Category Archives: Devotions (miscellaneous)
Prayers of an Irish Mother
I’m indebted to jaykay for kindly sending these extracts from Prayers of an Irish Mother, which give a splendid insight into Irish popular piety in pre-conciliar times.
Irish Hierarchy’s Statement on the Dangers to Faith and Morals Faced by Irish Emigrants in Britain
The following statement was issued in 1941 by the Irish Hierarchy at their October meeting in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth:
More than two years have elapsed since the war, still raging so fiercely, began. From the outset it was evident that agencies of destruction, more fearful than anything hitherto known to history, would be loosed upon the world, and would be used with utter ruthlessness and a complete disregard for moral right. The worst anticipations of disaster are being exceeded by the event.
Appalling as are the material losses caused by the war, the spiritual evils resulting from it are of even greater consequence. War usually brings with it a decay of morals, and the present one is no exception to the rule. The Church, too, has been attacked in many places, and has suffered terribly. Our Holy Father Pope Pius XII, speaking on this matter has said: ‘We tremble to think of what the true story of human suffering will disclose. What we know these days is enough to crush the heart. These days are rivalling some of the blackest days in the history of mankind, and the Pope knows it.’
Ireland, although its position, comparatively speaking, is a privileged one, has not come off unscathed. The scars which disfigure Dublin and Belfast bear testimony of this. But, perhaps, the war’s most disastrous effect for us is the great increase in unemployment, with all its attendant evils, spiritual and temporal, including, especially, the exodus from our shores to Great Britain of such large numbers of our adult population. Evidently to find a remedy for unemployment is one of our most urgent problems; and in this connection the Hierarchy desire to place on record their appreciation of bodies such as the Catholic Social Service Conference, which are devoting much time and energy to its solution. This problem, indeed, has a deep interest for every citizen, and especially, indeed, for every Catholic citizen. All should co-operate whole-heartedly with those who are specially engaged in its solution; all should realise that they have in greater or less degree a personal responsibility in the matter.
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Catholic Vade Mecum
Catholic Vade Mecum 1
Catholic Vade Mecum 2
Catholic Vade Mecum 3
Thanks again are due to Jaykay for kindly sending me these samples from a Catholic Vade Mecum that belonged to her great-grandmother. It really does say a lot about pre-Vatican II popular piety. Jaykay notes that:
It gives an insight into how “ordinary” people experienced and really did participate actively in religion – they didn’t just use these things as pious ornaments, despite the common belief that they were all “sheeple” before the Great Enlightenment. […] This is a sample – about the biggest I can send! The table of contents gives an idea of what’s in it. The 2 ladies concerned (my great-grandmother and her sister in law) were very “ordinary” people by the standards of that time. Her husband, my great grandfather, was a Chief Foreman in the carriage-building shop on the Great Northern Railway and Mrs Doherty’s husband owned a small monumental stoneworks business, so while they were prosperous enough they were basically tradespeople and certainly weren’t in the real middle or professional classes! Yet they had the standards and education to appreciate these things – as I said, they didn’t use them as ornaments, as can be seen from the wear on the book itself.
The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland
The following is an editorial from Church and State magazine (the organ of the old Campaign to Seperate Church and State), January, 2010:
“The Age Of My Craven Deference Is Finally Over.” That was the headline on Professor Ronan Fanning’s article on the Murphy Report (Sun. Independent, 6 Dec.). Well, it was almost the headline. Fanning used the collective “our” rather than the personal “my”. But in the case of the Professor of Modern History at the chief College of the National University the personal and the collective merge. The Professor (singular) determines in great part what characterised the plurality of those who went through the educational system to its highest level.
It became well known to us long ago that the paid intelligentsia of the state were craven in their attitude towards the Church. They were sceptics in private but were cynically respectful in public, because they were craven.
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Individual Participation in the Liturgy
The following is an extract from a letter published in The Furrow in February, 1973, by JF Foyle.
“When things were in Latin, we followed the words in the vernacular in our missals, often pausing to reflect even if that meant not being in line with the priest’s words, though we made sure to be in line for the three peaks — offertory, consecration and holy communion. Sometimes we filled in, in between the peaks, with Rosary-reciting, favourite prayers (often from prayer-books or leaflets).
Reading, informal praying and reflecting, in between the peaks, played dominant parts in our Mass participation. We had tremendous scope for using our own individual initiative to fill the in-between spaces. The vernacular changed all that and what was designed to increase our participation in the Mass has, in fact, made it awkward for us to participate to our satisfaction.
We were suddenly left without missals and expected to attend to the priests’ words all the time. This ruled out reflecting, as we were kept going keeping up with the words the whole way through Mass. Also, we had little to reflect on — we are far from expert in catching a series of sentences while they are flying. We were virtually forbidden to switch off the words (to reflect or pray via reading or thinking parallel to the priest). It was uncomfortable deliberately switching off, anyway, since the words, being in English, kept obtruding in snatches, something that didn’t happen with the Latin (except with some students of the language, and then only when words were said specially loudly). We felt obliged to attend to English words, whereas it was optional with the Latin. We felt inferior at being unable to attend, whereas we felt superior when we succeeded with the Latin.
This was, and is, a far from pleasant Mass experience. It also resulted in the three peaks ceasing to be peaks in the Mass — they are just parts of the series of words, almost, often (especially the middle one) passing unnoticed, as our minds wander.
What this suggests is that the liturgists equated the scope for being aware of what was being said with scope for participation. Apart from the Latin allowing for similar awareness (even for illiterates), the equating erred in wrongly estimating the strain going with non-stop listening. It did not allow gaps for reflecting, nor for having another look at the words for that purpose. Nor did it recognize that participation is very much an individual matter, made-up around the priest’s Mass words but not rigidly tied to them. The Latin facilitated such individual participation. The vernacular hinders it.
Liturgists ought to have been aware of such effects of the change-over, since they were predictable from awareness of how those in the pews participated in the Mass. […] Those in the pew automatically, now, mind-wander most of the time when subjected to amplified voices in churches or halls. Their recall of things said in the liturgy of the word, for example, is nearly nil most of the time, just as their recall of newscasts and radio-television discussions is very fuzzy.
Further, Mass is now attended with very little forethought about the theme of the liturgy and even less afterthought about it. There is little time for thinking about religion, anyway, and seldom is a special attempt made in advance of Mass. Getting there quickly by car lessens the scope for forethought, too. Watch the aftermath — as everybody rushes for cars and papers to provide food for some other kind of thought. The Mass words are part of the pattern of information flow which envelops us daily. They get even less attention than the other words, since so few have them in print for fore and after thought. This has contributed in no small away, I find, to very, very little reading about things spiritual. The taking-away of the missals (or their too slow replacement, which amounts to the same thing, in effect) broke the habit. And it is well and truly broken, now.
[…] Those of my generation who believe in the power of the Mass, and in it being a mortal sin not to participate in Sunday Mass, keep going on that account. It is in spite of the vernacular, not with its aid.
[…] The Rosary beads and the devotional prayers could have a place, again, for individual participation between the peaks. […] All the amplified talking of the introductory rite, liturgy of the word and the homily is a nuisance, when we could be reading and reflecting quietly. Let the Bible readings be relayed to us, maybe, and let the rest be read silently or, at least, with the amplifiers turned off. That way the homily (unamplified) will have a chance of getting attention, too. Let the rest of the Mass be silent mainly, apart from the three peaks and ‘Our Father’, say, relying on us in the pew to participate in our individual ways, reading and reflecting.”
Lux Occulta 