MV Matthew                     Word on the Week                     30^th September 2023.

The ship, under its new name, ‘Matthew’ sailed into Irish waters this week.   It had come from the Dutch island of Aruba in the South Caribbean as the MV Honmon to Willemstad in the Dutch protectorate of Curaçao on August 18th from where it sailed to Georgetown in Guyana on the north Atlantic coast of South America to collect a cargo.

The cargo was cocaine, procured by a Colombian drug cartel for sale in the European market.   So far 2.2 tonnes of cocaine have been recovered, partly hidden on deck in a ship’s life boat.   The vessel is 189 meters long and has a cargo capacity of 64,000 tonnes, so there is plenty of room for more of the stuff to be found!

The MV Matthew had failed to stop when requested by our Navy’s offshore patrol vessel the LE William Butler Yeats despite her firing a couple of shots across her bow.   It was left to a team from the army Ranger Wing to abseil down from a helicopter and secure the vessel.   She is now undergoing inspection in Cork harbour by the authorities.

Just prior to these events two men purchased a trawler in Castletownbere.   They were inexperienced sailors and with stormy seas ended up aground on a sandbank off Blackwater, in Co Wexford.   Their objective was to rendezvous with the MV Matthew and distribute the cocaine via harbours in these Isles.   The two men have now been rescued by helicopter and duly arrested.

The audaciousness of this enterprise is breath-taking.   And this is not by any means the first cargo ship to cross the Atlantic with a drug cargo.    The market continues to expand as addiction spreads and the resultant misery in terms of human suffering increases out of control.

What seems to be in control are the global gangs which locate in various places and control a portion of the drug trade.   In these locations the governing bodies cannot control them and with the purchasing power the drug money at their disposal buying ships becomes feasible.

The naming of the ship Matthew is interesting.  When Jesus called the tax-collector there was little doubt his reputation was in tatters (St Matthew 9 verses 9/11).   The ship’s Iranian captain appeared to have head and neck injuries, was air lifted to hospital, made a fast recovery and is now in Garda custody.   It will be interesting to see if the captain wishes to emulate the Apostle and transfer his allegiance from drug-smuggling to Christ.

Let us pray he may be the first of many.

Stardust Fire                    Word on the Week                     23^rd September 2023.

It was St Valentine’s night, February 14^th 1981 and the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, was packed to capacity.   A fire broke out which was to claim the lives of 48 young people and injure over 200.   It was tragic.   

Such was the scale of the disaster that initially it was attributed to arson or terrorism.   Gradually the investigation reached the conclusion that the fire developed from poor safety practices and building code violations.   The 5 exit doors were chained and locked to prevent access to the nightclub.   The toilet windows were barred with steel bars for the same purpose.

In 2009, four relatives of those who had died were successful in establishing an inquiry which duly found there to be no evidence to support the arson theory.   These findings enabled the owners, the Butterly family, to pursue a claim for compensation against the city because of the arson finding, and were eventually awarded IR£580,000.

This year, following multiple reports, a legal enquiry under Michael O’Higgins SC has been established and meetings began this week.   These have brought into the light the 5 locked exits and barred toilet windows which pertained while approx. 800 patrons were in the nightclub.

Initial pleadings have produced accusations and denials as to who instructed the locking of the doors.    The community, who lost loved ones and have had to live with the scars of that fateful night, want answers.  

Who instructed the exits to be locked?   As with any disaster there must be those who know the truth.   The owners and staff who were on duty that fateful night have had to live with their consciences for 42 years.   So far the problems of guilt and shame have silenced those who are guilty.

Michael O’Higgins has a mammoth task to elicit the truth.   In addition to the fatalities there have been about 25 attempted suicides in subsequent years all relating to the fire.   There needs to be some acknowledgement of wrong, some admission of guilt to ease the troubled conscience.

It is not as if all the rest of humanity is guiltless.   The Apostle James puts the bar at the highest notch.   He says to sin at all is to be guilty of breaking the entire law (St James 2 verse 10).   That is why we need a saviour.   And that is why Jesus came.   Noel Richards hymn says it clearly: –

You took all my guilt and shame,
When You died and rose again;
Now today You reign,
In heaven and earth exalted.                                                                                                

The relief of sins forgiven brings with it the peace of the Lord (St Luke 7 verses 48/50).

Rugby                               Word on the Week                     16^th September 2023.

In case there is someone who doesn’t know, the Rugby World Cup has got under way.   This is a world-wide event with Ireland lining out against Tonga tonight.   All games are being played in French Stadiums.    These are located in various cities culminating in the final in Paris on Saturday 28^th October.

The game was invented, so the legend has it, in the playing fields of Rugby school, England, when a player picked up the ball and ran with it!  A couple of years later in 1846 the students wrote down some laws which, with few changes, continue to this day.

The major rule prohibits passing forward which, in itself, requires considerable discipline.   I recall a friend from overseas, who was new to the game, marvelling that in order to progress forward you had to pass the ball back!  He was quite astonished that such an illogical game could have been invented!

