July 7, Maolruain d. 792


Thommy and John

Good morning
I love you

7/7/7 -> if you’re a numbers person, then today’s a lucky day. Lots of people put their marriage plans (hopes?) on this day. As a colleague said last night, luck has nothing to do with marriage. Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn’t bet on luck. I had a wedding on May Day, the feast of St Joseph the Worker – and worked, I thought very hard at what I believed [wrongly] was a marriage. Not lucky? Insufficient work? Didn’t happen from before the beginning? Whatever. I am very sorry for your and our loss…. Losses!

Also first Saturday. The chapel was full for mass today. A usually well attended Saturday liturgy had almost every seat occupied. Mostly, by far, grey hairs. Not one person under 20, looked like the youngest was about 26ish. That struck me. Not even a youth altar server. Maybe 0830 is still to early for children at mass. [and I brought you to the premass time cursillo meeting – well I went to cursillo, you two to play nearby on your own. Or to Saturday Mass at OLG when there was usually one other high-school aged son with his father at mass. I wonder if it is the time? Do we, church, schedule our masses for the convenience of the priest? The elderly? The adults? A daily mass for youth, what time would be a good time? The 0615 just about never has a youth there - and it’s a great time ‘on the way to work’ [if not for on the way to school?] of course, if a catholic school, embedding Mass into the schedule – with or without ‘choice’ of attending, is doable. But what time would eliminate “bad time” excuse? After school has activities. After activities has dinner ‘with family’. After dinner has homework. Is there no other than preschool as a good time. Reverting to our preschool selves may be the answer to a lot of things….

The sermon today, springing from Jacob’s taking Essau’s patrimony, God is for the underdog --- so many times the eldest is passed over: Jacob, Joseph, David are easy examples to remember. And Vatican II tells us to give preferential treatment to the poor – definitely underdogs. And in a chapel filled with very rich people, such a gently preached message is received. With what impact? You are very rich? What preferential impact do you give to the poor? [who are the poor in your lives to whom to give preferential treatment?]

On this first Saturday, remember Mary. Remember Mary when you consider receiving a wife. Mary is the model, the template, the type of woman for you to seek until you find – until your Mary is presented to you….



July 7, Maolruain….
[reflecting/commenting on Saints O’the Day from St Patrick’s website – with Butler’s et al assimilated….]

"Labor in piety is the most excellent work of all. The kingdom of heaven in granted to him who directs study, him who studies, and him who supports the student." --Saint Maolruain.
Piety. Remember what Piety is? A gift of the holy spirit: from baptism and confirmation. From family (domestic church) and Church (community). A gift – from God to you; as with any gift, to be gratefully received and honored by its being given back; fully used, like the talents, tenfold profit…..
To labor in piety – as in the prayer to the Sacred Heart: help me do everything for you. Ignatius’s prayer of total dedication. So many of our prayers identifying that our fully giving all that we do as a return gift to God - - your modus vivandi? Not mine, yet. Tho it is a daily prayer and much of my doing – help me do everything for you, a mantra reminder…
The irish monks, our irish people, learning and learned – pass it forward. The gateway for the irish immigrants - - education. [so much more goes into the disappointments and hurts created by your mother’s facilitating your academic failures…. No pater materque, I know, my fault, my failing. I am sorry.] without receiving direction, without accepting the support, studying is harder, less likely to succeed [see today’s article in the DDN about not accepting help – wrong, bad decision.] in your studies – QED.
Saint Maolruain was the founder and abbot of the monastery of Tallaght in County Wicklow, Ireland, on land donated by King Cellach mac Dunchada of Leinster in 774. Tallaght Abbey became the mother house of the Culdee movement, which Maolruain co-founded with Saint Oengus.
How do we know our Ireland geography? When I took a job in Columbus ohio I found it strange that people referred to counties rather than cities as reference points. It took me a little bit to recognize this as so irish. County Wicklow – do you know it? Check the map? Near Mayo? Or Galway? [from whence our Nolans and Gavins]
Cellach – irish for Kenneth! So, an early firstnamesake was a king. Every clan had a king. Every hill had a king. Maybe we irish believe we are each a king for a reason? But the king of Leinster, a mucky muck if there ever was one!
And being an abbot – sorta kinda like a hospital ceo.  founder and abbot – be yourself a founder of the monastery [a word I often misspell, reversing the a and e] of your vocation. To lead, to found, requires faith and passion and grace and the maximizing of gifts - - and having followers. It is impossible to lead without followers. It is about People – colleagues, friends, family, forever about people given to us by God….


