April 2020 – Issue 23 OSSORY ADULT FAITH DEVELOPMENT SharingOSSORY the life of ourTIMES Diocese - DIGITAL EDITION - APRIL 2020 OSSORY TIMES Editorial Welcome to the latest edition of the Ossory Times. inthisissue These are strange days… words on everyones' lips Editorial .................................................................. 1 as we pass. It is counter-intuitive for our humanity Pope Francis Urbi et orbi ...................................... 2 to try to stay apart - we are social beings and Querida Amazonia ............................................... 6 the Irish love to come together. But we know the Covid-19 and a New Church .............................. 9 imperative of our respecting the guidance of the Government and the medical community at this Church Matters ................................................... 10 time. We know that the power to tackle this virus is "I am with you always" ....................................... 12 in our hands - both literally and figuratively. It has When the Going Gets Tough ............................. 13 been, then, an unusual Lent. But is has been Lent! “A change is not change; it is what we do” .... 16 During these weeks we have continued to pray Launch of the Diocesan Choir ........................... 18 together, to journey together, to be Church - and thanks to innovation, and to our helping each And behold, it was very good .......................... 20 other, the message of the Gospel continues to be Shroud of Turin..................................................... 24 shared and brought to life. Learning from Experience ................................. 27 These pages of the Ossory Times then, the first Canon Law Matters ............................................ 28 only digital edition, remind us that in the hardest Apart But Not Alone ........................................... 31 of Lents we remain an Easter people. We are a The Prayer Course .............................................. 34 community of great hope and energy. We are a resurrection people and it is our unwavering Paschal Robinson ............................................... 36 belief in the power of that hope that allows us see The Ossory Council of Priests ............................. 39 clearly the shoots of promise in even the darkest Diocesan Pastoral Council ................................ 40 of days. The wonderful work of those on the Absent but Present ............................................. 41 front line: nurses, doctors, care assistants, clergy, guards, paramedics, fire departments, shop Redundancy and Recognition .......................... 42 attendants, supply chain and logistics people… Quiz Pages .......................................................... 44 and so many more who are continuing to be the kind face that we meet, the smile that we need and the hand outstretched to Laudato Sí Conference p20 us in difficult moments. These are then the face of a risen Christ in our communities prompting us with the message we need to hear. These are the voice of God reminding us that we are not apart but rather united, for now, in a new way. As always I hope you enjoy this publication. Comments, suggestions and contributions When the going gets tough p14 are most welcome for future editions. Articles or advertisements for upcoming events or of recent events, can be sent to: Rev. Dr Dermot Ryan Ossory Adult Faith Development St Kieran's College, College Road, Kilkenny Tel 056 7753624 Email [email protected] Web www.ossory.ie PAGE 1 OSSORY TIMES APRIL 2020 Pope Francis meditated on the calming of the storm from the Gospel of Mark during the prayer service over which he presided on the steps of St Peter's Basilica on Friday evening. Here is the full text. PAGE 2 APRIL 2020 OSSORY TIMES In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side. Pope Francis Urbi et orbi “When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this. It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps on soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (v. 40). PAGE 3 OSSORY TIMES APRIL 2020 Let us try to understand. In what does Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get the lack of the disciples’ faith consist, as caught up in things, and lured away by contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had haste. We did not stop at your reproach not stopped believing in him; in fact, to us, we were not shaken awake by wars they called on him. But we see how they or injustice across the world, nor did we call on him: “Teacher, do you not care listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care: planet. We carried on regardless, thinking they think that Jesus is not interested in we would stay healthy in a world that was them, does not care about them. One of sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we the things that hurts us and our families implore you: “Wake up, Lord!”. most when we hear it said is: “Do you not care about me?” It is a phrase that “Why are you afraid? Have you no wounds and unleashes storms in our faith?” Lord, you are calling to us, hearts. It would have shaken Jesus too. calling us to faith. Which is not so much Because he, more than anyone, cares believing that you exist, but coming to about us. Indeed, once they have called you and trusting in you. This Lent your call on him, he saves his disciples from their reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, discouragement. “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous You are calling on us to seize this time of certainties around which we have trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time constructed our daily schedules, our of your judgement, but of our judgement: projects, our habits and priorities. It shows a time to choose what matters and what us how we have allowed to become dull passes away, a time to separate what is and feeble the very things that nourish, necessary from what is not. It is a time to sustain and strengthen our lives and our get our lives back on track with regard to communities. The tempest lays bare all you, Lord, and to others. We can look to our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness so many exemplary companions for the of what nourishes our people’s souls; journey, who, even though fearful, have all those attempts that anesthetize us reacted by giving their lives. with ways of thinking and acting that This is the force of the Spirit poured out and supposedly “save” us, but instead prove fashioned in courageous and generous incapable of putting us in touch with self-denial. It is the life in the Spirit that our roots and keeping alive the memory can redeem, value and demonstrate of those who have gone before us. We how our lives are woven together and deprive ourselves of the antibodies we sustained by ordinary people – often need to confront adversity. forgotten people – who do not appear In this storm, the façade of those in newspaper and magazine headlines stereotypes with which we camouflaged nor on the grand catwalks of the latest our egos, always worrying about our show, but who without any doubt are image, has fallen away, uncovering once in these very days writing the decisive more that (blessed) common belonging, events of our time: doctors, nurses, of which we cannot be deprived: our supermarket employees, cleaners, belonging as brothers and sisters. caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, “Why are you afraid? Have you no religious men and women and so very faith?” Lord, your word this evening strikes many others who have understood that us and regards us, all of us. In this world, no one reaches salvation by themselves. that you love more than we do, we have In the face of so much suffering, where gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling the authentic development of our powerful and able to do anything. peoples is assessed, we experience the PAGE 4 APRIL 2020 OSSORY TIMES priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may that awaits us, to look towards those who all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people look to us, to strengthen, recognize and every day are exercising patience and foster the grace that lives within us.