Forthcoming events

• Brian Grogan SJ and Phyllis Brady are facilitating workshops for the archdiocese of Armagh this week. The workshops, which will take place in Dromantine, are to help with issues of collaboration among parishes which are being clustered for greater efficiency.
• There are still a few places left on the Deepening Faith and Prayer course, which begins on Friday, 18 September. Involving six residential weekends, this course is designed particularly for lay people, and offers opportunities for participants to develop enriching ways of praying the Scriptures, to deepen their faith and to learn to recognize the presence of God in their lives. Directors of the programme will be Fr. Brendan Comerford, S.J., and Ms. Alacoque O’Reilly. Further information can be had on the Manresa website or by telephoning (01) 8331352.

Jesuits teaching the teachers

It is 100 years since Tim Corcoran SJ was appointed the first professor of education in UCD. Speaking at the launch of the centenary celebrations last May, Prof. Sheelagh Drudy noted the pioneering work done by Fr Corcoran (both pictured here).  “He began the important work of professionalising teacher education in Ireland,” she remarked; “and he developed education in UCD within a very short time as a full, genuine university discipline with a profile of programmes bearing a similarity to that in university schools of education today.” The Jesuits have had strong links with the school of education up to recent times, when David Tuohy lectured there. Below Paul Andrews SJ, who taught there in the 1970s, offers a personal reflection on the Education School’s centenary. Read more »

JRS receives funding for African schools

The Jesuit Refugee Service is to receive nearly €250,000 from the Irish Ministry for Overseas Development, it was announced recently. The Minister of State, Peter Power, recently made the funding available for the building of schools for children displaced by conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR). Read the JRS press release below. Last year the CAR was placed on the UN Peacebuilding Commission agenda, which aims to help countries emerging from conflict to avoid falling back into war or chaos. This is indicative of the very unstable nature of the country’s politics, especially due to rebel resistance to the government and a heavy-handed response from the military. The JRS is one of the few organisations working in the areas controlled by the rebels. For a full press release, read more below. Read more »

Short Notices

• Writing in the Irish Catholic, Mags Gargan captured some of the qualities that make 82-year-old Freddie Deignan (pictured here), one of the most loved and admired Jesuits in Hong Kong, where he has served as teacher, football coach, School Principal, chaplain, and now superior of Hong Kong and Macao. He also played soccer in the Hong Kong premier division.
• Joe Mallin, on leave from Hong Kong, spent his 96th summer in a whirlwind of renewed acquaintances and media exposure. He visited the prison cell in Kilmainham where as a 2-year-old he said goodbye to his father who was awaiting execution. Joe requested. and was given, the chance to spend an hour on his own there, in meditation and memory. He reminded the guide to expect him back in 2016 for the Easter Week centenary.
• Fergus O’Donoghue provoked a flurry of press interest with a blog about the murderous knifing of two young people in Bray. The national papers quoted from his comments, and there were many responses on line, ranging predictably from support to hostility. Fergus reflected in a follow-up blog: “Most reactions to earlier postings on this blog have been negative.  Two points have been missed: we do have the right to condemn actions as evil, but not persons.  Mental illness explains those actions, but it does not excuse them.”
• Some of the preparation for the Manresa tertianship is being carried on in the communities of the province, where prospective tertians are improving their English. Eudson Ramos (Brazil) is staying in Galway, while Leeson Street has welcomed South Polish Bogdan Dlugosz, and Slovakians Leopold Slaninka  and Branislav Beniac.

Manresa hosts Kenyan orphans

For the second year running, Manresa has played host this summer to a group of HIV-positive orphans from Kenya. Sixteen children between the ages of 12 and 17 spent a fortnight in the European Tertianship building and were able to enjoy a wide range of activities during their stay, including boat trips, a visit to the climbing wall in Trinity College, canoeing, and a trip to Funtasia. They even got to see Riverdance in the Gaiety Theatre. These children are some of the more-than-100 orphans looked after in Nyumbani, a home for abandoned HIV-positive orphans just outside Nairobi which was founded by Fr Angelo D’Agostino SJ in 1992. The Irish contribution to this work is thanks to Dermot and Geraldine Martin, who adopted an orphan, Jessica, in 2000 and later set up Kenya Orphan Aid Ltd.

