Smasher Lagru

The year is 1950, the smiles and habits are warm and full.



The smiles, like the veils are beginning to slip - the year is about 1971.



Welcome to the Church of 2007 as the sisters gather to celbrate hallowe'en.  The one on the right is dressed as Miss Havisham, the one standing as a Loreto Sister.



And one old dear has managed somehow to preserve her dignity.  If ever there was a need for a new category of martyrdom it's for holy nuns who have had to live through these times.  Perhaps we could call them "mauve martyrs".

Well today is the last Thursday in January and all the hot money has been saying that if Donal Mc Keown is to be bishop of Down and Connor the announcement will be made in January.  So if we've heard nothing by noon, and I hope we haven't then that would seem to be it for him.

I wonder if the month long spat between Vincent Twomey and Sean Fagan has helped or hindered Professor Twomey's chances.  Fagan is a deeply unpleasant little man, fighting lost battles, and seemingly unaware of the current and last pope.  Time for some Anam Cara for him.

Speaking of which, in Cathedral Books yesterday and an elderly man came in and bought all available copies of the latest tosh, Benedictus.  I congratulated him on his service to the community in removing them from circulation.  Alas they are for a group - "surely you mean a circle" I suggest.

Timmy O'Toole has sent me some amusing material, well I presume it is since I can't open the link but I think I can guess what it's about so I'll try and put something up later.  In the meantime good to see Guliani failing in the first trimester of the primaries - can keep the memory of that on the mantlepiece with his three divorces and his bogus memories of how he saved New York.  Now if only we could discover that Mc Cain was secretly working with the Russians when he claimed to have been a prisoner of war.   McCain seems to believe his wartime heroism entitles him to an unlimited moral bank account that he can withdraw from whenever it's in his self-interest to do something dishonest.

On the other side Edwards has still to decide whether to support the Kenyan Muslim agent for change or the increasingly hag like Clinton, annointed with kiss of death by girlfriend killing-by-accident, overweight, child murdering Ted Kennedy. 

Father Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Undersecretary of the CDF has issued a note revealing the fifth secret of Fatima.  "A great red devil will arise from the Camp of Man, sacrificing babes in the snows of Bavaria and blinding the eyes of referees and the fourth official".



The secret is thought to refer to a pact made by Sir Matt Belzebusby to win the European Cup and future trophies.  The price paid by Man Utd was the initial sacrificing of their team in 1958 and a succession of ugly players such as Rooney, Tevez and the Neville brothers as well as a playing surface that looks like Coolderry Rugby field.  The price paid by the opposition is goal posts that move, goalkeepers with holes in their stomachs and officials who cannot see balls that are clearly over the line and who feel compelled to offer soft penalties to Man Utd while refusing them to the opposition.

Current manager, whose glare ruins foxes, is allegedly spawned from a goat, the incessant chewing of the cud a prominent feature.

The devil's onward march has been stopped in its tracks on occasion.  In 1976 the FA cup was snatched by Southhampton following an apparition.  The club committed itself to dedicating a new stadium to Our Lady within 15 years.

Waterstones in the world's worst shop, Part 2.

Ordered two books more than two books ago.  Both books widely available on Amazon in different editions and by different publishers.  Firstly the ordering process takes ages as the person doesn't know how to order two books for one customer so she wrote stuff out by hand on a receipt.  And of course they make you pay money up front!

So after about ten days they phone (which was a surprise cos normally they promise but don't) to say one of the books is out of print.  I say "did you try the sixteen other publishers who do it?". 

I call in today - no hint of that book which they claim is now coming from America on a slow boat via Rotterdam.  What about the other book, published just last year in England?  That should be in soon - we'll phone you.  I walk downstairs and decide to just check in case - and there is a pile of about fifty of the books!

A quick hello and welcome to our new occasional correspondent from the US of A, Timmy O'Toole, who as a child survived an horrific experience trapped in a well.  He has made it his personal mission ever since not to be skinny enough to fall down a well again.

Timmy tells me he is a confirmed liberal and Democrat but likes Mike Huckabee and of course why wouldn't he, since he's probably unelectable.  Funny how Democrats often speak highly of Huckabee and Mc Cain while attacking Mitt Romney, the most electable Republican.  Funny that!  Of course as Ann Coulter says in her book, "How to talk to liberals (if you must)", never take advice from your political enemies.

No doubt Timmy will enjoy being mentioned in the same column as Ann Coulter.

