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!

'Delay communions until adulthood, says priest' - Irish Examiner today

First Holy Communion, Holy Family Home, Bacolod City

May is the month in Ireland when children make their First Holy Communion. Over the years it has become less and less a significant moment of faith in the lives of young Irish Catholics and more and more an extravagant family celebration where the Christian faith is no more than a background and very often lacking in the parents of the First Communicant.

Today's Irish Examiner carries a story under the headline Delay communions until adulthood, says priest. Fiachra Ó Cionnaith's report begins:

The claim has been made by a leading Catholic priest, who said the age-specific system has lost almost all connection to what is meant to be intended. 

Speaking on RTÉ Liveline programme [a very popular phone-in radio show on the main national station] yesterday, Fr Paddy Byrne said the modern-day version of the religious rites of passage has become a 'hostile' event involving families who do not want to be there. 

He said cultural changes in recent years mean many ceremonies now involve parents who have moved away from the Church, but feel peer pressure to allow their children to join the ceremonies. 

In other cases, he said, otherwise religious families see the events more as family parties and opportunities for their children to be given money and presents. 

The article quotes Fr Byrne: 85% of children taking first communion are not seen again by the Church. This figure may not be quite accurate as probably most of them will appear in church at least once after their First Holy Communion - for their Confirmation about five years later. Then for many, maybe most, it's 'Goodbye'.

TV3, a commercial station in Ireland, broadcast Modern Ireland - My First Holy Communion  (video above) in 2009. It looks at three families, two Irish and a Nigerian family now living in Dublin. Ironically, the immigrant family is the most comfortable financially. For all three families the First Holy Communion of one of their children is a very important family event. One father hopes that it will bring his separated parents together for the occasion. Sadly, it doesn't.

But it is only the Nigerian family that clearly sees the day above all as a celebration of their Catholic faith and an occasion they hope will be one of a deepening in his faith of the young boy making his First Holy Communion.

The excerpts from the Mass in County Louth shown in the video made me shudder.

First Communicants at Holy Family Home for Girls. I had just baptised and confirmed some of them. Most of these girls come from backgrounds of poverty and many have experienced far worse than that.

Though I'm not sure that I'd go along with the idea of leaving the sacraments of initiation until adulthood I think that Fr Byrne is highlighting the crisis of a widespread loss of the Catholic Christian faith in Ireland, something I've posted about before, also in the context of First Holy Communion.

Father Byrne observes that First Holy Communion and Confirmation are losing their meaning for Irish Catholics and notes, There’s a majority [of parents] who are quite unruly when it comes to the basic etiquette of how to behave. I’ve often been asked 'do you have wi-fi here, can people go on Facebook?'

How can someone who doesn't now the alphabet teach another how to read? How can parents or grandparents who have in effect lost the faith or for whom Mass is not important pass on the faith to their children and grandchildren? Pope Francis carries in his breviary a note from his paternal grandmother, born Rosa Margherita Vasallo and who emigrated from Italy to Argentina with his parents: May my grandchildren, to whom I have given my whole heart, have a long and happy life but if pain, sickness or loss of a loved one should fill them with sadness, may they remember that one breath taken at the Tabernacle, where the greatest and august martyr is present and one glance at Mary at the foot of the cross, will act like a balm that is able to heal the deepest and most painful wounds.

Where are the Rosa Margheritas in contemporary Ireland?

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus

A traditional Irish Communion / Christmas hymn

SA GHAEILGE / IN IRISH

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa,
Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa,
Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Shlánaitheoir
Céad míle míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa...

Glóir agus moladh duit, a Íosa, a Íosa,
Glóir agus moladh duit, a Íosa,
Glóir agus moladh duit, a Shlánaitheoir,
Glóir, moladh agus buíochas duit, a Íosa, a Íosa...

Céad míle fáilte romhat, a Shlánaitheoir,
Céad míle míle fáilte romhat, a Íosa, a Íosa...

IN ENGLISH / SA BHÉARLA

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Saviour,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

Glory and praise to you, o Jesus, o Jesus,
Glory and praise to you, o Jesus,
Glory and praise to you, o Saviour,
Glory, praise and thanks to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Saviour,
A hundred thousand welcomes to you, o Jesus, o Jesus...