The Culdee movement, intended to regularize the rules of Irish monasticism according to traditional ascetical practices, was codified in several of the saint's writings: The teaching of Mael-ruain, Rule of the Celi-Dé, and The monastery of Tallaght. These promoted both for both the ascetic and the intellectual life, promoted community prayer with repetitions of the Psalter and genuflections, insisted upon stability and enclosure, and called for clerical and monastic celibacy.
A movement? Think composer – not bowels. In your vocation, what movements currently exist? How will you go with the flow of those movements. Of, to be true to God and Self, what movement will you begin. Knowing that any movement against the flow, going against the tide, is a task doable only with grace - and it is in the making of the Godwith movement that you make good and right, regardless of the effect on others - - knowing such movements on God’s way [the way the truth the light, aka, Jesus, who is one with the Father and the Spirit] will necessarily, assuredly, create counter actions to put you back into the flow that swirls around you. Persist….
An effort to regularize the rules of Irish monasticism, to align the monks and their diverse communities, not only with one another but more importantly with God and Church. To be aligned – chiropractic religiosity? Aligning our spine!?  returning to the source. In our faith it is always renewing to return to the source documents - - sure, the Bible, and in our tradition, the church fathers and councils and encyclicals…. Return to the source documents. And so too in your chosen vocation – what are the source documents - - the foundation from which the new blood rises? Know the foundation solidly - - one of the priorities of college, maybe a last opportunity to immerse yourselves in the history as it reaches into the current.
It is important for each of us to be ascetic. How do you connect with the asceticism of our faith? The essence of our living? Try some of Maelruain’s writings; or any of the other irish ascetics…. Know what asceticism is and how to achieve it in your lives.
An intellectual life? Unfortunately you have been shrouded in an anti-intellectual cave since 1994. and you have not found your way out even yet it seems. Being anti-perfection [be perfect even as my father is perfect. Not only a fear of the admonition but your rejecting it with your mother puts you on quicksand as the foundation of an intellectual life. Not seek your best but seek the best. Do what you must to be the best at what you do. Without the pursuit of an intellectual life, the intellectual life, you bring mush into the arena of combat – combat with yourself, combat with the devil, combat with the forces against you and your life with God and family. [for what purpose was her persisting in her efforts to have you be mushbrained]
Community prayer. Family prayer – morning and night [why with one parent and not the other? I am so sorry you do not have pater materque.] Sunday mass. Daily mass. The liturgies of communal worship – so much a part of my childhood, ingrained so deeply that I miss having even the opportunities – e.g., benediction, rosary, the hours…. Together is important. Repetition is important. And being with community in prayer regularly, frequently makes doing/being good and right more often so much more likely.



In typical Irish fashion, the Culdee movement was marked by extremism. Women were discussed as "men's guardian devils." Ascetic practices included total abstinence from alcohol. Sundays were observed like the Jewish sabbath. Vigils in cold water or with the arms extended in cruciform and self-flagellation were recommended. Fortunately or not, the movement failed because it lacked all constitutional means of making the reform permanent, although it called for tithes from the laity to support it.
The irish are extremists! Might that explain your father just a little? Unfortunately, I mistakenly fell for someone not irish and not even sympathetic to the irish. And you pay the cost of my failure daily; we pay that cost expodentially. Not only not irish catholic, anti irish catholic, anti irish and anti catholic. I am sorry.
Extreme is who we are.
And our practices, serving a purpose for self [given the extremism of our temptations as well] as well as for our community. Seeking the greatest – the ultimate – the Kingdom seems to logically call for extremism in the service of God, family, community, self….
Maybe women are ‘men’s guardian devils’ – tho that would not be the way to talk outloud. I’ve been told that I don’t respect women. I got out of my element – my environs of the irish catholic world [there was no such in Tuscaloosa or even Nashville]. So, my craziness, my ‘disrespect’ in context would have been, would be, understood and trumped by the irish princess warrior who rules the clan, dominates the Ri.
Abstinence from alcohol for an Irishman is extremism to the extreme. Prudent alcohol extremism is recommended. A way to enjoy the spirits. And beyond. And to give it up altogether – maybe that is the best way to dominate the temptations…. I’ve not done that, yet. Maybe worth a try? Alcohol as a medium for a message? Many media for many messages. And who but another irish, or a wise and learned/learning woman would understand?
Strict observance of the Sabbath? Surely mass. Better to join the adult education after the parish coffee. A family tradition – like dinner and a walk around the block….
I never was one for a cold shower. Very anti-cold shower, actually. Much prefer the water heater that provides perpetual hot water in the shower. Many long and luxurious showers that way.
Prayer/vigils with arm outstretched. Have done that a few times for some fairly short periods. The month at St Mary’s in Bridgeport – the latin parishoners’ praying the rosary with arms outstretched - - my introduction to cursillo. Do enter cursillo and persist with it. Alone and together; infusing everything with prayer/service.
A failed movement? Mother teresa says it is not the outcome but the effort for which we are responsible. And the effort cannot fail if we are doing God’s will…


