TITANIC HERO

This video tells the incredible true story of John Harper

 one of many who were lost in the Titanic sinking in 1912...

MANDELA'S FAITH

Nelson Mandela 1918 ~ 2013

In the afttermath of the death of Nelson Mandela many tributes have been paid to the man who inspired the fight against apartheid in his home country of South Africa. A lesser known aspect of his life was his Christian faith. This is part of an address he gave at the Easter Conference of the Zionist Christian Church in April, 1994.
 

OUR MESSIAH

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death.

Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope!

Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood!

Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News!

The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!

Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave.

Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality.

Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross.

Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others.

Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others.

Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.” 

Nelson Mandela

LUTHER'S TABLE TALK

In 1517, Martin Luther's 95 Theses sparked the Protestant Reformation by challenging the practices of the Roman Catholic Church and the authority of the pope. Many of Luther's books were ordered to be burned as a result of Luther's dissent. Despite this fact, a copy of Martin Luther's Table Talk (then entitled Divine Discourses) was found preserved under the foundations of a German citizen's home in 1626. Table Talk contains a series of informal conversations Luther shared with his students and colleagues in his home. The topics of these conversations range from religious doctrine and history to instructions regarding government, church, and the academic university. Throughout this text, Luther presents his beliefs boldly, and at times, his opinions may seem extremely biased. While the ethical implications of Luther's views are highly debated, Table Talk provides an uncensored look at Luther's influential ideas.

BOOK OF BOOKS

 

That the Bible is God’s Word and book I prove thus: All things that have been, and are, in the world, and the manner of their being, are described in the first book of Moses on the creation; even as God made and shaped the world, so does it stand to this day. Infinite potentates have raged against this book, and sought to destroy and uproot it—king Alexander the Great, the princes of Egypt and of Babylon, the monarchs of Persia, of Greece, and of Rome, the emperors Julius and Augustus—but they nothing prevailed; they are all gone and vanished, while the book remains, and will remain for ever and ever, perfect and entire, as it was declared at first.

 Who has thus helped it—who has thus protected it against such mighty forces? No one, surely, but God himself, who is the master of all things. And `tis no small miracle how God has so long preserved and protected this book; for the devil and the world are sore foes to it. I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting...  God, with singular strength, has upheld these things; let us, then, baptize, administer the sacrament, and preach, fearless of impediment.

 Homer, Virgil, and other noble, fine, and profitable writers, have left us books of great antiquity, but they are naught to the Bible.

APOSTLE TO IRELAND

 THE REAL PATRICK

 From all that can be learned of him (Patrick), there never was a nobler Christian missionary.... He went to Ireland from love to Christ, and love to the souls of men.... Strange that a people who owed Rome nothing in connection with their conversion to Christ, and who long struggled against her pretensions, should be now ranked among her most devoted adherents.

THE heroic figure of Patrick, taken captive as a boy into slavery, stands out as a creator of civilization. He was not only an architect of European society and the father of Irish Christianity, but he raised up a standard against spiritual wolves entering the fold in sheep’s clothing. So much legend and fiction has been written about him that one is almost led to believe that there were two individuals — the real Patrick and the fictitious Patrick. The statement may come as a surprise to many, yet it is a fact that the actual Patrick belonged to the Church in the Wilderness. He should not be placed where certain historians seem determined to assign him. The facts presented in the following pages will no doubt be a revelation to many who, misled by wrong representations, have not realized of what church Patrick was a child and an apostle. As will be shown later, he was of that early church which was brought to Ireland from Syria. He was in no way connected with the type of Christianity which developed in Italy and which was ever at war with the church organized by Patrick.

Patrick belongs to the Celtic race, of which the Britons of England, as well as the Scotch and Irish, are a part. The vivacity of the Celtic temperament is equaled by noble courage under danger and by a deep love for learning. The Celts, like the Germans, possess a profound religious fervor which makes them devoted to the faith of their choice. This race once extended all the way from Scythia to Ireland. The Celts are descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah, from whom they obtained through the centuries the name of the Cimmerians. In fact, the Welsh today call themselves Cymry.

