As I am in Ireland, the day is almost done. The sun is setting slowly, as it does up here in the northern part. The long twilights are one reason why England built some of the largest and most amazing west windows in the Medieval cathedrals. The long twilight was captured in the naves.
This is the first summer I intend to spend in Ireland, writing and praying. I have been to this island in the winter and in the autumn in the past and both times, it was cold. So far, it has been hot and sunny.
The green fields and hedges cannot conceal a sense of loss, however, as Ireland has lost her identity.
Spiritually, she is gasping for breath. On a Sunday, the Churches are half empty, but the malls and shops are full. The new religion is consumerism. And, the new abortion bill is part of the consumerist agenda. Babies cost money. Babies interfere with careers. Babies demand self-sacrifice, and love.
Love is dying here. Almost all my friends here are Polish, Scottish, Polish, Scottish...Polish, Asian, Asian, and three Irish.
Why? Because this is the TLM crowd of young people. There is no one my age that I can see at the TLM. There are older people, my parents' ages, and younger, much younger people.
The twenty to thirty somethings form the new Church, but they are so few. And, they are not Irish.
I grieve for Ireland on this Sunday. The land of the missing children-as if the Pied Piper had come down Grafton Street and stolen all the little children away.
Lost children, lost identity. There is a psychological event which some people in concentration camps or prisons, or even monasteries experience. It is Loss of Identity. This can last a few days, or years. If it is a mental or emotional illness, loss of identity can be periodic. Loss of identity comes from broken families as well as the loss of Faith. Without the continuity of faithfulness in marriage, from parents, in the Church, one cannot develop properly.
The lost generations are at least two now. And, people cannot identify with hatred, which is what has happened here. I do not think the Irish can find their identity without Catholicism. They are following the pipe of materialism and they will disappear as a nation if they do not rediscover that they are a nation, a people, persons only in Christ.
On such a sunny evening, gloomy thoughts...
