Tues, Dec 18, 2012 - Litany Lane Blog: Reverence, Jeremiah 23:5-8, Psalms 72, Matthew 1:18-24, St Flannan, Saint Flannan's College, Killaloe County Clare Ireland

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 - Litany Lane Blog:

Reverence, Jeremiah 23:5-8, Psalms 72, Matthew 1:18-24, St Flannan, Saint Flannan's College, Killaloe County Clare Ireland

Good Day Bloggers!  Joyeux Noelle et Bonne Annee!
Wishing everyone a Blessed Week!

Year of Faith - October 11, 2012 - November 24, 2013

P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Serenity Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7.

The world begins and ends everyday for someone. The "Armageddon" is a pagan belief inspired by the evil one to create chaos and doubt in God. Trust in God, for He creates, He does not destroy and only God knows the hour of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ's second Coming, another chance at eternal salvation.  Think about how merciful God truly is as he keeps offering us second chances. He even gives the evil one a multitude of chances to atone. Simply be prepared by living everyday as a gift: Trust in God; Honor Jesus Mercy through the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist; and Utilize the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well, make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes from this earth to Purgatory and/or Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...

"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012

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December 2, 2012 Message From Our Lady of Medjugorje to World:

Dear children, with motherly love and motherly patience anew I call you to live according to my Son, to spread His peace and His love, so that, as my apostles, you may accept God's truth with all your heart and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you. Then you will be able to faithfully serve my Son, and show His love to others with your life. According to the love of my Son and my love, as a mother, I strive to bring all of my strayed children into my motherly embrace and to show them the way of faith. My children, help me in my motherly battle and pray with me that sinners may become aware of their sins and repent sincerely. Pray also for those whom my Son has chosen and consecrated in His name. Thank you." 

November 25, 2012 Message From Our Lady of Medjugorje to World:

“Dear children! In this time of grace, I call all of you to renew prayer. Open yourselves to Holy Confession so that each of you may accept my call with the whole heart. I am with you and I protect you from the ruin of sin, but you must open yourselves to the way of conversion and holiness, that your heart may burn out of love for God. Give Him time and He will give Himself to you and thus, in the will of God you will discover the love and the joy of living. Thank you for having responded to my call.” ~ Blessed Virgin Mary

November 02, 2012 Message From Our Lady of Medjugorje to World:

"Dear children, as a mother I implore you to persevere as my apostles. I am praying to my Son to give you Divine wisdom and strength. I am praying that you may discern everything around you according to God’s truth and to strongly resist everything that wants to distance you from my Son. I am praying that you may witness the love of the Heavenly Father according to my Son. My children, great grace has been given to you to be witnesses of God’s love. Do not take the given responsibility lightly. Do not sadden my motherly heart. As a mother I desire to rely on my children, on my apostles. Through fasting and prayer you are opening the way for me to pray to my Son for Him to be beside you and for His name to be holy through you. Pray for the shepherds because none of this would be possible without them. Thank you." ~ Blessed Virgin Mary

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Today's Word:  reverence  rev·er·ence  [rev-er-uh ns]

Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English  < Latin reverentia  respect, fear, awe. See revere¹ , -ence

noun

1. a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.

2. the outward manifestation of this feeling: to pay reverence.

3. a gesture indicative of deep respect; an obeisance, bow, or curtsy.

4. the state of being revered.

5. ( initial capital letter  ) a title used in addressing or mentioning a member of the clergy (usually preceded by your  or his  ). 

verb (used with object)

6. to regard or treat with reverence; venerate: One should reverence God and His laws.

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Today's Old Testament Reading -  Psalms 72:1, 12-13, 18-19

¹ [Of Solomon] God, endow the king with your own fair judgement, the son of the king with your own saving justice,
¹² For he rescues the needy who calls to him, and the poor who has no one to help.
¹³ He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the needy from death.
¹⁸ Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who alone works wonders;
¹⁹ blessed for ever his glorious name. May the whole world be filled with his glory! Amen! Amen!