100th anniversary of the birth of my Dad

John Coyle, my Dad, about a week before his sudden death on 11 August 1987.

Please remember in your prayers the soul of my father, John, who was born on 27 March 1913, a hundred years ago today, in Dublin, Ireland, to Nicholas and Jane Coyle. Easter fell on 23 March that year and so he came into the world on Easter Thursday.

I blogged about Dad on his 25th death anniversary, 11 August 1987, and on his 95th birth anniversary. And I posted about my parents on the 70th anniversary of their wedding.

A photo I took of my parents, Mary and John, in Ireland in the summer of 1968, when my mother was 53 and my father 55. My mother died less than two years later.

Collect from the Mass for the Priest's Parents

O God, who commanded us to honour father and mother, 

have mercy in your compassion 

on my father and mother, 

forgive them their sins, 

and bring me to see them one day 

in the gladness of eternal glory.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever.

My parents' wedding photo, taken in a studio some weeks after their wedding, which took place on 6 July 1942.

My parents were married 70 years ago today

On Saturday 6 July 1942 John Coyle, a carpenter, married Mary Collins, a seamstress, in St Paul's Church, Arran Quay, Dublin, (photo below) the first Catholic church to be built in Dublin after the Act of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 that abolished most of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws in the United Kingdom, of which the whole of Ireland was then apart. The occasion was to have some impact on my life as I was the first-born of their union, arriving in the world nine months and two weeks later. The wedding photo above was taken in a studio in Dublin after their honeymoon. So it is likely that I was present on the occasion!

Other couples who had their weddings in St Pauls, now sadly closed, were Captain Charles Boycott, who gave a word to the English language, and Anne Dunne, in 1852, and Éamon de Valera, who played such a major part in Irish history in the last century,  and Sinéad Flanagan in 1910.

St Paul's Church, Arran Quay, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Because of the 'Emergency', as the Second World War was known in what is now the Republic of Ireland - we were neutral in the war - travel was restricted and most things were rationed. The wedding took place at 7am and the breakfast, as wedding receptions were called in those days because there were no afternoon or evening Masses and there was a strict fast from midnight for those who wished to receive Holy Communion, was held in the nearby Four Courts Hotel. It no longer exits. 

But there was also another reason for the early ceremony. My parents were to travel to Arklow, a coastal town in County Wicklow, south of Dublin, by train. They went first class, though my mother often spoke of their return journey a fortnight later when they couldn't find a seat because of the number of schoolgirls on an outing.

Avoca Estuary and Nineteen Arches Bridge, Arklow

Both my parents loved to dance and Dad was one of those who in their spare time built the dance-floor in the hall of the Catholic Young Men's Society in Aughrim Street, where my Mam also appeared in a number of amateur stage productions. She was a very good singer. She'd often tell a story about my Uncle Joe Kiernan, who married one of her younger sisters, my Auntie Nan, at a dance in the hall when Irving Berlin's Always was being played. It seems my Uncle Joe wasn't 'unhappy' and sang the word 'always' with a big grin on his face each time it came around. My Mam would always laugh as she recalled this.

My parents, left, Auntie Nan and Uncle Joe on an outing to Powerscourt, County Wicklow, maybe around 1940 before either couple were married. They've all gone to their reward, Uncle Joe being the last. I celebrated his funeral Mass in 2000.

Irving Berlin was a master at putting simple melodies and simple words together in a way that spoke to people.

I'll be loving you, always,
With a love that's true, always.
When the things you plan need a helping hand
I will understand, always, always.
Days may not be fair, always.
That's when I'll be there, always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year but always.

I was growing up when rock 'n' roll arrived in the mid-1950s. When I'd see my parents dancing I'd envy them because they danced so well and so gracefully, though they weren't quite as good as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers whose movies they would have seen in the 1930s. When my mother was only 12 she won a prize for doing the Charleston - and was afraid her father would find out!

