Short notices

• Joe Duffy’s Spirit Level on RTE on 7 February included a feature about Fr Joe Mallin SJ, the 94-year-old Irish Jesuit who is the son of Michael Mallin, one of the executed rebels in 1916. It showed Fr Joe walking around Kilmainham Gaol and the Garden of Remembrance as he reflected on his father’s life and faith – particularly his remark in his final letter from prison: “Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can”.
• At the Six Nations rugby match between Ireland and Italy, the Irish side could boast six Jesuit alumni: Gordon D’Arcy and Rob Kearney (Clongowes); David Wallace and Eoin Reddan (The Crescent); Kevin McLaughlin (Gonzaga); and Cian Healy (Belvedere). Is this a record?
• A new documentary film by Jim Davis (Cineworld, 21 February, 3.30pm) will shine a searchlight on a controversial moment in recent Dublin history. In early 1982, residents of Hardwicke Street (part of Gardiner St parish) called a meeting to address the epidemic of heroin use in the flats and soon had formed a group known as Concerned Parents against Drugs. Using film, newspaper and photographic archives, Davis’s film reconstructs their rise and fall.

‘Messenger’ in pink!

For the first time in The Messenger’s 121 year history its iconic red cover has been transposed to a flush of pink  because The Messenger magazine has taken the lead in supporting Action Breast Cancer during the month of October. To mark Breast Cancer Awareness month  the magazine  will  be donating 10% from all new postal subscriptions taken out in the month of October, to the charity  Action Breast Cancer. Editor Editor John Looby, S.J.,says they did not take the decision to change the colour lightly but “The Messenger receives thousands of letters every month and many of those letters leave us in no doubt about the prevalence of cancer and in particular breast cancer in Ireland. So we wanted to signal our concern and show our readiness to help.” The special pink October edition has a feature article by Carita Kerr entitled “Me and My Cancer: A Personal Journey.”

Ignatian Lutherans

Johannesgarden is a retreat centre outside Gothenburg. It was originally run by Sacred Heart Sisters from Germany but is now in the care of the Swedish Catholic diocesan authorities. Each year members of Kompass – an ecumenical ignatian association in Sweden – gather there for an eight-day directed retreat. Almost all are Lutheran priests who live Ignatian spirituality and incorporate it in their ministries. Brian O’Leary recently returned from leading this year’s retreat in which he had a Scottish and a German sister as co-directors. This is the third such retreat in which Brian has been involved. This Swedish ecumenical interest in Ignatius reaches further, as you can read below. Read more »

Short Notices

• Sacred Space welcomes Richard McCarthy (pictured here), a Tralee man married to a Brazilian, who has joined Piaras Jackson SJ and Patrick Muldoon as the team’s web developer, after experience of website work in finance and in business settings in Dublin.
• Gonzaga’s rugby footballers notched up a real achievement by reaching the Junior B league final for the first time in the school’s history, only to be beaten by Blackrock College.
• Fr. Richard O’Donovan OMI, the brother of Fr. Jack Donovan SJ, has compiled a book of Jack’s life.  In Loving Memory traces Jack’s 77 years – from brith in Co Galway in 1931 to his requiem Mass at St. Margaret’s Church in Canning Town last October – and contains a generous selection of photographs and tributes, not least from the Filipino community to whom Jack ministered.
• OCIPE, the Conference of European Provincials, has prepared a  memorandum in view of the forthcoming European elections. It focuses briefly on certain themes that deserve voters’ particular attention. You can view the document as a PDF here. 

The Novena at SFX

The Novena of Grace, March 4-12 each year, in honour of St Francis Xavier, still attracts.  Up to 1,900 people attended three daily sessions in Gardiner St church.  The numbers attending the 5.30 and 7.30 sessions were higher than before with a greater sprinkling of young people. Some were on their first novena, others on their eighty-fifth!  Mostly a north city event, and now on its 298th consecutive year in inner-city Dublin, people came also from other parts of Dublin and  Ireland. The preacher, John Guiney SJ of the Mission Office, spoke simply and sincerely of St Francis Xavier and of Africa and linked much of this to both his own life and life today. Music with organists and cantors enhanced the ceremony; and an attempt was made to introduce some new music, especially at the evening sessions. The novena combines the best of traditional format with contemporary content. Read more »

Surviving the sledgehammer

The Irish Times, in a feature article to mark World Glaucoma Day, told the story of Martin Murphy, SJ, who lives such an active life in Gardiner Street that few people would realise what he has coped with. It is a dramatic story.  He spoke of how he first became aware of a problem in his eye when he was working in Tanzania. He was diagnosed with open-angle glaucoma, and surgery was required immediately. Years later, back in Ireland, his eyesight had disimproved enough for him to be placed on the blind register. The psychological blow was tremendous. “It was like a sledgehammer,” he says. And yet, as his account below shows, he has not been beaten by his affliction.

