And When Necessary, Use Words

Posted on by
Reply

Pope Francis at Casa del Marmo, the Juvenile Detention facility in Rome

“Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

Fr Austin’s words to me after Easter Sunday mass yesterday, quoting St Francis of Assisi.

I was having a short conversation with him on the subject of priests and their sermons, having been asked by BBC Radio Ulster to go on air this morning to talk of how priests might improve their weekly homily.

Ironically, in an example of miscommunication, Radio Ulster had been led to believe that Pope Francis had called upon priests to up the ante with their weekly homily. As it transpired the new Pope didn’t say this at all. It referred to a much earlier comment by Cardinal Ravasi back in November 2011 for priests to embrace new media in their communications. He pointed to the likes of Twitter as a media that would appeal to the younger generation. The Catholic Herald reported:

“A Vatican cardinal has appealed to clergy to liven up “dull, flavourless” sermons in an address at a conference in Rome.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, claimed that homilies had become “irrelevant” to worshippers who were used to the thrill and excitement of modern technology such as the television and the internet. He said: “The advent of televised and computerised information requires us to be compelling and trenchant, to cut to the heart of the matter, resort to narratives and colour.”

Fr Austin’s comments on St Francis immediately steered my thoughts to our modern day Francis. Certainly the new leader of the Church is aware of the power of words, but his signature so far has been actions, not just what he has said. Both bear close scrutiny. Since the announcement on 13 March he has dispensed with much of the starch, stiffness and conservatism that Pope Benedict brought to the office.

Last Thursday he said mass and washed the feet of juvenile inmates in Rome’s Casal del Marmo juvenile detention facility. This in turn prompted a series of open letters from young inmates in an LA Correctional Facility including the following:

Dear Pope Francis,

When Jesus washed the feet of his friends he gave an example of humility. I have been raised to believe that it is only with respect in hurting your enemy that you are a man. Tonight you and Jesus show me something in this washing of the feet something very different. I hope we kids learn from this.

Dear Pope Francis,

I have never been to Rome. I do not know if it is near Los Angeles because all my youth I have only known my neighborhood. I hope one day I will be given a second chance and receive a blessing from you and maybe even have my feet washed on Holy Thursday.

Since being elected, the Argentine Jesuit has eschewed the trappings of office. He has declined to wear the elaborate red, ermine-trimmed Mozetta favoured by Benedict. His choice of residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae rather than the expansive top floor Papal Apartment in the Vatican. He has gone walkabout to meet real people and ventured off script frequently. His message at the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday was an appeal to Priests to go to the outskirts to minister to those at the margins. A challenge for the times we live in, if ever there was one.

Returning to Cardinal Ravasi’s original exhortation on the Priest’s weekly sermon, those people at the margins may not be present in the Chapel every Sunday. Nor are they necessarily open to the appeal of social media. Many feel they no longer form part of the broader Church. And, the institutional Catholic Church in turn has damaged itself with them, with its failure to adequately address the failures of priests and religious implicated so disastrously in child abuse and the subsequent failure of the Institution to deal with the victims in a meaningful way. A culture of us and them has evolved and developed and grown exponentially. The communication has been poor.

Priests in Ireland that have dared critique aspects of the institutional Church’s behaviour have been censured and silenced. Often they are respected local clergy, men and women whose stock clearly doesn’t rank high in Rome with the Curia. Little to commend there, in examples open communication, clarity of message and freedom of expression. It has become unhealthy. A case of ‘do as I say not as I do’. The Curia in Rome under the Benedict regime has been allowed to strengthen its hand, and instead of showing openness, welcome and forgiveness it has closed ranks. Benedict in some of his keynote addresses has used Latin. That in itself is anti-communication and displays however unintentionally a Church that is out of touch and not of its time.

The New Pope Francis on first impression, offers an alternative and possibly a last chance for the Church reinvigorate its true mission. He is thus far an inspiring Shepherd. The excellent blog Whispers in the Loggia allows watchers to absorb word and deed from Francis. Although aware of the strengths of modern communication, he has shown himself thus far to have mastered the art of the simple message irrespective of the medium. It harks back to a simpler Church with a more powerful mission.

Fr Austin’s reflection on the words of St Francis have never been truer.

“Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

‘It’s about what you do Joe’ he said to me as a parting remark, ‘not what you say.’ As an Easter message from the Pope, or in this case the local Parish Priest, it couldn’t come simpler or more relevant than that.

See the Hurl in the Ash and Set it Free

Posted on by
Reply

Putting the tin on.

A while back my wood supplier sold me a shipment of wood. He told me it had been seasoned. It wasn’t. It hisses and spits like a mean ole cat and the stove in the kitchen smokes like a train. In fact I was taking calls from the Vatican looking to borrow it for the recent election. Instead I referred them to my wood guy. Hopefully next time it will be better.

Leo decided he was doing goals for the u14 hurlers. Either that or he was picked. It required a trip to Scullion Hurls in Loughgiel to have a keeper’s hurl cut. Hurley maker Mick Scullion started the process while we waited, cutting the outline of the junior keeper’s hurl from a shaped plank of raw ash. His dad, Joe, the founder of the business then took over shaping the hurl down closer to its finished shape before Mick again stepped forward to sand it down to the required weight and finish. Joe advised getting the bas covered in muck to seal it before we might bring it back to get tinned.

