The road to the altar

A particular town in Northern Ireland has made international headlines, once again, for all the wrong reasons. Two communities remain locked in a standoff along a road leading from a church on the hill.  Gathered early in the morning for a service of prayer a group of men wished to assert their cultural rights to walk along the King’s highway. Another community living down the road objected because of the historical associations between triumphalism and subjugation of a minority.  They will not budge.

My sense is that only a return to humility, repentance, obedience and reconciliation can bring a lasting peace. Let Christ’s words be said out loud:

Silence and listening

How might our parish churches look like in 2050 #6

It seems to me that people hunger, thirst, and cry out inwardly simply to be heard — by someone, anyone, at some moment, in some way. A lack of opportunity, space, or means to be listened to lies at the heart of many personal and societal wounds. We carry so much within us, and often we do not even know the half of it.

The forgotten sacrament

 [This is the Memorial of St Oscar Romero is today. See The grain of wheat: the martyrdom of St Oscar Romero]

How our parish churches might look like in 2050 #7

A casual look at an old missal from my home parish in Dublin got me thinking.  It dates from the early 1980s and was published in the 1970s.  In the parish schedule printed inside the cover, it gives Mass and confession times.  In addition to confessions during masses on Saturday morning as well as on the evenings of the first Friday, a total of 3 hours put aside for the hearing of private confessions in that parish each and every Saturday - an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening.  At that time, three priests served a parish of very roughly 5,000 Roman Catholics.  Today, one priest serves a bigger population.