Read more »

A saint in the making

Over five hundred people attended the annual mass of thanksgiving and prayer for the canonisation of  Fr John Sullivan SJ in Gardiner St Church on Saturday 21 February. Fr Tom Morrissey SJ gave a  fascinating account of the life of the Jesuit whom many people believe is a saint. He spoke of  Fr John Sullivan’s love of the poor, his life of prayer and fasting, and his care of the sick. He recounted how the nephew of Michael Collins, as a child, had a miraculous cure from polio after Fr Sullivan prayed with him in hospital. Fr Conor Harper SJ was the main celebrant and  is also the vice-postulator for the canonisation cause. Fr Tom Morrissey’s biography of this rare man will be launched in April. A special John Sullivan mass is celebrated in Gardiner St church at 1am on the third Saturday of every month.

Why China?

Last week’s AMDG Express anticipated a visit to Belvedere by the Chinese Ambassador, to celebrate a student exchange programme with Jesuit schools in China. Why China? There are three major Province priorities following the 35th General Congregation: to find a language for faith in dialogue with secularism; to help young people find God in their lives; and to make the Gospel message credible through our action for justice. Essentially we are called to go and spread the good news of the Gospel. Given the college involvement in the frontiers in its local community through the Vincent de Paul, Boys and Girls’ Youth Club and the Belvedere Social Services with Fr. Peter Mc Verry SJ, in Calcutta and in Africa, one might wonder why China featured as the next frontier. There are good reasons – read them below. Read more »

Young Scientists

What do young scientists look like? Here is a sample from this year’s exhibition in the RDS. Clongowes is proud of Henry Glass (pictured here with Taoiseach Brian Cowen), whose individual project won the runner-up overall prize for the second year running.  A young Gonzagan won the Science Foundation award, and four of his colleagues were highly commended. Thomas Breen from First Year in Belvedere took second place in the Junior Technology section, and two other Belvederian groups stirred much interest with their projects. For a fuller picture of the work from all three schools, read more below. Read more »

Sartre in Bethlehem

55 years ago a Jesuit fellow-student in Munich gave Paul Andrews a remarkable typescript: Christmas writing from an unexpected source. In the autumn of 1940 the Nazis captured and deported Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher and playwright, to a labour camp in Germany. Before Christmas Paul Feller, a Jesuit fellow-prisoner, persuaded Jean-Paul to write a nativity play for the French Christians who shared his captivity. Sartre, baptised a Catholic, was by this time a declared atheist, but as a gesture of solidarity with his French fellow-prisoners, he wrote Barjona, Jeu scénique en six tableaux. A narrator describes the scene in the stable at Bethlehem: this is how Sartre sees Mary (translation by Paul): Read more »

Short notices

• An Inter-Institutional Centre for Spirituality and Social Transformation has been launched in Waterford Institute of Technology, through the participation (pictured here) of Michael O’Sullivan SJ (Milltown Institute), Sister Bernadette Flanagan (All Hallows) and Michael Howlett (Waterford IT).
• The current Irish Catholic reports how ChurchServices.tv, part of CatholicIreland.net, is broadcasting Masses live to a growing audience, including some beleaguered Christians in Kenya. The site is an offshoot of Sacred Space, “The fire that lights other fires”.
• On 20 December, 3 to 5 p.m., girls and boys (with parent/adult supervision) are invited to join the Manresa Team, together with Mr. Paul McGuire (Belgrove Junior Boys School, Clontarf), for an afternoon of carol singing and reflection on the meaning of Christmas, followed by a little party at Manresa, 426 Clontarf Road.
• Noelle Fitzpatrick and Padraig Swan of Sli Eile Jesuit Centre for Young Adults were interviewed on Tuesday Dec 16th, on the Mooney Goes Wild programme on RTE Radio One. They spoke about their weekend pilgrimage in the Midlands without food or money and you can listen to the interview here.

Enriching the JCFJ

Patrick J Hume SJ has joined the team of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. Patrick, who is a qualified solicitor, will lead a new and exciting project at the Centre. He will undertake research and reflection focused on exclusion from law and legal services. Why devote skilled energies to this? In the following paragraphs provided by the JCFJ, the rationale behind this project is elaborated. Read more »

In the news

The media this week have covered at least three Jesuit items besides Tony O’Riordan’s advocacy of female offenders, detailed above. The Irish Catholic featured John Dardis’s tribute to the two Jesuits murdered in Moscow. The Enniscorthy Echo listened to Elizabeth Foley alerting congregations to the continuing vitality of the Sacred Heart Messenger – Elizabeth is on its marketing staff. Finally Belvedere’s commemoration of the 1918 Armistice was noticed not just by RTE’s coverage of the Mass on 9 November, but by radio host Pat Kenny, who welcomed Oliver Murphy and two of his Transition Year students to his radio programme on Armistice Day.