The late Fr Vincent San Juan SJ, a Filipino who spent most of his life as a priest in the family life ministry, used to compare the relationship of husband and wife with a couple doing ballroom dancing. Sometimes the man led, sometimes the woman. There may be times too when they're not in step with one another or may even step on one another's toes. But when there is love they're soon back into the proper rhythm.

One evening when I was already ordained I was washing the dishes at home with my mother and asked her how she had come to marry my father. One aspect of the story still makes me smile. My Dad was a very honourable person. His best friend, who was also his best man at his wedding, was Matt McKenna. Matt was only 43 when he died. He and my father used to go on summer holidays together. My father judged that he was spending too much time with Matt and was neglecting his girlfriend - so he dropped the latter! Some time later she was given two tickets for a formal dance and asked her mother, later to be my Granny Collins, what she should do. 'Invite Joe', was her mother's response. 'Joe' was the nickname she knew  my father by. So she did and they would have been dressed like Fred and Ginger in the video above for the occasion when they reestablished their relationship.

I'm grateful to God for the advice Granny Collins gave to her daughter, for the dancing that led my parents to the altar, for their giving life to me and to my brother Paddy and for the fact that I never had any doubts about the commitment they made to each other on 6 July 1942, a commitment that Irving Berlin captures in his song.

My mother died in her sleep on 29 April 1970. She had given my father a new suit as a Silver Wedding Anniversary gift in 1967. He was always slow to use something new. He wore the suit for the first time at my mother's funeral. He died suddenly on 11 August 1987. May they and their parents, Nicholas and Jane Coyle, William Patrick and Annie Collins, rest in peace.

Estefanio Argall Luceño RIP, the father of a Columban missionary

Estefanio Luceño with his wife Teresita, 60 years married, taken in Dahilayan, Bukidnon, last year

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Estefanio A Luceño who died in Pagadian City on Holy Saturday, 7 April, and will be buried there on Easter Saturday, 14 April. He was 85 and the father of Aurora Luceño, a long-term Columban lay missionary who has spent much of her time in Pakistan.

Many of us have read stories, including vocation stories, about and by missionaries and been inspired by them. We don't hear quite as often from the parents of missionaries, about their part in the vocation stories of their sons and daughters or of what it costs them. Below is an article we published in Misyon, the Columban magazine I edit here in the Philippines, in January-February 2004 by the late Estefanio: We had to let her go. Now God has asked his wife and family to let him go. As the Irish prayer for the dead goes, 'May the light of heaven shine upon him'.

Aurora Luceño, known to her friends as 'Auring' or 'Au'.

To be the father of the Columban lay missionary is indeed a rare privilege. I consider it precious gift from God. My daughter, Aurora C. Luceño, a civil engineer by profession, was enjoying a well-paying job and a promising career in the Department of Interior and Local Government before being sent to the Columban Lay Mission Program (CLMP) she took part in the Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program, which gave her a chance to visit different Asian countries, including Japan, as a goodwill ambassador of youth.

Auring, second from right, with Columban lay missionaries and staff on a visit to Vigan City in the northern Philippines.

The way she wanted it

When she first broached the idea and sought our permission to become a lay missionary, we had no objection except that my wife Teresita and I would have preferred that she work in a Muslim or Subaanen area in Mindanao rather than in a foreign land. Since childhood she had been nurturing the idea of serving God as a missionary and had made a serious discernment of the way of life she intended to pursue. After the nine-month orientation program for cross-cultural mission of the Columban Lay Missionary Program (CLMP) she was assigned to Pakistan. [Editor's note: the word 'Program' has since been dropped from the name and 'CLM' are the initials now used]. At this juncture we reiterated our preference. However, she reasoned that the Christian population in our country constitutes a big majority compared to believers in Islam, whereas Christians in Pakistan make up less than one per cent of that overwhelmingly Islamic country. We saw her point and so finally consented.

Mr and Mrs Luceño, 'Still in love at 85'.