Three countries, Britain, Ireland, and France, are claimed by different writers to be the fatherland of Patrick. The weight of evidence plainly indicates that his birthplace was in that kingdom of Strathclyde, inhabited and controlled by the ancient Britons, which lay immediately northwest of England. Rome had divided the island into five provinces, and, in addition, recognized the Strathclyde kingdom. It was then customary to speak of these divisions as “the Britains.” To ten of the superior cities of these Britains, the Roman senate had extended the fight of citizenship. As his parents resided in one of these ten cities, Patrick in all probability, like Paul, was born a Roman citizen. He was born about A.D. 360.

Fortunately, two of Patrick’s writings, his Confession and the Letter against Coroticus, a near-by British king, survive and may be found readily. In the Letter Patrick tells how he surrendered his high privileges to become a slave for Christ. Of his faith and his dedication to God, he says:

"I was a free man according to the flesh. I was born of a father who was a decurion. For I sold my nobility for the good of others, and I do not blush or grieve about it. Finally, I am a servant in Christ delivered to a foreign nation on account of the unspeakable glory of an everlasting life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Of the two writings, namely, the Confession, and the Letter, Sir William Betham writes:

"In them will be found no arrogant presumption, no spiritual pride, no pretension to superior sanctity, no maledictions of magi, or rivers, because his followers were drowned in them, no veneration for, or adoration of, relics, no consecrated staffs, or donations of his teeth for relics, which occur so frequently in the lives and also in the collections of Tirechan, referring to Palladius, not to Patrick.”

At the age of sixteen, Patrick was carried captive to Ireland by freebooters who evidently had sailed up the Clyde River or landed on the near-by coast. Of this he writes in this Confession:

I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and least of all the faithful, and most contemptible to great numbers, had Calpurnius for my father, a deacon, son of the late Potitus, the presbyter, who dwelt in the village of Banavan, Tiberniae, for he had a small farm at hand with the place where I was captured. I was then almost sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God; and was taken to Ireland in captivity with many thousand men in accordance with our deserts, because we walked at a distance from God and did not observe His commandments.”

It can be noticed in this statement that the grandfather of Patrick was a presbyter, which indicated that he held an office in the church equal to that of bishop in the papal meaning of the term. This is one of the many proofs that celibacy was not an obligation among the early British clergy. Patrick’s father was a deacon in the church, a town counselor, a farmer, and a husband. To the glory of God, it came to pass that, during his seven years of slavery in Ireland, Patrick acquired the Irish form of the Celtic language. This was of great value, because the fierce fighting disposition of the pagan Irish, at that time was a barrier to the Romans’ or Britons’ attempting missionary work across the channel on a large scale. However, many of those previously carried off into captivity must have been Christians who engaged themselves so earnestly in converting their captors that considerable Christianity was found in Ireland when, after his escape, Patrick dared to return to evangelize the island.

It will be further noted in the quotation above that he was taken into “captivity with many thousand men.” The seagoing craft used in those days along the coasts of Ireland, called “coracles,” were small vessels made by covering a wicker frame with hide or leather. The problem involved in transporting many thousands of captives by means of such small boats indicates that the raid must have been made on a near-by coast, which is further testimony that his fatherland was “the Britains.”

Patrick, like his Master of Galilee, was to learn obedience through suffering. A great task awaited him. The apostolic church had won a comparatively easy victory in her struggle with a pagan world for three centuries. But an almost impossible task awaited her when a compromising Christianity, enforcing its doctrines at the point of the sword, had become the state religion of the Roman Empire. It was an hour when a new line of leaders was needed. As the struggle of free churches to live their lives without the domination of a state clergy began, God was training Patrick.

