The Adventures of John Moriarty : sacraments, desolation and transformation.

Abstract

This graduation essay emerged from another essay I wrote for HL404 Irish Literature in English. In that essay, I explored John Moriarty’s argument in Slí na Fírinne and Serious Sounds that Christianity is the apex of all human thought and idea by looking at three main streams of human thought: philosophy, mythology, and literature. However, Moriarty pushes the boundaries and claims that these are but mere aspects of humanity. He is convinced that we are all not only on a journey called life, but we are on “the adventure of our mortality”, which is situated in a larger adventure: that of our “immortality” (Slí 154). Hence, this essay will examine these two adventures in light of the Christian sacraments as well as a Christian religious service known as the Tenebrae. The first chapter of the essay will consider how the sacraments enable one to recognise and understand different aspects of one’s humanity, as well as how they lead us to approach God. Since the “adventure of our mortality” propels one to move further along the “adventure of our immortality” (Slí 154), the second chapter will show how the Tenebrae symbolises this movement further towards God and into God.