Two generations of craftsmen a pleasure to watch, seeing the hurley in the ash, they set it free.

There’s something about Loughgiel. It’s not just a place. It’s a state of mind. I had cause to speak to Liam ‘Winker’ Watson about a game their underage players play. I had texted him asking the rules, his reply wasn’t precise enough so he called me to explain the rules in detail. Benches wouldn’t do Winker said, it had to be tables, the sort you might see in a canteen because the wee men might raise the ball he said. Instructions complete he gave a fleeting insight to their current state of readiness for the Antrim League and then was off. Sound fella Winker, in a league of his own. He came over to Owenbeg last year with the trophy and spent time with the youngsters. We all marvelled at the weight of his hurl, one of a fresh batch fashioned for each match by Mick Scullion. Whatever about the weight he knows how to wave it. Winkers Wand we named it last year. It carries a heavy responsibility.

The problem with hurling these days is the cold. Camoging too. I was only coaching on Sunday and my hands were freezing. Gráinne was fit to tell me the finger she had busted last summer ached in the cold. At the u14 match last week two boys had to be subbed it was that cold. Another cried when he got home he was that foundhered. Leo was OK in goals, we invested in a pair of expensive Skins leggings and he wore four layers on top. The keeper’s hurl did the job too.

I went back over last Saturday to Loughgiel to pick up a few Clones Mick had agreed to make for me. Again he had the rough shape done before finishing out the final sticks – one a 30, the other a 26, effortlessly mimicking Leo’s existing 28. Another Scullion original lifted off the shelf completed the deal. £70. For the four and three grips.

The other main point of note is the new workshop and showroom. Scullion Hurls have become part of the Économusée network a series of working craft museums across the north coast area. The new centre is superbly finished telling the story of the hurley makers, their craft and the games they serve. The attention to detail brilliant and the finished product excellent. There were three happy hurlers in our house for sure.

Next time I’m over I’ll be buying a few bags of seasoned offcuts of ash for the fire. It’ll burn better than the wet stuff. Should have done that in the first place. Maybe.

Put the 48 Sheet on the Boss’s Way Home Please

Posted on by
Reply

A poster at the Boss’s bus stop should do the trick.

You know the saying. If a bough breaks in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound? Well. Marketing can be a bit like that. There’s being heard and there’s being heard. And then there’s people listening to you.

Once when I worked in the University of Ulster, we were charged annually with the job of marketing the institution’s nursing programmes to the local profession. The course offered included undergraduate programmes, postgraduate courses and programmes that were specialist in nature.

The latter were aimed at nurses already qualified who may wish to add further specialisms to their skills portfolio. It was all dressed up in very serious and sententious descriptions like those I have just used.

Each year we would churn out what was called the nursing prospectus, basically a fairly drab printed volume in which was abstracted the various nursing programmes. I remember once a colleague – actually I wouldn’t call him that, another employee in the University we’ll call him – picked holes in the project because he said it hadn’t been validated. Validated was a laborious process whereby the validation wonks read the material to make sure it complied with various strictures imposed by University statute.

I was more interested in the effectiveness of the marketing and the way in which we spent the budget. We developed advertising that presented the nursing career in its true light. Caring, professional, well trained dedicated. A true vocation.

As part of the marketing mix we arranged for flyer insertions in the professional nursing publications. The Nursing Times etc. The lady I worked with was a very petite professor of nursing. She was waspish is you didn’t know here, capable of the most scathing comment and caustic to those who crossed her. She and I got on very well.

With our plentiful marcomms mix we had the media booked, the material printed. We were all set. The on uncontrollable in this process is that inevitably someone somewhere screws up and the likes of myself were left to pick up whatever pieces there were.

This lady, we’ll call her Liz, was looking forward greatly to her copy of Nursing Standard or whatever her professional publication was. I had assured her that we she opened the cellophane the University’s Nursing flyer would very obtrusively fall into her lap.

Relaxing at home on the evening of D Day, the day we had planned when the campaign would break and nurses everywhere would be assailed with a barrage of UU themed nursing material, I was unprepared for the call I received.

The envelope stuffers of the publication in question had neglected to place the promotional material in the one envelope that politically I need to be bursting to the seams with University positivity.

A barbed and caustic phonecall from my hitherto nursing colleague, previously collegiate in the extreme, informed me the material wasn’t in her envelope and queried further how did I know it was anyone else’s package? The answer was of course, I didn’t but I had been reassured by the publication and the fulfilment house. The goodwill and positivity that had been built up evaporated in an instant.

Of course we tracked the problem down, one or two technical hitches had deprived Liz of her material and holed our marketing cred just above the waterline. Enough to destabilize but not sink us.

The lesson in all of this, is to ensure that irrespective of target audiences and demographics, make sure that the person writing the cheque and paying the bill has clear evidence that your marketing is happening.

It is a simple truism, but if they can’t see it, it isn’t happening. Even if it is the most hi vis campaign ever and you feel you have the world covered, make sure the man or woman with the money sees it in the real world. They may not be in the target audience but by hook or by crook, if the boss is driving home, make sure you have one of your 48 sheets at the side of the road so he can see it. Otherwise, it just ain’t happening.