RAY BRADY, PP,
Sir, - Your columnist Miriam Donohoe wrote (Opinion, September 13th) that she and her family experienced a big liturgical let-down after their return from China to Ireland. She reckons the Mass here needs a radical overhaul if it is to attract young people in particular and that we had better repackage the whole Catholic Christian product if we are to survive.
I can sympathise with her experience of disappointments, but I'm not sure about her analysis of the situation or her recommendations for the immediate future.
Her Beijing Mass was out of the ordinary, only a few steps short of clandestine. In some ways it managed to replicate the early Christian experience of an assembly in hostile surrounds. There was obviously a special bond between the 150 ex-pats and Father John. All-in-all, the kind of setting that would give any of us a certain spiritual frisson.
And then the reality, Irish-style. I can appreciate the culture shock. Into a church where you may not know too many, may not know the priest, into a very formal setting. And according to Miriam, "sermons and services have been dull and uninspiring". I have to accept her word on that. A priest-friend of mine who goes along to Mass in different churches when he's on holidays has said much the same. Even a switch to Ballyhaise wouldn't solve the problem!
I'm not sure about the need for a radical overhaul or the repackaging of the product. I do admit that we need to work an awful lot harder at our liturgies. But remember, we are working as a Church that is only slowly relearning the difference between convention and conviction. And conversion.
I think the problem lies, at least in part, with us, the participants. Do we have a true spirit of community as we gather for our assemblies? How familiar are we with the ways of the liturgy and the Bible? How committed are we to the Way of Jesus? These and other questions about ourselves might give us some clues as to how we should go about improving our liturgies. - Yours, etc.,
RAY BRADY, PP, Ballyhaise, Co Cavan.
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Sir, - Miriam Donohue should visit the 7.30 p.m. Gardiner Street Gospel Choir Mass some Sunday. Believe me, she will enjoy it and be inspired. - Yours, etc.,
HILARY MURNANE, Tritonville Road, Dublin 4.