While considering the early life of this Christian leader, it is most interesting to note what was happening in contemporary history. Vigilantius was doing his work in southern France and in northern Italy, or among the Latin peoples. Shortly before Patrick’s time the empire at Constantinople had been under the rule of Constantine II, who recoiled from accepting the extreme views on the Godhead, which had won the vote under his father, Constantine the Great, in the first Council of Nicaea. As will be related later, similar opposition to those extreme views prevailed all over Europe. Patrick’s belief was that of the opposition. Dr. Stokes writes: “The British churches of the fourth century took the keenest interest in church controversies. They opposed Arianism, but hesitated, like many others, about the use of the word ‘homoousion.’” (This word means “identity of substance.”) Thus Celtic Christianity in the years of Patrick refused to accept this test term and the conclusions to which the radical speculations were leading.

It is remarkable that in the time of Patrick, as later testimony from Alphonse Mingana will point out, there were large groups of Christians stretching all the way from the Euphrates to northwestern India. Furthermore, in 411, when Patrick was at the height of his work, the recognized head over the Church of the East at Seleucia, Persia, consecrated a metropolitan administrator for China who must have had many provincial directors under him. This indicates many Christian churches in China in that age. Ambrose reported in 396 that Musaeus, an Abyssinian church leader, had “traveled almost everywhere in the country of the Seres.” Seres was the name for the Chinese. Truly, the age in which Patrick labored saw stirring scenes throughout the world.

Both Isaac, supreme director, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, author and theologian, were powerful leaders in the great Church of the East during the period of Patrick’s ministry. The influence of the writings of Theodore in molding Oriental Christianity for centuries and his signal work in refuting the doctrines of Mithraism in the East, while Patrick was winning his victories in the West, is of importance.

Benjamin Wilkinson 

 ('Truth Triumphant')

TITANIC HERO

HIS LAST CONVERT

John Harper was born to a pair of solid Christian parents on May 29th, 1872. It was on the last Sunday of March 1886, when he was thirteen years old that he received Jesus as the Lord of his life. He began to preach about four years later at the ripe old age of 17 by going down to the streets of his village and speaking out the Gospel message to the passers by.

As John Harper's life unfolded, one thing was apparent...he was dedicated to the study of the Bible.. When asked what his doctrine was, he invariably replied, "The Word of God!" After five or six years of preaching on street corners and working in the mill during the day, Harper was taken in by Rev. E. A. Carter of the Baptist Mission in London. This allowed Harper to devote his whole time to the work so dear to his heart. Soon, he had started his own church in September of 1896. (Now known as the Harper Memorial Church.) This church which John Harper had started with just 25 members, had grown to over 500 members when he left 13 years later. During this time he had gotten married, but after just two years together his wife tragically died in childbirth, leaving John with a little girl, Nana to care for.

Ironically, John Harper almost drowned several times during his life. When he was two and a half years of age, he almost drowned when he fell into a well but was resuscitated by his mother. At the age of twenty-six, he was swept out to sea by a reverse current and barely survived, and at thirty-two he faced death on a leaking ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps, God used these experiences to prepare him for what he faced next...

John Harper with daughter, Nana

It was the night of April 14, 1912. The RMS Titanic sailed swiftly on the bitterly cold ocean waters heading unknowingly into the pages of history. On board this luxurious ocean liner were many rich and famous people. At the time of the ship's launch, it was the world's largest man-made movable object. At 11:40 p.m. on that fateful night, an iceberg scraped the ship's starboard side, showering the decks with ice and ripping open six watertight compartments. The sea poured in.

On board the ship that night was John Harper and his much-beloved six-year-old daughter Nana. He had been invited to preach at Moody Church in Chicago and was making the voyage on the ill-fated 'Titanic'. According to documented reports, as soon as it was apparent that the ship was going to sink, John Harper immediately took his daughter to a lifeboat. It is reasonable to assume that this widowed preacher could have easily gotten on board this boat to safety; however, it never seems to have crossed his mind. He bent down and kissed his precious little girl; looking into her eyes he told her that she would see him again someday. The flares going off in the dark sky above reflected the tears on his face as he turned and headed towards the crowd of desperate humanity on the sinking ocean liner.

