure of environmental stewardship. Its most dangerous symptom is global warming, largely caused by increasing emissions of green house gases from burning fossil fuels, destroying forests, and intensifying farming. To reverse it will require coordinated action by people in every country.

Global leaders meeting in Copenhagen last December disappointingly failed to reach the international agreements that are necessary. Despite its fine words our government has also failed to hold back Irish emissions as it promised, among the highest in the world per capita.

Perhaps the main reason for these failures is that responsibility for emissions does not lie so much with governments as with the personal choices and decisions of countless individuals around the world, particularly those in rich countries – people like you and me. Very many of us remain in obstinate denial that there is a problem at all. Even those of us who admit that there is a problem do not yet feel real shame for our bad choices and decisions. Until we do we will be denied the gift of penitence, ‘to live simply that others may simply live’.

The road to the Kingdom will be long and we have barely started down it.

Spring watch - frog spawn

Common frog (Rana temporaria) with spawn

Yesterday, St Patrick's day, the sun smiled on Susannah and me, as we proudly wore shamrock to church, and later were feasted by a kind friend Mary in honour of Clodagh's birthday! So many people around the world slap shamrock on everything in sight before celebrating Irishness in a wild binge to 'drown' it. It's quite extraordinary really - but I wonder how many recall the significance of that small trefoil leaf: used by Patrick as a metaphor for the Trinity - three leaflets in one leaf symbolising three persons in one God.

I searched the wild flower meadow for wild shamrock, but could find none due to the exceptionally cold and late season. However Susannah brought some from the greengrocer in a small pot - at least it was Irish grown, no doubt in some poly-tunnel, not imported from the Netherlands as it so often is. The cold, late season also means it is far too early to plant the potatoes which are chitting in the greenhouse - 1st early Duke of York, 2nd early Charlotte and main-crop Pink Fir Apple.

However, at long last the daffodils in the Labyrinth are pushing up their flowering heads -they came as volunteers with topsoil when the extension was built, so are scattered in pleasing natural clumps.

And yesterday the first frog-spawn appeared in the pond on the patio - now that's a real sign of Spring! I neglected the pond last year, so it was frightfully overgrown. But the sight of the spawn galvinised me into action to clear out the surplus pond weeds. I carefully left the spawn on one side and put it back afterwards - I trust I have not damaged it - and this morning another mass had appeared.

A View from the Pew – Life is stirring

View from the Pew is a column I write for Newslink, the diocesan magazine for Limerick & Killaloe - this peice appeared in the March 2010 edition.

Pussy willow bravely blooming

What a hard winter we’ve had of it!
First the floods in November, then the snow around Christmas, followed by the hardest frosts for many years.

The Shannon froze. It brought to mind my mother’s story of how as a teenager in the early 1930s, she and her friends walked across Lough Derg on the ice from the Tipperary to the Galway shore, dragging a small boat in case the ice cracked. Mistakenly I had thought I would never see such a thing myself because of global warming – but that confuses weather with climate. Weather is naturally variable, and even as the planet warms we can expect occasional cold snaps, though they may be rarer. Climate is about long timescales and wide areas. As we froze in Ireland, temperatures in the arctic were up to 7°C above normal this winter. Don’t be misled by the cold winter – climate change is continuing and real.

It was heartening to see how people rallied round to help their neighbours devastated by the floods and struggling in the cold. I was impressed how the IFA organised distribution of fodder donated by farmers with a surplus to those who had lost theirs. And we should all feel inspired by the generosity and enterprise of the children of St Michael’s National School, Limerick, who raised over €500 to give toys at Christmas to children who had lost theirs when they were flooded out of their homes, as reported in Newslink last month.

In the garden the frost has killed many tender plants, and I fear for a lot of others. The Chilean Puyas which survived several winters outside are all gone, as is a Cordyline. Two Olearias are looking very sick. And I have attended far too many funerals of old friends recently. Most were occasions to celebrate long lives well lived, but the death of a contemporary reminds me of my own mortality.

New life is stirring.
But now life is stirring again as the days lengthen and winter gives way to another spring. The flowering willow is covered with silver pussies, snowdrops are blooming their socks off, the first crocuses are struggling through over-long grass, and the hellebores are about to burst. The buds on Forsythia and winter cherry are swelling, and the catkins are lengthening on the cobnuts. The birds too are starting to think about making babies – I have just been watching from my window two hen blackbirds trying to chase each other away from a rather bemused looking cock. And a farming neighbour who looked ready to drop in the pew confided that he had barely slept for a week because he was up all night calving!

Is it just me who detects new life stirring in our diocese too? I hope not. These are just some of the things that I have noticed recently:

• The buoyant mood of the hundreds of people who made the pilgrimage from all corners of the diocese to Limerick for Celebrate Together in November. Something new happens when we move out of our own small parishes to come together.


• The mixture of fun and serious purpose in the largely lay group that Vicki Lynch brought together to attend the NOSTRA public lectures at Mary I. It was eye-opening to meet so many others who also yearn to talk about their faith and its implication for mission, to discover we are not alone.


• The new training programmes designed to equip lay people for ministry, as parish and diocesan readers and in pastoral and youth work, and the moves toward a ‘fellowship of vocation’. They promise to release the gifts of those who take them up for Christian service.

There are stirrings too in other churches. For all the disillusionment over clerical abuse, increasing numbers of Roman Catholic lay men and women are seeking pastoral and theological training – and they are pressing for a greater lay involvement in their parishes. New churches and worship communities are springing up as well. In my parish, for instance, there is the Nenagh Baptist Group, a new church plant which particularly welcomes the unchurched and young families, and Living Water, an interdenominational charismatic group, holding joyous monthly meetings of worship and prayer in a local hotel, both well worth a visit.

Where are the stirrings leading?
We know where the stirrings in the garden will lead – to burgeoning life, beautiful flowers and a bountiful future harvest.

It is less clear where the stirrings in the church are leading, but I feel sure the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing. Perhaps this Lent we should all ponder where the Spirit is leading us, both as the church and individually, and listen prayerfully for the Spirit to guide our responses.

Here are my own tentative first thoughts:

• We should not be afraid of new life stirring, but rather seek to nourish it. It springs from within our tradition, like a shoot sprouting from a rootstock, drawing strength from the faithful witness and unsung service of so many Church of Ireland people over the years. Let us see it as a harbinger of exciting renewal, not frightening change.


• Similar stirrings are at work in other churches, as I found when I sought out and talked to Christians of other traditions. Most long to share Christian witness, prayer and service with others, just as we do. This suggests to me that the Spirit is leading our different denominations to walk together, recognising each other as fellow disciples of Jesus, who unites us in our diversity. Let us cultivate ecumenical activity - perhaps through a ‘Churches Together’ group in our own locality.


• In all our churches, ordinary lay men and women both feel a call to play a more active role and are responding to it. The old model of full-time professional clergy dispensing ministry to laity who passively consume it can no longer be sustained. With fewer vocations, limited finances and ever larger parish unions, clergy are overworked and risk burnout. In an age of mass higher education and democracy lay people recognise that they also are gifted for ministry and seek to exercise their gifts. It is now generally recognised that all Christians are called to serve in a multitude of different ways – the clergy’s role is to equip them to do so. Let us make a reality of passionate all-member ministry.


• We are most likely to discern where the Spirit is leading by sharing our own thoughts with others and testing them in discussion. Let us unleash the power of the Spirit by contributing to the debate.

What do you think? If you agree or disagree, or feel moved to contribute to the debate, why not share your thoughts in a letter to Madam Editor?