ST PAUL’S POST St Paul’s Province Weekly Newsletter: 141 16 September 2019

Last

May I was visiting in Ireland and spent a few days in

Ballycastle with Sr Maria (Mairead McAuley). The

attached picture of Maria and myself celebrates our

May birthdays when we both reached 87 years old!!!

We were among the first group of students when

Maryfield College opened in 1945. We were also

among the first Graduating Class from Maryfield and

the first 2 students from Maryfield to enter the Cross

and Passion convent (Kilcullen) August 14, 1950 and

still going strong.

In my opinion we are survivors!!

Love and God bless,

Sr Una (O'Connor USA)

It is also a season to reflect on our lifestyles, and how our daily decisions about food,

consumption, transportation, use of water, energy and many other material goods, can

often be thoughtless and harmful. Too many of us act like tyrants with regard to creation.

Let us make an effort to change and to adopt more simple and respectful lifestyles! Now

is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively,

towards forms of clean energy and a sustainable and circular economy. Let us also learn

to listen to indigenous peoples, whose age-old wisdom can teach us how to live in a

better relationship with the environment.

This too is a season for undertaking prophetic actions. Many young people all over

the world are making their voices heard and calling for courageous decisions. They feel

let down by too many unfulfilled promises, by commitments made and then ignored for

selfish interests or out of expediency. The young remind us that the earth is not a

possession to be squandered, but an inheritance to be handed down. They remind us

that hope for tomorrow is not a noble sentiment, but a task calling for concrete actions

here and now. We owe them real answers, not empty words, actions or illusions.

The continuation of Pope Francis’ message as he challenges us at both a personal and

community level.

Relatives/friends of Sisters:

Marguerita’s brother, Pat;

Damian’s brother, Brendan, now seriously ill;

Anna Hainey’s brothers, Danny & Jim;

Eily May’s brothers, Tade & Jack, and her sister, Mary Philomena White;

Lorraine’s Mum, Mary;

Francis’ niece-in-law, Val McCartan;

Kay Doran’s niece-in-law, Kerry;

Mary Curtin’s niece, Breed;

Nicky Allan, Co-Manager of Elmleigh;

Francine’s brother-in-law, Bill Knowles, & her

sister, Rita;

Michael Clyne, Brigid Murphy’s brother-in-law;

Michelle Reid, Rita McStay’s niece-in-law;

Elaine Plunkett, Keighley Associate;

Carmel Comerford’s sister, Clare;

Barbara Sexton’s brother, Denis, and his

wife, Breda, both of whom are ill, and

also our sister-in-law, Angela Sexton, who is very seriously ill;

Mary McLean, Margaret Travers’ sister;

Anna Kearns, grandniece of Sr Annie McCambridge;

Maria Somers, wife of Paschal;

Fr David Tuohy, SJ, who is seriously ill.

Our Sisters:

Nora Horan

Regina Boland

Maura Fanning

Vivian Whelan

Maire Murphy

Kathleen Kinane

Rose Mulligan

Rita McStay

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS

Prayer Updates: helping us to pray more effectively.

Mary, (Lorraine’s Mum) was diagnosed with bowel cancer January 2018 and given palliative care

only, as life expectancy was 1-6 months. 20 months later she is still enjoying quality of life,

although totally immobile and under pain management. Many thanks for all your prayers— we

believe prayer has been her strength and continues to sustain her. She has seen her great

granddaughter born and her granddaughter married, praise God! Lorraine

I hope the photos below are an encouragement to you as you pray for your relatives & friends.

Lorraine’s parents at wedding.

Mary &

Evie—

who will

be 1 year

old 28th

Sept.

Mary Sloan, who was taken to hospital on Saturday.

When the Passionist theologian, philosopher and mystic, Blessed Dominic Barberi, paid his first

short visit to England in December 1840, he was already familiar with the Oxford Tracts of John

Henry Newman and his friends. Residing in Oscott College and unable to visit his future home in

Aston Hall, Dominic had plenty of opportunity to read more of the Tracts and to become familiar

with the ideas of the Oxford Movement. Returned to the Passionist Retreat in Ere in Belgium,

Dominic noticed in April 1841 a letter written by Newman’s friend, John Dobree Dalgairns, in the

newspaper, L’Univers, in which he repeated what Newman had already written in his Tract

Ninety: that there was nothing on the Anglican side to prevent union with the Catholic Church

but there was plenty on the Catholic side, noticeably the lack of holiness. Let them go into our

great cities to preach the Gospel to this half-pagan people, Dalgairns wrote. Let them walk

barefoot; let them clothe themselves in sackcloth; let the spirit of mortification be apparent in

their looks; in a word, let there be found among them a saint in the measure of the seraph of

Assisi and the heart of England is already won.

