The Tensions of Ministry

A living faith is gifted, lived, and transmitted from within the horizon that is culture. There is no faith life that is not expressed to some degree or other in the terms of the supporting culture. ‘Living faith’ – in the sense of being alive and life-giving and in the sense of being an action and an endeavour – is not only expressed in the terms of a ‘living culture,’ but it is, itself, nourished by that culture within which it sinks its redemptive roots. The achievements of any particular culture become the subsoil in which the life of faith renews the culture and is itself renewed by that same culture in every age. In this article I would like to consider two achievements of contemporary culture that now have a powerful bearing on ‘living’ faith and, in the light of these, explore briefly a number of issues in the living out of faith. The first achievement is what I will term the recognition of singularity as a way of understanding the human person in its total integrity; and the second is the importance of story or narrative in coming to a full realization (in both senses) of our personal identity. Against this background I’d like then to explore what I will call ‘intrinsic tensions’ in the living out of the life of faith. Whereas these ‘tensions’ hold in different and varying degrees for all who strive to live faith in our contemporary culture, they are thrown into sharp relief in priestly life, and here I will pay particular attention to a number of crucial issues. This is an initial attempt to reflect on material that is not only complex on a number of levels (theological, sociological, psychological, etc), but that looks to a future, which, although upon us, is not yet established in any definitive and remarkable way

Beyond Sight: The Artist and Mystic Intuition

If you visit Tate-Britain and stand in the main foyer and look down the long corridor to your right, you will see in the distance on the farthest wall the extraordinary triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon from 1944. Bacon, of Irish Protestant descent, was a non-believer, who had, however, great admiration for the ‘dedication’ of believers despite, what he termed, ‘living by a total falseness’! As you turn left, your vision is, then, rather quickly interrupted by a very powerful and massive sculpture from Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel from 1940/41. The mysterious, haunting, background story from Genesis (32:22-32), paradigmatic, perhaps, for all spiritual struggle with power, tells of Jacob’s confrontation with an unknown stranger, who refuses to reveal his name. He does, however, concede to give a blessing, in response to which Jacob declares: ‘I have seen God face to face; yet, my life has been spared.’ Richard Harries surmises that this sculpture from Epstein ‘clearly reflects something of the struggle of his own life, both artistic and domestic, out of which he was to wrest a blessing.’ Perhaps. Epstein, himself, was of Jewish background, but he regularly depicted, in various media, Christian themes and subjects. But back to the Tate: formally, the space is entirely secular; the supporting language and narratives, however, at least in part, are religious. How is one to read and make sense of such juxtapositions in contemporary culture? What, if anything, has art to do with religion beyond mere mimetic re-presentation, and does religion have something to offer the arts beyond the bare thematic? In his introduction to the Reith Lectures from 1982 Denis Donoghue observes: ‘A work of art is in some sense mysterious; but I see no evidence, in contemporary criticism that the mystery is acknowledged or respected.’ It is through this lens that I wish to explore the arts in this short paper

Theology Going Somewhere and Nowhere

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, chapter six, there is a very interesting exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where⎯’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat. ‘⎯so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’ This particular dialogue is most often paraphrased as: ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.’ And this, which is a line from a song, is sometimes given, incorrectly, as a quotation from the book itself. If you take the question of Theology and its future as your Leitmotif, then, I would suggest that this paraphrase is far too simplistic, and I would like to unravel the complexity of the original dialogue. Where have we come from? Which way ought we go from here? Where is somewhere? And what about the possibility of going nowhere? As I reflect on this activity that we call ‘theology,’ questions, such as these, spring to mind

An Open Space in the City – Galway Cathedral at Fifty Years

The first time that I stepped into this Cathedral was as a first year student in St. Mary’s College. Our beloved dean, Fr. Garvey, brought us down to the Cathedral to see Bishop Browne lying in state. The significance of the person, the occasion, and this place were all lost on me: it was a half-day off school and that was what was most important! I did not really know who was Bishop Browne; nor that he had built the Cathedral. And I can only, now, imagine how proud he and all the people of Galway must have been on the opening day of this magnificent place

