Sowing the seeds of faith and reaping the harvest of life

The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 13 June 2021

The Second Sunday after Trinity (Trinity II)

9.30 a.m. Castletown Church, the Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion II)

11.30 a.m. Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Morning Prayer

The Readings: I Samuel 15: 34 to 16: 13; Psalm 20; Mark 4: 26-34

There is a link to the readings HERE.

‘The earth produces of itself’ (Mark 4: 28) … summer flowers in the gardens at Kells Bay House near Cahersiveen, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2).

In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 26-34), Christ tries to describe the ‘kingdom of God’ using images of a sower scattering seed on the ground in the hope and expectation of the harvest (verses 26-29) and of the mustard seed that grows into a great tree (verses 30-32).

As in the story of David in our first reading, God’s work may have small beginnings, or in those we may see as insignificant or overlook.

We have been bereaved sorely in this group of parishes in recent months, with four funerals since Christmas, four funerals in less than six months in one small group of parishes.

But at each funeral I heard how Alan, Linda, Joey and Ena had the seeds of their faith sown at an early stage in life, how that seed grew into a strong faith in their adult lives, and how they, in turn, had sown the seeds of faith.

Like a sower scattering seed, I sometimes think of God sowing seeds in the minds of many people that eventually grow into full bloom.

In the Gospel reading, Christ tells two parables: the first is the story of how seed scattered on the ground sprouts, grows and produces full grain at harvest time; the second is the story of how the mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, grows into the greatest of all shrubs.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that people who set out to be high achievers regret that over the span of a career they have never blossomed into great trees. Instead, they think that in the sight of other people they have remained small twigs or leaves on the tree, and that when they die, like a falling leaf, they will be forgotten and be of no further value to others.

Yet, when death is at our doorstep, none of us is going to be worried about the obituary pages or whether we will be judged by our achievements.

When he was interviewed on RTÉ three years ago [29 May 2018] by Ray Darcy, the late Gay Byrne spoke of his achievements and regrets over a long career that spanned 60 years. He admitted candidly that his biggest regrets were having worked too hard and given too much time to RTÉ when he could have spent more time with his children as they were growing up.

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, has worked for several years in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She has counselled the dying in their last days and has tried to find out what are the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives.

Among the top, from men in particular, is: ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.’

There was no mention of media profiles or better job titles.

In her best-selling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, which has been read by over a million people worldwide and translated into 29 languages, Bronnie Ware lists the top five regrets we have when we are dying:

1, I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3, I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5, I wish that I had let myself be happier.

What is your greatest regret in life, so far?

And what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

Our intrinsic, individual value does not depend on how useful we were to the projects of others. It is seen, instead, when we are truly ourselves, when we spend time with those we love and those who love us, when we are in touch with our feelings, when we value our friendships, when we are happy rather than ambitious.

We are blessed when we come to the point of realising that love is more important than ambition, when we know friendships are more important than careers, when we know we are blessed by others not because of what they do, but simply because they are.

And when we love, when we can cry together, then we can laugh together too.

John Betjeman was a press attaché in Dublin during World War II. He was immensely popular during his time in Dublin, and when his official stay came to an end in 1943, his departure made one of those great stories on the front page of The Irish Times.

In one of his less well-known poems, ‘The Last Laugh’ (1974), John Betjeman wrote:

I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.

When we recall friends and family members who have lost their hold on life, do we allow ourselves to put aside their regrets and our regrets in life?

As part of the great tree of life, whether they were tiny twigs, small leaves, little branches or great big trunks, we can remember them with the bonus of laughter and with the bonus of love. For without them, we would not be who we are today.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘The seed would sprout and grow’ (Mark 4: 27) … trees and a shaded garden in Platanias in suburban Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 4: 26-34 (NRSVA):

26 [Jesus] also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

‘The seed would sprout and grow’ (Mark 4: 27) … the garden in the cloisters in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect of the Day:

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
Send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son.
Sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window by Mayer & Co in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

630, Blessed are the pure in heart (CD 36)
39, For the fruits of his creation (CD 3)



Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘Who’s the king of the castle then?’