The mission sending

I very well remember the support Aurora received from our parishioners during her missions ending in 1994, a solemn and colorful ceremony held in San Jose Parish, Pagadian City. Msgnr Patricio R. Getigan, Fr Felix Tigoy, the parish priest, Fr Neil Collins and a number of other Columban priests celebrated the Holy Mass. I was deeply touched by the way that things had come to pass. I still remember the strong feeling of support from friends and the reality of parting. Missionary work is not new to us. As leaders of Couples for Christ my wife and I were commissioned to evangelize in Zamboanga City where we conducted a Christian Life Program in coordination with the Claretians. Long before, we had been associated with missionaries in our place and had been actively involved in various church activities such as the Family Life Aposolate.

Auring in Tara, where the High Kings of Ireland once lived

Worried Parents

An older sister of Aurora, Sr Mary Judith Madeleine OCD, likewise witnessed among our Muslim brothers and sisters in Marawi City where she had and nine other Carmilite nuns were kidnapped by bandits in 1986. Hence, there were times when we felt apprehensive over the safety of Aurora and other missionaries exposed to the perils of war, particularly at the height of the war on terror waged by the USA in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s neighbor. However, with the blessing of strong faith and trust in God’s protection we managed to overcome our fears. The conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir is another source of unrest that poses a danger to missionaries. Nevertheless, Aurora assured us of her safety, as she is well loved by the people in the community where she lives and works. Besides, there’s the bigger Columban family to which we feel we belong that has unfailingly supported her in her missionary journey. 

On a visit to Boston, MA, USA

We watched her grow

From her sharing with us I learned that while missionary life can be difficult, it can also be enjoyable, rewarding and full of challenges. I am a witness to the tremendous change in Aurora’s way of life as a missionary and the growth that has made her a stronger and more mature woman. In the process I have made myself present and available to accompany her in her continuing discernment in her life and missionary journey. I have witnessed with interest and satisfaction the growth that she has experienced since she first joined the orientation program. She has since assumed greater responsibilities in the CLMP. I feel I’m greatly blessed as I see the commitment and passion of another of my children to serve people and become a living witness to God’s great love. I am happy that in our small and humble way our family has helped in spreading the Gospel here and in faraway places for the greater glory of God and the coming of his kingdom upon people of diverse races.

Photos from Auring's Facebook.

My Dad's 99th birth anniversary

My ordination day, 20 December 1967, with Dad, Mam and my brother Paddy.



My late Dad, John Coyle, was born 99 years ago today - or possibly yesterday. He was never quite sure whether his birthday was the 26th or 27th but finally opted for the latter.

He is still the biggest influence in my life because of the quiet way he lived his deep faith as a husband, father, neighbour, carpenter and general foreman for many years on building sites. One of his strongest characteristics was his respect for others. He went to Mass every day, including the day he died suddenly, 11 August 1987.



Dad also influenced my taste in popular music. He loved a good tune. Sometimes he would 'doodle' on the piano but couldn't play it. One of his great favourites was Charlie Kunz, in the video above, an American-born bandleader and pianist who settled in England. He would sometimes tell me about the time he saw Charlie perform in the old Theatre Royal in Dublin before World War II.

He and my mother, Mary, were very good ballroom dancers. That is one of the reasons I'm able to write this blog. They had been going together for a while but split up amicably. Some time later my mother was given two tickets for a dress dance (a formal ball). She asked her mother what she should do with the tickets. She said, 'Invite Joe'. 'Joe' was the name my mother and her family used for Dad. To others he was 'John'. But Joseph was his second Christian name.

One of the photos on display in our house was of my parents at a dress dance my father looking elegant in his white bow-tie. It might well have been the occasion when they resumed their relationship. I'm almost certain it was taken before they were married in 1942.

He loved the music of Victor Silvester, featured in the video below. When he visited the Philippines in 1981, eleven years after my mother's death, the people in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental, Mindanao, put on a welcome party. He hadn't lost his ability to 'trip the light fantastic' and enjoyed himself immensely.



My mother used to say if we found ourselves in a crowded space such as a bus or a lift (elevator), 'If we've as much room in heaven we'll be all right'. May the light of heaven shine on my parents and on my grandmother Annie Dowd Collins for suggesting to her daughter Mary that she invite her former boyfriend Joe to that dress dance!

