Mallow Heritage Centre

Answering a Call.

Sunday, 7th March 2010.

The Sunday evening programme Would You Believe? On RTE One at 10.25 p.m. is always worthy a hearing. Last Sunday it presented an account of a little known group called TRUST. It was a real inspiration. It recorded a part of the hidden Ireland which works away quietly under the radar of public notice. Alice Leahy, a Dublin nurse, founded the group thirty five years ago. It is sited very appropriately in the basement of the Ivy Hostel because its focus is on caring for the homeless by providing clothes, shoes and nursing care.

We hear little about this service because it is generously supported by the people who know about it. One of these is Louis Copeland, Ireland's premier tailors to the wealthy. He tells of how he came to know about it by chance. A Cork farmer through similar chance acquaintance became a major benefactor as have many professional people. All are part of the hidden Ireland.

Alice Leahy is a quiet lady who lets TRUST speak for itself. She does not attend conferences which she finds can too easily reduce to talking shops. She has, however, published the story of TRUST with the title Wasting Time with People. She accepts that sensitivity to the homeless, who treasure their privacy as their only possession, is what really counts.

TRUST is concerned to respond to need like the Good Samaritan but without becoming intrusive do-gooders. In a way it reminds one of the simple Gospel life of the early Church as portrayed in that down-to-earth Scriptural teaching of St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem: "What does it profit , my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them-"Go in peace, be warmed and be fed"- without giving them the things needed for the body, what benefit is that? So faith in itself, if it has no works is dead (James 2:14-17).
In speaking of the hidden Ireland we are reminded of the saying of Jesus that like the wind the Spirit blows where it wills. The media highlights the bad news of the self-indulgence and corruption to which fallen human nature is prone but there is another side. Let us never forget the words of St. Paul: "Where sin increased grace abounded all the more - (Romans 5:20). Very often grace works quietly.

It is high time that we counted our blessings, the blessings that stand to the credit of all those people great and small who respond in generosity to whatever the needs are. On the one side we have those such as Vincent de Paul, Simon and theSamaritans who help with individual need. On the other side we have the wealthy entrepreneurs such as those who gathered at Farmleigh in Dublin last year to help chart a way towards economic recovery for Ireland in its current depression. Over all the Gospel has a lesson for us in the Parable of the Talents with its challenge: "To whom much is given from them more is expected".

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