Sir, - Reading Nuala O'Fadlain's reflections on the phenomenal success of the Faith of Our Fathers tape brought an interesting thought to mind. The Church's liturgy readings of recent weeks have featured a lot about guests who spurn invites to wedding feasts, bridesmaids who allow their lamps to run out of oil etc. The parables are various but they all end with a lock out of some people from the party.
Now it struck me forcibly that Nuala is locked out. She can hear the hymns, and she can see the people pushing past her to buy the tape. She herself despises the tape and is therefore puzzled. She concludes that it is nostalgia rather than an expression of anything as threatening as faith. But she's wrong.
When I hear the hymn about Our Lady, Queen of the May I vividly imagine boys and girls on a warm spring morning bedecking Mary with primroses, daisies, pansies, etc. I fancy I can even smell the flowers. I quote: "I suppose you could call them (the hymns) Victorian, in the sense that the Ladies' View in Killarney is Victorian, or Axminster carpets, or potted ferns."
Now our house has never been without a May altar. Indeed, flowers in front of Lady statues in Donegal and Derry seem to be as common as ever. My fondness and that of others, for the hymn is, therefore, surely based on something current and alive. It is quite mistaken to have called it nostalgia".
I would say that you can no more write off devotion to Our Lady than you can write off fondness for the flowers and spring. But you can lose your sense of smell, and - if you're not careful - you could end up being locked out from the party. - Yours, etc.,
Aileach Road,
Buncrana,
Co Donegal.