As the rear of the huge ship began to lurch upwards, it was reported that Harper was seen making his way up the deck yelling, "Women, children and unsaved into the lifeboats!" It was only minutes later that the Titanic began to rumble deep within. Most people thought it was an explosion; actually the gargantuan ship was literally breaking in half. At this point, many people jumped off the decks and into the icy, dark waters below. John Harper was one of these people.

That night 1528 people went into the frigid waters. John Harper was seen swimming frantically to people in the water leading them to Jesus before the hypothermia became fatal. Harper swam up to one young man who had climbed up on a piece of debris asking him between breaths, "Are you saved?" The young man replied that he was not.

Harper then tried to lead him to Christ only to have the young man who was near shock, reply no. John Harper then took off his life jacket and threw it to the man and said, "Here then, you need this more than I do..." and swam away to other people. A few minutes later Harper swam back to the young man and succeeded in leading him to salvation. Of the 1528 people that went into the water that night, six were rescued by the lifeboats. One of them was this young man on the debris.

Four years later, at a survivors meeting, this young man stood up and in tears recounted how that after John Harper had led him to Christ. He recalled the moment, "With two miles of water beneath me, in my desperation I cried out to Christ to save me and I believed and was saved. I am John Harpers last convert". Harper had tried to swim back to help other people,yet because of the intense cold, had grown too weak to swim. His last words before going under in the frigid waters were, "Believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." Does Hollywood remember this man? No. Oh well, no matter. This servant of God did what he had to do. While other people were trying to buy their way onto the lifeboats and selfishly trying to save their own lives, John Harper gave up his life so that others could be saved.

VISITING KILQUANE

A GRAVESIDE REVELRY

Not being sound of limb brings with it some unexpected advantages ,as I have discovered nursing a shoulder injury over the past four weeks. When the old injury (originally incurred in a mad fit when I insisted on using the rotovator on my garden…ouch, I still remember the tearing ache) returned to this ailing old frame of mine, it came with a piercing vengeance invading my left shoulder and arm with excruciating pain. And the action that turns this pain storm into a full blown tornado is the simple act of changing gears whist driving , so for the present I have been forcibly pedestrianised and depending on the good offices of my aunt,Bridie to chauffer me for doctor’s appointments, shopping etc,.

One morning recently after dispensing with a few mundane chores, Bridie drove out to Parteen and Kilquane cemetery where my uncle Frank is buried as well as my father.Patrick. Approaching the cemetery we were relieved to find the roadside gate open, a sure sign that the field leading in to the graveyard was free of cows. Driving in the track we arrived at the burial ground in a blaze of sunshine. The location is a perfect pastoral setting for mortal repose, placed as it is beside the river Shannon. Kilquane has an ancient pedigree stretching back to the 6th century and has associations with a Monk called Cuan and the well known local ‘saint’ Munchin. The original church building is no longer in existence but the ruins of the re- built church are still standing and it is estimated that the building would have seated about 60 people. Back in 1834 when the new Church of St. Peter’s was completed in Parteen, mass was no longer celebrated at Kilquane and was not again said at the old site until 1983. In that year the Parteen Historical Society under the capable guidance of Donal Ui Riain commenced the onerous task of restoring the neglected cemetery and mass was clebrated there on Pattern Day, August 15 th. for the first time in almost 50 years. Over time Donal and his committee ( one of whom was my uncle for a few years) restored the historic site to it’s present noble state. We stood at Frank’s grave reading the couplet engraved on his recently placed headstone ,taken from the pen of Michael Hogan, the Bard of Thomond in his epic poem, ‘Drunken Thady and the Bishop’s Lady’, a firm favourite of Frank’s. The Bard writing about the encroachment of death penned these plaintiff words, “An echo roused upon the hill, / Dies on the wind, and all is still.” Here in the bright sunshine with the sparkling Shannon river beyond, standing in this sacred place, these words themselves seemed to echo among the very stones of the antique burial ground. I reflected on how indifferent Frank would be to the stone and its inscription, never a man for pomp or ceremony even to this extremely modest degree.