'Fishing for the Words'

An Elderly Couple, Jan Gossart, painted 1525-30

The other day I posted Day of Prayer for Dementia here and on Association of Catholic Women Bloggers. (A few of us priests were invited to join). The same day SherryTex posted Fishing for the Words on the latter. I am reproducing it here.

My dad has Alzheimer's.  

We don't talk about it much if for no reason other than, it hurts.

He is still Dad. He will always be Dad; but the shell of him is being slowly stripped away. Word loss creep first led to fewer letters. I've saved them all. When he visits, we get to eat together, to share the chaos that is my life and laugh a bit, sometimes it overwhelms him --which is reasonable; they overwhelm me sometimes too.

Alzheimer's is brutal and it's ongoing and it makes my heart howl sometimes when I know he's fishing for the next word, the next thought and they all get away. When my grandmother had it, I remember I did what I could to joke it away whenever possible, and I could usually make her laugh. "You always get to go new places. You always meet new people. You can claim you met anyone you want to and impress because we'll never be certain and neither will you." We had a good laugh about that as I helped her get her "doll face" on, she loved for me to draw her eyebrows.

Even late into the disease, Coco and I could still laugh a bit at this hard thing; one time she came into the dining room saying "This cereal tastes terrible." I looked at the silver tray she'd filled with granola and salsa. "Yes, I bet it did." I deadpanned. She smiled at me, she knew it was a bit of a rub. The ability to joke at it took some of the razor edge off, but this time, I can't laugh.

It's too close, too near, too sharp and too soon. Even though it's been ongoing, it still feels like a hard slap whenever we get to a new barrier of "we can't." and that's made harder by being only able to walk in spirit with my folks on this road to the cross because we live so far away.

Dad's still here and sometimes, he's really still here. He can sing with his son if his son coaxes him along and he loves his grandchildren fiercely. He knows the mass and he tries to read things. Sometimes he can.
He still laughs at movies and enjoys company and wants to participate and Mom fiercely takes every opportunity to bring him to those places and people he loves as often as possible.

So today, I am grateful my brothers and sister and I wrote stories about our dad back in 2007, capturing his habits, loves, and our favorite memories.  Now a days, I can read it and have a mental snapshot of some of the wonderful things my Dad is and always was; because Alzheimer's can make everyone else forget what was wonderful and magnificent and beautiful about a person over time, as they are less able to be present and witness to others. It is then that those that love the person who has Alzheimer's must do the remembering.

Christ understood how we remember, by analogy, by familiarity, by meals, by ritual, by words. I at the very least, am not a linear thinker and as such, can tell you the lyrics of a song but not which year the song came out. It gives the impression of someone who jumps from thought to thought, because in reality, that is how my brain operates, in lots of jumps and arcs, very little of my thought process is a grid.

I miss the hooks to old jokes and puns and memories that Dad by citing six thousand books (all of which he had read and I should read by the way) in a single conversation would prompt. I have to prompt them myself to recall his teaching me how to tie knots for a boat, to play poker and make a pina colada. He also cultivated in me a love of Catholic writers that continues to deepen to this day but that seed took a long time to germinate. When we drove across country in a car where only one side door opened when I finished graduate school, he had me read City of God aloud to keep us from growing bored on the road. I told him that sometimes the tone felt like Saint Augustine would walk through town, see something that ticked him off and go back to his room to write it up as an op-ed. He laughed. He'd send me books and articles hoping one day I'd be caught on fire by the stuff. It took, but it took the better part of the past 20 years and now, it is my bed time reading and I wish I wish I wish I could really share it with him.

I can remember him chopping ingredients for gumbo and thus the gumbo recipe. I can remember him strumming the guitar and singing, I've taught some of those songs to my children. They don't always get why I love the song "My old man's a sailor..." but that's okay, hearing their voices evokes his voice; and I get a lump in my throat at church when I hear him sing; it would make me stop singing to listen, but then he'd give me a glare as if to say, "Why aren't You singing?" because that's what we're supposed to be doing at that point.

