Christmas Memories of my Auntie Madge

 

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town

Written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie

Arranged by Jim Clements

Sung by Voces8

My Auntie Madge (Margaret Collins) would have been ten or eleven when this song first appeared in 1934. But she never heard the marvellous arrangement above of the song that has just been issued by Voces8, the British choir that I have often used in Sunday Reflections, singing a different kind of music.

Auntie Madge was the youngest of my mother's six sisters Jennie, Nan, Neita, Bridie, Eileen and Madge. I'm not sure where Bridie, who died in infancy, came in the sequence but I often heard my mother, Mary, talking about her. Three boys, Mick, Paddy and Jack, completed the family of my maternal grandparents, William Patrick Collins and Annie Dowd. My grandfather died early in 1945 when I was nearly two but I don't have any memories of him, though I am happy that he knew me, his third grandchild, and that he held me. He was only 59 when he died of lung cancer.

My first experience of the death of someone close to me was that of Auntie Madge on 3 February 1950 at the age of 26. I was a few months short of seven. She had rheumatic fever when she was twelve and it caught up with her in January 1950. I remember my mother and father, John, taking turns, along with my aunts, in spending nights in my grandmother's house when Madge was in her last illness. My father was with her when she died. I heard him say, If Madge doesn't get to heaven there's not much chance for the rest of us. That was his way of saying that she was a particularly kind and caring person.

My mother, God bless her, took me to the wake in my grandmother's home in Blackhall Place, Dublin, where the family had grown up. I still remember that vividly.

Auntie Madge wasn't married but had a boyfriend. Years later I learned from my mother that he also had another girlfriend who died and never married. We often have no idea of the sadness in people's lives.

Blackhall Place, Dublin

My grandmother's house was the sixth to the right of the house with the white door.

I have many happy memories of my Auntie Madge who was tall and pretty. One I treasure is her taking three of us cousins, Joan Martin, Auntie Neita's eldest, Billy Kiernan, Auntie Nan's first-born and myself, all born in 1943, to Pims department store in South Great George's Street in Dublin to meet Santa Claus. That was either in December 1949, shortly before her death, or the year before that. I don't remember specifically meeting Santa on that occasion but what I recall vividly is riding on a 'train' with Joan and Billy. We were in a carriage, the 'train' rocking and the 'scenery' flashing by on the outside. When I was somewhat older I realised that this was on some kind of large spool. That lovely memory has stayed with me down the years.

My Auntie Eileen, who was my mother's bridesmaid and my godmother, was married the following summer. This was my first wedding and the reception was held in the one-storey terraced house where her husband, Willie Gallagher, had grown up. I was surprised when Auntie Eileen began to cry, as I thought you were supposed to be happy at your own wedding. A child doesn't always put two-and-two together and years later I realised that she was still grieving for her sister  Madge. Willie's sister Mona, who introduced her brother to my Auntie Eileen - they were both hairdressers - turned 101 last September, the only one of my parents' generation still living.

A Christmas song I associate with Auntie Madge is one that is unabashedly a tearjerker: The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot, published in England in 1937 and made popular by Vera Lynn. (Nat King Cole had a hit with it in 1953, I think.) I must have heard Auntie Madge sing it or talk about it. It was one of the most popular Christmas songs when I was a child. The little boy wrote a note to Santa for some soldiers and a drum. The soldiers in question were made from lead, were about 7 cms high and many little boys got some from Santa.

I don't have any photos of Auntie Madge with me here but the black and white photo of Very Lynn in the video below reminds me of her, especially the hairstyle from the 1940s.

The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot

Sung by Vera Lynn

Auntie Madge never forgot the 'little boy' who is typing this. And he still remembers her fondly and misses her almost 73 years after her untimely death. And he feels sorry for his younger cousins who never knew their Auntie Madge. One of them is named after her.

Rest in peace, Auntie Madge, and may we meet in heaven.

There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes. For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end (from Eucharistic Prayer III when used at Masses for the dead).

'Jesus, mercy; Mary, help.' Sunday Reflections, 1st Sunday of Lent, Year A

The Tempation of Christ, Juan de Flandes [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Matthew 4:1-11 (New Revised  Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition) 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written,

“One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

“He will command his angels concerning you”,
    and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’

Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

“Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.”’