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I know Frank was intensely interested in the ancient story of Kilquane and the notables, the bad and the good who have been, over the centuries interred within its walls. The Mc Adam grave is probably the most controversial and notorious one here, containing as it does the mortal remains of Phillip McAdam the so called ‘Traitor’. It is widely believed (though disputed by his descendants) that he used his local knowledge of the river near Kilquane to give Ginkel’s army safe passage across and thus allow for the siege of Limerick in 1691. For years after his burial his grave was regularly vandalised by outraged locals determined that the alleged ‘traitor’ would not be allowed to rest in peace. I doubt if Frank, in death or life would have any truck with him !



Padraig O Briain, the Blind Piper who also rests here would be a far more agreeable companion. He was born at Labasheeda in County Clare to a well off farming family receiving an excellent education and becoming an avid scholar of the classics. Sadly however by the time he was 26, O Briain had lost his sight and was compelled to take to the road as a travelling musician to make a living. He settled in Limerick city where he would sit playing his uilleann pipes on the corner of Harstonge Street and the Crescent. One day the Piper was spotted by the famous Galway artist, Patrick Haverty who painted the scene, creating the painting, ‘The Blind Piper’. In the painting the aging musician is pictured with his beautiful young daughter stting patiently beside her gifted father. After the clean up in 1983 there were over 100 marked graves here with an untold number lost to time and sealed forever beneath the lush green grass of Kilquane. We left the old cemetery with all it’s historical associations, still swaddled in the warm mid-day sunshine, sure at least that Frank’s final resting place was of his choosing and stirred that the remembrances of his life would become part of the rich tableaux that is Kilquane.

I am indebted to 'The History and Folklore of Parteen and Meelick' by Donail Riain and Seamus O Cinneide for the historical information about Kilquane.

Gerard O'Shea

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

'Their Last Steps' painted by David Olere,
an Auschwitz Holocaust Survivor (1902-1985)

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Today is Holocaust Memorial Day when we are reminded of the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people by the Nazi regime.

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SHEMA

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You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.
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Primo Levi

Translated by Ruth Feldman And Brian Swann

"Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews....If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed." - Anne Frank

A MEAGRE CHRISTMAS

A young Lewis posing with

bearded seasonal visitor on donkey !

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COLD NORTHERN CHEER

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Our earliest description of Christmas from writer C.S. Lewis is a bitter one. The year was 1922. As usual, C.S. Lewis and his brother Warren spent the holidays with their widowed father in his big house outside Belfast.
"It was a dark morning with a gale blowing and some very cold rain," Lewis reported in his diary. Their father Albert awakened his two sons, both in their mid twenties, to go to early Communion service. As they walked to church in the dawn light, they started discussing the time of sunrise. Albert irritated his sons by insisting that the sun had already risen or else they would not have any light. He was an illogical and argumentative man.
Saint Mark's church was intensely cold. Warren wanted to keep his coat on during the service, and his father disapproved. "Well, at least you won't keep it on when you go up to the Table," Albert warned. Warren asked why not and was told that taking Communion with a coat on was "most disrespectful." Warren took his coat off to avoid an argument. Not one of the three Lewis men had any interest in the meaning of Communion. The two sons hadn't believed in Christianity for years.
"Christmas dinner, a rather deplorable ceremony, at quarter to four", Lewis continued in his diary. After dinner the rain had stopped at last, and Albert urged his two sons to take a walk. They were delighted to get out into the fresh air and head for a pub where they could get a drink. Before they came to the pub, however, some relatives drove by on the way to their house for a visit and gave them an unwelcome ride right back home.
After too much sitting and talking and eating and smoking all day in the stuffy house, Lewis went to bed early, dead tired and headachy. He felt like a flabby, lazy teenager again. ...
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from 'Christianity Today'

