KEEPING CHRISTMAS REAL - 2

SAME OLD STORY

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Sadly the old story of there being no room at the Inn for Joseph and his pregnant wife has taken on a new relevance for some families this Christmas, whose homes have been re-possessed by the banks for payment arrears of mortgages. As property prices tumble from the artificial highs created in ‘boom’ economy times, many on shrinking incomes or faced with job loss are unable to continue hefty repayments to the banks. Thankfully the number of home re-possessions is still small here but each day this recession continues, the threat of foreclosure increases. Later in His life Jesus would tell the disciples , " Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:20) indicating that we are not to get entangled in mere earthly habitations but live our lives with an eye to eternity. As the materialistic rug is being pulled from under our feet we are realising how flimsy our security is apart from a relationship with the eternal God who loves us and gave His Son to die for our sins. While we assist our neighbours and friends during these difficult days, let’s not forget to share the life-changing message of the gospel with them and pray by God’s grace for the power to live by it ourselves.

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Gerard O'Shea

IRISH CHRISTMAS POEM

A CRADLE SONG

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O men from the fields,

Come gently within.

Tread softly, softly

O men coming in!

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Mavourneen is going

From me and from you,

Where Mary will fold him

With mantle of blue!

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From reek of the smoke

And cold of the floor

And the peering of things

Across the half-door.

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O men of the fields,

Soft, softly come thro'

Mary puts round him

Her mantle of blue.

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Padraic Colum

AN ADVENT PRAYER

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;

and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.”

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Isaiah 9:6

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LET MEN BE MOVED

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Lord our God, you have sent light to shine on earth
and have revealed your heavenly power in Jesus
Christ, so that in spite of all the darkness and evil
we may rejoice because we have a Savior. Reveal
your power in our day. Let something be done anew
toward the building of your kingdom on earth. Let
something draw men’s hearts to you to give them
light so that they may thank and praise you for all
you have done and are still doing to bring the whole
world into your hands. O Lord God, let men be
moved by the opening of the heavens. May their
hearts awaken and their sadness give way to joy in
Jesus Christ the Savior. We are your children who
are allowed to wait in expectation for you to set
everything right. We can know that even in our
troubled times your hand is at work to reveal your
will, to make your will plain to all generations on
earth, as you promised through Abraham. May your
name be glorified, O Lord God. May your name be
honoured, your kingdom come, and your will be done
on earth as in heaven. Amen

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Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
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Blumhardt was a 19th century German Lutheran theologian who practised a radical message based on Jesus sermon on the mount and the Kingdom of God. As the First World War broke out, he declared his belief in a coming Kingdom of God, declaring "we live in the time before a massive change in the world. This darkness will be vanquished through the Lord Jesus Christ." He is regarded as one of the fathers of Christian socialism but also believed and worked in the area of the miraculous and the supernatural. He was a significant influence on the theologians Karl Barth, Hermann Kutter and Leonhard Ragaz ~GOSh.~

KEEPING CHRISTMAS REAL -1

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GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

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This cartoon humorously illustrates what will be a reality for many families this year as belts are tightened in a global economic recession. I remember growing up in the sixties when money was tight and marching my beleaguered mother into Woolworth's Store to show her exactly the electric guitar that I wanted Santa to bring. Well despite this and a detailed letter sent to the North Pole via our chimney, Santa delivered a guitar on Christmas morning alright but it was an acoustic and not one you could plug in, I was furious and sulked for the day spreading anything but Christmas cheer ! ~GOSh.~

A DICKINSON CHRISTMAS !

'Field of Yellow Corn' ~ Van Gogh

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’Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know I heard the Corn,
When I was carried by the Farms —
It had the Tassels on —

I thought how yellow it would look —
When Richard went to mill —
And then, I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.

I thought just how Red — Apples wedged
The Stubble’s joints between —
And the Carts stooping round the fields
To take the Pumpkins in —

I wondered which would miss me, least,
And when Thanksgiving, came,
If Father’d multiply the plates —
To make an even Sum —

And would it blur the Christmas glee
My Stocking hang too high
For any Santa Claus to reach
The Altitude of me —

But this sort, grieved myself,
And so, I thought the other way,
How just this time, some perfect year
—Themself, should come to me —
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Emily Dickinson