One can imagine the fun Our Lord and the angels had in heaven! These Oxford men were so

sincere, so earnest and, in a sense, so lost. They did not realise that the answer to their demands

had already been in England. He had read their Tracts. And he would certainly reply to their

letter in L’Univers. He did, on 5 May 1841, sending it to his friend in England, Father George

Spencer in Oscott College, asking him to forward it to Oxford. When they received it, Newman,

Dalgairns and the rest were bowled over by the first four words: Beloved Brethren in Christ. One

can imagine that the angels fluttered their wings with joy! What was more, the letter was written

in perfect classical Latin. The writer was a scholar. He explained for how long he had been

praying for England to be reunited with Rome, in fact from about 1813. And so Our Lord had

been looking after these Oxford men for all those years and had been preparing the priest,

scholar and Passionist that He would send them. The fact that Dominic stated clearly that he did

not agree with their claims that the Anglican Church was part of the Catholic Church, nor with

other theological claims they were making, did not worry them. They did not know that Dominic

walked barefoot, nor that his Passionist habit was virtually sackcloth but from the kindly tone of

his letter they did know they had encountered a saint in the measure of the seraph of Assisi and

their hearts were already won. In September 1841 the Anglican bishops condemned Tract

Ninety. Newman and his friends moved out of Oxford to retire to Littlemore, not to grieve over

their condemnation but to continue to pray and to correspond with their new friend, who

actually arrived in England to stay on 5 October 1841. The angels’ wings must have fluttered with

excitement!

Newman did, of course, invite Father Dominic to Littlemore but he was so totally engaged by his

missionary work all over the country that it was not until he received a request for a mission in

Radford in Oxfordshire in June 1844 that he was able to accept that invitation. Then Dalgairns,

who will be Canonized on 13 October 2019

who, on 9 October 1845, received into the Catholic Church

Newman and their companions saw that Father Dominic walked barefoot; that he was clothed in

virtual sackcloth; that the spirit of mortification was apparent in his looks; and they had found

among the Catholics a saint in the measure of the seraph of Assisi. And their hearts were won.

Newman never forgot that encounter. Forty-five years later, in 1889, he testified that Father

Dominic of the Mother of God had had a great part in his conversion, that his very holiness had

shone through his appearance, and so much so that as soon as Newman had seen him he had felt

deeply affected. No wonder, Newman added, that I became his convert and his penitent.

Newman and his friends were not received into the Catholic Church at that first encounter with

Father Dominic, of course, but they remained in touch. Then, on 29 September 1845, Dalgairns

went to St Michael’s Passionist Retreat, Aston Hall, Stone to be received into the Church by Blessed

Dominic. When Dominic mentioned that he had to go to Belgium soon to make his provincial

visitation, they arranged that on his way on 8 October that year he would pay another visit to

Littlemore. When Dalgairns told Newman, he replied that that was providential and that he would

then ask Father Dominic to receive him into the Catholic Church. He lost no time, for no sooner

had Dominic arrived after 11 o’clock at night and was standing in front of the fire trying to dry his

wet clothing than Newman entered the room, knelt down before him and asked him to hear his

Confession and receive him into the Catholic Church. As Blessed Dominic testified in a letter to

Father Anthony Testa, the Passionist Superior General, on the following day Newman and two

others made their Profession of Faith and he gave them Conditional Baptism. The next day he

celebrated Mass in Littlemore and gave them Holy Communion with Dalgairns and another who

had already become a Catholic. In my judgement, Father Dominic wrote to Father Testa, Newman

is the most humble and amiable man I have ever met in my life.

On 13 October 2019 Pope Francis, the Successor of St Peter, will declare in Rome that John Henry

Newman was a Saint. Sister Dominic Savio CP (copyright)

Littlemore Cloister, Littlemore Newman’s Room

The desk that Bl Dominic

used as the Altar when

he celebrated Mass,

11 October 1845.

(left)

The present Chapel.

(right)