THE FALLEN SOLDIERS

REMEMBERING THE HORROR

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Today is Remembrance Sunday, the anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m.on November 11 th. in 1918 and when the dead of all wars are remembered. The Day is chiefly commemorated in the U.K. but as over 200,000 Irish served with the British army and an estimated 35,000 + died in the war ,there are also services of remembrance in this country. The Royal British Legion who look after the interests of war veterans and their families sell the ‘poppy’ badge at this time and this has been a bone of contention here going back over the years ,as for some the ‘poppy’ represents British Imperialism and is anathema to full blooded Republicans. The counter argument is that the Remembrance activities are not glorifying the conflict but honouring and remembering those who died in this most bloody war. My own grand-uncle ,Jack Kelly died in the war and is listed on the roll of honour at Flanders Field in Belgium. Like many other young men at the time, he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers and left his home at Shanakyle near Larkin’s Cross in Limerick, to fight in the ‘ war that was to end all wars’. He fell in battle at the age of 37 leaving behind his wife and two children, Alice and Mary. He was one of many Irish who joined the British Army for several reasons. Some joined spurred on by Home Rule campaigner John Redmond, in the hope (vain as it turned out) that after the war Britain would reward Irish involvement by granting home rule to Ireland. Some, I’m sure joined for the adventure and romance of army life (as it was then perceived!) and many joined to get a job in a depressed economic climate. 8,556,315 troops from all countries died in the war while the total number of people killed during WW1 (including civilians) is 16.5 million, making it one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. Many of the men who survived action at the front witnessed all the horrors of war and some were permanently scarred emotionally as a consequence, one such soldier was Wilfred Owen who suffering from ’shell shock’, was confined to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. While there, in October of 1917 Owen began to reflect on all he had seen and experienced at the front and wrote this poem as a lament for the huge wastage of young lives cut down in the conflict.
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Gerard O'Shea

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ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

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What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choir,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

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What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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Wilfred Owen

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THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE

A detail from a Famine Memorial

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The Great Famine of 1847 caused national devastation in this country as the potato crop (then the national staple diet) repeatedly failed and disease and starvation claimed anything from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 lives. It was a pivotal event in our history as in addition to the dead a further 1,000,000 emigrated thus depleting this country’s population to levels that have never been restored to pre-famine numbers. The real tragedy of the whole thing was that while people were dying in huge numbers, large quantities of grain and livestock were being exported to Britain as the poor had no money to buy them and the government (the occupying British regime) had no mind to ban exports and allow the Irish to be fed. The experiences of that time further alienated the Irish from their British rulers and the famine experience has long been recited as yet another woe inflicted on this island by our nearest neighbour. The enduring effects of 1847 can be seen in that this National Famine Commemoration Day is the first in our history , 162 years after the event. ~GOSh.~

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DARK ROSALEEN

I thirst beside the heather-laden bogs –

no samaritan for me;

no one here to see

that I shall die amidst the

plenty, in the field –

and that its yield

will sail to shores beyond the sea.

How can it be

that flocks of sheep can find their fill

while I lie empty and in pain?

or is it vain

to beg attention to my plight?

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How can I fight

when I am listless, drained alone,

shrunken to the bone

while others eat what I have

grown in toil?

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Woman of the soil –

I fade against a wall of human greed

and - sower of the seed –

I languish as it grows...

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Anne Therese Dillen

CHESTER BEATTY TROVE

I’ve selected this piece from the terrific website of the Trinity Network ( http://www.trinity.ie/CMS/) in Dublin, written by their dynamic senior leader Fergus Ryan. I came across some teaching tapes by Fergus many years ago on the Kingdom of God and it was some of the most refreshing and challenging material I had heard in an Irish context. Later he cropped up on the radio in an interview with Pat Kenny and again I was so impressed at the way he handled himself and the authentic manner in which he communicated the gospel. Fergus was formerly an airline pilot and studied theology at Trinity College. Nowadays apparently as well as his leadership role he enjoys painting.