A small boat in the water at Kells Bay, near Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, at the weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

After visiting Kells Bay House and Gardens at the weekend, two of us spent some time at the beach and pier in Kells Bay, about 15 km west of Glenbeigh and about 3 or 4 km east of Cahersiveen on the north coast of the Iveragh Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry.

Kells Bay House and Gardens are 200 metres from the beach, with a period house, sub-tropical gardens and a coffee shop and restaurant. Kells Bay is a secluded, Blue Flag beach, surrounded by mountains to the west, east and south, and views to north out into Dingle Bay, with the Blasket Islands in the distance.

Kells Bay is reached along a narrow country road off the N70. It is an idyllic sandy beach, with a harbour and small pier at the east end, and the crystal-clear water is fresh in Summer (14C+).

The Gulf Stream runs close to the area, providing a micro-climate ideal for plant growth. Kells Beach is within the Killarney National Park, Macgillycuddy Reeks and Caragh River Catchment Special Area of Conservation (SAC), and within the Iveragh Peninsula Special Protection Area (SPA).

During our afternoon visit, a small group of people were gathered around a small trawler at the end of the pier, and two council workers were moving large boulders from the white sandy beach.

But it felt as though we had the beach all to our selves, with only a half dozen people on the sand or in the water. Two men were swimming, a couple and their dog were enjoying the sunshine on the beach, and a couple spent half an hour in the water in kayaks.

Gentle waves on the beach at Kells Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The couple in the pair of kayaks may have been in their late 40s, and they reminded meof a scene on the old town beach in Rethymnon almost 40 years ago in the mid-1980s.

We had rented a private apartment in a residential suburban block for three weeks, without the normal facilities holidaymakers associate with Greek apartment lettings, such as a swimming pool and a bar.

Instead, we used the beach each day, and, although I was then in my mid-30s and had gone to a school with a swimming pool, I only learned to swim at that stage of life at that beach. The beach was near the harbour, and is now closed to swimming. But at the time it was popular, and we left our valuables at the beach bar when we went swimming.

It was an early introduction to Greece, and one of the bar staff assured us candidly that we were safe leaving our belongings at the bar. We could trust Greeks, he told us, and without batting an eyelid or showing any sense of embarrassment, told us it was the tourists we had to be concerned about.

It was October, the end of the season, and there were few tourists on the beach by then. But out in the water, a middle-aged English tourist in his late 40s was trying to teach himself to use a surfboard.

The man seemed to have little confidence, but every time he managed to climb onto his surfboard his wife, standing on the shoreline fully dressed, would shout out as a way of encouragement, ‘Who’s the king of the castle?’

‘Who’s the king of the castle then?’

Neither of them had noticed a handful – two or three – of other English tourists who were on the beach, watching every move. They tittered and smirked every time she cried out encouragingly, and quietly, unnoticed to the husband and wife, slipped into the water, and quietly went underwater.

Eventually, the more man steadied himself enoug, he matched this with a new sense of confidence and boldness, and stood up straight on the surfboard.

‘Who’s the king of the castle then?’

But as the woman called out, the small band of miscreants heaved from under the board, and he toppled over, falling into the water, retaining none of his dignity.

He splashed and surfaced. By the time he had steadied himself, his assailants had left the water.

By the time he got back to his sobbing wife on the shoreline, they had disappeared.

I later wondered whether it was a planned ambush. Were they all staying in the one place? Did they actually know each other?

I never saw the couple on the beach again. Perhaps their holiday was already coming to an end. Perhaps they moved along the beach to the longer stretch of white sand at the east end of the town.

Did he ever really get enough confidence to use a surfboard properly?

We stayed on in Rethymnon, I continued to learn how to swim on that beach in those warm October days, and our watches and wallets remained safe at the beach bar. Today, traffic and polluton from the harbour and the constrution of a new marina have closed the old town beach to swimming and diving.

If the EU agrees to safe passage between member states for people who have been vaccinated, I may even get back to Rethymnon before October arrives. But, meanwhile, on this road trip, we travelled on to Cahersiveen and another island in the sun, Valentia Island.

