easter
Sitting in Kilcullen church waiting for the Easter vigil.
This is a midnight mass which as per the usual zany tradition in my home town takes place at 9pm.
I am sitting in a pew near the front.
My thoughts range wide.
For some reason I start to think of the nuns who served Kilcullen over the years.
In retirement they've been bundled off to Dublin.
After they'd raised our kids, cultured our hoodlums, enlightened our lives, we abandoned them.
I am thinking that the nuns should be here right now, sitting on the altar as our honoured and beloved guests.
Even the bitchy ones.
My thoughts run on.
Sure the nuns would be too old to come back now.
What if I started inviting the nuns back for special ceremonies and then crashed the car.
I could end up with a car full of dead nuns.
And from this thought my mind goes to a shipwreck event in the late nineteenth century.
The shipwreck was immortalised in a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
But it really happened.
Some nuns were being expelled from Germany under the Falck Laws, on board a ship called The Deutschland.
The ship sank.
The nuns died.
As I sit in Kilcullen church tonight I wonder did the nuns keep faith as they died.
What sort of deaths did they endure.
Were their deaths pathetic hopeless miserable ones.
Was it quick.
My thoughts are brought to a halt as Father Michael and the other priests enter and stand on the altar.
The prayers begin.
In the middle of the ceremonies Father Michael gives his sermon.
Father Michael says the following word for word:
"Late in the nineteenth century in the year 1875 a ship called The Deutschland sank off the coast of England. On board were an order of nuns who were being exiled under the Falck Laws. Some accounts remain of how the nuns died. According to one report the nuns refused the opportunity to escape, preferring instead to give up their places to allow others the opportunity to survive. Another report indicates that the nuns stayed below decks together praying aloud over and over: Come quickly Jesus. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a famous poem about them called The Wreck Of The Deutschland. The last verse contains a line invoking Our Lord: Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson cresseted east."
Father Michael went on with some elegaically evocative prayers of his own using the word Easter as a verb.
And I sat there in the pews wondering what had just happened.
Coincidence.
Some sort of telepathy with me picking up brainwaves from the Padre before his broadcast.
Or something more.
*****
(First published April 2010)
This is a midnight mass which as per the usual zany tradition in my home town takes place at 9pm.
I am sitting in a pew near the front.
My thoughts range wide.
For some reason I start to think of the nuns who served Kilcullen over the years.
In retirement they've been bundled off to Dublin.
After they'd raised our kids, cultured our hoodlums, enlightened our lives, we abandoned them.
I am thinking that the nuns should be here right now, sitting on the altar as our honoured and beloved guests.
Even the bitchy ones.
My thoughts run on.
Sure the nuns would be too old to come back now.
What if I started inviting the nuns back for special ceremonies and then crashed the car.
I could end up with a car full of dead nuns.
And from this thought my mind goes to a shipwreck event in the late nineteenth century.
The shipwreck was immortalised in a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
But it really happened.
Some nuns were being expelled from Germany under the Falck Laws, on board a ship called The Deutschland.
The ship sank.
The nuns died.
As I sit in Kilcullen church tonight I wonder did the nuns keep faith as they died.
What sort of deaths did they endure.
Were their deaths pathetic hopeless miserable ones.
Was it quick.
My thoughts are brought to a halt as Father Michael and the other priests enter and stand on the altar.
The prayers begin.
In the middle of the ceremonies Father Michael gives his sermon.
Father Michael says the following word for word:
"Late in the nineteenth century in the year 1875 a ship called The Deutschland sank off the coast of England. On board were an order of nuns who were being exiled under the Falck Laws. Some accounts remain of how the nuns died. According to one report the nuns refused the opportunity to escape, preferring instead to give up their places to allow others the opportunity to survive. Another report indicates that the nuns stayed below decks together praying aloud over and over: Come quickly Jesus. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a famous poem about them called The Wreck Of The Deutschland. The last verse contains a line invoking Our Lord: Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson cresseted east."
Father Michael went on with some elegaically evocative prayers of his own using the word Easter as a verb.
And I sat there in the pews wondering what had just happened.
Coincidence.
Some sort of telepathy with me picking up brainwaves from the Padre before his broadcast.
Or something more.
*****
(First published April 2010)
posted by heelers | 2:27 AM
5 Comments:
Happy Easter, James.
We'll be going to Mass in the morning at a FSSP chapel. A sung high Mass. What could be better.
As to the homily? I think you have more than your fair share of the elf or fairy...
Well, here's another co-incidence. I have just come back from the Easter vigil and in the service leaflet, the vicar has written about that, the wreck of the Deutschland and using the verb 'to Easter'.
I feel that I can hear the Holy Spirit when she speaks, she is so full of grace.
The Holy Spirit is smacking us all in the head to remind us that we have to hold fast even if our ship(s) appear to be going down. :)
I had several similar "coincidental" experiences recently. Here's one of them. First I must explain that friends and family call me "Gennie" as well as "Genevieve".
I was at the local thrift shop, and I took a book off the shelf. I read on the back cover that it was a collection of poems by a local man, so I opened it and read a witty set of rhymes.
Then I turned to the title page of the book, and saw that on the inside of the front cover, someone had written: "To Gennie & family, May GOD open the windows of HEAVEN and pour out blessings on you and your family."
So of course I purchased the book, since it was obviously intended for me.
Gen, you're a gem.
Post a Comment
<< Home