Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world...

     Last night the community led the parish in the celebration of Stations of the Cross. In talking with the pastoral staff here at the parish about preparations for Lent we were told that they have never really done Stations on a regular basis. On Good Friday they have a ceremony called "Prayer around the Cross" which includes elements of the Stations, but we felt that having a more regular celebration of the way of the Cross would be a nice addition for this Lenten season. We decided to go as simple as we could so that the congregation could engage in the prayer slowly. Carolyn knew of a setting of the Stations which she brought from her time as an undergrad in Kansas and this formed the basis of our prayer last night.
     I put together the order of prayer using Carolyn's version ("Everyone's Way of the Cross" by Clarence Enzler) and a version that we found from Liturgical Press called "All of You Drink of This" which is an adaptation of an old Latin version of the way of the Cross. "Everyone's Way" is set out in the form of a dialogue, with the first part being written from the point of view of Christ as He walks the way of the Cross. In the "Christ" section we are called to understand a lesson based on each station; in the first station this takes the form of Jesus submitting to the legal rule of Pilate out of obedience to the earthly power he holds and thus our lesson that we too must submit to those who are legally placed in authority over us. The second reading is from our point of view and responds to Christ's challenge by accepting the lesson we have been taught and asking for Jesus' help in fulfilling that challenge. From the "Drink of This" version I pulled closing prayers for each station which summed up the lesson and asked God to give us the strength to persevere in our way.

     Here in Clonard the Stations are stained glass windows which line the back of the church, thus making it hard for people to focus on the station if they are seated. To fix this we projected pictures of each window onto the wall at the front of the church, along with verses to the Stabat Mater which we sung after every other station. In my head I tried to make our celebration a simpler version of the celebration at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which I found very edifying during my time at Notre Dame. Although the congregation was considerably smaller, and the singing was considerably less, I got the sense throughout the service that everyone was being drawn into the journey. For the first time in a long time I was able to personally sink into the prayer that is the Stations of the Cross and all around me I could feel that prayer coming from the congregation. Following the service it was great to hear from some of the parishioners that they had enjoyed the service and had felt a real connection to the Way of the Cross. We will be continuing these Stations services every Monday of Lent at 7pm and I hope that through this prayer we can help the people of Clonard join more fully in the march to Calvary and beyond to the Resurrection.

O God, you willed that your only Son should suffer and die on the Cross for us.

As we now glory in honoring that same holy Cross,

Grant that we may rejoice in your loving care

So that we may experience the glory of your Son’s Resurrection.

This we ask of you through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Jesuit, Some Dominicans, and the IVE...

     On Sunday the 17th of January, Carolyn and I were able to do a little bit of travel outside of Wexford as we headed up to the small village of Kilmyshall (roughly translated as "the middle church on the plain") in the parish of Bunclody. The church in Kilmyshall is run by the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), a small religious congregation of priests and sisters founded in Argentina. We had the pleasure of meeting Fr. Gabriel, the curate, and a few of the sisters when we attended the Ferns youth festival back in August and they have been trying to get us up to Kilmyshall for a while now. We were finally able to schedule the visit for this weekend to assist with a retreat that their parish was holding all of last week. The final session of the retreat was entitled "The Importance of the Holy Eucharist in our Creed" and was centered on adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Fr. Gabriel asked us to provide the music for the afternoon as a way to accompany the adoration and the talks.
     Our visit began when we were collected at our house by one of the Sisters, a professed member from Alabama who we also met back in August. The drive to Kilmyshall took about an hour and passed through some of the most beautiful landscapes. The village of Kilmyshall is in the foothills of the mountains, and to get there we had to drive through the valley from the cathedral town of Enniscorthy with beautiful views of the Slaney and of the surrounding fields. Our conversation in the car was one of the most enjoyable parts of the day as we were able to discuss with another American missionary the challenges that are being faced in the Irish Church right now. It was great to hear a new perspective and to get some ideas on things that have worked for her and some things that she is still struggling with. The final part of the journey was a little rough because the road up to the village was not paved very well and there were plenty of potholes and uneven surface. When we came into the little village she pointed out the old cemetery, the town water pump, and finally the church. There really isn't much more to the town as there are only about 100 people resident in the village.
     Once we arrived at the parish we were greeted by Fr. Gabriel and were able to set up our keyboard and make sure everything was ready to go. Carolyn put together a great program for the afternoon so that all of the participants could join in with the music. Since the theme of the retreat was the Eucharist Carolyn wanted to put a Eucharistic image on the cover and boy did she hit a home run with this one. We're still unpacking all of the imagery that is present in this one icon!
     The retreat began with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and some moments of quiet prayer. The church was a very simply decorated, but the altar area was prepared beautifully and the served as a good focal point for the afternoon. Following the opening period of prayer the first session of the retreat began. The retreat was preached by Fr. James Swetnam, a Jesuit from Missouri who has been on the faculty of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome since 1962. While we were talking with him after the retreat we found out that he is an avid Notre Dame fan and was classmates with Notre Dame theology professor Fr. Brian Daley, S.J. Father Swetnam has been studying the Letter to the Hebrews (which he claims is in fact a Pauline letter) for almost 50 years now and in the hour and half that he talked we covered just 21 verses of the letter. The retreat was a fairly academic look at Hebrews 13:1-21 and the way in which those verses correspond to the liturgy of the Catholic Church. There is still a lot that I need to process from his talk, but the main gist that I got out of it was the following: (The Eucharist is important in our Creed because the Eucharist was and is the protocreedal statement. When Christ said, "Do this in memory of me," He gave the Apostles their first creed. By our continuing celebration of the Eucharist, we are constantly affirming our belief in that moment when Christ instituted the Sacrament and in all of the beliefs that come from that moment.) Like I said, there is still a lot processing which I need to do to fully understand his talk, but I thought that it was a great reflection on the Eucharist as the center of our faith, especially as we sat in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