The Underdeveloped Heart

A fascinating feature of human life is our ability to change, to be transformed, and to grow. And this is irrespective of age. There is no doubt that in the early years of life our growing is accelerated, necessary and, to a great extent, imposed on us. It is at once physical, emotional, intellectual and to some degree spiritual. As we age, however, growth is less a matter of physical prowess and much more a concern of mind, heart and spirit. And as such, growth in adult life is increasingly voluntary and, therefore, grounded in our freedom. We need never stop growing! The horizon of adult growth is infinite; we can always begin something new. I know a lady who in her nineties began learning French! In his poem ‘Begin,’ Brendan Kennelly observes: Though we live in a world that dreams of ending that always seems about to give in something that will not acknowledge conclusion insists that we forever begin

Ministry in Transition

About a week after my ordination, one of my neighbours asked me about the parish to which I was going to be sent. When I replied that I was going back to Rome to study for one more year, she looked rather perplexed and observed: ‘That’s funny, ‘cause I’ve always heard that you were a bright lad!’ Thankfully, the Lord had taken her before I went to Germany some years later, as, at that point, she would have considered me really stupid! This reflected something of the prevailing attitude of the times: as a young person you trained for your life’s task, and that was adequate for most professions. For my neighbour (and not a few priests), theology was something you did in seminary to prepare you for ministry and, to the end, was deemed to be perfectly sufficient for life. In Maynooth jargon, there was ‘stuff /bull’ to be learned; once you got through whatever had to be done for your exams (bull), you retained the basic knowledge (stuff) for working in a parish! Most of what you learned, of course, remained very much in the background and might even be forgotten

Tele-Autonomous control involving contact

Object localization and its application in tele-autonomous systems are studied. Two object localization algorithms are presented together with the methods of extracting several important types of object features. The first algorithm is based on line-segment to line-segment matching. Line range sensors are used to extract line-segment features from an object. The extracted features are matched to corresponding model features to compute the location of the object. The inputs of the second algorithm are not limited only to the line features. Featured points (point to point matching) and featured unit direction vectors (vector to vector matching) can also be used as the inputs of the algorithm, and there is no upper limit on the number of the features inputed. The algorithm will allow the use of redundant features to find a better solution. The algorithm uses dual number quaternions to represent the position and orientation of an object and uses the least squares optimization method to find an optimal solution for the object's location. The advantage of using this representation is that the method solves for the location estimation by minimizing a single cost function associated with the sum of the orientation and position errors and thus has a better performance on the estimation, both in accuracy and speed, than that of other similar algorithms. The difficulties when the operator is controlling a remote robot to perform manipulation tasks are also discussed. The main problems facing the operator are time delays on the signal transmission and the uncertainties of the remote environment. How object localization techniques can be used together with other techniques such as predictor display and time desynchronization to help to overcome these difficulties are then discussed

Conditioned responses to trauma reminders: How durable are they over time and does memory integration reduce them?

Background and objectives: Stimuli associated with the trauma are important triggers for intrusive memories after a traumatic event. Clinical models assume that fear conditioning for neutral stimuli encountered during traumatic events is a potential cause of these intrusions, and that memory integration has the effect of reducing these associations, thereby also reducing intrusions. This study examines whether conditioned associations lead to intrusive trauma memories and how they are affected by memory integration. Methods: Forty-eight healthy participants watched a neutral and a “traumatic” film, both containing neutral sounds, and, on the following day, were randomly allocated to memory integration of either the “traumatic” film or the neutral film. Intrusive memories were monitored for one week. Participants repeatedly completed a memory triggering task, in order to assess how durable conditioned intrusive memories are over time. Results: Trauma-associated sounds elicited intrusive memories and anxiety when encountered directly after film presentation, as well as one and seven days later. Furthermore, enhanced conditionability predicted subsequent ambulatory trauma intrusions. No evidence was found for the assumption that memory integration of the “traumatic” film reduced conditioned reactions. Limitations: The presented film is a relatively mild stressor as compared to a real-life trauma. Further studies are needed to explore the role of conditioned intrusions for real-life trauma. Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the assumption that intrusive trauma memories can be explained by conditioned responses to neutral stimuli encountered during the trauma and that these effects are stable over time. Implications for PTSD and its treatment are discussed