Lost in the sands of time … an old sign prohibiting swimming and diving at the old town beach in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

An early summer walk in the Primeval Forest and Jurassic Park at Kells Bay

The Primeval Forest at Kells Bay is a 3 ha area of warm and damp forest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Kells Bay House and Gardens at Kells, near Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, is on the north loop of the Ring of Kerry, facing out to Dingle Bay and the Blasket Islands. It is just 3 or 4 km from Cahirsiveen, and I visited Kells Bay last weekend to see its sub-tropical gardens, its waterfalls, its ‘Jurassic Park’ and its dinosaur sculptures, and to cross the ‘Himalayan SkyWalk’, the longest rope-bridge in Ireland.

Kells Bay Gardens has a renowned collection of tree-ferns and other exotic plants in a unique microclimate created by the Gulf Stream. The house and gardens date back to 1838, when the Blennerhassett family built a hunting lodge at Kells Bay. Rowland Blennerhassett first laid out formal gardens, and this work was continued by later families: Preece (1940), McCowan (1971) and Vogel (1982).

The house and lands were bought in 2006 by Billy Alexander, an expert in the propagation, growth and care of ferns. Since then, he has worked to restore the gardens and house sensitively and sustainably.

Rowland Blennerhassett (1780-1854) built Hollymount Cottage as a ‘small hunting lodge’ in 1837 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The centrepiece at Kells Bay is the ‘Primeval Forest’ of 600 Dicksonia Antarctica tree-ferns bordering the Ladies Walled Garden. It is said they are all descended from one mother fern planted in the walled garden in 1890. This Primeval Forest is a 3 ha area (7.5 acres) of warm and damp forest, with naturalised Dicksonia Antarctica, originally from Tasmania and Australia. The specimens range from those with parasol of fronds extending to 4 metres to seedlings growing in between crevices in the garden walls.

Additional plantings include Dicksonia fibrosa, Dicksonia squarrosa and Cyathea dealbata (New Zealand), Lophosoria quadripinnata (South America), Todea barbara (South Africa) and Blechnum nudnum (Australia).

At the front of the house is a new succulent garden. The most significant plant there is the Jubaea chilensis, imported from Chile in 2006 and now well established.

The Bamboo Glade was laid out in 2009 with a shaded pool to expand the variety of plants in the garden. Plantings include Dendrocalamus hookeri and Phyllostachys bambusoides (Himalaya) and Magnolia doltsopa, and Rubus linearis (China).

The Gunnera Pool is a large expanse of Gunnera manicata (South America) accompanied by Richea pandanifolia and Athrotaxis cupressoides (Tasmania).

The series of dinosaur and chair sculptures in the garden was carved from fallen trees by Pieter Koning in 2008-2015 and provide an adventure trail for young visitors.

The Skywalk, Ireland’s longest rope-bridge, opened in 2017 and is 35 metres long and 12 metres high.

The Himalayan Skywalk is Ireland’s longest rope-bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The land at Kells Bay has been owned by five families: four generations of the Blennerhassetts (1819-1953), followed by the Preece (1953-1973), McCowan (1973-1979), Vogel (1979-2006) and Alexander families (2006).

The Blennerhassett family has owned land in Ireland since the 16th century, and Robert Blennerhassett was granted Ballyseede Castle and 3,000 acres of land at Tralee in 1584. The token rent for the estate was one red rose presented each year on Midsummer Day. The Blennerhassett family developed the port of Blennerville, and by 1657 had also built a windmill and an iron works. The family continued to live at Ballyseede Castle, until 1966 when it became an hotel.

Sir Rowalnd Blennerhassett (1741-1821), who built the windmill at Belnnerville, was given the family title of baronet in 1809. His fourth son, Rowland Blennerhassett (1780-1854), bought land at Cappamore on the Ivergah Peninsula from the Marquis of Lansdowne in 1819, and in 1837 he built a ‘small hunting lodge’ first known as Hollymount Cottage.

Richard Francis Blennerhassett (1819-1854) of Kells was the youngest son of Rowland Blennerhassett, and in 1849 he married Honoria Ponsonby (1820-1883). Richard died in 1854, and his widow later married Dr James Barry (1800-1873).