     The music which we chose for the afternoon were drawn from the traditional hymns used during adoration, as well as Eucharistic hymns which are fairly common. For the opening hymn we used a piece that the Folk Choir knows well, "Jesus, My Only Desire", which sounded beautiful and haunting in the old church. I had to stop myself multiple times from slipping into the bass part and for some reason this made me focus on the words more than I have in the past. It is truly one of the most beautiful hymns that we use and I just love the opening of verse 3 where we declare, "Jesus the hope of my soul." What an amazing thought, especially in the world we live in today and in the suffering we are seeing in places like Haiti, to be reminded that our soul has only to look at Christ to see renewed hope. We also used two reflection pieces: the antiphonal "Now We Remain", and an amazing setting of the "Adoro te Devote" called "God With Hidden Majesty". The remaining pieces were all traditional adoration texts, O Saving Victim, Tantum Ergo, and O Sanctissima, all of which sounded amazing.
     Following Benediction and the closing of the retreat we were all invited over to the community center for tea and coffee. We did not want to leave our gear in the church so we decided to carry it the 100 meters to the center. We had just a few too many things to carry but there were three Dominican novices attending the retreat and one of them kindly got up from saying vespers to help us carry our things. We were told that to get to the building you take a right out of the church, then a left, then another right. You would think that in a village of less than 100 people you would be able to follow those directions quite easily. As it happened we missed the second right and kept moving up the road. We were having a great discussion with our new Dominican friend Connor about our work here in Ireland and his studies as a novice, and we thought we were heading in the right direction. When we got to the end of the village and were looking out at fields and mountains we decided to turn around and head back. Luckily once we arrived in the center of the village one of the priests was standing there laughing at us. He said it was pretty funny to see me walking down the street carrying a full keyboard on my shoulder.
Tea was a great chance to talk with some of the people who had attended the retreat, including Fr. Stephen who has just recently been reassigned to Santa Clara, California. I told him that if he wants to come to a football game at ND next year to just shoot me an email and I'll try and set him up with tickets. I've already rambled on for a while and am trying to curb my verbosity a bit, so I think I will wrap it up here. All in all it was a great afternoon and we were glad to be able to minister to a new community. We were told that the music added much to the celebration and have been asked back whenever we want to visit. We thank the IVE's up in Kilmyshall and all of the parishioners there for their warm hospitality. I leave you with a few more pictures that I took of the afternoon. Continue to pray for the people in Haiti and consider making a donation to the Red Cross or Catholic Relief Services. I've installed the Red Cross link on the right side of the page which will take you right to the Haiti Relief Fund donation page. Every little bit helps. Have a great week everyone!

 

Commissioning

     The apex of our American invasion week came on Saturday, October 24th. A couple of celebrations converged together on that weekend and the parish had a blowout celebration. The evening began with the normally scheduled Saturday vigil Mass, which is the one where we are in charge of the music. For this Mass though, the parish was celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Clonard Folk Group and so all past members of the group were invited back to join with the current group in providing music for this Mass. The folk group is a dedicated group of singers and musicians who provide music for the 11:15 mass on Sunday mornings. They use everything from traditional hymnody and Irish "folk tunes" to recent compositions from Marty Haugen and our very own Cookie! It has been a great pleasure of ours to sing with this group since we arrived and to help with the planning of these masses, so it was an even greater pleasure to share this evening with them. Our commissioning and their 30th anniversary, all rolled into one massive liturgy (pun fully and unabashedly intended).

