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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Fr Hoban should not despair of the Church
SIR – I was sorry to read of Fr Brendan's present despair and while I wouldn’t concur with him on many of the points made I would ask him to do what one of his fellow priests in the parish asked us to do recently – to cling to Christ.
It might comfort him too to know that many of us realise we cannot separate Christ from the church, because in clinging to the church we also cling to Christ; be it most perfectly in the Eucharist Fr Hoban and his brother priests give us; be it in the confessional that the Curé of Ars brought hundreds of thousands back to; be it in the words of Holy Scripture that the Church put together and which our Protestant brothers and sisters shame us with a greater love and knowledge of; or be it in the magisterium and tradition of the church whose words are spirit filled.
We all despair of the sex abuse scandals and the cover-ups and denials, but we are able to distinguish between the sins of the few and the sacrificial love of the many and we owe an immeasurable debt to the heroic courage of the victims and the persistence of the media in getting to the truth which will ultimately result in a purging of the filth and a humbled church.
Fr Brendan also referred to that well-known phrase of St John of the Cross, “The dark night of the soul”, and while that good Spanish saint had a multitude of such nights he also wrote that “the soul of one who serves God, always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, and is always in a mood for singing”.
Finally, and this is by no means meant in a caustic way, but rather in an ironic one; I would not have known that the relics of the Curé of Ars was to be in Knock but for Fr Brendan's column and while he might not be there himself I know that many of his parishioners will be there, thanking God for him and all our priests and praying for them. I’ll leave the last word then to that same humble little French priest that Fr Brendan affirmed in the first part of his article: “It is always springtime in the heart that loves God.”
Yours sincerely
Martin Daly
Ballina
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