Today we celebrate the last feast of the Paschal Cycle, the final reverberating chords of the liturgical season we began with Septuagesima on February 4. We began the Lenten discipline five months ago to prepare for Easter Sunday, then through paschaltide to Ascension Thursday, Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday and finally to Corpus Christi last week. Two feasts cap all these mysteries, and they are really quite simple: the Sacred Heart of Jesus (yesterday) and the Immaculate Heart of Mary (today). The entire 150-day Lent-Easter-Pentecost season leads us to the simple conviction that … God loves us with heartfelt affection.
I’m in Ireland on sabbatical, with lots of time to pray and think, a stack of books to read, and two books to write. Why Ireland? Because a friend of mine had an empty farmhouse which he has generously put at my disposal. It’s always been my dream to spend a few months in a cottage outside a small European village. Some dreams actually come true…. my “cottage” is actually a modern farmhouse with large picture windows looking out on breezy fields, mooing cows, singing birds, daily sun and showers, and lots of Irish green. There’s plenty of room to roam on this island, and I’ve got my quick red bike for daily rides on narrow winding roads above which tower lush green hedgerows. Driving in rural Ireland can be a bit nerve-wracking, particularly when a monster tractor, huge milk truck or racing red sport car appears around a bend (one of my Irish parishioners in San Francisco absolutely forbade me to ride my bike “on those terrible roads”). I’m being careful.
The charming byways and cute farmhouses are not the best part of Ireland, however. The best thing about the Irish, still, are their great hearts. Even when they argue vehemently about some point of politics or religion, they keep a twinkle in their eye. The Irish communicate a subtle irony, a tiny grin just beneath the stoutest red beard and a chuckle beneath even the strongest conversation. The irony implicit in every Irish heart is that we are all only flesh and blood, but flesh and blood made in the image of God. The Irish—especially the rural Irish—assume that every man is my brother, and every woman is my mother or my daughter or my sister, and in any case we must somehow be related.
Rural Ireland is still quite Catholic. I’ve made friends with our village priest (population: 766) and am taking some of the parish Masses. Fifty people a day come to holy Mass in our little village, and churches are kept open all day for the steady stream of those who want to make a visit, light a candle, and say a prayer. More than in her religious devotions, however, Ireland demonstrates her faith in her charming and warmhearted humor. The Irish say about a pub that either it’s “crack” or it isn’t, meaning: you want to be in that pub or you don’t. “Crack” in San Francisco is a kind of white powder, but “crack” in Ireland is “heart,” a shared electricity, a social dynamism in which where people talk and laugh and banter easily. A pub is “crack” when the people can be friendly because they know they are all children of one God.
Ireland is still crack much of the time, and I would say it came from the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. St. Patrick delivered Jesus and Mary to the wild Gaels in the fourth century, and they haven’t forgotten it. Yesterday I offered the Mass of the Sacred Heart in the village church, noticing that the stained glass window just above me portrayed Jesus offering his Sacred Heart to the world. Almost every church in Ireland has the Sacred Heart somewhere, with the Immaculate Heart not far behind. After Mass we prayed the rosary to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And after the rosary, before getting back to the day’s work, everyone caught up with each other for the day. They are genuinely interested in each other!
Technology and government efficiency has replaced much of our heartfelt encounters with real people. Remember when you could actually talk with a human being at the gas station or on a phone call with your bank? There are some parts of the world that have not become so heartless, and I am most grateful to live among them for a few months.
I’m in Ireland on sabbatical, with lots of time to pray and think, a stack of books to read, and two books to write. Why Ireland? Because a friend of mine had an empty farmhouse which he has generously put at my disposal. It’s always been my dream to spend a few months in a cottage outside a small European village. Some dreams actually come true…. my “cottage” is actually a modern farmhouse with large picture windows looking out on breezy fields, mooing cows, singing birds, daily sun and showers, and lots of Irish green. There’s plenty of room to roam on this island, and I’ve got my quick red bike for daily rides on narrow winding roads above which tower lush green hedgerows. Driving in rural Ireland can be a bit nerve-wracking, particularly when a monster tractor, huge milk truck or racing red sport car appears around a bend (one of my Irish parishioners in San Francisco absolutely forbade me to ride my bike “on those terrible roads”). I’m being careful.
The charming byways and cute farmhouses are not the best part of Ireland, however. The best thing about the Irish, still, are their great hearts. Even when they argue vehemently about some point of politics or religion, they keep a twinkle in their eye. The Irish communicate a subtle irony, a tiny grin just beneath the stoutest red beard and a chuckle beneath even the strongest conversation. The irony implicit in every Irish heart is that we are all only flesh and blood, but flesh and blood made in the image of God. The Irish—especially the rural Irish—assume that every man is my brother, and every woman is my mother or my daughter or my sister, and in any case we must somehow be related.
Rural Ireland is still quite Catholic. I’ve made friends with our village priest (population: 766) and am taking some of the parish Masses. Fifty people a day come to holy Mass in our little village, and churches are kept open all day for the steady stream of those who want to make a visit, light a candle, and say a prayer. More than in her religious devotions, however, Ireland demonstrates her faith in her charming and warmhearted humor. The Irish say about a pub that either it’s “crack” or it isn’t, meaning: you want to be in that pub or you don’t. “Crack” in San Francisco is a kind of white powder, but “crack” in Ireland is “heart,” a shared electricity, a social dynamism in which where people talk and laugh and banter easily. A pub is “crack” when the people can be friendly because they know they are all children of one God.
Ireland is still crack much of the time, and I would say it came from the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. St. Patrick delivered Jesus and Mary to the wild Gaels in the fourth century, and they haven’t forgotten it. Yesterday I offered the Mass of the Sacred Heart in the village church, noticing that the stained glass window just above me portrayed Jesus offering his Sacred Heart to the world. Almost every church in Ireland has the Sacred Heart somewhere, with the Immaculate Heart not far behind. After Mass we prayed the rosary to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And after the rosary, before getting back to the day’s work, everyone caught up with each other for the day. They are genuinely interested in each other!
Technology and government efficiency has replaced much of our heartfelt encounters with real people. Remember when you could actually talk with a human being at the gas station or on a phone call with your bank? There are some parts of the world that have not become so heartless, and I am most grateful to live among them for a few months.
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