Archbishop acknowledges sense of despair in farming community

The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, has spoken of the desperation this Easter of the farming community because of foot-and-mouth, following so closely after their BSE problems.

Developing a theme from his Easter message in a homily at St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, he said: "The ravages of the foot-and-mouth crisis affect many beyond the farming community . . . But it is on the farms, not least within our diocese, that the real desperation and despair is being felt."

Media pictures of the slaughter of animals would remain with people for a long time, he said, and he urged the congregation to "pray God this scourge will soon be eradicated from our land."

Growing attacks on the elderly were "deplorable", Dr Eames said, and presented a real challenge to society. "Today there are a growing number of people who feel very vulnerable and isolated," he said, but he was thinking particularly of the elderly who lived in fear, many of them alone.

On a similar theme the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, said in his Easter homily at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: "Life in Ireland today is moving at such speed that many people are experiencing an increasing sense of isolation."

The growth in the number of suicides highlighted our increasing loss of a sense of community. "That strong sense of community which was such a marked feature of Irish life in the past has been seriously weakened and in places is in danger of disappearing altogether," he said.

It was therefore "essential that we find ways of building community supports, of being more caring of one another, of reaching out to the lonely and those who feel unloved, those in despair.

"We need to prioritise what is important in our lives. We need to find that time for our neighbours and family, for volunteering, for overcoming that disconnectedness," he said.

"If we all gave as little as one hour per week or fortnight for volunteering, what a difference that would make."

Jesus "who walked and talked with His disciples in His earthly ministry" was the same Jesus who walked and talked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus following the Resurrection. He led those disciples from despair to hope, from unbelief to belief, he said.

"As He did with those two despairing disciples, so He did and does with countless others bringing dignity and meaning to their lives."

In his homily at the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin Cardinal Desmond Connell pointed out that the resurrected Jesus remained "the man who was born of Mary in Bethlehem, who lived and laboured amongst us, teaching and healing, until blind opposition condemned Him to die on the cross."

He was not "a phantom who came back to haunt the living, but a full-blooded Son of our race, bearing in His body the marks of the nail and the lance that identify Him as the one who was laid in the tomb.

" The sound of His voice, His commanding gestures, His ability to share a meal with friends, are not just familiar but indisputably real. And yet He is different," he said.

The Cardinal remarked on this difference. "He comes and goes, unobstructed by tightly-shut doors. He is more like a visitor whose home is elsewhere in the divine region from which He came in taking flesh and in hiding His glory in obedient love for His Father," he said.