Reflections address loss, the faith needed amid calamity, the value of kindness – and hope, writes KATHY SHERIDANin Newcastle West
IN A gentle, candle-lit, afternoon service yesterday in west Limerick, the lives and tragic deaths of 25-year-old Sarah Hines, her children Reece, aged 3, and 5-month-old Amy, and Sarah’s friend, 21-year-old Alicia Brough, were marked with poetry, readings, reflections and music.
Despite the short notice and the fact Ms Hines was unknown in the parish where she had lived for only 10 days, some 650 people – grandparents and small children, groups of teenagers, mothers and crying babies – turned up at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newcastle West.
A family group, believed to be related to Ms Hines, sat near the front, some of them becoming distraught during the 50-minute service, which included an intercession prayer for “the young man who is under arrest and for his parents, brothers and sisters and other relatives and friends”.
As darkness fell, lighted candles were placed on the altar – one for each of the deceased, with a fifth for the Butler family in Ballycotton, Co Cork. The parish priest, Fr Frank Duhig, said it was always hard to accept the death of young people. “All the people we are remembering this evening were very young. Two of them were only little children, one of them only a five-month-old baby. We are reminded too that their mother, Sarah, and her friend, Alicia, were only a few years out of school. The pain and sadness of their family and friends and the community at large is made even more severe by the fact that they died so tragically. We are reminded too that not too far from here in Co Cork, the Butlers and their community are suffering similar pain . . .”
Flanked by parish curate Fr Pat Bluett, and Fr James Ambrose from Drumcollogher, Fr Duhig spoke about the “great fear” that had struck the heart of Newcastle West and surrounding parishes on Tuesday. “There was a sense of bewilderment, shock, helplessness and deep, deep sadness. In a year when we’ve had so much tragedy, so many particularly sad deaths, we felt we had had enough. But not so. People are dumbfounded, full of doubts, full of questions – some spoken, some unspoken. What has gone wrong? Where are we going? What is the world coming to? ”
He prayed “that through all the fear and pain and agony these young, vibrant women and children went through, they would, in God’s mysterious way, somewhere in the depths of their hearts, have known that God was with them . . . We pray that these two little children and those so-young girls are already safe in the arms of Jesus, where they will be forever young. The two little angels didn’t get much time to show their love, but there is no doubt that Reece showed a lot of it in his two short years, and little Amy – through she wasn’t yet able to talk, perhaps she spread more love than anyone.”
The reflections and poems made reference to little ones and small things. They addressed loss, the faith needed to move on amid calamity, the value of mundane kindness and, finally, hope. One, titled Your Stay was so Short, said: “My little one, down what centuries of light did you travel to reach us here, your stay so short-lived; in the twinkling of an eye you were moving on, bearing our name and a splinter of the human cross we suffer . . .”
A schoolgirl read an inspiring extract from Anne Frank’s diary: “ . . . In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart. I see the world being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.”
The final prayer, for the bereaved families of Sarah, Amy, Reece and Alicia, called on the “God of gentleness to be with them, caressing them with sunlight and rain and wind . . .”
It is understood the Hines funerals will take place next week.