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Matt Talbot statue, Dublin [Wikipedia]

I remember vividly a homily given on the First Sunday in Lent in St Columban's College, Dalgan Park, the Columban seminary in Ireland where I studied from 1961 to 1968, by the late Fr Edward McCormack, who taught us Latin. We all recognised Father Ted, as we called him, as a saintly man. It was clear from his preaching that he was experiencing something of the horror of the very idea of the Devil tempting Jesus, God who became man. It was as if the very soul of Father Ted was shuddering.

Matt Talbot was a Dubliner who had become an alcoholic by the age of 13 or 14 and spent the next fourteen years as a drunkard. He went to the extreme once of stealing a fiddle (violin) from a beggar and pawned it to get money for drink. It was his only living, Matt tells us in the video, and I think that was the worst thing I ever did in my life. Matt made many efforts later to trace the beggar but never succeeded.

Yet during his fourteen years of drinking Matt hardly ever missed Sunday Mass, though he didn't receive Holy Communion, and always said a Hail Mary before sleeping. I think that's what saved me in the long run, he tells us.

At the beginning of the second video Matt, masterfully played by Irish actor Seamus Forde, goes through a soul-wrenching temptation right at Communion time, something that happens the same Sunday morning at Mass in three different churches, a temptation that drives him out of each, until he falls on his knees outside one of them and prays Jesus, mercy; Mary help, a prayer that most Dubliners would have been familiar with. Perhaps Jesus had called Matt to share in the experience of his three temptations in the desert.

Matt Talbot towards the end of his life [Wikipedia]

The second video shows Matt sending a donation to the Maynooth Mission to China, as the Columbans were first known in Ireland, some time in the mid-1920s. The note he enclosed is in the Columban archives in Ireland. [A Columban priest told me recently that the original is now in Rome, with a copy in Ireland.] The amount, one pound from himself and ten shillings (half of a pound) from his sister, was considerable for poor people.

Towards the end of the video Matt speaks of the things God had asked him to do. He put these thoughts in my mind when I was praying - and I knew they came from him. Only the priest in confession knew about these special things, small things God wanted me to do. They weren't for anybody else.

Among the special things, small things were the chains he wore on certain occasions. It was these very chains, found on his body when he died, that led to people asking questions about me . . . God must have wanted it that way . . . using me to say something to people today, now.

Lent is a gift that God gives the Church each year, a personal gift to each member of the Church, a time when he wants to put these thoughts in my mind when I am praying.

Matt Talbot was the farthest thing imaginable from the 'celebrities' of today during his life. In the more than 90 years since his death he has given hope to many, especially persons struggling with alcoholism and other addictions. 

Will I allow God this Lent to put whatever thoughts he wants to in my mind by giving him time in prayer? Will I allow him, as Mary did when she said Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word, to use me to say something to people today, now?

Will I fall on my knees in moments of great temptation, as Matt did during the terrible struggle he had right at Communion time three times on the one Sunday morning, perhaps reflecting the three temptations of the Lord in today's gospel, and plead Jesus, mercy, Mary help?

They thought I was missing the good things in life. But God gave me the best part - and he never took it away.

St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner St, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Dubliners refer to churches by their street names rather than by their patronal names. The church above, which Matt calls 'Gardiner Street church', is that of the Jesuits. Matt also refers a number of times to the 'chapel' in Seville Place, the Church of St Laurence O'Toole, once Archbishop of Dublin. This is another old Dublin usage, calling a church a 'chapel'. The accent and idioms of Matt in the two videos are pure Dublin. 

When I was a child my mother, when 'going into town', ie into the city centre, would sometimes go through Granby Lane and we'd pray at the spot where Matt died. Everyone in Dublin then knew who Matt Talbot was. I'm not so sure about today.

You can discover more about this wonderful man at the Dublin Diocesan Matt Talbot website and by googling, especially on YouTube.

The Annunciation, El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word (Luke 1:38).

Columban Fr Terence Twohig RIP

Fr Terence (Traolach) Twohig

(16 April 1938 - 30 March 2016)

Fr Terence P. F. Twohig, known as 'Terry', was born in Donnycarney, Dublin on 16 April 1938. 