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Today's Epistle -   Jeremiah 23:5-8

⁵ Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall raise an upright Branch for David; he will reign as king and be wise, doing what is just and upright in the country.
⁶ In his days Judah will triumph and Israel live in safety. And this is the name he will be called, 'Yahweh-is-our-Saving-Justice.' "
⁷ 'So, look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when people will no longer say, "As Yahweh lives who brought the Israelites out of Egypt,"
⁸ but, "As Yahweh lives who led back and brought home the offspring of the House of Israel from the land of the north and all the countries to which he had driven them, to live on their own soil." '

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Today's Gospel Reading - Matthew 1: 18-24

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'. When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.

Reflection

• In Luke’s Gospel the story of the infancy of Jesus (chapters 1 and 2 of Luke) is centred around the person of Mary. Here in the Gospel of Matthew the infancy of Jesus (chapters 1 and 2 of Matthew)is centred around the person of Joseph, the promised spouse of Mary. Joseph was of the descent of David. Through him Jesus belongs to the race of David. Thus in Jesus, are fulfilled the promises made by God to David and to his descendants. 

• As we have seen in yesterday’s Gospel, in the four women, companions of Mary, in the genealogy of Jesus, there was something abnormal which did not correspond to the norms of the Law: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Today’s Gospel shows us that Mary was also somewhat abnormal, contrary to the Laws of that time. In the eyes of the people of Nazareth she appeared being pregnant before living with Joseph. Neither the people nor the future husband knew the origin of this pregnancy. If Joseph had been just according to the justice of the Scribes and the Pharisees, he should have denounced Mary, and the penalty which she would have suffered would have been death, stoning her.

• Joseph was just, yes, but his justice was different. Already beforehand he practiced what Jesus would teach later on: “If your uprightness does not surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 5, 20). This is why, Joseph not understanding the facts and not wanting to repudiate Mary, decided to leave her in secret.

• In the Bible, the discovery of the call of God in the facts of life, takes place in different ways. For example, through the meditation of the facts (Lk 2, 10.51), through the meditation of the Bible (Acts 15, 15-19; 17, 2-3), through the angels (the word angel means messenger), who helped to discover the significance of the facts (Mt 28, 5-7). Joseph succeeded in perceiving the significance of what was taking place in Mary by means of a dream. In his sleep an angel uses the Bible to clarify the origin of Mary’s pregnancy. It came from the action of the Spirit of God. 

• When everything was clear for Mary, she says: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word!” When everything was clear for Joseph, he takes Mary as his spouse and they went to live together. Thanks to the justice of Joseph, Mary was not put to death, was not stoned and Jesus continued to live in her womb.

Personal questions

• In the eyes of the Scribes, the Justice of Joseph would be a disobedience. Is there a message for us in this?
• How do you discover the call of the Word of God in the facts of your life?

Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.

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Featured Item of the Day from Litany Lane

Our Mother of Perpetual Help Ipad Cases by LitanyLane

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Saint of the Day:  St Flannan

Feast Day:  December 18
Patron Saint:  St Flannan's College

Flannán mac Toirrdelbaig was an Irish saint who lived in the 7th century and was the son of a king of Thomond. He entered Mo Lua's monastery at Killaloe and seems to have become abbot there. He is remembered as a great preacher.

Son of an Irish chieftain, Turlough he made a pilgrimage to Rome where Pope John IV consecrated him. On his return he became first bishop of Killaloe and also preached in the Hebrides. His feast day is December 18.

References

• Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993; ISBN 0-14-051312-4

 

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Featured Items Panel from Litany Lane

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Today's  Snippet  I:   Saint Flannan's College

^{St Flannan's College}

Saint Flannan's College is an Irish secondary school located in Ennis, County Clare. Formerly an all-boys boarding school, the first girls class was entered in 2002 and in 2005 the boarding school was closed. In 2003 an extension which added over 20 new rooms to the college was completed. A measure of the expansion that has taken place over the past thirty years is that in 1962, there were some 370 pupils in St. Flannan's, 140 of whom were day boys. Just 37 teachers were in attendance. By 2004, the numbers had risen to more than 1,001 students. Staff numbers had risen to 60. In September 2002, Coed. classes were introduced in First Year. In September 2003, a new wing containing extensive new facilities was opened. In the 2010-11 school year there were 1,206 students at St. Flannan’s. It takes its name from the 7th century St. Flannán, patron saint of the Dál gCais.