Return of the Lisbon Treaty

In the first of a series of podcasts, Edmond Grace SJ argues earnestly that the Irish ought to vote Yes to Lisbon in the upcoming referendum. To vote against the treaty, in Edmond’s assessment, would be to have recourse to a narrow isolationism that sends out the wrong message to our European neighbours: “We cannot trust you, we cannot trust your governments, and we want you to leave us alone”. “Every nation stumbles into history half-formed,” he says, “and already bound up with the stories of its neighbours.” The Irish can do much more good by contributing to the welfare of fellow-European nations than by separating itself from them. Click on the ‘Read more’ for a link to the audio file. Read more »

Messenger serves An Timire

The Sacred Heart Messenger is now providing a full design and print management solution for An Timire. The two magazines have just completed their first collaborative project, a prayer book for schools called ‘Sli chun De’ (cover image attached) which will be dispatched in time for the September return to school. September will also see the Messenger team working together with Fionnuala and Alan of An Timire on a new look for the magazine, which will be ready for the forthcoming autumn edition. From then on An Timire will be designed by, and all print requirements managed by, the Messenger.  If you need further details on the prayer book for schools itself, Fionnuala would be the best person to talk to as all editorial responsibility still lies with Timire.

Pulling up the boats

At the end of August many Irish Jesuits are like St Peter, drawing up their boats on the shore and leaving the lakes (this one is Currane in Kerry) and the summer’s activities, to find what the Lord is calling them to. The summer’s activities were not without casualties. Liam O’Connell fell sick in his Californian parish, but found his way home, expecting an operation. At the last minute the surgeon decided against cutting, and Liam is back in Limerick recovering well. Gerry Bourke also fell sick in his Long Island (USA) parish and was briefly hospitalised there. Edmond Grace explored an austere spirituality in a retreat in the red mountains of Utah (USA).

JESUITICA: Père Lachaise

One of Europe’s best known cemeteries takes its name from Père François de la Chaise SJ (1624-1709), confessor to Louis XIV, who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt in 1682 on the site of a chapel on the outskirts of Paris. Napoleon I established the cemetery there  in 1804. The administrators marketed it by moving there the remains of Moliere and La Fontaine, Abelard and Eloise, who were joined by many other literary and political (especially left-wing) corpses, and some 300,00 others. It has become a place of pilgrimage and protest for the Lovelorn (recalling Abelard) and Lefties.

CÓIR and Caravaggio

When CÓIR, an organisation claiming Catholic credentials, issued a leaflet urging rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, it used a reproduction of Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ to illustrate the theme of betrayal. Noel Barber represents the Society in dealings about the Caravaggio, which belongs to the Jesuits, while on loan to the National Gallery. Noel asked CÓIR to cease issuing the flyer with the reproduction of the Caravaggio. This would require Jesuit permission, and our policy is not to give permission to use the painting for contentious matters. When no reply came within the time stipulated, Noel instructed his solicitor Mr. John O’Connor, who wrote to CÓIR in strong legal language. CÓIR apologised, and guaranteed that they would not use the image.

Fast girls on water

Zoe Mannion and Aifric Keogh of Coláiste Iognáid won the silver medal in the women’s junior pair on Sunday, August 2, finishing second to Britain, who won the event overall. The Ireland pair, rowing as Coláiste Iognáid, won the silver at the Coupe de la Jeunesse at Vichy in France over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The Coupe is a 12-nation European Championship for junior athletes. In addition, the Jes pair had won the junior title at the National Championships three weeks beforehand. In total, Ireland brought home two medals, a silver and a bronze, from the French competition, the bronze medal coming in the junior men’s quadruple scull. See Irish Times article here and RTE report here.

Fast girls on land

Crescent Comprehensive College’s  junior girls 4 x 100 meters relay team  were in devastating form at the All Ireland schools Athletics meet in Tullamore. They lifted the  gold medal for the girls  4 x 100 meters junior relay. The team (pictured here)  powered home in emphatic style, achieving a personal best time. Lilly O’Hara speaking on behalf of the relay team said “We’re all absolutely delighted. The victory is the result of a lot of hard work and constant training , We sacrificed a lot and it has been worth it to be All Ireland Champions. Hopefully this relay team will stay together and go on to win more All Ireland gold medals.”

Short Notices

• Two thousand of Fr Frank Browne’s photographs formed the basis of a highly recommended TV programme shown on RTE on 10 August: “Day before yesterday: Birth of a Nation”. Take a bow, Eddie O’Donnell SJ, as the custodian and tireless editor of this treasury of pictures. The programme can be viewed on the RTE website until August 31.
• H2O News report on a 60-minute movie in Italian to mark next year’s fourth centennial anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci SJ. The movie was sponsored by the Society of Jesus and the Italian diocese of Macerata, the birthplace of the pioneering Jesuit missionary.