Our Lady of Consolation Church, Donnycarney [Website]

He was educated at St Patrickʼs National School, Drumcondra, Coláiste Mhuire, Parnel Square, and Mount St Josephʼs College, Roscrea. He entered the Columban seminary, St Columban's, College, Dalgan Park, Ireland, in September 1956 and was ordained priest on 21 December 1962.

St Columban, Mount St Joseph's, Roscrea

Stained glass window by Harry Clarke (1931)

Appointed to the Philippines in 1963, he was assigned to Mindanao. He served in Dumalinao, Kapatagan and Kolambugan, before being assigned to Ireland for three years on promotion work. 

Lake Lanaw from Marawi City [Wikipedia]

On his return to Mindanao he served in Kolambugan, Kiwalan and Iligan City. He then spent the next ten years in parishes in the Prelature of Marawi, where around 95 per cent of the people are Muslims, in Marawi City, Malabang and Karomatan (now Sultan Naga Dimaporo). For part of that time he lived in a Muslim village in order to learn the Maranao language, spoken by the majority of Muslims in the two Lanao provinces, and become closer to the people. This was a difficult time for Father Terry.

A Muslim friend later wrote to him, Father we really miss you back here. You have been a wonderful man to us, better than any good Muslim has been. We really needed help, and the help unexpectedly came from you who have been accused by our folk as an adversary . . . I want you to know that there are Muslims, pure Muslims, who appreciate your work. Should I have the opportunity I would work, and be proud of working, side by side with you, to  bring justice and peace to both our peoples.

In 1990, Father Terry spent a sabbatical year in Birmingham, England, doing  Islamic Studies. On his return to the Philippines, he spent three years in Pagadian Diocese. 

On hearing of Fr Terry's death, Sultan Maguid Maruhom, a Muslim friend in Pagadian, sent this message that was read at the end of the funeral Mass: I am very sad to know that Fr Terry Twohig passed away yesterday in Ireland. As I pray for his soul, I and my family also extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and to the Columban Fathers. Father Terry was a good man who spent long years of his life in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, to serve our people with abundance of heart and help sow the seeds of peace in this part of the world. I am one of his Muslim friends whom he had much inspired to take the challenge in bridging understanding and building peace between people of different faiths. One thing that made him very close to my heart was that in my time of great trouble this good man always came to help and console me. He never abandoned me as a friend despite the risk. Though he may have left us for good, I am sure my memory of him will always stay. Indeed he was a friend I will never forget and he will inspire me forever.

St Joseph's Church, Balcurris, Ballymun, Dublin

Assigned once again to Ireland, he spent ten happy years with the people of Ballymun. On 16 May 1998 while he was celebrating Mass for 60 children making their First Holy Communion a shooting incident took place in the church. In his homily at the funeral, Fr Donal Hogan noted: Of course Terry later visited the gunman in jail a number of times – ever the merciful one – indeed the Christ-like one. 

RTÉ report on shooting in St Joseph’s Church

Am important part of Father Terry's life was his involvement with the Jesus Caritas Fraternity of Priests, in Mindanao and later in Dublin, inspired by the spirituality of Blessed Charles de Foucauld.

Failing health forced Father Terry to the Dalgan Nursing Home in 2004. He was a gentle, good-humoured man, always interested in people. A very committed missionary, he made every effort to reach out to the Muslims of Mindanao, knowing that only the witness of true Christian charity would, and did indeed, make an impression on them. 

Father Terry died on 30 March 2016.May he rest in peace. Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me . . . (Psalm 23 [22]:6, Grail translation).

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal. May his noble soul be at the right hand of God.

St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park

Prayer of Abandonment
Blessed Charles de Foucauld

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands;

do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,

and in all your creatures –

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,

and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

A Proud Dubliner

Like most Irish people, Father Terry had a strong attachment to his native county/city. No doubt this was part of the strong sense of rootedness that enabled him to reach out to Muslims in Mindanao. During his funeral Mass his battered Breviary and a Dublin shirt were brought up as symbols of his life.

