Bunratty Church and Graveyard.

Day 1 - Ireland

On our first evening in Ireland we saw the ruins of an abandoned church from the window of the room we were staying in at the Bunratty Castle Hotel. 

We quickly went out the side door of the hotel and went into the cemetery surrounding the ruins. Gravestones reflected that the small cemetery, perhaps an acre but certainly not more in size, had first been used back in the 1700’s, prior to the time of the repeal of the Penal Laws which outlawed the practice of Catholicism in Ireland. The most recent grave dated only back to 2011.

In short order we learned the Irish traditionally converted abandoned and ruined abbeys, monasteries, churches and other religious sites which had been destroyed by the English, or which had simply been a victim of history, into graveyards. 

On this first evening, though, we did not know any of this.

There were scores of vertical and horizontal monuments and headstones which called out to us so we just wandered back and forth reading names and epitaphs. I very much felt I was walking in a cemetery in Butte or Anaconda; the names were the names from my childhood. O’Donnell, Sullivan, McKittrick, McKernan and Fitzgerald to name just a few of the familiar names we found.

Eventually we worked our way into the church itself. All 4 walls were still intact but the roof was long gone but it was easy to recognize it was Catholic in origin. There was a large main altar on the east end and bedside the main altar where side altars which would have been dedicated to Joseph and Mary. There was no way to really tell how old the church was but it was probably built in the 12^th Century because the structure seems to be Norman in nature and that is the period when the Norman influence spread widely through Ireland.

The light was fading but there is a long twilight in Ireland at the time of the summer solstice so we had plenty of time to explore and let ourselves become part of the tapestry of a place without time. The gray stone blocks of the church stood out in contrast to a sky falling from day to evening to night. My wife returned to the Hotel but I stayed on and found a place to sit on a fallen block with my back against the still standing wall. An evening star winked on and shimmering in the cobalt colored western sky. Despite the proximity of the church and graveyard to the bustle of Bunratty and a 4 lane highway there was virtual silence to invite contemplation.

I placed my hand against a stone on the wall beside me and it remained warm to the touch, the substance of daylight which warmed the stone had faded but its essence remained. As I reflected on the interconnectedness of substance and essence, the voices of those who had ever celebrated the Eucharist, weddings and funerals in this place began to fill the void of history which is never truly empty. I understood in that instant that while the substance of all those who had visited and worshipped within the walls of the church were gone, their essence remained. The walls heard the words and songs of the long ago people and the walls remember them. The stone blocks call the forgotten out of the darkness of time to share the mysteries of worship with anyone chooses to sit and listen.

The rocks came before us and we carved them out of the mountains of history and put them into a shape meant to give praise to the Creator who created all. The stones which are built into the form of a church become hollow in order to capture all things they witnessed. The stones have eternal memory and we are blessed with eternal recall. The eternal memory of the stones does not belong to the stones, all memories are eternal because they were heard by eternal Divine who hears all, sees all and remembers all. The eternal Divine stored the memories in the walls for us to call to mind if we simply abide. The eternal recall was gifted to us when the finger of God touched our hearts and awoke the desire to seek Him.

The cobalt sky darkened into blackness peppered by stars and tinged in the west with the last rays of the departed sun. It was past time for Evening Prayer so I sang Night prayer to the rocks. They listened. They will remember. My single voice is now joined with the voices of time. The words and songs are different and the language is different but there is no matter there. There is a commonness shared by all – the worship of loving God who called me to this place and gave me the ears to hear with my heart and soul.

My substance returned to the place a called home but my some of my essence remains in the unforgotten church with walls which retain eternal memories remembered by God. 

I am now part of the mystery to be understood by those who follow me.

Hallelujah!

Amen.