When a person has Alzheimer's, the first thing to go, are words. They can't remember the word they wanted, the memory evoked won't come into focus, the present goes out of focus and everything is as it isn't. The world becomes a confusing tide of memory, present and unexplained gaps and holes where people and books and ideas and jokes and dreams and pains and loves should be. I don't pretend to be an expert on treatment or care or the long term process or an authority on this of any kind. I'm just his daughter, and I miss his words, his new thoughts, his old puns, all of it.

Part of my present and my past is missing with his memory, like a story he wrote for me in 8th grade. Dad wrote about my very awkward adolescence on an old computer. It was in a word program that no longer exist. So when my modern machine translates it, it becomes gibberish. The story is there, the information is there, it just can't be accessed. I love that story and will have to share it in my own words with my children; but I'd rather have them hold the pages with his words.

Alzheimer's is exactly like that.

I still can't quite laugh, my brain starts to tease about it and I wince. But I know, it is only his brain that is decaying, not his soul and recalling that, fixing on that, it does not ache as much.

Musical memories of my mother on her 41st death anniversary

My parents, John and Mary with my Auntie Nan, a younger sister of my mother, and her husband (or husband-to-be at the time) Joe Kiernan, all of them now gone to their reward, at Powerscourt, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, around 1940. My parents were married on 6 July 1942, Auntie Nan and Uncle Joe in 1941, I think.

My mother died quietly in her sleep at home in Dublin, early in the morning of 29 April 1970, exactly four hears after the death of her own mother, whom I knew as Granny Collins. I'm not sure how old I was when I learned that Granny Collins had been born Annie Dowd.

Mam had a lovely singing voice and appeared in a number or amateur productions in her single days. Her favourite singer was Deanna Durbin, born in Winnipeg, Canada, of Englihs parents but raised in southern California, who left the Hollywood scene after her last movie in 1948 and went to live in Paris where she is now in her 90th year. A song she sang at the end of a 1939 movie, Three Smart Girls Grow Up, that has been recorded by many opera singers, mostly tenors, was my mother's party piece, Because. It is sung in the context of a wedding and, as it happens, there's a big wedding today in London, that of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Clearly, there's some twist in the plot at the end of the movie but it's a happy one!

The last song I heard my mother singing, I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, has always been a great favourite in Ireland. As far as I can recall, she sang it at a farewell party for me before I left to study in the USA in September 1968, nine months or so after my ordination. 'Kathleen' is an anglicised form of 'Caitlín', a Gaelic form of 'Catherine', as is 'Caitríona'. The song was written in 1875 by a German-American, Thomas P. Westendorf. Deanna Durbin sang it in her last movie, For the Love of Mary, made in 1948.

My own favourite song by Deanna Durbin is Beneath the Lights of Home. It brings out clearly the purity of her voice. Deanna is playing a character named Jane Dana in the 1941 movie Nice Girl? who sings the song at a benefit concert for  the Red Cross. Jane is having a somewhat complicated love-life at the time. Not surprisingly, this song became a great favourite with soldiers overseas during World War II.

There were great songs during the 1930s and 1940s but sometimes the toll on those who sang them in Hollywood movies was enormous. Deanna Durbin's very first movie, Every Sunday, a short one made in 1936, featured Judy Garland when they were both 14. Poor Judy's subsequent life was a mess, while Deanna simply left the artificial Hollywood 'lifestyle'.However, by the time she did so she had been divorced twice.

One of the blessings of my childhood was plenty of tuneful music.

Please remember in your prayers my mother, born Mary Collins, dying suddenly at the age of 55, and her mother, born Annie Dowd, dying from cancer at the age of 84, sharing the same death anniversary. May they rest in peace.





Corruption in the Philippines has become family-based, says bishop

Corruption in RP has become family-based, says bishop

This story by Melo Acuna is from CBCPNews. I've highlighted some parts of it and have added [some comments]. 'RP' means 'Republic of the Philippines'.

MANILA, March 16, 2009—Call it corruption: the Filipino style.
When it comes to corruption, there’s one thing that makes the Philippines distinct from other countries, a Roman Catholic bishop has said.

Sadly but true, Balanga Bishop Socrates B. Villegas said what used to be strong family bonds have been ‘abused and corrupted.’