Members of the Dublin Gaelic Football team [Dublin GAA]

At the end of the burial of a Catholic in Ireland a decade of the Rosary is prayed.  And after that at the burial of a Columban the Salve Regina is sung. At Father Terry's funeral another song was added, Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels), the theme song of Dubliners, especially those from the city. Father Terry probably never heard this recent version in Dutch, sung by Ancora, but I'm sure he would have enjoyed it.

Columban Fr Eamonn F. Byrne RIP

Fr Eamonn F. Byrne

(23 July 1929 - 12 December 2015)

Fr Eamonn Byrne died in St Columban's Nursing Home, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland, on 12 December 2015.  Born in Crumlin, Dublin on 23 July 1929, he was educated at Rialto National School and Synge St Christian Brothers' School, Dublin, and entered the Columban seminary in Dalgan Park in 1947. He was ordained priest there on 21 December 1953.

Synge Street CBS logo [Wikipedia]

Appointed to the Philippines in 1954, he was assigned to St Isidore the Farmer Parish, Labrador, Pangasinan, for three years.

St Isidore the Farmer Church, Labrador [Wikipedia]

From 1957 to 1964 he was Chaplain at University of the East, Manila, and later at Far Eastern University, Manila. He spent periods as Director of Student Catholic Action in Manila, and many years later, in retirement, he published a history of that dynamic movement underthe title, Columbans in Student Catholic Action, Philippines 1937-2007.

Logo of Student Catholic Action Philippines [Wikipedia]

From 1974 till 1977 Fr Byrne worked to develop the Columban apostolate to the Filipino community in the USA. Then, it was back to Pangasinan, to the parishes of Lingayen, Naguelguel, Labrador and Sual until 1988 when he was assigned to the Columban Formation Program for college students in Cebu City for a brief period. Subsequently he served for six years as Director of Vocations in Luzon, and a further six years on Mission Awareness in that area. His last appointment in the Philippines was to Our Lady of Remedies Parish, Malate, Manila, where he served from 2000 to 2007, when he returned to the Retirement Home at St Columbanʼs, Navan.

Epiphany of the Lord Co-Cathedral, Lingayen [Wikipedia]

A man of great charm and good humour, he was a popular pastor and worked very well with young people. As long as his health permitted, he was an enthusiastic member of the retired Columbans in Dalgan, ever willing to lend his support and encouragement to any new initiative.

May he rest in peace.

St Columban's Cemetery, Dalgan Park

Obituary by Fr Cyril Lovett

Grafton Street, Dublin [Wikipedia]

'Grafton Street's a wonderland . . .'

Fr Patrick Raleigh, Regional Director of the Columbans in Ireland, wrote in an email: Fr Eugene Ryan, a classmate, recited the Prayers at the Cemetery. After lunch in the College there was an impromptu sing-song and very fittingly some of the songs were Dublin songs.

Very likely one of those songs was The Dublin Saunter, written by Dubliner Leo Maguire for another Dubliner, Noel Purcell, who sings it here. Noel (1900 - 1985) was an internationally-known film, TV and stage actor and, like Father Eamonn, was educated at Synge Street CBS.

St Stephen's Green, Dublin [Wikipedia]

'And a stroll in Stephen's Green'

My mother's 100th birth anniversary

Mary Coyle (née Collins)

18 January 1915 – 29 April 1970

I was told by a childhood and lifelong friend of my mother, Maureen, that this studio photo was taken when my mother was 19. They both had their photos taken the same day.

On 18 January 1915 an event happened in Dublin that was to have some consequences for me. Annie Dowd presented William Patrick Collins with the third of their ten children, seven girls and three boys. T

hey named her Mary. She in turn, on 20 April 1943, presented her husband, John Coyle, with the first of their two children, both boys. The photo above was taken in a studio shortly after their honeymoon. They were married on 6 July 1942.

The video above shows scenes of the Dublin into which she was born, all in the city centre. Apart from the volume and nature of traffic not too much has changed there in the last hundred years.

From what she and others told me I know that my mother was a very lively person when young. She told me more than once, with a smile, that when she was 12 she won a Charleston contest but was afraid her father would find out. I don't know if he ever did.