History

In 1846, the Diocese of Killaloe lent its prestige and patronage to the private academy conducted at Springfield House, Ennis by a Mr. Fitzsimons. Fortified by diocesan support, the school would henceforth function as both a diocesan seminary and as a day and boarding school for Catholic boys. Under this arrangement, the Springfield House school flourished, and by the early 1850s was already enticing pupils away from the noted Erasmus Smith College at College Road. Springfield pupils were conspicuously successful in obtaining scholarships to the Queen's Colleges at Galway and Cork (now NUI Galway and UCC). 

In 1859, Fitzsimons added a new wing to the college in order to cater for the increased number of students. The same year, Springfield affiliated to the newly established University of London as a preparatory college. In 1862, financial difficulties caused Fitzsimons to terminate his connection with Springfield, and under his successor the College changed directions sharply. The affiliation with the University of London was dropped for one with Newman's Catholic University in Dublin. Fitzsimons, for his part, embarked on a new career in Argentina, and within the space of a few years set up no less than four schools in that country. Fitzsimons died in 1871 during an outbreak of yellow fever. The final ingredients were added in 1865 when the diocese broke with Springfield altogether and set up a diocesan college completely under its control at No. 12 Bindon Street, now a solicitor’s office. It shortly became known as St. Flannan’s Literary Institute, under a clerical headmaster, known for the first time as a President. The following year, the Institute was able to acquire the Springfield premises after the school there closed. After a comparatively short interval, a search was begun to find a site on which a larger college campus could be developed. Work finally began in 1879 on land acquired on the Limerick Road, and the College was built to a rather severe neo-Gothic design. Financial problems occasioned by the bankruptcy of the builder led to alterations in the plans, and some of the finishing touches were postponed, never to be completed. Visitors to the college are often shown such features as the plain uncarved label stops around the Gothic windows and the Clock Tower, with no clock — all now part of the fabric of College tradition.

Perhaps the most famous president of the college was Canon William Kennedy, head of St. Flannan's between 1919 and 1932. During the Anglo-Irish War, the College was a hotbed of separatist sentiment, from where the Canon personally organised the collection of the famous Dáil Loan in Clare. Still preserved in the College are letters from both Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins in connection with this undertaking. Canon Kennedy was arrested in July 1921 by British forces and interned on Bere Island. The early decades of the new state were grim as only limited funding was available for secondary education, and most costs had to be met out from the college's resources alone, but some curriculum development did take place. In 1937, for example, Physics was introduced as a subject for the Leaving Certificate, remaining for many years the only science subject available at that level.

St.Flannan's submerged in water (2009)

The measure of the expansion that has taken place over the past thirty years is considerable; in 1962 there were some 370 pupils in St. Flannan's (140 of whom were day boys) and only 17 teachers. By 2004, the numbers had risen to more than 1,000 students and staff numbers had risen to 66. In September 2002, Coed classes were introduced in First Year. In September 2003, a new wing containing extensive new facilities was opened.

In 2009, the College experienced very severe flooding, with much of the college grounds being submerged and water breaching the perimeter wall because of a small stream that runs underneath the college.

References:

• ^ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0806/1224252080487.html
• ^ http://www.independent.ie/national-news/final-salute-to-giant-of-the-irish-left-as-macgiolla-is-laid-to-rest-2054232.html
• ^ http://www.clarechampion.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8143:pupils-off-to-presidential-inauguration&catid=67:human-interest&Itemid=60

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Today's  Snippet  II:   Killaloe, County Clare, Ireland

Killahloe, Ireland

Killaloe (Irish: Cill Dálua meaning Lua's church) is a large village in east County Clare, Ireland. The village lies on the River Shannon on the western bank of Lough Derg with the "twin town" of Ballina on the eastern bank of the lake. The surrounding area is popular for hill-walking. The Killaloe Electoral Area is one of six such areas in County Clare and returns four members to Clare County Council. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe is the second largest diocese in Ireland. The University of Limerick has its outdoor pursuits centre near Killaloe on the shore of the lake.