“The singular trademark of graft and corruption in the Philippines, it seems to me, is that our type of corruption is family-based,” he said.

One example, Villegas cited, is the “shadow of corruption” that perennially haunts President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband. [In my almost 38 years in the Philippines I have never seen such shameless corruption, whether family-based or not, as today].

The controversy hounding former military comptroller Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, his wife and two sons—all get entangled in graft cases here and abroad is another example, he said.

Villegas said the “corruption syndicate” is either husband and wife partnership or a father and son connivance or a whole family in cahoots.

“Corruption is done through the family, with the family and in the family,” the 48-year old bishop lamented.

“I have always known that the Filipinos are known for strong family ties. Our strong family bonds have been abused and corrupted. It is our sad reality,” he said.

Bad to worse

The former protégé of the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin said the country’s situation has “deteriorated” because of rampant corruption in the society.

The glaring proof that corruption has reached its alarming state, he said, is that “families are no longer just corruptible but have become blatantly corrupt and corrupting.”

“We have turned from bad to worse,” Villegas lamented.

Villegas’ statement is contained in his reflection in time for the feast of St. Joseph, the patron saint of the cathedral of the Diocese of Balanga, on March 19.

Resurrection

While a family-based corruption is not new, he also cited the “conjugal dictatorship” of former President Marcos and his wife.

In those days, he said, the country rallied and protested against crony families and fought the family political dynasties.

“The reasons for our social discontent thirty years ago have resurrected,” said Villegas, who was a former Manila Auxiliary bishop.

Today, Villegas also chairs the Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education (ECCC) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

Praying together as family

Villegas then called on for the restoration of the integrity of the Filipino family which requires everyone to “start praying again in the family.” [I have often been edified by seeing Filipino families in restaurants praying grace together before they eat].

He said that the faithful cannot just dismiss the “time tested” wisdom of Father Patrick Peyton that “the family that prays together stays together.”

“When family prays, they stay together with God,” he added.

Villegas also said that there is a need to start “simplifying our lives because “the most essential things in life are not available in the malls as what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

He further cited the basics of family life where family members eat together, “not just to satisfy hunger but to be with one another.” [I've been convinced of this since I went to study in the USA in 1968 and saw that families had to really work at being families, with the family meal being central. Growing up in Ireland this was a given, Sunday dinner being the family high-point of the week, and I had never reflected on it].

He also stressed the need to start telling stories again in the family “simple day to day stories, trivial and seemingly unimportant things, fairy tales and legends for children” as he stressed the need “to share our dreams and visions, our hopes and plans, our nightmares and worries, our sadness and joys in the family living room.” [Conversation at the family meal enables this to happen naturally as does time spent with the children, especially when they are young].

Better nation

Can such family acts fight corruption? “Believe me—when fear of God is brought back to the family, we will be a better nation,” Villegas said. [The 'fear of God' is not that of a slave but rather a profound respect for God's will and a desire to do it].

“When a sense of honor and dignity returns to the home, we will be able to bounce back to moral uprightness. When our passion to preserve our good name is taught again, our youth and children will choose to die rather than sin. When lying and cheating and petty stealing are punished severely at home, society will have less criminals,” he said. [On thing I am profoundly grateful to my parents for is the honesty they lived by. We never had to be punished in this area because we imbibed their values].

Sounding ever optimistic, the bishop said as soon as honor takes precedence over money “we will be able to turn back the clock of corruption” simply because “the best school is the family” as there is “no teacher better than a credible parent.” [See my comment just above].

Villegas said there’s hope the corrupt and corrupting Filipino family “can become a sanctified and sanctifying family.”

He added that in a corrupt country, the first victim is the family and the country’s renewal will also begin in the family “by turning to the Holy Family.” (Melo Acuna)

Spanking: Under the Acacia, 6 October 2008

Fellow Negros Times columnist Richard M. Gelangre last Monday raised the dilemma he faces as a parent and as a teacher: To spank or not to spank? I’m not a parent but am a teacher and at various times over the last 40 years have taught and given retreats to students at first, second and third level.