As a young adult my mother appeared in a number of amateur stage productions and on at least one occasion she appeared in one of Dublin's leading theatres, The Olympia, singing Vienna, City of My Dreams. I think she would have liked this version in the original German and performed in Vienna itself.

I can say that I grew up with music, thanks to both my parents. Neither played an instrument but they had me take piano lessons from the time I was five or six. And we listened to the same popular music on the radio as there was only one station in the Republic of Ireland in those days, though we could pick up some BBC stations as well.

My mother's 'party piece' was Because and her favourite recording of it was that by Deanna Durbin, who sang it in a 1939 movie called Three Smart Girls Grow Up, a sequel to the 1936 film Three Smart Girls. She often referred to these, with a smile on her face.

There used to a video of the song on YouTube taken from the movie but it's not there anymore.

Mam hated school and left the day she turned 14, as the law allowed. However, I think she regretted that. She and my father, who left school at 15 to become an apprentice carpenter, made sure that my brother and I got a good education. The husband of a cousin once said to me, 'One of the most important decisions in your life was your parents' decision to send you to O'Connell's School.' He was right and I think my mother was the driving force in that. I think that they both hoped I would be able to get a permanent job in the civil service but they never told me what to do. When they asked me one night, not long before I did my Leaving Certificate, the state examination at the end of secondary schooling, what I wanted to do and I told them that I wanted to be a missionary priest, they gave me their full blessing.

Ordination Day with my parents and brother Paddy

When I was four or five my mother, who had been a very fit person until then, not at all bothered by pushing a pram for miles, developed bronchitis, which was to plague her for the rest of her life. She told me after my ordination on 20 December 1967 that she had prayed that she would live long enough to see that day. I was sent in 1968 to study music at Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York. I got an unexpected opportunity to spend six weeks at home over Christmas 1969 and New Year 1970. That turned out to be the last time we were to meet. She died in her sleep on 29 April 1970.

My mother, though she was quick-tempered, wasn't one who showed other emotions openly. However, someone, possibly my father, told me that after my parents saw me off on my way back to New York that last time that she cried, the only time she had ever done so when I was going away.

A photo I took of my parents in the summer of 1968

After my mother's sudden death I gradually came to see so many unexpected blessing before she died, including the long visit home at Christmas. I've seen such blessings since in my own life and in those of others. I call this the 'thoughtfulness' of God.

The last song I heard my mother sing at a party, maybe during that long Christmas break, wasn't her usual 'party piece' but a song that has been adopted by the Irish as one of their own, even though it was written in 1875 by a German-American, Thomas P. Westendorf. 'Kathleen' is an Irish form of 'Catherine'. Here is Deanna Durbin, who had a beautifully pure voice, singing it, appropriately, in a movie called For the Love of Mary, made in 1948. It was her last film, though she lived to be 91 and died two years ago in Paris.

More than once my father told me how good my mother was at budgetting. Whatever it was, food or clothing, she always bought good quality, though not the most expensive. From both my parents I learned the values of honesty, responsibility and hard work. I learned not to spend money I don't have. I also learned to be trustworthy - because of their trust in me.

Mam, may your mezzo-soprano voice add to the heavenly choir!

'Zeal for your house will consume me.' Sunday Reflections, Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

Archbasilica of St John Lateran [Wikipedia]

The full name of the church is: Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. It is the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome.

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basicila takes precedence over the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

Gospel John 2:13-22  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Christ driving the money-changers from the Temple, Rembrandt, c.1626

Pushkin Museum, Moscow [Web Gallery of Art]

We are not isolated and we are not Christians on an individual basis, each one on his or her own, no, our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church.

Pope Francis spoke these words at his General Audience on Wednesday 25 June this year. He went on to say:

The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own. If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we acknowledge the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognize him in our brothers and sisters, it is because others, before us, lived the faith and then transmitted it to us. We have received the faith from our fathers, from our ancestors, and they have instructed us in it . . . So, this is the Church: one great family, where we are welcomed and learn to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus.

A few weeks earlier in his homily at Mass in St Martha's on 15 May the Bishop of Rome spoke in similar words:

But you cannot understand a Christian alone, just like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us. No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history. So a Christian without history, without a Christian nation, a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible. It is a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life.

This Sunday we celebrate the dedication of the Cathedral of Rome. In a real sense it is the Mother Church for Catholics.

