Chris
McDonnell, UK
christymac733@gmail.com
Previous articles by Chris Comments
welcome here
October
18, 2017
Yes
we can!
At
this time each year, a series of prizes are offered by the Nobel Institute
for outstanding world-recognized achievement.
They
cover the fields of Literature, Medicine, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry
and Peace. The funding of the prize list each year comes from the enormous
fortune amassed from Nobel's invention of dynamite. They are much
cherished and widely acknowledged as being given to those who have reached
the pinnacle of their profession, making a significant contribution in
their chosen field.
A
British citizen of Japanese heritage has been awarded the prize for
Literature this year, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. A few days later the
announcement for the 2017 Peace Prize was made, awarded to the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN
.
It recognised
their persistent world-wide effort to diminish our stockpiles of terror.
It comes at a time of great uncertainty, when threat, boast and caricature
of leadership is both unsettling and disturbing. The 'wait and see'
response from the
US
President is insufficient in such a delicate situation.
The
recent events in
Las Vegas
, with many innocent people killed
and hundreds injured, are yet further testament to the uncertain world
that we share with each other. It is the world in which our Church fulfils
its mission, where little is straight forward and twists and turns abound.
Hard sometimes to reconcile faith with the reality of experience, with
Newscasts showing night after night the pain and confusion of man-made
events alongside the chaos of natural disaster, hard to answer the obvious
questions without slipping into platitudes. Maybe we have to recognise
that when the sun sets and dusk turns to cold night, there will come a
time of Dawn.
It
has been a time of disturbance and unrest with the Catalonian
independence issue making the headlines. Catholic Spain is riven with
political discord with outbreaks of violence on the streets of
Barcelona
. It highlights the delicate
arrangements between peoples less than a century since the ugly
confrontation of the Civil War years of the late 30s. A peaceful
accommodation is urgently needed for this European country. Whereas the
Civil War was fought between the Fascists led by Franco and an assortment
of Communist and other left-wing groupings, the present discord is about
identity of peoples. After the declaration in the Catalonian parliament,
uncertainty remains.
So
many conflicts and divisions come down to a 'tribal membership' driven by
belonging to the group, often to the exclusion of others. Recent years
have seen evidence of this breakdown in relationships. Fragmentation leads
to weakness and a pettiness of interest. Within our own
United Kingdom
, the issue of Scottish
independence still hovers as an unsettled question and with our leaving
the EU, difficulties over the Irish border remain.
We
are in the month of October, the month when we mark an event some five
centuries ago, the proclamation by Martin Luther's of questions addressed
to the early 16th
Church. If only there had been open discussion then, a listening to
differing points of view we might have spared the Church the division and
heart-ache that followed.
Events
and places come together, sometimes in unexpected ways. Last week in this
column, I quoted a short passage from Newman where he talked about ‘dividing
the two seasons’, about times of changing, moving from one season to
another.
Recently,
October 9th,
we marked the date of his being received into the Church by the Passionist
priest, Blessed Dominic Barberi in Newman’s room at Littlemore on the
outskirts of
Oxford
. That night in 1845 was a night
of rain and storm, when as he writes in the Apologia ‘I mean to
ask him admission into the One Fold of Christ” He goes on to write
in a Parting of Friends "I am going to those whom I do not
know". He was a man of deep faith whose influence on the Church
here in
England
has been profound.
Forgive
me for being personal in the words of conclusion this week. On October 9th
this year I made a journey on Newman’s anniversary to be with a
friend from childhood, a priest for over sixty years in the Arundel
and
Brighton
diocese, Fr Gerald Coates. As a
boy of twelve I served his first mass in St Bartholomew’s parish in
Norbury,
South London
. He had been ill over many years
and had spent his recent months in a care home in
Sussex
. My visit became a Watch with him
in the final hours of his life. He went to the Lord early in the morning
of October 10th.
His mother Jenny was my Godmother. Gerald offered mass at our wedding and
those of our children. He was an outstanding man and priest, dear to me in
so many ways. In your time of prayer, commend him to the peace of the
Lord.
END
---------------