25 April: Canterbury’s Old Synagogue – good neighbours.

There was a Jewish community in mediaeval Canterbury, and again in the first half of the XIX Century. Their Synagogue was purchased and demolished in 1846 to give the South Eastern Railway access across St Dunstan’s Street to the West Station and a junction with the older Canterbury and Whitstable line. The congregation, with help from other synagogues in London, and from local business people, built a new meeting place in King Street within the city walls.

This building served as a place of worship for only 50 years, for as Jewish families left the city for life in London or other big cities, there were not enough families for a recognised congregation. Before that, however, the Jewish community made significant contributions to city life.

Henry Hart in particular served on the city council being chosen three times as Mayor of Canterbury; he was also a member of the School Board that channelled government grants to elementary schools, including Saint Thomas’s Catholic School. His support extended to providing cloth and thread for the schoolgirls to make themselves cloaks for the winter.

Also on the Board were representatives of the Anglican and Methodist churches, which had their own schools. In Canterbury at least they seem to have supported each other through the grant making process. There were times when St Thomas’s needed all the help it could get. Let us celebrate our predecessors who co-operated for the good of the children and gave generously for them.

The Old Synagogue was bought by the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral and now serves as a music room for the King’s School. It was designed in Egyptian style, remembering, perhaps, the captivity of God’s people in Egypt. Let us pray for peace and co-operation in the Middle East.

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9 January: Praying with Pope Francis: Educators.

Brocagh School, Leitrim, 1969

This January Pope Francis asks us to pray for Educators

We pray that educators may be credible witnesses, 
teaching fraternity rather than competition  
and helping the youngest and most vulnerable above all. 

I shared this picture on the Pelicans Website in 2011. It shows the children of Brocagh School, Co. Leitrim in 1969, with their educators, head teacher Mrs McCormack, to the right, and her assistant teacher, then, I think, called Miss Byrne, but wearing an engagement ring.

Sometime after this, in 1970-72 the little local 2 classroom schools were all closed down and a new central school built in Glenfarne village. We students at nearby Saint Augustine's College visited the little schools to deliver an RE lesson each Wednesday morning.

It was Mrs McCormack who gave me a valuable lesson, in the qualities Pope Francis proclaims. This was thanks to Joe McHugh, down there in the front row wearing a green jacket. During the time after Easter we had John's story of the barbecue by the lake after the miraculous catch of fish, and Peter's final declaration of faith. 

I think the lesson went well. The children drew some remarkable pictures, but Mrs McCormack drew my attention to Joe's in particular: come here now, Joe, what's this in the corner? - It's Saint Peter's lorry, Miss, come to carry away the fish. I'd missed the lorry completely; I'd not interpreted the shapes he'd drawn in 20th Century terms.

What Mrs McCormack knew, but I did not, was that Joe's family had recently acquired a lorry which was Joe's pride and joy, so of course St Peter would have had his lorry ready to take the fish to market. The story made sense to Joe, and had always made more sense to me as a consequence; thank you Joe, wherever you are. And thank you to Mrs McCormack, that credible witness!You used Joe's lorry to teach him and me that fraternity between the generations means allowing the child to teach himself, and his (or her) teachers.

Olivia O'Dolan and other local people managed to identify many of the children whose names appear on the Pelicans Website.

Synod Newsletter, 23 April 2022

This week’s message from the synod office looks at what is happening in schools and colleges around the world. We highlight one example below, but you can find more by following the link above.

As part of the local synodal process, the Diocese of Palmerston North in New Zealand has developed a series of resources for school communities. The coordination group welcomes the participation of children and young people.

READ MORE

Prayer for the meeting of the synod’s commissions in Rome

Let us keep in mind in our personal and community prayer 
next week's meeting of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops 
with the members of the four synod’s commissions in Rome.

Enlighten, O Lord, the hearts of the participants,
who represent the diversity and richness of the Church.
Dispose their minds to listen to the Spirit of truth
so that their work and their reflections may best
serve Your Church. 
Let them discover how to transmit
in the best way the experience of being a listening Church
and promote the participation of God's people.
On this journey, to which we are all called
to be enthused by the fire of the Spirit
that gives the necessary gifts at the right time,
we want to open ourselves, together with Mary
to the newness of a life of faith
which is built in communion
on the paths of love and hope.
AMEN

https://mailchi.mp/synod/newsletter112022_en?e=9c8f6d48c5

5 December: Keeping up appearances.

Off-duty peacock, almost invisible.

A dozen old boys from a small boarding school were meeting up over a Zoom link; a very flexible agenda led to discussion of clothes. Nobody seemed to agree with Erasmus’s adage, ‘Clothes make the man’.

The school was run by the Missionaries of Africa who have an unusual official habit, based on XIX Century North African menswear. No doubt that would be interpreted as ‘cultural appropriation’ in some quarters today, but it was intended to show respect for the local people and distance the society from the colonial power. This is from a 1960’s school photograph.

(Source: The Pelicans)

The principle of dressing like ordinary local people means the members of the society often do not wear clerical black, and the habit is now worn just for special occasions. (It takes a lot of washing and ironing.)

As for us former students, Mike, who lent this photo, newly retired from his service as a head teacher, paid a visit to his local charity shop to hand over all his formal suits, which he would never wear again. Freedom! Another told how he and his colleagues abandoned their ties after a high-up from head office gave some in-service training, tie-less. Yet another’s suits hung unworn since retirement, except for weddings and funerals; a fourth having lost weight, gave away all his old clothes to encourage himself not to put the pounds back on.