In his homily in St Martha's Pope Francis said:

Looking back the Christian is a person who remembers: Let us seek the grace of memory, always. Looking forward, the Christian is a man, a woman of hope.

The feast of the dedication of any church is a feast of the Lord and takes precedence over a Sunday in Ordinary Time. And because St John the Baptist is one of the patrons of the Lateran Basilica the Mass has baptismal overtones, especially the First Reading.

I felt myself drawn by this feast to be a person who remembers, to accept the grace of memory from God and look back at some of the churches in my native Dublin in which I became a Christian and grew in the faith. Before the Holy Week liturgies were changed from the morning to the afternoon or evening by Pope Pius XII in 1955 my mother used to take my brother and me to visit seven churches on the afternoon of Holy Thursday to spend some time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in each. This practice seems to have died out in Dublin but it is very much alive here in the larger cities in the Philippines where it is known by the Spanish term visita iglesia. And I have just discovered that this practice originated in Rome, with the Archbasilica of St John Lateran top of the list.

Here I 'visit' a number of churches in Dublin that played a significant part in my becoming a member of the Church and in my growth in the faith. I invite each reader to make a similar pilgrimage of thanksgiving to God for the gift of our faith, for the gift of our Church and for those who have passed on the faith to us and nurtured us in it. The Church is a community of persons, God the Father's sons and daughters by virtue of our baptism, just as a family is a community of persons. And just as a family normally lives in a home - we describe persons living in extreme poverty as 'homeless' - so does the Christian family normally gather in its parish church.

Pope Francis describes the parish in Evangelii Gaudium No 28, in these words: The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration. 

St Joseph's Church, Berkeley Road, Dublin [Wikipedia]

I was born in  small nursing home nearly opposite the church above on 20 April 193, Tuesday of Holy Week, the last time that Easter fell on the latest date possible, 25 April. A few days later, probably on Holy Saturday, I was baptised in that church, which wasn't our parish church as we lived on the other side of the city.

About five years ago I celebrated Mass for the first time in St Joseph's. The parish is now run by the Discalced Carmelites. The congregation on the Sunday I celebrated Mass was very different from what it would have been at the time of my birth. There were many Filipinos in the congregation, most of them nurses in the nearby Mater Hospital. And the servers were two girls aged about 12. One was white, from one of the oldest parts of the city, and the other was black, of Nigerian parentage. I was amused by the fact that the white girl would not acknowledge that she was from the inner city of Dublin while her companion was very proud to be a Dubliner! I met their mothers after Mass and they laughed when I told them this.

When I entered the Columban seminary in 1961 I could not have imagined such a congregation in any parish in Dublin, much less an altar-server whose parents were immigrants from Nigeria.

Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Drimnagh, Dublin

On a Christmas weekday a few months before I turned three I was thrown out of the church above, along with my pregnant mother, for shouting 'Ba' at the Infant in the crib.It was a traumatic experience for my mother. But whenever she would recall the event she would always add that the priest who ordered us out could not have done more for her sister, my Auntie Madge, who died four years later, in another parish.

In 1991, while at home in Dublin, I was asked by the Columbans to preach at all the Masses in that church on a Sunday in Lent when students from their final year in secondary school were observing a 24-hour fast to raise funds for Trócaire, the development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I've never had a more attention-grabbing opening to a homily than I did that day: I was thrown out of this church. But by the time I had preached for the fourth time I felt a vicarious healing on behalf of my mother, who died in 1970. That was a real grace.

St Saviour's Church, Dominic St, Dublin [Wikipedia]

In the old days churches belonging to religious orders in Dublin usually had High Mass on such days as Easter Monday and Whit (Pentecost) Monday and my father would bring me to one or other of them on those occasions. I distinctly recall that when I was maybe seven or eight being particularly attracted by the habit of the Dominican friars. I didn't recognise then the beginnings of being called by God to be a priest but I see it now as such, even though I subsequently never considered becoming a Dominican.