Over the years the game has become faster and the players heavier.  It is said that a Mother’s heart misses a beat when her 7-year-old son announces “Ma, I am going to play rugby!”   However, the first few years it is touch rugby – a modified version of the game that is played, which is less likely to cause injury.

In fact, there has been a crackdown on cases of head injury in recent times.  We now have a mandatory sending off for examination by the medical staff.   They carry out a Head Injury Assessment (HIA).   The rules vary between Rugby Associations but GRTP (Graduated Return To Play) is strongly enforced.

Rugby is very much a team game.   Players rely on each other to assist them!   To do this team members must turn up extra fast and without hesitation join in the fray.   To play well one player must have faith in the other to be there when he is needed!    You should see what this looks like if you tune in at 8.00 pm tonight!

Since we are in France I was reading one of my favourite Frenchman’s works.   He is Blaise Pascal the scientist from the 17^th century.   His sensational conversion experience took place when he was age 31.   For his remaining few years he devoted himself to Christian writing including this analysis of faith.

He wrote with astounding clarity, “in faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.’ Blaise Pascal.

Or as Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.   Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (St John 8 verse 12).

Christian faith is itself a gift from God (Ephesians 2 verse 8).

Back to School                 Word on the Week                     9^th September 2023.

Here comes the sun – schools must have resumed!    What cruel fate has decreed that the resumption of schools and colleges would be marked by gloriously sunny weather!    It does not always occur – it just seems like it does!

School or college was once the place where life skills were taught, identities formed and eventually a world view gets constructed.   Among the many views in circulation today the Christian view is seldom present.   JB Philips saw this coming many years ago and in his Bible translation of Romans 12 verse 2 coined “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”

The text comes after the most thorough working out of the Gospel in the previous 11 chapters of Romans.   The Apostle recognised from personal experience that the danger of silencing Christian witness was very real.

Isaiah put the Christian witness so well in Chapter 43 verse 1 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.”    He is our creator, He formed us in the womb.   He is also our redeemer who saved us and gave us an identity as his sons and daughters.

Each of these aspects of the Christian faith is under attack in our contemporary Western World.   The chances are that the attack will start at school and certainly be present at college.   When it comes to the work scene the breakdown of morality is being fuelled by many things including the misuse of the smartphone which produces its own porn addicts.

It is into this culture that we are called to operate.   Some of us have found it hard and ceased from the work of witnessing for Christ.   All of us find it difficult to start a Christian conversation.    This world has never been a friend to the grace of God.

To assist at witnessing Andy Bannister has written ‘How to Talk about Jesus without Looking Like an Idiot: A Panic-Free Guide to Having Natural Conversations about Your Faith.’    Andy writes from a background of much experience.

The writer of Hebrews has a heavenly perspective.  Having quoted from the past sees the hero’s as encouraging us in the present to follow their lead (Hebrews 12 verses 1 to 3).

The Swallow          Word on the Week          2^nd September 2023.

In my daily pre breakfast excursions with Tess the Pugaleer we have been accompanied by the melodic twitter of the swallows who are massing on the other side of the hawthorn hedge.  The latter has been allowed to grow an extra two feet as part of the farm wilding so we can pass close to the roost un-noticed.

Using the binoculars, you can distinguish the metallic blue body and white front.   The tail has two streamers which extend its vee shape and distinguish it from the Martin as they seem to feed together on the abundance of insects that are blown out of the trees in the spinney.   The dark red throat is another feature although it is hard to see.

In fact, the swallow is best viewed in the evening sun light as it roosts on the electricity wires illuminated by the low sun revealing its beauty.  Perhaps their favourite resting place is the reed bed.   There both insects and water are available.    There is also mud with which they make their cup shaped nests on the stable rafters.   They use the same nest annually.

In the migration to South Africa the birds cover approximately 200 miles daily.   The chicks are required to grow up fast to stick the pace and those from a second brood have an extra hard task to get into shape for the flight.   Its vital piece of equipment is its beak.   This has a wide gape which when wide open, it uses to scoop up insects in flight or quench its thirst by skimming the surface of a pond.  

When God created the swallow he gave it a great GPS system!   To have such a small bird (7.5 inches in length) span the globe and find its way back to the exact location, in the stable it left, is truly astounding.   The Psalmist has the swallow nest in the temple where he teams up with the sparrow where they join in the singing and both appear to be welcome (Psalm 84 verses 3/4).

Jesus speaks of a broken world where the death of his followers through persecution is a present reality.   Then he says not to be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.   He teaches that we are to fear God not man.   To illustrate this Jesus cites the sparrow which is almost worthless yet not one of them fall to the ground without the will of God.

The lesson is brought home by the fact we are known so intimately that the hairs of our head are numbered!   So we are not to fear in the world but realise we are worth more than many sparrows! (St Matthew 10 verses 26 to 31).   This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.   So we know and rely on the love God has for us. (1 John 4 verses 10 to 16).