Richard and Honoria were the parents of Rowland Ponsonby Blennerhassett (1850-1913). He was born at Hollymount Cottage and married Mary Beatrice Armstrong, a daughter of the art historian Walter Armstrong, in 1876. He was MP for Kerry (1872-1885), and one of the first elected Home Rule MPs. He extended Hollymount Cottage and renamed it Kells. They also had a house at 52 Hans Place, Chelsea, near the Chelsea Gardens.

Rowland Ponsonby Blennerhassett was responsible for additions to the garden that are still seen today. The exposed coastal location of Hollymount Cottage made planting the shelter belt necessary before creating the garden. The shelter belt trees, Abies grandis, date from about 1870. He established the Ladies Walled Garden adjacent to the front of the house for his wife Mary, planted the Primeval Forest and laid out the pathways through the gardens.

The dinosaur sculptures were carved from fallen trees by Pieter Koning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The principal influence on the estate at Kells at this time was the rising popularity of naturalistic gardens. The Wild Garden challenged the prevailing Victorian preference for formal landscaping and expansive carpet bedding by advocating for natural gardens in which hardy perennials and self-seeding annual plants would provide a sustainable and self-perpetuating display of plants and flowers.

The second influence on the garden at Kells Bay might also have been the Victorian craze for ferns that began around 1830 and reached its peak between 1850 and 1890. The tree fern Dicksonia Antarctica was introduced to Kells Garden at the turn of the century, part of the family of terrestrial ferns. But it is also said that that tree ferns were accidentally introduced to cultivation through the use of their trunks as ballast or weight, to prevent cargoes moving about during long sea journeys in the 19th century and replanted in gardens in Devon and Cornwall.

The Kells estate remained in the hands of the Blennerhassett family after Rowland Ponsonby Blennerhassett died in 1913. His widow Mary died in 1928 and Richard Francis Ponsonby Blennerhassett (1879-1938) was their only child.

He was known to his estate workers as ‘Master Dick’ and married Silvia Myers in 1914. Their only child, Diana Mary Ponsonby Blennerhassett (1916-2000), was the last family member to live at Hollymount Cottage. Diana was born in Cambridge, and in 1939 she married Major Richard Goold-Adams (1916-1995) in Chelsea. He was the son of the Irish-born High Commissioner of Cyprus and Governor of Queensland, Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams (1858-1920).

During this time, the Bowler family lived at Kells House as gardeners, caretaker and farm workers. The Kells estate was a working garden, growing fruit and vegetables at the front, between the house and the shoreline, and with geese, chickens and a herd of dairy cows. The estate traded as Kerry Estates and sold fruit, vegetables, and dairy produce to local hotels and retailers. A sawmill also processed wood from Kells and neighbouring estates.

The waterfall by the entrance to Kells Bay Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

When Roland and Nora Preece and the family owned Kells, they maintained the gardens and preserved the major parts of the plant collection, but there was little development of the house and gardens.

Iain McCowen bought the Kells estate in 1973. A pilot, he flew between England and Ireland on his own plane. President Erskine Childers had been a frequent visitor to Kells and local lore says he wrote his Presidential inauguration speech while staying at Kells in 1973.

McCowen planned to develop the house as a profit-making venture but sold in 1979 before marrying the Hon Phillipa Baillie in 1980; her mother was a granddaughter of the Duke of Devonshire.

Friedrich and Marianne Vogel, a German couple, bought Kells in 1979, and set up a nursery that traded as Kells Garden Centre and that was managed by Mary O’Sullivan, with John Bowler and his son, Michael Bowler, as head gardeners. But the Vogels sold Kells after the early death of their son.

William Alexander, a banker and fern enthusiast, bought the estate for €1.6 million in 2006. He has created several profitable income streams with the guest house, restaurant, plant sales and garden visitors, and he has expanded the naturalisation of rare and endangered subtropical plants.

After visiting the gardens, we sat on the terraces in front of Kells Bay House, sipping coffees from the Delligeenagh Café, and looking across the gardens to the beach at Kells Bay. It was a sunny, early summer day, and the beach was our next stop.

Looking across the gardens to the beach at Kells Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)