St Dominic at Prayer, El Greco, 1600-02

Private Collection [Web Gallery of Art]

I must confess that I wasn't an entirely enthusiastic pilgrim when my father took me to High Mass or when my mother brought my brother and me to seven churches on Holy Thursday. I can see a reflection of my father in these words of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium, No 167: Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. My father seldom spoke about his faith but I could see even then, and more clearly later, how his faith permeated his whole life and how he felt uplifted by the beauty of the High Mass.

St Agatha's Church, North William St, Dublin [parish website]

It was in St Agatha's Church that I was confirmed by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin in March 1954, along with my classmates from O'Connell Schools, which was located in the parish. St Agatha's didn't play any other part in my young life but its most illustrious parishioner, the Venerable Matt Talbot, has always been part of my life. Sometimes when walking 'into town' with my mother - her way of describing going into the city centre - we would go through Granby Lane, behind the Dominican church, where Matt died suddenly on his way to Mass there on Trinity Sunday 1925, and say a prayer at the simple shrine that marked the spot. Matt, a simple working man, overcame, with God's grace, his addiction to alcohol and lived a life of extraordinary asceticism that was known during his lifetime only to his spiritual director. Without being aware of it, my mother was strengthening my faith.

Holy Family Church, Aughrim St, Dublin [Facebook]

It was above all in Aughrim Street Church - Dubliners rarely refer to a church by its patronal name but by the street its on - that my faith grew. That faith was strengthened by the 'communal cough' after the second elevation, that of the chalice with the Precious Blood, that to me was a far deeper expression of faith than the perfunctory 'Christ has died . . .' introduced in 1969. It was the release of the sense of awe that people had, knowing that the bread and wine had become the Body and Blood of Christ. The church thronged with people young and old, most getting ready to go to work or to school, at the early morning Mass on the weekdays of Lent was also part of my growth in our faith.

I never became and altar-boy in our parish church, though I had enlisted as a trainee shortly after my First Holy Communion in 1950 at St Mary of the Angels, Church Street, the church of the Capuchin Friars (in video above), where my father used to take me some times for High Mass and where my mother took me the Sunday when St Maria Goretti was canonised in 1950. Alessandro Serenelli, who murdered the saint, spent the latter years of his life after being released from prison in a Capuchin friary in Italy, hence the connection with the Capuchin church in Dublin. What I remember is how long it took to say the fifteen decades of the Rosary that day in the church when I was a very unwilling participant!  

It was in Aughrim Street church that I celebrated my First Mass on 21 December 1967, the old feast of St Thomas the Apostle, the day after my ordination in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.

St Mary's Pro-cathedral, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Our class was to have been ordained in the seminary chapel in St Columban's College, Dalgan Park, Navan, about 35 kms north-west of Dublin, but had to be transferred at the last minute - we were informed about three days before 20 December - due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. Four opted to be ordained in Derry Cathedral, one in his native Glasgow on the 21st, with the remaining 14 to be ordained in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

During our ordination ceremony

With Bishop Patrick Cleary who ordained us.

Bishop Cleary was one of the first Columbans and the first - and only, I think - Bishop of Nancheng, China, from which he was expelled in 1962.

When I was around 8 and 9 I was a member of the Palestrina Choir in the Pro-Cathedral and occasionally dropped in to pray there on my way home from school. But I have celebrated Mass there only twice - at my ordination and in November 2011 when I concelebrated in the annual Mass on the occasion of the death anniversary of Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, who died on 7 November 1980.

I realise that in these Sunday Reflections I have 'visited' seven churches in my native city and diocese. There are more, all of them places of God's very special presence, above all in the celebration of Mass and in the Blessed Sacrament, the latter inviting us into a deep intimacy with Jesus our Risen Lord.

Today's feast calls us to have a profound sense of thanksgiving to God for the gift of faith,  for his abiding presence among us, in our daily lives and in the special buildings in which we gather each Sunday and often on other days to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And as we celebrate the Dedication of the Cathedral of Rome It is truly right and just that we pray for Pope Francis, who emphasises that he is Bishop of Rome, and for the People of God in that diocese

The papal cathedra in St John Lateran [Wikipedia]

The Latin word cathedra means a chair with armrests, used as a throne. As the throne of the bishop, form which he teaches, it is the root of the word 'cathedral'.

Art historian Elizabeth Lev speaks about the Cathedral of Rome