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THE VERY BREATH OF GOD

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Up to the beginning of the twentieth century the most ancient copies of the New Testament text were three vellum manuscripts, one in the Vatican Library and two others in the British Museum, all from the fourth and early fifth centuries. But in 1931 The Times announced the acquisition by Mr Alfred Chester Beatty, a wealthy American mining engineer, of a number of papyrus manuscripts of the Bible more ancient than any yet found. Most were from the third century, but some had been copied around AD 180, just over 100 years after the original writings. No comparable documents exist for any pagan writings of antiquity. The earliest copy of Plato in existence was written thirteen hundred years after his death.
The astonishing hoard of Biblical manuscripts had been uncovered near Cairo between 1928 and 1930, and purchased by Mr Chester Beatty. It soon became clear just how significant it was. Here was a book containing the earliest copies of the four Gospels and Acts, a century earlier than any others in existence. Another book contained most of Paul’s letters. These had survived the great destruction of sacred books ordered by Emperor Diocletian in AD 303. But not only do the Chester Beatty manuscripts contain New Testament texts, but Greek translations of parts of the Old Testament which are even older than some of the existing Hebrew texts. Here is almost the entire book of Genesis (missing from London and Rome) and the larger part of the book of Daniel (at least 700 years older than the copy in the Vatican).
In 1953 Sir Chester Beatty chose to make Dublin his home, and donated his wonderful collection of Biblical and other oriental manuscripts and European old master prints to Ireland. Amongst the latter are Albrecht Durer’s famous woodcuts of scenes from the Book of Revelation. In 1959 Pope John XXIII wrote to Sir Chester expressing his ‘pleasure and satisfaction’ at his contribution to Biblical study.
The Chester Betty papyri are amongst Ireland’s most precious treasures. But the most precious of all is the ordinary English translation of these wonderful documents on our own bookshelf at home. This too is the very breath of God, ‘the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.’ (Paul’s second letter to Timothy)

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Fergus Ryan

BACK TO THE MOUNTAIN

MOUNT HERMON

Mount Hermon:

Mt. Hermon, known as Har Hermon in Hebrew and Jabal el-Shaiyk in Arabic is a mountain in the anti-Lebanon mountain range, this summit is on the border between Syria and Lebanon and is under Syrian control. The highest of its three peaks (all of which are snow-covered in winter and spring) rises to 9,232 ft (2,814 m). Its seasonal snow melt is important to the headwater flow of the Jordan River. Mt. Hermon, a sacred landmark in ancient Palestine, is mentioned often in the Bible as Hermon, Sion, Senir, and Shenir. The name Baal-Hermon records the reverence in which it was held by the worshipers of Baal. The Romans also revered it, as did the Druze (there is a Druze shrine near Hasbayya).

Following the Bloodtrail:
Israel has possessed Mt. Hermon’s southern and western slopes since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. They are used for winter skiing and as observation points for the for the Israeli military. At present, it also serves as the highest permanent manned position of the United Nations.
Sadly, there are hardly any intensive studies made or written documents and research materials that focuses on the ancient and biblical history of the mountain due mainly to the Arab and Palestinian conflicts throughout the years. The mountain itself is a living witness, if only its grounds could tell us about the lives lost, the explosions and the cries of the women of this former land of Canaan.

Biblical Accounts:
Hermon means “Forbidden Place”, or sometimes interpreted as the “anathema”(from a 4th century translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible) , the mountain itself is believed to be a port of entry for group of wicked angels who corrupted the human race during the days of Noah. The Grigori (Watchers),as told of in Biblical apocrypha (Book of Enoch and Jubilees) mated with mortal women, giving rise to a race of hybrids known as the Nephilim who are described as giants in Genesis (Gen. 6:4).
Moses wrote: ”The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown” (Gen. 6:1-4).

