The Monthly Salon: December
And the Abbey's plans for Advent and New Year
Solstice greetings to you all. Here in the northern hemisphere it is the shortest day of the year, which means that the world is beginning to turn slowly back towards the light. We have a good two months of darkness to navigate yet here in the damp Atlantic west, but the corner has been turned.
This is your last chance for 2023 to open any conversation of your choosing with your fellow readers. But first, three pieces of Christmas housekeeping:
Last-minute present idea number one! For the next four days you can still take out an annual subscription to the Abbey for 15% off the usual price. This offer expires on Christmas Day. You can take advantage of it by clicking here.
Last-minute present idea number two! Ewan Craig, who is illustrating my Wild Saint tales with his stunning woodcuts, is selling limited edition prints of them, and other things, in his online shop.
The Abbey will be on holiday from the end of this week until Theophany (6th January.) I’ll be back on the 7th with news of what 2024 will hold. As well as the next installments in my Wild Saints and Holy Wells series, I have other plans afoot for this place and its people.
With that out of the way, the floor is yours. Talk about anything you’d like. I only wish I could provide mulled wine. But perhaps you can provide your own.
And I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. I’ve much appreciated all your support, readership, commentary and argument this past year. That I began 2023 writing long think-pieces about the Machine and ended it wandering around holy wells only makes it more remarkable that you are all still here. I’m glad that you are. Cheers and many blessings to you all.
It’s been a fun and strange venture with you here, Paul. You’ve challenged my ideas about God, people and society. The first (God) I have more faith in. The second I have hope for. The third…. Still watching and waiting to rebuild that one once the great fall is over with. Seems to be taking a while. But there is much to collapse I guess.
As for the salon, I just want to offer everyone else here a Merry Christmas and a bit of encouragement / caution. The American politics of 2016 seem to be ramping up again and we all know this unfortunately spills to the rest of the world. Now is the time to focus on your people, place and prayer. Things will not get better. I truly believe the worst of American theatre is to come in 2024. But don’t let that turmoil from the artificial ruin what is real.
Your family and friends are real. Love them. Spend time with them.
Your place is real. Pray for your city, village or rural neighbors. Get to know them. Dine with them. They’re probably more interesting than anything going on on TikTok.
And focus on prayer. Meditate on the truth and ask God to reveal Himself to you. Ask where you can join Him already at work. He may just point you back to your neighbors. Or He may not. Give yourself to Him and let Him lead you to the desert if He wants. Wherever He leads you He surely won’t leave you.
Today, the winter solstice day is always a special day for me and my wife Brenda, because we were married 11 years ago today in a beautiful Orthodox wedding in the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry. For my family, virtually all of whom are Irish born Catholics, and my wife's family who likewise are mainly Irish RC's, it was their first encounter with the celebration of an Orthodox Christian sacrament, in particular, a wedding with numerous aspects to it so different from the western traditional wedding. Thankfully, many of these differences are also beautiful, such as the crowning of the bride and groom, and the "dance of Isiah". So it was going to be a steep learning curve for many of the 150 or so friends and relatives packed into the rural Church in the countryside about three miles from the town of Tralee. In this we were blessed to have as the main celebrant, the late and greatly missed, Fr Godfrey O'Donnell. Fr Godfrey was a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and one of the key factors in the firm establishment of an Orthodox Christian presence here in Ireland. Fr Godfrey, was a former Jesuit priest, and his comprehension of the Irish Catholic mindset was complete. We could have had no better a celebrant, since he paused occasionally and explained the meaning and significance of each aspect of the ceremony. As well as remembering that wonderful occasion, with the Church lit up with numerous candles in stark contrast to the gloom of the Kerry mid-Winters day outside the stained glass windows, I like to remember Fr Godfrey. I loved him, though I only knew him a short time. He met us prior to the wedding, and his instructions around our personal preparations were most helpful. He was entirely respectful of Brenda's continued attachment to the RC Church, and it was he who gained us the blessing of the Metropolitan for Western Europe for the dispensation for us to wed in the advent fasting period, due to Brenda's recent serious illness. An illness, which thanks to God, she has been free from ever since, for which we give thanks to God from the bottom of our hearts. Glory to thee O God!
We had planned to use a Roman Catholic Chapel in Tralee for the ceremony. Five months prior to our wedding day, we, to my great surprise were informed by the local Roman Catholic "decision maker" that our using of the RC Chapel was "absolutely no problem at all". We went ahead with our plans, and had invitations printed, but crucially, not posted. We arranged a further meeting with the RC diocesan "decision maker", who let me say was a Kerry cleric of a type well known in Ireland. Good natured, breezy, affable, and good humoured, but not perhaps much of a "details" man. As we sat together the three of us discussing the wedding day, we thanked him for his flexibility in hosting an Orthodox Christian wedding ceremony in a Catholic Church for an Orthodox Christian groom and a Catholic bride. He responded modestly with the words "sure, no problem at all, aren't we all under the Pope?", there followed a silence I will not forget for a long time, which I eventually rather awkwardly broke, with " but we're not all under the Pope though Father". There then followed a flurry of activity where the poor man felt it was best to ring the Canon Lawyer for the region, since the call was made in the adjoining room on speaker phone we overheard it all. "Orthodox he is, she's a Catholic from our parish Michael, that'll be OK won't it?".... "but who's the priest? Is he one of ours and is the ceremony a Catholic wedding though Joe ? " came the reply."Michael sure no, the priests an Orthodox priest who used to be a Jesuit, coming down from Dublin".... "Joe, my dear man, do not touch it with a bargepole" was the firm and curtly delivered response.
Our helpful decision maker returned to the room, in fairness to him full of apologies, but nevertheless imparting the bad news that we had no Church for the wedding.
In a mix of vexation and panic once out of the building I rang Fr Godfrey in Dublin, he was unruffled, and pausing briefly after my frantic explanation he said " Really? Most unfortunate, sadly it would appear news of the schism has not yet reached Kerry".
Fr Godfrey O'Donnell came up trumps for us though, with his numerous contacts through his role as the Romanian Orthodox Church representative on the Irish Council of Churches we were soon fixed up with the use of the Church of Ireland Church in Ballyseedy with the best wishes of the Church of Ireland Bishop for the area.
So on this day, I give thanks once agaÃn to the now sadly reposed Fr Godfrey O'Donnell, raising a Christmas toast to his memory, may it be Eternal.