     Because this was both an anniversary and a commissioning, invites were extended to clergy from throughout the diocese as well as people connected to the liturgical scene in Ferns. The Mass was celebrated by the Most Rev. Denis Brennan, Bishop of Ferns, who just the day before had blessed our home. There were also six priests concelebrating, a choir of about 30 (including 2 of our guests), and one of the largest congregations we've seen since arriving here! The music stretched out over the 30 year history of the folk group, pulling from the early days of the group and from the more recent pieces that are used. The choir sounded amazing, there were all four parts present, and the congregation was singing along (not something we're used to over here). It was a great celebration of the ministry that this group of talented musicians has cultivated for three decades, and we are proud to be members of this beautiful tradition at Clonard.
     Following the homily (which was also amazing), we proceeded with the actual commissioning of the three of us and our mission here in Ireland. The Bishop invited us to come forward and then Mr. and Mrs. Calcutt came forward as the officers of 'The House of Bridget Inc.' to offer testimony to the Bishop of our willingness and ability to serve the Church in Ireland. The part that I loved the most was their testimony that the hardships we faced in coming over only served to make this program all the stronger and toughened our resolve to carry out this mission. Bishop Denis then asked Fr. Denis if the parish was willing to take us on and support us in our mission. (What would have happened if he said no? We'd already been here two months!) The questions that Bishop Denis asked were not just of a liturgical and musical nature, but also that the parish would help to actually immerse us in the culture of this place so that we can better serve the people of Wexford and the Irish as a whole. It was a subtle and powerful reminder that we are not here to just come in and take over like Americans are sometimes want to do. Instead, just as we discussed when we formed in the spring, we are here to meet the Irish where they are and then to guide them to a fuller understanding and appreciation of the Church through music, liturgy, and friendship. Upon receiving the parish's consent, the Bishop then asked us if we were willing and ready to take on this responsibility. I would like to share with you all the promise that we made in front of God, the Bishop, and our family and friends:

I promise to offer my time, talents, and skill, for the enhancement of sacred music and liturgy,
in the parish community of Clonard, for the good of all God's people and to the Glory of God.

Having made this promise, the Bishop blessed us and our mission, sending us out to serve the people of this parish, the Diocese of Ferns, and the Church in Ireland. We were then presented with a beautiful copy of the Book of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. This is one of seven volumes that are being put out by St. John's College in Minnesota and they are the new "St. John's Bible". It is a truly amazing project and we are grateful to the parish for presenting us with this volume, which now occupies a spot in our prayer room at our house.

     I'm getting very good at epicly long blog posts, so I should probably wrap this one up soon. The rest of the Mass was fairly normal, although the parish also had the Bishop bless two new stained glass windows "since he was here already." These windows commemorate the Wexford martyrs, a group of fishermen and bakers who were killed for refusing to sign an oath recognizing the British monarch as the head of the church. They are very beautiful windows and depict the martyrs as butterflies and doves, two Christian symbols for eternity. Following the mass there was a reception in the community centre with tea and biscuits, as well as a cake for both the folk group and ourselves. It was a great way to wrap up the evening and say thank you to everyone who has made our first few months here so much easier.
     Now the evening didn't entirely end there. It was after all, still the Opera festival, and during the festival they have a series of singing competitions called "Singing Pubs" which are held all throughout the town at the various pubs. Saturday just happened to be the night for Simon's Place, our establishment of choice and so following the reception we headed down for some good times at Simon's. It was insanely crowded and I spent most of the night standing in the entryway blocking access through that door (the bouncer was appreciative because he didn't want anyone going in that door anyway!) The singing was great, we were able to spend some quality pub time with the Calcutts and the London crew, and we even kept tabs on the ND-BC game on Mr. Calcutt's blackberry. Once we knew the final score of that, it was a celebratory round of Guinness, and then back home for the night. I want to personally thank Mr. and Mrs. Calcutt, Cookie and Mrs. Cookie, Hayley, Steph, Claire, and Dan for coming and sharing various parts of the week with us. You all contributed in such distinct ways to making this one of the greatest weeks, not only of my time in Ireland but in recent memory. And now that we're official...Clonard is stuck with us. What a beautiful relationship we have begun, may it continue to grow and bear fruit for many years to come.