Mount Hermon Today
The Israeli region is governed by the Golan Heights Law. It also contains the country`s only skiing area. The Syrian government also revealed plans of a multi billion ski resort in the slopes of the mountain. Since 1996, a small group of Lebanese pilgrims led by Michel Malik of Rashaya, have climbed to the top of Mount Hermon annually for the feast of Jesus’ transfiguration on August 6. The group includes Christians of various denominations as well as Druze. In spite its religious diversity, the group is Christ-centred, and most of its members participate in the Maronite mass celebrated on the mountaintop. At the moment, no further archaeological, historical or religious expeditions has been made but it seems, peace is somehow slowly achieved despite the darkness of the mountains past.

Ma. Zoe Razel C. Pittracher
United Nations Golan Journal

A LIGHT TRADITION

This recruitment poster for Red Cross members

during the Second World War harks back to a

tradition that has been practised in Ireland

and other places for centuries.

.

THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE

The placing of a lighted candle in the window

of a house on Christmas Eve is still practised

today. Primarily it was, and still is, a symbol

of welcome to Mary and Joseph as they

travelled looking for shelter. The candle

should be lit by the youngest member of the

household and only be extinguished by a girl

bearing the name 'Mary'. To have no light

meant that you shared the guilt of the

Innkeeper at Bethlehem who said, "No Room"!

LOSING GOD

DR. LUTHERS TRIBULATION

The world seemed shocked this fall when it learned that Mother Teresa experienced several decades of spiritual dryness and a profound sense of being disconnected from God.
Doubleday published Come Be My Light, a collection of private letters to her spiritual advisers. In those letters, Mother Teresa compared her anguish to hell. She described her spiritual state, using words like "dryness," "darkness," and "torture." Such language brings to mind the "dark night of the soul" described by John of the Cross in the 16th century.
CT readers should also recall similar periods of feeling spiritually abandoned in the lives of great Protestants: Oswald Chambers and William Cowper, for example, and especially Martin Luther. It was not in Luther's monastic years, when he was struggling for acceptance with God, that he felt the absence of God most deeply. Like Mother Teresa, it was after his special experience of God's grace and after he wrote his watershed 95 theses that his periods of Anfechtung, his word for doubt, turmoil, and despair, came upon him. To discover grace is not to escape spiritual tribulation.
Here is a sample of how Luther wrote about his feelings of abandonment: "God often, as it were, hides himself, and will not hear; yea, will not suffer himself to be found."
Luther described times when trying to preach or speak of Christ, "the word freezes upon my lips." He said, "Had another had the tribulations which I have suffered, he would long since have died." Luther's call to be a professor forced him to find a new approach to the Scriptures and, in turn, Christian experience. According to historical theologian Robert Rosin of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, the tools of Renaissance humanism liberated Luther from medieval philosophical categories and helped him move toward a more straightforward reading of the text. Luther discovered that Christians do not approach God through a logical ergo (as the Scholastics had done), but through a nevertheless. Luther learned from Scripture that Christians must look beyond their own experiences, feelings, and thoughts in order to contend for the faith.
The solution is to allow tribulation to drive you to prayer and Scripture and above all, to God's promises. Luther said:
When one is possessed with doubt, that though he call upon the Lord he cannot be heard, and that God has turned his heart from him, and is angry, … he must … arm himself with God's Word, promising to hear him. As to the when and how God will hear him, this is stark naught; place, time, and person are accidental things; the substance and essence is the promise.
Promise is a fundamental category in Luther's theology of salvation. In his Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he wrote:
For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a Word of promise. We in turn cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the Word of his promise. He does not desire works, nor has he need of them; … But God has need of this: that we consider him faithful in his promises [Heb. 10:23], and patiently persist in this belief … [P]romise and faith must necessarily go together. For without the promise there is nothing to be believed; while without faith the promise is useless, since it is established and fulfilled through faith.

David Neff

-'Christianity Today' Nov.2007-