Like other Irish reformers, Maolruain emphasized spiritual direction and confession of sins by establishing rules for both. Tallaght's devotional life was marked by special veneration of both its patrons: the Blessed Virgin and Saint Michael the Archangel.
Spiritual direction. This starts with the first commandments. Is picked up in the fourth. And until you have given yourself to these, how will you find and accept spiritual direction from the next person? [do not quibble. If it is not Catholic, you are receiving spiritual misdirection – regardless of who the director is.]
Confession of sins. ‘bless me father for I have sinned. It has been 4 weeks since my last confession. These are my sins…. For these and all my sins I am sorry…. Oh my God, I am heartedly sorry for having offended you. I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because the offend you my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life….” … I used to go to confession every week. In the novitiate twice a week. Now it’s about once a month - and it’s way not enough. No so much because my sins are so many and so egregious [tho sins such as mine are, of course], it is because of my increasing need for the booster shot of grace for perseverance and improvement and my pursuit of perfection. To be less than perfect is the trigger for the necessity of confession to be all that I can be….
A special veneration of the saints. Each day, my trip through the litany of saints’ feasts and their bio…. Who are my favorite saints? Joseph. Patrick. Ignatius. Stanislaus Koska. William the Abbot. Thomas [the apostle and More, even Aquinas], Monica, Rose,…
Have your own patron saints as you become friends with each of them daily.
BVM. She has a unique place in our Catholic hearts, our Catholic faith, our Catholic community. As our advocate. As our mother. As the woman who shows us what motherhood should be; what being a wife should be; what being a woman should be. To teach us all the should bes of loving Jesus; and being loved by Him, including the seven swords piercing her heart…. Her agonies from His love….\
St Michael the Archangel. Defend us in battle! [to know we are in battle! And that we need a defender – or an infinite number of defenders – to hold our own, to win the battle.]



Intellectual and manual work were integral to life at Tallaght. There are, Maolruain wrote, "three profitable things in the day: prayer, labor, and study, or it may be teaching or writing or sewing clothes or any profitable work that a monk may do, so that none may be idle."
Intellectual and manual work, together, integrated, assimilated, sine qua non of our living our faith. Truly a Jesuit mantra as well. Deeply Catholic. Genuinely irish. And you have been not only denied that immersion but have, from behind the shroud, taught the anit-versions…. Ora pro nobis….
Three things necessary in every day.
PRAYER. How do you pray? With whom? Daily.
LABOR. What do you do with your hands each day? To not only make a better ‘world’ but to make a better self?
STUDY. Study! Learn! First your faith. And then everything else. Always. Daily.


Maolruain, with Oengus, was also the compiler of the martyrology named after that place. The movement led to the production of the Stowe Missal, formerly enshrined, which is a unique record of early Irish liturgical practices. A church was built in 1829 on the medieval remains of Maolruain's abbey. The locals maintained a long-standing custom of processing house-to-house, dancing jigs and drinking, on his feast, until it was suppressed by the Dominicans in 1856 (Benedictines, Farmer, Montague).
We do have a responsibility to compile and pass on our history. OUR history. Personal experiences – pass it forward. What we learn from father and grandparents and aunts and uncles - - the richness of our clan - - our own martyrology…..
I wonder why this version of Maolruain saves the best part to last. July 7th we should be in Wicklow to join in the long standing custom of processing house to house, dancing jigs, and drinking [drinking to and for and in thanksgiving of an abbot who not only eschewed alcohol himself but forbade it in his monasteries…. Of course the irish would drink to such a holy man!] [and, of course, it would be the dominicans who'd move to suppress such joy and celebration! the jesuits, on the other hand, would find a way, like Patrick did, to assimilate the natve exuberance into our faith practices....


I love you
dad