You know when something just works, when the movement is coordinated and flowing and extraordinarily beautiful, when the vestments of all the participants are the right colour and matching, when the chant is practised and perfect, when you know that God is in His heaven, when you know that the angels and archangels and the whole company of saints are crowding in to watch, when you know that Satan is vanquished and silenced and afterwards there's a special stillness and a sort of suspended expectation and you begin to leave with the crowd knowing you have witnessed something extraordinary in form, your heart still thrilled by the experience and you look back and catch a glimpse of the notice board and there it is for all to see:  Tottenham Hotspur 5;  Arsenal 1

The pain in my teeth may be beginning to subside but I am deeply hurt by the comments made about me on a BBC website, William Crawley's blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2008/01/john_odonohue_blessings_and_tr.html#commentsanchor

Someone called "jan g" disagreed with my little tribute to the late John O'Donohue:
Smasher, that was one of the most insensitive comments i've ever read anywhere. I've looked at your website and you are obviously a fundamentalist catholic. No doubt this is why you were opposed to John's brand of thoughtful, progessive catholicism. Shame on you.

I am deeply ashamed.

Apparently it all becomes clear if you read it in Polish.

Not just a mystic (my teeth are beginning to throb) but a prophet as well. 

I open this week's Irish Catholic, hot of the press and there is a full page spread honouring Cardinal Daly, complete with a photo of his favourite art work by Ray Carroll.  To be fair to Pinewood Pete, this was one of his better efforts and not just one of his resin crosses copied over and over again and sold as if new. 

It was a warm tribute from Pat O'Leary, much of it taken up with quotations from the Cardinal's recent Christmas card, itself a tribute to Ray Carroll and a meditation on his art.  Or it may have been one of those freebies you get in the post done by armless artists with their feet or mouths.

Still, at least the baby Jesus managed to find a manger to lay in and not a manager.

Just in passing, very difficult to get anything by Ray Carroll on the internet.  It's as if he never existed.

Responding to some emails received recently.

One person wants to know he reason I don’t usually remark on my own bishop, Willie Walsh, Bishop of Killaloe.  Well, because in some areas there’s simply too much to say – hardly ever wears a miter, has a crozier made out of an old blackthorn stick, gave away diocesan property valued at about five million without the approval of the Holy See as required by canon law, supports the ordination of women…..

On the other hand, he does have personal warmth and a charitable disposition and, to be frank, that goes a long way.

Another person asks about my interest in Down and Connor, what with being from Offaly.  Well my grandmother was from Belfast (Glen Road ) and for various reasons, some financial, some agricultural, I ended up going to St Mary’s Training College on the Falls Road.  It must have been a formative period for me cos I’ve followed events there ever since and particularly kept an eye on people I encountered during my teacher training (Donal Mc Keown and Patrick Walsh).  You remember I mentioned how personal warmth and a charitable disposition go a long way?  Yes, well the opposite is also true.

A third person asks me to refrain from calling Bishop Walsh, Gauleiter Walsh as this is very offensive.  Okay, out of respect for those who suffered under the Nazis, I won’t use the term anymore.

 

A fourth person asks me to be nicer to bishops in general so I thought I might include a little tribute to Cardinal Daly.  Cardinal Daly has, in retrospect, turned out to be one of, I wouldn’t quite say the greats, but in the landscape of pygmy bishops he is a giant.  He had/has some faults – notably his complete unidirectional lack of taste when it comes to church architecture, including his devotion for the late Ray Carroll, destroyer of many beautiful churches.  But even then, at least you knew his heart was in it.  Whereas when Bishop Walsh destroys a church he’s merely following the general lack of taste.  And he has a funny voice, with some very tortured pronunciations – who can forget his Mary of Magdala or his “Percy Street, Dover Street, the list goes on and on” – but that adds to the charm in a way that the Walshian drawl doesn’t.  [Is this supposed to be a tribute to Cahal?]  Oh, yes, where was I?  And of course his bad taste extended to truly awful miters – remember those carpety/wallpapery productions.

In one particular area he stood out and time has truly justified his stance and that is in his complete opposition to the IRA.  Remember people walking out of church when he spoke, and when, with Eddie Daly, Bishop of Derry, he took on paramilitary funerals.  We used to mock the endless stream of press releases.  But now you look for a press release and it’s last years list of clerical moves.

I have a dreadful fear that I may be having a mystical experience.  At the same time every day for the last two weeks, just coming up to three o'clock, I begin having pains in my teeth.  Could it be that, like St Bernard, I have discovered a previously undiagnosed wound suffered by the Lord in his passion?   http://lilmissrit15.blogspot.com/2007/10/salution-of-wound-in-shoulder-of-jesus.html  For those too lazy to follow links and ignorant of these things, St Bernard had a revelation about a wound in the shoulder of Jesus, and developed a devotion to it.  Perhaps something similar is happening to me.