The suits and ties did not ‘make’ the men, rather they seemed to circumscribe them, to identify them as respectable workers who kept their hands clean. I found that being prepared to get dirty hands – gardening, fixing a puncture, measuring and sawing wood – was a good way to get alongside the excluded boys and girls I taught. A jacket and tie would have been a barrier day to day, but they came out for end-of-year presentations, our one formal event. And the Lord Mayor always wore his chain to give out the certificates; a visible acknowledgement of the work the young people had done over the year.

Clothes, whether splendid and luxurious or drab and plain, do not make the man. As Doctor Johnson once remarked, in answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure: “Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! … Alas! Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.’

From “Life of Johnson, Volume 3 1776-1780” by James Boswell, via KIndle.

13 October: Healthy aging is whatever is holy and healthy

I once took a message to a local convent, where the door was answered by a little old sister, walking with two sticks, bent almost double, who had a chat with me before finding the sister I was sent to. ‘You must know about this convent, Will – she’d found out my name as a matter of course – your friend Sister Clare may be a teacher, but most of us look after old people’. I had the impression that she was looking after as much as being looked after. I felt looked after by her in those few minutes’ conversation!

Sister Carol Zinn, the executive director of the American Leadership Conference of Women Religious, says that healthy aging is “whatever is holy and healthy for human beings: to be in relationships, have a meaningful prayer life and a way of being of service to other people. These are a given in religious life, but I really think that they are a given in a happy, holy human life.”

This article from the National Catholic Reporter by Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans explores aging in community and healthy, mature ‘letting go’ of work, property and other things, but not letting go of mission. What is holy and healthy for Will T as he moves deeper into Autumn and deeper into retirement, I wonder? Do read this excellent reflection from the Global Sisters Report.

2 September, Season of Creation III: Seasons turning.

September! We are moving into Autumn, fruit, grain harvest, swelling pumpkins … return to school, reluctant scholars yet glad to see their friends. remembering Oscar Wilde yesterday, here is the XVII Century English-speaking Welsh poet, Henry Vaughan, looking for the luxuries of out-of-season flowers and fruit. He’d find them today of course, rushed to us from around the world. But note his conclusion!

The tender vine in our garden suffered from the North’s cold wind last winter, but we have a few bunches of grapes swelling; are they to be food for humans or starlings?

Who the violet doth love, 
Must seek her in the flow'ry grove, 
But never when the North's cold wind 
The russet fields with frost doth bind. 
If in the spring-time—to no end— 
The tender vine for grapes we bend, 
We shall find none, for only—still— 
Autumn doth the wine-press fill. 
Thus for all things—in the world's prime— 
The wise God seal'd their proper time.

St David’s Cathedral.

Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II.

19 August: Herded together.

Virginia Woolf reflects on the experience of boarding school, callous, unfriended. Put it beside the thoughts we read recently from teenagers on life-changing events.

Now that our boxes are unpacked in the dormitories, we sit herded together under maps of the entire world. There are desks with wells for the ink. We shall write our exercises in ink here. But here I am nobody. I have no face. This great company, all dressed in brown serge, has robbed me of my identity. We are all callous, unfriended. I will seek out a face, a composed, a monumental face, and will endow it with omniscience, and wear it under my dress like a talisman and then (I promise this) I will find some dingle in a wood where I can display my assortment of curious treasures. I promise myself this. So I will not cry.

(from “THE WAVES” by Virginia Woolf) 1933.

13 August: Things that have changed my life, I.

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July: Things that have changed my life, I.

When I was teaching in school, I once had a class of 13 and 14 year-olds for Religious Studies, an opportunity to reflect, always a priority for Agnellus Mirror. I found this set of notes the other day, their reaction to the question, tell us something, or things, that have changed your life.

It’s time to dust these notes off and share them. And to invite us all to reflect on how much of what we as adults do or don’t do, say or don’t say, helps or hurts the young people we share our lives with as parents, grandparents, relatives, godparents or teachers. Listen to the witness of these youngsters! Read between the lines!

Making new friends at school and leaving my old friends from my old school. My father lost his job abroad and had to come to London to find a new job. He got a job on the railways but he was in digs and we were still in Scotland, so we moved down.

My brother returning from boarding school.

My father dying in hospital.

Moving house because I have to make new friends and go to a new school; leaving my friends behind.

Meeting new people.

Doing my back in.

More from these young people tomorrow.

28 July: Those Canadian Schools, II.

Image from SJC

A friend of mine wrote this letter to the Toronto Globe and Mail after reading an article whose writer concluded: ‘I cannot remain a Catholic.‘ Without trying to diminish what happened in the schools, Michael makes the case for remaining a Catholic.

To the editor of the Globe & Mail re. “Amid shameful residential-school revelations, I cannot
remain a Catholic” (Bernadette Hardaker, Opinion, July 5).

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I, along with many other Roman Catholics, have signed online expressions of horror at our Church’s involvement in the abuse of our indigenous populations, and their most vulnerable members. Together with millions of fellow Catholics, I choose to remain a member of my Catholic community because, despite its institutional flaws and the moral crimes of some of its leading members, the Catholic Church remains a Christ-centered community that provides the spiritual direction and resources that I need in attempting to be the best person I can be.

The Catholic Church is defined as more than its pope, bishops, priests, and other religious. The Catholic Church is composed of “The People of God”, who are attempting to live according to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. I, with my fellow Catholics, ask for forgiveness from our abused indigenous neighbours, and forgiveness from our God.

Michael Goodstadt PhD, C.Psych.

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