As an adult I have never struck a child. I cannot recall my parents spanking me but I know that they did. I know that on those rare occasions they used the palm of their hand on my “behind”. They never used any kind of instrument and the punishment was more “symbolic” than physical. One time my brother, three years younger than me and then a toddler, ran out on a busy road but, thanks be to God, wasn’t hit by a car or truck. However, he was hit by my mother – her reaction of shock and relief – with her hand in a way that didn’t hurt him but that conveyed to him that he must never do such a dangerous thing again – and he didn’t.

My quick-tempered mother scolded us but never screamed or shouted at us. My father’s favorite threat – he never raised his voice at anyone - was “I’ll give you a good clip in the ear if you do that again”. As we got older we used to joke him about it because, at one level, it was an empty threat but, at another, a clear reminder to behave properly.

I remember when I was 13 I said some very hurtful words to my mother in front of a visitor. I didn’t realize at the time how hurtful they were until my father took me aside later and let me know clearly. He didn’t tell me what to do but I knew what he expected.

Around that time my parents gave me the key of our house. In Ireland the house-key was the symbol of adulthood. You legally became an adult at 21 – now it’s 18 – and 21st birthday cards all had a picture of a key on them. I didn’t know anyone else who was given one at 13. This gave me a great sense of being trusted and my response was to prove to be worthy of that trust. There was only one occasion when I failed to do that, through thoughtlessness rather than by design. I had permission to go to a dance on Saturday nights on the other side of the city. I went by bicycle with a classmate. Our parents told us to leave at 11. One night we were enjoying ourselves so much that we waited till the dance ended at 11:30. Then we went to the nearby house of another classmate for a late night snack.

I arrived home at around 1 A.M. feeling great because I had had such an enjoyable evening. I was surprised to find my parents waiting at the door and got a right good scolding from them. The word “killjoys” was running through my mind but I didn’t say anything. It was probably the following morning I realized that they had been worried sick, thinking I might have been in an accident and lying in a hospital ward – or morgue. We had no phone and that was decades before cell phones.

But my parents said no more about the matter nor did they confiscate my house-key.

My father and mother had a united front when it came to discipline. I don’t recall being able to play one off against the other.

In my time corporal punishment was legal in schools. In the local kindergarten run by the Irish Sisters of Charity the teachers occasionally used a ruler on the palm of a student’s hand, as far as I can recall. My use of that expression indicates that my childhood wasn’t blighted by the physical brutality of adults, at home or in school. In the boys’ primary and secondary schools I attended, run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, some of whose Australian members now work in Kabankalan and Maasin, teachers – all men – were allowed to use a leather strap with which they could beat a student on the palm of his hand. “Six of the best” was for a serious misdemeanor, but I rarely saw it happening. The usual was two “biffs”, which would leave your hand tingling for a while, but which we took in our stride. Parents implicitly backed the teacher’s authority and unless there was excessive physical force used, something I never saw but know occasionally happened, none of us would report at home that we had been punished. I don’t remember any of my high school teachers using the “leather”.

Richard M. Gelangre’s story of the child left in the locker by the teacher seems to have the elements of an urban myth. But I have been horrified at stories of parents using a two-by-two, which he mentions. I’ve heard of parents leaving children hanging in sacks for a while. No adult has the right to treat a child with brutality and parents, while they have the primary responsibility for their children, don’t own them.

The society I grew up in 50 years ago in Ireland was far from permissive. It is somewhat more so now and it’s not unknown for teachers, who cannot any more use corporal punishment, to be sometimes treated with brutality by students.

I’m grateful to my parents for the “symbolic” spankings I know they gave me but can’t remember. I’m grateful for their example, for their united front, for their sense of fairness, for their inner discipline – genuine discipline - and for their trust. I’m grateful also to my teachers who used the “leather” sparingly.

My experience is quite different from that of a fourth-year girl in a Catholic high school retreat I gave in Mindanao more than 30 years ago. Small in stature and immature in her behavior, she came to me privately and cried for at least five minutes before telling me, “My parents give me everything I want. But they never ask me ‘How did you do in school today?’ And they never even scold me”. undertheacacia@gmail.com