December 2005 - Archdiocese of Glasgow

· DECEMBER 2005to Hopehill Road and the pulpit of St Columba'sThe white robed Blackfriars,Frs O'Connor, Pollock,Marshall and Slevin with StColumba parishionersBuilding on the people's solid faith'The Dogsof the Lord'NEWS 7The Order of Preachers, known as the BlackFriars in Britain, was founded in 1216 by theSpanish priest Dominic de Guzman. From himthey took the name by which they are usuallyknown - the Dominicans.The Latin Domini canis translates as ‘Dogsof the Lord’ – explaining the Order’s reputationas the guard dogs of orthodoxy against heresy.When they were founded in the early 13thcentury, Europe was experiencing a renaissanceof ideas which did much to change the way peoplethought and lived. But many of these ideas were inconflict with the teaching and thought of theChurch and were regarded as heretical.As Dominic travelled through Spain andFrance he encountered these ideas and spentmuch time in discussion with those who held andpropagated them. He realised that these ideashad to be met and, where necessary, refuted, buthe also recognised that the existing Church structureswere inadequate to meet this challenge.WHEN he arrived at StColumba’s, Hopehill Road,just over a month ago, FrJohn O’Connor OP wasthrown in at the deep end.Ordained little more than a year,and completely new to Scotland,never mind Glasgow, the youngDominican has had little time todraw breath.Within his first week as the newparish priest of St Columba’s he hadoffered two funeral Masses, administeredthe Sacrament of Confirmationto a group of young people and wasbrought up to speed on the parish’sforthcoming centenary celebrations.It has been a steep learning curve,but one which the Galway-bornpriest relishes.“This is not only a fresh start forme but for the whole parish which ishaving to get used to a number ofnew faces around the place.”Fr O’Connor is the youngest of thefive-strong Dominican communitywhich is establishing a new priory atSt Columba’s. An indicator of theupheaval involved from movingacross the city from Langside, is thatit took a whole week to move in alltheir books. And even then they hadto erect more shelving.Fr Gordian Marshall is the superiorof the Glasgow communitywhose other members are Fr RobertPollock, a retired lecturer, Fr Angusby Vincent ToalMcLaughlin, parish priest ofMingarry (Argyll and the Isles) andFr Brendan Slevin, parish priest toStrathclyde University chaplaincy.“With three parish priests and asuperior we’re quite top heavy withbosses, but the beauty of living incommunity is that we are not all justdoing our own thing but have eachother to call on,” said Fr Gordian.Already there has been a fruitfulexchange of resources between theparish and the chaplaincy. While StColumba’s is at the disposal of thechaplaincy for the celebration ofSunday Mass, the parish is benefitingfrom the additional input intothe liturgy.ResoundedFor the Feast of Christ the King,last month, St Columba’s resoundedto the strains of Gregorian Chant, anEastern-style Gospel acclamation (afull five minutes) and a newlywritten motet sung by theStrathclyde University ChamberChoir. It is no small boast to haveScotland’s premiere composer,James MacMillan, as parish organist,sometime cantor and choir-master.It was a liturgical tour de forcewhich left Fr Slevin hoarse.Recovering his voice, he said: “Ourhope is that the parish will become afocus for the students, as a placeStrathclyde University Chamber Choir conducted by Alan Tavenerwhere they can come and be part ofthe community.“At Strathclyde we have anecumenical chaplaincy, which has itsblessings, but there is no reservedSacrament, so it is more awkward tohost strictly Catholic celebrations.”So, while the John St chaplaincycontinues to host lunchtime Massesduring term, the use of St Columba’sallows for a broader expression ofCatholic identity.With their 3,500 books, theDominicans put great store by studyand research. And far from cuttingthem off, it enables them to moreconfidently go out and converse withthe world.“There is a lot of very real solidfaith, but most of the time it isunthinking,” said Fr Gordian, who issemi-retired from lecturing in the REdepartment of the Faculty ofEducation at Glasgow University.“While mature students are happyto raise questions, to be challenged tothink and learn to respond, mostyounger students just want to knowwhat the ‘truth’ is and try to accept it.”He added: “Prayer and theologyare often seen as opposing eachother, but are in fact complimentary.Study and reading are part of ourcontemplation by which we try tolead people to God.”The community agrees that thereis scope to develop opportunities foradult education and are keen toencourage the existing courses beingoffered in the Archdiocese.At the same time, Fr John hasalready introduced a weekday classin lectio Divina, which encouragesparishioners to take time to reflect onthe Sunday readings. The focus at themoment is on Advent. And within it,he is also introducing the parishionersof St Columba to the historyof the Dominican order.“There is an awful lot of involvement,especially by those who comeduring the week, which is a greatcredit to the work of Fr David Trainerand the priests who have served theparish in the meantime,” he said.“The parish has a strong musicaltradition which we will build on andexpand with the help of JamesMacMillan. Next year is the centenaryof the founding of the parish,and already our very enthusiasticcentenary committee has drawn up afull calendar of liturgical, spiritualand social events.”InfluentialThe Dominicans returned toGlasgow as a community in 1981thanks to the efforts of Fr Ian HislopOP and the pioneering work of FrAnthony Ross OP and Fr ColumbaRyan OP who were chaplains atStrathclyde. They were preceded bythe Glasgow Lay Dominicans whoremain an influential body in the lifeof the Church in the city and beyond.It has been a long apprenticeshipfor the Blachfriars community, butthey were still “pleasantly surprised”at the readiness with whichArchbishop Conti accepted theirproposal to run a parish.“For the Order of Preachers to bewithout a public pulpit is a hit of ananomaly,” admitted Fr Gordian.“Now that we have one, then wehave to look after it.”For Fr John, the new parish priestof St Columba’s, that means gettingto know people, being honest withthem and encouraging them todevelop their understanding of andgive expression to their faith.Such is life in the deep end that hehas not even had time to unpack hisbooks!The great orders of the day were bound bytheir vow of stability to remain in their monasteries,the diocesan clergy were confined totheir parishes, the bishops were concernedwith administering their dioceses, and veryoften involved with affairs of state.So Dominic decided that a new order wasnecessary, and he founded a body of men andwomen who would live in community and observethe traditional choral office in a modified form.The great difference would be that the menwould be able to move freely from place toplace, to meet challenges whenever and whereverthey occurred. In Dominic’s famousphrase “the world would be their cloister”.The emphasis of the new foundation was onintense study, to allow the friars to enter intodialogue with the new ideas, and to preach thetruth of the Gospel. The friars lived in communities,under the direction of a superior, thePrior, elected by the community. The divineoffice was recited daily, but in a modified form,to allow the friars time to devote to study.Many of the ideas which were causingconcern at the time were being taught andpropagated in the new universities. So it was inthese universities that the new order ofpreachers opened some of their first houses,including Paris and Bologna.Two of the great theologians of the periodwere Dominicans - Albert the Great andThomas Aquinas. They examined the validity ofthe new philosophical ideas, whether theycontradicted the teaching of the Church, orwhether they could be used as valuable tools tohelp in the understanding of the Gospel.While changes have occurred over the past800 years, the original basic structure as envisagedby Dominic remain at the heart of theOrder today - communal living, choral office,intense application to study as a means ofteaching and preaching, and the welcomingand discussion of new ideas.