FROGS KNOW THINGS

GOLFING LESSON

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Ladies, Read Only The First Part – Men, The Rest
A Woman was out golfing one day when she hit the ball into the woods. She went into the woods to look for it and found a frog in a trap. The frog said to her, “If you release me from this trap, I will grant you three wishes.”
The woman freed the frog, and the frog said, “Thank you, but I failed to mention that there was a condition to your wishes. Whatever you wish for, your husband will get times ten!”
The woman said, “That’s okay.” For her first wish, she wanted to be the most beautiful woman in the world.
The frog warned her, “You do realize that this wish will also make your husband the most handsome man in the world, an Adonis to whom women will flock.”
The woman replied, “That’s okay, because I will be the most beautiful Woman and he will have eyes only for me.”
So, KAZAM-she’s the most beautiful Woman in the world!
For her second wish, she wanted to be the richest woman in the world. The frog said, “That will make your husband the richest man in the world. And he will be ten times richer than you.”
The woman said, “That’s okay, because what’s mine is his and what’s his is mine.”
So, KAZAM-she’s the richest woman in the world!
The frog then inquired about her third wish, and she answered, “I’d like a mild heart attack.”
Moral of the story: Women are clever. Don’t mess with them.
Attention female readers : This is the end of the joke for you. Stop here and continue feeling good.
Male readers, continue reading….
The man had a heart attack ten times milder than his wife
Moral of the story: Women think they’re so smart. Let them continue to think that way and just enjoy the show.
PS: If you are a woman and are still reading this; it only goes to show that women never listen!

CATHOLIC CHURCH ABUSE

A POOR RESPONSE

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Another damning report on the scale of child sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic clergy in this country has been published this week. In the report of the commission on child abuse within the Dublin diocese several Bishops are named as having not acted honourably when alerted to the activities of their clergy, most of them did nothing and many just moved the offending cleric on to another parish where the abuse continued on more children. I have been listening through this week to many ‘good’ Catholics venting their frustration at the lack of response of their church to these atrocities in any meaningful way. All the Church officials can muster to date are verbal apologies (they have never been at a loss for words, both inside and outside the pulpit ! ) and paltry sums of compensation offered to some of the victims. It is heart rending to hear fair minded members of that Church tearfully baffled as to the stony response of their spiritual leaders in the light of these awful happenings, as many have asked over the last few days, where has basic Christianity gone ?

A Bishop lies, a Cardinal lies, even a child preparing for Communion knows from their Catechism that it is a ‘sin’ to tell an untruth. But there seems to be one code of morality for the man or woman in the pew and an entirely opposite code for the Church hierarchy. Of course I am looking at these events from the outside having long ago substituted dead religious practise for a living faith in Jesus Christ. I could never understand how anyone with even a basic knowledge of the Gospels could confuse that heartless monolith which is the Roman Catholic Church with the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. While much good has been done by individual clergy and laity within the Church the structure of it, headed or lorded over by a Pope who lives in palatial grandeur, runs so counter to the way Jesus admonished His disciples to behave that it beggars belief. Jesus model of church leadership was that of a servant in fact He said that the greatest in His Kingdom would be the servant of all. ( Matthew 18: 1-4). As the Roman church strengthened its power base over the centuries it lost its spiritual clout and diluted the early teachings of Jesus with clever sounding theologies and doctrines that owed more to human ingenuity than to a revelation from God.

When I first opened the pages of the New Testament to read it for myself I was so surprised that much of what I had been taught to believe as a Catholic was no where to be found within its covers. Staples of my childhood like Confession, Mass, Praying for the Dead, worship of Mary and the reverential place of the Priest were all absent from the Four Gospels and did not appear in the early written works of the first Christian communities. Sadly, to people of my parent’s generation, reading the Bible had been deliberately discouraged by the Church , her ministers alone would explain and interpret the Book in line with its own peculiar belief system. The result of this rigorous authoritarianism was to allow generations of Irish people to have a dread of the Scriptures and thereby deny them the possibility of nurturing a vibrant personal faith in the Jesus of the New Testament. Compounded to this spiritual theft as we now know, was the scandalous behaviour of large numbers of the Churches clergy in the sexual abuse of thousands of children. Over the last few years as details of the awfulness of those crimes have been exposed, the once intimate relationship between the Irish and the Catholic Church has been altered beyond recognition. To the religiously sceptic these revelations of clerical wrongdoing have confirmed their disdain of any type of a faith based approach to life, to those who refused to live under any personal moral code it has shown how hollow that code was in the first place and to the majority of ordinary church going Catholics it has been a massive act of betrayal inflicted on them by the Church they loved.

Those of us looking on from outside the Roman fold do not have reason for any smugness or quiet satisfaction ,as the Catholic Church crumbles before our eyes. For most people here the terms Catholic and Christian are interchangeable, however misguided that opinion might be. So as the R. C Church looses ground, so too in common perception does the message of the Gospel. The opportunity must now be grasped to present the plain teachings of Jesus without the ecclesiastical razzmatazz or clerical sleight of hand. As Paul recalled his first encounter with the people at Corinth, “ My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” ( 1 Corinthians 2: 4,5 ) All religious life is littered with the dead ash of human wisdom and persuasive oratory, what the disillusioned ‘faithful’ of the Catholic Church in Ireland now deserve to hear is a message of power and purity that emanates from the very heart of God. My hope is that the baby wont be tossed out with the bathwater as the distinction between the glorious message of Jesus and the moribund works of failed religion are muddled in the public mind. The challenge is for those of us who have tasted the goodness and mercy of God to pass it on as urgently and gently as we can, our fellow citizens deserve nothing less in the present trying circumstances.

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Gerard O'Shea