L'Ultima Cena

Given the identity of the Eucharist and the Last Supper, I am surprised that nobody has drawn attention, in the context of the Eucharistic Congress, to the mural (above) in Blooms Lane, in the Italian Quarter of Dublin.

Might this have anything to do with the current misfortunes of developer Mick Wallace TD? Or might it be the uncomfortably secular nature of this particular rendering of that meal.

The characters are based on real people, invited in off the street, so to speak, and as such represent a cross section of Dublin passers by. An ideal image for a congress structured around the theme of "communion", you might think. There is even the resonance with the wedding feast of the Gospels.

Well, just to redress the imbalance I thought I'd mention John Byrne's Last Supper located slap bang in the middle of Mick Wallace's development.

While I'm at it I notice that Pat Igoldsby has not been included in the list of speakers for the Congress. I assume he was not invited, but have to admit I don't know whether or not he would have accepted such an invitation. Pat is as much a part of Dublin as the GPO and way more articulate than your average postage stamp.

As a modest contribution to redressing that imbalance, I have reproduced his poem "The Last Supper" below. I'm sure Pat won't mind. He's sort of laid back about some of this stuff.

LAST SUPPER

The man with nowhere to go
stood under
the cold petrified
night-time tree
in the middle of
O'Connell Street.
Because he had nothing
else to do
he joined up
all the white dots
which the birds
had dropped
onto the pavement
and he created
a perfect picture
of The Last Supper.
He wandered into it
and ate the bread
and drank the wine
and fell asleep
on the pavement
deep frozen
into the shape
of a cross.

First Class Relic IEC1932

This is a First Class Relic. A large metal logo from the 1932 Eucharistic Congress, permanently and prominently on display on a Dublin Street. So where is it?

A clue. It is directly outside a church in the north city centre.

A church whose donation box is set in concrete and boasts security every bit as strong as your local ATM.

You got it. Or did you? Berkeley Road church just around the corner from the Mater Hospital.

This view from the Blessington Street Basin. So you can contemplate physical sustenance via the public water supply and divine sustenance via the church. What more could you ask for on a fine day? And it wasn't even on the Dublin Pilgrim Walk for this year's Congress.

Tantum Ergo Sum

This is Clanbrassil Street during Dublin's last Eucharistic Congress in 1932.


And this is a recent Tweet from the current Congress Organisers inviting people to decorate their street. No doubt they are hoping for something approaching the 1932 Bunting Blitz.The link in the Tweet brings you to the Congress shop from where you can order flags and bunting.

There appears to me to be one big gap here. People are not being advised to consult their neighbours on whether they wish to be engulfed in this blaze of triumphalist flagwaving or not.



In 1932 Clanbrassil Street was the main Jewish shopping street in Dublin. Each golden pin above represents a Jewish shop, between Leonard's Corner and St. Kevin's Parade.

It is most unlikely that the Jews were consulted on their views on that particular triumphalist outpouring. That was not how it was done then. In fact the Lord Mayor of the Day, Alfie Byrne, pledged the loyalty of all the citizens of Dublin to the Pope, both during the Congress and in the course of his subsequent audience in the Vatican.

And, had they been asked, it is unlikely the Jews of the day, crucifiers of Christ as they still were then, would have had the nerve or the inclination to question the bunting, the procession or anything else which might have been proposed for the Congress. Of course, since 1969 we have all become much more sensitive to these matters on this island.

Today most of the Jews are gone. Some left the country after WWII for more favourable economic climes or to participate in establishing the State of Israel. Others transferred to the leafy glades of Terenure. And such few ethnic shops as are now left in Clanbrassil Street are Halal rather than Kosher.

Today we have an ethnically more diverse community across the city, and, even within the "Roman Catholic" population, there are many to whom such an outpouring of zealotry would be offensive in the wake of the clerical abuse scandals and the recent retreat of the Vatican into the theological and pastoral Bunker.

This Congress promises to be a very interesting one indeed.

Silk or Sackcloth?

I wonder will heed be taken by the Powers That Be of Fr. Tony Flannery's advice, on the ACP website, regarding the IEC roundup mass:

We regard the forthcoming Eucharistic Congress as a real opportunity for the Irish Church. But it must have no element of triumphalism about it. The celebration of the final mass at Croke Park will be the crucial factor here. If it is a big display of bishops and cardinals wearing mitres, surrounded by hundreds of vested priests, it will give out the wrong message. Instead it should be penitential in character. Rather than ceremonial dress, we ask for some modern, imaginative equivalent of the ‘sackcloth and ashes’ of the Old Testament, so that the celebration would be simple and humble, asking forgiveness not just for the abuse of children, but for the other abuses of power perpetrated by Church people in the past.

By the way, is there any truth in the rumour that the Vatican are investigating Fr. Flannery for his "liberal views"? I notice that Fr. Flannery, no more than Sr. Benvenuta, is not listed as a Congress speaker.

A list of those not listed is beginning to look like the voice of sanity in a mad mad world.

For whom the bell tolls

As I said, I will be keeping an eye on the upcoming Eucharistic Congress.

For the last while the Congress Bell has been travelling around the country drumming up (if you'll excuse the term) enthusiasm for the Congress. It has now made its way to Rome where it has been rung by no less a person than the Pope himself.

I was interested, therefore, to see a tweet (above) in the IEC stream saying that Minister Pat Rabbitte had rung the bell, in no less a place than Rome itself, and inviting us to view this happening. Unfortunately when I pressed "view photo" a cloak of invisibility seemed to descend and all I got was a blank space.

Not to be discouraged I clicked on the link given in the tweet only to be met by a firmly locked door (below).


What, I wondered was going on. Had the Minister taken fright at the dissemination of a photo showing him in cahoots with the church in these delicate times when even the Angelus bell on RTÉ is provoking apoplexy in some quarters.


Or perhaps he suddendly remembered the ammunition provided by the above photo to those critising the symbiosis of Church and State at the time of the last Congress in 1932.

If any of this is the case, the Minister is on a hiding to nothing. The internet is like the elephant, once it has seen something it never forgets. So I tapped into the elephant's memory, in this case the site of the Irish Franciscans who run St. Isidore's College in Rome, and bingo, there was Minister Pat doing the needful (below). [Note: Franciscan link no longer works since the Order revamped their website. See comments below.]


Enjoy

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