Faith moves us from greed to God

Four years after giving her famous “tip-toeing back to Church” talk in Clare, you tell us (November 28) that ombudsman Emily O’Reilly was back there again with some more memorable gems of comment and advice: “Fortunes overnight have vanished... nothing seems stable, not even the banks... we revelled in the blingy wealth... a near national obsession with handbags... a belief that if some people weren’t able to fend for themselves that somehow they didn’t deserve to be helped.”

She added: “In poorer times, we presented a warm, spiritual, friendly face to the world even as we hid away anything that sullied that image.”

And in the context of the bizarre ban on mention of Christmas in an Irish radio advert, the president of secular France is even talking about breaking with the schizophrenia of secularism and invoking France’s Christian roots.

Society there has been witnessing for some time the dissolution of the remains of the Christian tradition to the point that the state education system is now calling on religion to give young people what is calls reference points to position them in the world and in history. Otherwise they are like cut flowers in a vase, with a freedom having no compass, a freedom that is not magnetised, in a society that forgets what built it and has no other horizon or purpose to propose other than purchasing power or entertainment. To regain the use of freedom is to become aware of its purpose. The French are asking: freedom and equality, yes, but are we forgetting fraternity? New stirrings are afoot in many parishes here at home, new sensitivities, new community awareness, much evidence of a more reflective and assertive faith no longer timid in the public square or on radio and TV. Many are quietly regaining their inner strength at liturgical and scripture reading circles such as lectio divina (divine reading). People are becoming more conscious that faith is not only listening and interiorising the Christian message; it is also life witness and profession.

So now, in this run-up to Christmas, it might be opportune to say we must keep the memory of Christ very much alive in our secularised world and among an amnesiac people many of whom are oblivious of their roots.

Our ombudsman again: “When the (economic) tide goes out just a little bit, as it has done now, we can take stock of what else there is or can be done in our lives, apart form things material.”

Emily, come back again in the springtime and say some more to us.

Fr Tom Kelleher

Courceys

Kinsale

Co Cork