Second Reading
Fr Kevin Hegarty
Recently TG4 presented a compelling series on the Presidents of Ireland. I did not see the first one on the Gaelic scholar, Douglas Hyde, who was President between 1938 and 1945. I wonder did it refer to a garden party held in the grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin in the summer of 1943.
The wealthy, the powerful and the glamorous were there – all the usual suspects. People flitted from group to group, exchanging what Yeats called ‘polite, meaningless words’ as is the wont on these occasions, oblivious, if only for a while, to the gunfire that raged on mainland Europe.
The usual rhythm of a high society party was disturbed by the arrival of the poet Patrick Kavanagh, who had not been invited and was then writing a column for The Irish Press newspaper. He did not fit into the prevailing mood, either by temperament or style. His appearance was somewhat dishevelled. He sported a decrepit jacket, a jumper pock-marked with holes and an old pair of shoes. The State papers of the time refer to him with disdain. The writer makes the point that security at the Áras must be improved so that, in the future, such undesirables cannot gain entry.
I find the incident very sad. Patrick Kavanagh was the premier Irish poet in the years after Yeats. Though he did not have the opportunity of education beyond national school, he was one of the most culturally sophisticated people of his generation. No one can really understand Irish rural experience in the 20th century without reference to his work. He wrote several poems that will stand the test of time. He knew the value of ordinary people, ordinary places and ordinary things;
“They laughed at one I loved –
The triangular hill that hung
Under the Big Forth. They said
That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges
Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love’s doorway to life
Is the same doorway everywhere.”
Kavanagh was often cantankerous and sometimes thankless, but his life was difficult, usually mired in poverty. In the 1940s there were no Arts Council grants to protect our poets from poverty. Through all the vicissitudes of his life he remained true to his unique vision. His fellow poet, Brendan Kennelly, expressed his integrity well:
“Now I recall my friend because
He lived according to his code
And in his way was true to God.
Courage he had and was content to be
Himself, whatever came his way.
There is no other chivalry.”
I think that the sad incident at the Áras in 1943 reveals the human tendency to judge superficially on appearances. Kavanagh’s experience came to mind as I reflected on a recent Sunday gospel where a woman arrived at the house of a Pharisee, where Jesus was dining, and proceeded to wipe his feet with her hair and anoint them with ointment. Simon, the Pharisee, is shocked that Jesus does not seem to realise that she has a dubious reputation. We are told little about her except a resonant and terrifying phrase that says everything and nothing. She had a ‘bad name in the town’. However, she recognises in Jesus a person who respects her, who senses her desire to reform her life, who knows her fundamental wish to do good.
The gospel story expresses in a powerful way how human judgement can often be arbitrary and superficial. We can limit people by our judgements or enable them to blossom by our understanding. I find some words of the poet, Philip Larkin particularly relevant here:
“In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love
To some it means the difference
They could make by loving others
But across most it sweeps
As all they might have done had they been loved.”
Is there something for us to ponder here in Irish society today? On the night of his third election victory An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said in a television interview that we had become an intrusive society. Maybe he is right? Tabloid headlines often scream condemnation.
Forgiveness is a limited commodity and there is no room for a second chance.
