THE COMPASSION AND COURAGE OF SHARED HEARTS
The compassion and courage of snared hearts
Rev Kevin Mullan, Parish Priest of Drumquin, said: "An ancient anger between two neighbouring island nations exploded in Omagh's Market Street that Saturday afternoon of August '98.
"The long histories of mistakes and blindness and narrowness that trace their way through identities and power and possessions and religions, and sufferings too, and that bully the heart's small recognitions of another way, scraped savagely against one another, igniting the inferno that eyes should never have seen or ears heard, before some saw no more and were no more, silenced.
"It has happened elsewhere, near and far, back through the years and centuries. It continues on the streets of Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe and God knows where else - the differences whose language is slaughter. We feel the terrifying familiarity of that pain.
"We know it, because one day it happened in our street. There, hands like our own, but bloodied torn and scorched, lifted the remains of life.
"The sounds of those seconds and minutes after ten past three keep falling into our ears - the screams and cries and calls that we remember, the questions that searched every corner wanting to find that all was well, the sentences that carried devastation in their few short words, the faith that broke into attempts at prayer, the love that could speak no more than its own name. And slowly out of the 10 years of this vast tragedy, the personal stories that find their way into our common keeping. And more have still to come.
"The water of the new garden pool absorbs them, to tell them back to us as we sit along its edge, and wait for other sounds to tell us that God has changed the world.
"Above us in the garden, the sun presents himself to us in new technological plates. The sun has seen the formation of our earth and the behaviour of man and woman from the beginning of human time over every square metre of the globe, our growth and decline, our loving and our fighting.
"In its fire are stored the histories that clashed on Omagh's street that awful day. In the warmth of the sun's fire is the encouragement to live as long as it is possible, for the sun too is mortal. With its death, all histories will end. We must not bring the darkness before its time.
"Whereas the days of myth would have worshipped the sun, the great fire of heaven lowers himself onto the operating tables of our water garden. He donates his rays through the surgery of science to that crystal heart in Market Street, which is all our hearts. It is in the compassion and courage of shared hearts that we become part of the greatest story ever told, and enter a life that death and darkness cannot end".
Rev Kevin Mullan, Parish Priest of Drumquin, said: "An ancient anger between two neighbouring island nations exploded in Omagh's Market Street that Saturday afternoon of August '98.
"The long histories of mistakes and blindness and narrowness that trace their way through identities and power and possessions and religions, and sufferings too, and that bully the heart's small recognitions of another way, scraped savagely against one another, igniting the inferno that eyes should never have seen or ears heard, before some saw no more and were no more, silenced.
"It has happened elsewhere, near and far, back through the years and centuries. It continues on the streets of Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe and God knows where else - the differences whose language is slaughter. We feel the terrifying familiarity of that pain.
"We know it, because one day it happened in our street. There, hands like our own, but bloodied torn and scorched, lifted the remains of life.
"The sounds of those seconds and minutes after ten past three keep falling into our ears - the screams and cries and calls that we remember, the questions that searched every corner wanting to find that all was well, the sentences that carried devastation in their few short words, the faith that broke into attempts at prayer, the love that could speak no more than its own name. And slowly out of the 10 years of this vast tragedy, the personal stories that find their way into our common keeping. And more have still to come.
"The water of the new garden pool absorbs them, to tell them back to us as we sit along its edge, and wait for other sounds to tell us that God has changed the world.
"Above us in the garden, the sun presents himself to us in new technological plates. The sun has seen the formation of our earth and the behaviour of man and woman from the beginning of human time over every square metre of the globe, our growth and decline, our loving and our fighting.
"In its fire are stored the histories that clashed on Omagh's street that awful day. In the warmth of the sun's fire is the encouragement to live as long as it is possible, for the sun too is mortal. With its death, all histories will end. We must not bring the darkness before its time.
"Whereas the days of myth would have worshipped the sun, the great fire of heaven lowers himself onto the operating tables of our water garden. He donates his rays through the surgery of science to that crystal heart in Market Street, which is all our hearts. It is in the compassion and courage of shared hearts that we become part of the greatest story ever told, and enter a life that death and darkness cannot end".
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC10An/19
Published Date: 14-Aug-08
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