Welcome / Fáilte Romhat!
The Franciscan Abbey in Multyfarnham was founded in 1268 and continues to be an active centre of Franciscan mission in Ireland. The only Franciscan Abbey in Ireland still standing on the footprint of its original foundation, the Franciscan fraternity continues its commitment of service from this special place.
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From the desk of Fr Kieran OFM
Hearing is believing!
Very many of us are familiar with the name Helen Keller. Helen was permanently deaf and blind as a result of an illness she contracted at just 19 months old.
In something she wrote, she said: “Blindness separates us from things, but deafness separates us from people.”
Fr Kieran’s reflection this week bring those words to mind. Kieran takes as the theme of his reflection the story of the apostle Thomas, or as the world often knows him, “Doubting Thomas” as told in St John’s Gospel (Jn 20:24-29). In the Gospel story, there is much about “seeing” – whether Thomas’s doubt on hearing that the other apostles have “seen” the Lord or even, the words of Jesus himself after his encounter with Thomas when He says to him: “You believe because you can see me. Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
However, Kieran asks us to turn our minds to another one of our senses, that of hearing. In our lives, we are called to the presence of Jesus via our hearing, “in scripture, in prayer, and in the suffering of creation, to name the primary sources of revelation.” It seems that when speaking of our encounters with the Lord, Helen Keller and Kieran are on the same page!
Friend or foe? Who’s to know?
In his reflection, Fr Kieran encourages us to look deeper at who is my enemy, and who is my friend.
In our day to day lives, we can react badly to those who challenge us, who call out the error of our ways. We can be like King Ahab in the reading from the first book of the Kings that Kieran takes for his theme. Our instinct can be to see those who challenge us as our enemy and all too often, we don’t wish to either see them nor hear them! But are we too quick to see ‘enemy’ when we might be looking at ‘friend?’
When we read or listen to Scripture, all too often we can find ourselves challenged, asked to account for our thoughts and actions. But surely we would never see those words as coming from the ‘enemy’ but instead see beyond the human reaction to go further, to see the error of our ways, and to change; to be transformed.
Your health is your wealth – but of which ‘health’ do we speak?
Some proverbs are universally known, understood, and accepted for a depth of insight that their brevity belies! And surely this phrase, “your health is your wealth” qualifies as being in this category.
In his reflection, Fr Kieran is not thinking so much about health in the ordinarily understood sense of that phrase, i.e., our physical and mental wellbeing. No. He takes this to another critical area of our lives, or more importantly, our lives in God, when he takes us through a reflection on spiritual health.
Most of us tend to care for our physical and mental health but do we think enough (and do enough) for our spiritual health? We spend thousands on physical health, whether in healthy living, staying fit, dieting, etc. Why – because it is important and we want to live long.
But what about our spiritual health? Don’t we want to live with God for all eternity?
Read Kieran’s reflection on this key topic!
An Evening of Beautiful Music in the Friary
Some buildings lend themselves, naturally, to having good acoustics and the Friary church can count itself among those. And when music is played and sung here, the tones of the voices and of the played music combine with the very stones themselves to deliver a sound that cannot be replicated in any other place. In every sense, it is a unique experience, both for the artists and for their audience.
And so it was last Sunday evening when The Lynn Singers from Mullingar, the Irish Concert Orchestra Quintet, and Vocative, a small six-man group of singers visited us to perform their Winter Concert. An audience of just over 300 people were treated to a beautiful evening of perfect singing, and magnificent and uplifting music. The first half of the evening was given over to The Lynn Singers, Vocative and the ICO Quintet performing “Magnificat” from St Luke’s Gospel (LK 1:46-55). Few of us can say that we have not heard the amazing words of Mary’s prayerful response to the Angel sung. However, Sunday’s performance was one with which few would be familiar. In an arrangement by Kim André Arnesen, a young Norwegian classical composer from Trondheim in that country, the performance of “Magnificat” was quite simply, beautiful. How such a sound could be obtained from so few voices is a mystery and the individual performances were so perfect, that the soprano voices were like the voices of angels filling the Friary church. This arrangement was sung in Latin and while this might, at first, risk disconnecting the audience from the magnificence of the words, having the Latin and English, side-by-side on the back page of the accompanying programme, allowed us to engage with the prayer. A spectacular performance, with Musical Director, Dervilla Conlon skillfully encouraging every note and pause to deliver an impeccable performance.
This was followed by the ICO Quintet with a performance of three pieces, two by Arthur Duff (“Windy Gap” and, “Meath Pastoral”) before concluding with McAnanty’s Reel. Kenneth Rice led the quintet in a spirited uplifting, toe-tapping, rendition of this well-known reel and at times, it seemed that Robin Panter on Viola was going to step forward, put his viola down, and break into the reel itself. Joyful!
The evening concluded with three songs, again from the The Lynn Singers, with Vocative and the ICO. First, we had Moonset, by Don McDonald, a thoughtful piece, followed by Blackbird, a Lennon and McCartney icon to an arrangement by Kenneth Rice of the ICO Quintet, and the evening finished with a song that seldom fails to bring to mind old friends, the Parting Glass, again to a Kenneth Rice arrangement with Audrey Snyder.
Evenings such as this are as rare as they are special, and it will take a few weeks for the last echoes of music from the evening to fade away. It is evenings such as this that remind us of why the Friary church in Multyfarnham has a special place in the hearts of all of us.
T. Gerard Bennett