This Week's Newsletter
Publishedon Thursday 19th September 2024
A Few Words From Fr Joe……
After the bells fall silent, the fireworks dissolve into the winter darkness, and the New Year is proclaimed we all get to look around us at the people we love, and wish them every joy and blessing for the year ahead, with those simple, heart felt words, Happy New Year. So, 2025 has begun and we start into another year that promises so much and asks that we have the resolve to do our very best, no matter what. For our faith community and the Catholic Church around the world this is a Jubilee year and that means there will be many opportunities to grow in holiness, to know God better and to serve our neighbour with kindness and humility.
In recent days Jimmy Carter died, at the end of a life that had spanned a century, it’s some achievement to reach such an age and to have been active to the very end, and didn’t he vote in the presidential election recently! Many kind and warm tributes have been paid to him and while he must have had faults and failings, like us all, he none the less had some amazing qualities. In 2019 a young man, Matthew wrote to him to ask about how to live well, to serve and to grow into a good person. Carter took the time to write back and he told him to ensure success he should: study hard in order to excel in college and to learn as much as possible about the things that particularly interest you; be tenacious in fulfilling commitments, whether to others or to yourself; volunteer your time and talents to community projects, learning all you can about the specific needs of the place in which you live and treat everyone -family, friends and strangers - with honesty and respect. If you do all these things, he said, you will find satisfaction in whatever career you choose. What great advice, what belief in the young person’s capacity for goodness and growth, just a perfect insight. I guess that we are all asking ourselves about the year ahead, and how we can make a success of it, and from his words we might take guidance and use them to encourage each other.
I want a better year, for myself, for the parish, for the country and indeed the world. It would be great to see people back at Mass, connected to this community in prayer and worship. If the year brings a renewal of devotion to the Eucharist, a deeper awareness of the needs of the poor and stronger more active spirit of volunteering, that would indeed make a better year. Let’s build it together.
Speaking of Priests…………….
Fr Peter has returned to Nigeria for the funeral of his beloved mother and will be away for most of the month. I will hopefully be able to take a break when he comes back. As you know we only have two full time priests in the partnership. This means we are ‘a man down’ for this month and it will be very difficult to keep up with the entire rota of Masses. Please be alert to any changes which we will do our best to communicate in the Newsletter each week. Apologies if there has to be an unexpected change of time or cancellation. This month, more than ever, we have to ask parishioners, who are mobile, to travel to one of the other churches in the partnership if masses are reduced. For those who can’t travel then the live streaming is available and while not as fulfilling as being present in person, does allow us to worship together.
Volunteers
Each of our three parishes in the partnership are blessed with a group of volunteers who give amazing service to the faith community. At the beginning of the year we all applaud these men and women and pray that you will be blessed with this wonderful spirit in the months ahead and carry on with this essential work. It is an expression of your Baptismal calling and a great gift to the church. I’m not quite sure why we find it hard to recruit new members to the many and varied groups who serve this community. I believe our existing members would welcome new blood, offer support and training and modify existing rotas to embrace the new joiners. If you are ready to serve please step forward and I invite group leaders to make their contact details available around the church, with information about the application process and embrace everyone who expresses an interest.
If we don’t have enough volunteers, with so few priests, we will probably have to close down the parish, which would be very sad indeed. We simply can’t have a parish without people and priests working together in a spirit of co-responsibility. Personally, I never felt under more pressure than I have in recent months, I will turn 65 in 2025, an age at which retirement, rather than frenetic work, seems just.
Fr Joe Mullan, Moderator Clonskeagh, Kilmacud & Mount Merrion Parishes