History

St Lua's church next to the Catholic Church of St Flannan's, Killaloe

The town owes its origin to a sixth century monastic settlement founded by Saint Molua, or Lua, on an island in the Shannon 1 km below the present Killaloe Bridge which later moved onto the mainland.^[6] In the tenth century it was base for Brian Boru as it controlled the strategic crossing of the Shannon above Limerick, where the Vikings were in control. Brian Boru had his palace, Kincora (Ceann Coradh), on the high ground where the current Catholic church stands. Therefore, between 1002 and 1014, when he was the High King, Killaloe was effectively the capital of all Ireland. 2 km north of the town, his fort, Beal Boruma, stood on the site of an Iron Age ring at the head of Lough Derg, where a ford crossed the river. The word "Boruma" comes from the tribute paid by those crossing the river and is thought to be the origin of Brian Boru's name.

St Flannan's Cathedral (Church of Ireland) was built between 1185 and 1225, with an oratory for the same saint, who had been the abbot of Killaloe in the seventh century. The cathedral was destroyed and rebuilt in the fourteenth century. Of the original building, only a romanesque arch survives. In Elizabethan times, Ennis was chosen as the county town of Clare, and the importance of Killaloe declined.

In 1650, Cromwell spent 10 days on the opposite side of the Shannon at Ballina, exploring ways to cross the river, which was the defensive line of catholic and royalist forces before the Siege of Limerick.^[6] 40 years later, Patrick Sarsfield was the leader of the Jacobite forces here, harrying the Williamite forces advancing on Limerick.

The earliest mention of a (wooden) bridge across the river is in 1013. This was often repaired and eventually replaced by a 17 arch stone bridge in the early eighteenth century, later reduced to 13 arches.^[7] Most of the houses in the lower part of the town were built in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century the Shannon Steam Navigation Company had its headquarters here and constructed a canal to bypass the rapids below the town.  St. Lua's oratory, built between 1000 and 1150, was moved from Friar's island to the site of the Catholic Church when the hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha was constructed in the 1920s.[8]

Education

Killaloe is home to the public school St. Anne's Community College. Patricia Noonan was the first pupil through the school doors in September 1940.

People

Killaloe was the birthplace of Ireland's famous High King, Brian Boru. He ruled from Kincora, which is believed to have been in modern day Killaloe.  Former Ireland rugby international captain Keith Wood, also the inaugural IRB International Player of the Year in 2001, is a Killaloe native.  Anthony Foley, Munster's Heineken Cup winning captain and former Irish International, is also a resident.  American president John F. Kennedy's history has been traced back to Killaloe, to Brian Boru's father, Cennétig mac Lorcáin.^[9]

Brendan Grace is an Irish Comedian who also has a house and a pub called Brendan Graces in Killaloe.^[10]

Killaloe in fiction

Killaloe is the home town of Phineas Finn, the fictional hero of two of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels, Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux. In Phineas Finn, Killaloe is presented as a lively, if provincial, social centre. Phineas´s father, Dr Malachai Finn, is well known and respected ′in counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway′. Dr Finn is a friend of the Roman Catholic Bishop, another prominent Killaloe resident, and personal physicial to the Earl of Tulla, who lives on his estate ′not more than ten miles from Killaloe′. Phineas returns to Killaloe for extended periods to spend time with his parents and with his five sisters and their friend, Miss Mary Flood Jones, who later becomes his first wife.

References:

1. ^ Census for post 1821 figures.
2. ^ Histpop.ie
3. ^ Nisranew.nisra.gov.uk
4. ^ Lee, JJ (1981). "On the accuracy of the Pre-famine Irish censuses". In Goldstrom, J. M.; Clarkson, L. A.. Irish Population, Economy, and Society: Essays in Honour of the Late K. H. Connell. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
5. ^ Mokyr, Joel; O Grada, Cormac (November 1984). "New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700–1850". The Economic History Review 37 (4): 473–488. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1984.tb00344.x.
6. ^ ^{a b} Clare County Library
7. ^ Sean Kierse (1995). Portraits of Killaloe. Boru Books, Killaloe.
8. ^ Heritage Ireland
9. ^ Clan Kennedy
10. ^ Zoominfo.com

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