O'Connell House Fellowship

     On Friday, the 9th of October the community was invited to Dublin by Fr. John-Paul Sheridan who is the director of catechetics for the Diocese of Ferns. He is also one of the chaplains for the Notre Dame study abroad program in Dublin based at O'Connell House on Merrion Square. The O'Connell House hosts fellowship nights once a month for students, alumni, and friends of Notre Dame who are based in Dublin. Officially these are "ACE Fellowship" nights, connected to the Alliance for Catholic Education and give educators and students a chance to gather and discuss topics surrounding Catholic education.
     Fr. John-Paul collected us on Friday afternoon and we proceeded up the old Gorey road, which he claims is quicker than the motorway. (Unless you get stuck behind slow moving trucks like we did!) To pass the time Fr. Sheridan introduced us to an NPR show that he listens to called "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". It's a quiz show based on the news of the last week and I found it quite hilarious. It's now one of my regular podcast downloads. Highly recommended. On the way we stopped for a cup of coffee, but as it was after 5 on a Friday in Ireland, the shop was already closed. Undeterred by our lack of caffeine we continued on to Dublin, accompanied by the NPR podcast and then my introduction to Garrison Keillor and "The News from Lake Wobegon". Again, highly recommended for those of you who have not heard him.

     Upon arrival at O'Connell House we were greeted by the director Kevin Whelan (a native Wexfordian), program coordinator Joe Stranix (a fellow '09 grad), and a young couple Elaine and John who are involved with ND and Catholic education in Ireland. Seeing as we were early we took a little walk past St. Stephen's Green in search of the American Embassy, aka STARBUCKS!! We've had coffee and tea since we've arrived in Ireland, but we all marveled at being able to walk into a place and order exactly what we wanted just like we were back in LaFortune. We got it to go and walked back to the centre past Trinity College and arrived at the front door, one of the many Georgian doors in Dublin. Martha spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get  a good picture of the door, which in the end turned out to be one of the coolest pictures I've seen.
     Joe met us at the door and gave us a great tour of the house which includes ground floor offices and study space, a chapel, library, and tons of classroom space. Martha remembered her time as a study abroad student and how she was quite jealous of the Dublin students and their amazing facilities. The centre is run through the generous contributions of the Keough family (who also donated my dorm at ND) and Naughton family. The space is a great asset to the students of the Dublin program!
     The fellowship kicked off with a great Mass in the house, celebrated by Fr. Sheridan with music on the guitar by Elaine. We joined with some regulars, the staff of the house, and current students in celebrating the Mass. When the three of us talked about the Mass later we all agreed that for some reason this Mass felt like home. It may have been the music, the other American accents responding with us, or just the sense of being back with Notre Dame people, but for some reason we all felt very refreshed by the Mass at O'Connell House. Fr. Sheridan gave an excellent homily and there was a beautiful communion reflection provided by Elaine which served to cap the Mass off nicely. Following Mass the fellowship continued with a great meal and great conversation. I was able to forget for a moment that I was no longer a student and I sunk right back into the joking conversation and banter that flew around the table. I'm not sure how long we sat at the table, but the conversation and the food continued flowing until they began to put tables and chairs away. Our end of the table finished the night off with a series of pretty funny religious jokes, many of them having to do with the Jesuits. (Fr. John-Paul, a product of two Jesuit institutions, had some of the best Jesuit jokes)
     The ride home was just as great as the ride to Dublin. After some great conversation about the state of the Church and the state of American politics, we turned back to the iPod for the rest of the ride. There were some great classics like the Biebel "Ave Maria" which brought us back to Glee Club concerts, a haunting song which I recognized from my favorite show "The West Wing", and finally the short stories of Oscar Wilde as read by Stephen Fry. To accompany it all we were able to watch the nearly full moon off the Irish coast during the entire drive. I wouldn't say it was a spiritual experience, but it was a very relaxing and comforting drive. The entire trip lasted about eight hours, but it was eight hours of music, fun, laughter, old friends, new friends, good liturgy, and food. After two months in this country we are finally beginning to settle into it as home and this little touch of familiarity helped to remind us that wherever home is there is always the Notre Dame family. We look forward to welcoming more of that family in the next week as some guests drop in for a visit. Cookie and Mrs. Cookie arrive on Monday and that's just the start of things. I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about after next week. Hope all is well with everyone back in the States. Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Labs

P.S. GO IRISH!!!! BEAT SOUTHERN CAL!!!!

Stepping Out Into Secondary School