IEC: What's Happening in the Parish

A sub-committee of the Parish Pastoral Council (a handful of brave volunteers, let it be said) has been planning events to mark the Eucharistic Congress here in the parishes of Saggart/Rathcoole/Brittas and Newcastle. Here is the programme so far:

1.   Sunday 27th May :  A Pilgrim Walk, under the banner 'Parishioners Together for IEC 2012'

The walk will start from the green in Newcastle at 2.30, proceed to Rathcoole church and end in Saggart church.
All parishioners in the two parishes, both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland, are invited. The walk will retrace the growth of Christianity in the area, from the oldest church (the Church of Ireland, Newcastle) on to the newest, Rathcoole, ending with the church in Saggart dating from the 19th century but going back to the medieval church whose remains can still be seen in the graveyard opposite. Two of these churches will be celebrating big moments in their history next year, Newcastle's bicentenary and Rathcoole's 25th. A walk through our local area, then, while renewing our sense of a Christian faith dating back centuries, a walk along the roads and by the fields and a walk going back in time.  The purpose of the walk is to awaken a more lively sense of the faith we have received from our forebears here in the parishes that we belong to, live in, and will, finally one day, rest in.

Sunday 20th May  To underline the social aspect of the Christian faith, Brother Kevin from the Capuchin Centre for Homeless People will be invited to speak in the parish churches on Sunday 20th, when there will be a collection taken up for that good cause.

2.   Sunday 10th to Sunday 17th June

This is the week of the Congress. Plans are still ongoing and any ideas will be very gratefully received.
A talk on the history of the parishes will be given by John Bradley of the History Department, NUI Maynooth.
An Art Display will be presented by primary-school children. There will be Mass on certain evenings too.

'Parishioners' Stories'.  Wouldn't it be interesting to hear some parishioners tell their story?  Parishioners both old and young, both long-standing and newly arrived (i.e. 'blow-ins'), both Irish-born and born abroad?  I have in mind a five-minute talk on any aspect of parish life: reminiscences, impressions of parish life today, appreciations of our churches, old photographs etc. etc. It depends on volunteers if this is going to happen. Such stories could maybe be collected afterwards and published in some format as a mark of our common endeavour for IEC 2012. If you would be interested in taking part, please contact me (Donal McMahon) at donalmcmahon@eircom.net.

A programme/booklet is being prepared entitled  Parishioners Together /
Saggart, Rathcoole, Brittas, Newcastle   /   Celebrate  /   The 50th Eucharistic Congress, Dublin 2012.

International Eucharistic Congress - What pilgrims can expect

This video provides an insight into the upcoming 

International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin 

and what pilgrims can expect. 

Click here to see all about it. 

The Eucharistic Congress in Our Parish

The Lamb of God, St Mary's Church, Saggart

The above photo is the one I should have used for the previous post for Easter. Instead of the image of the Lamb of God from St Patrick's Cathedral (Dublin), I could (and should) have used the lovely image in our own church here in Saggart.  Imagine, it was only this afternoon (Sunday) that I really saw this image for the first time. Since it's inside the sanctuary, a protected area of the church that one does not see up close or visit very often, and, furthermore, since it's on the floor, an area one hastens over whenever one does have occasion to be inside the sanctuary, I could be excused for never really noticing it till today. And only today did I make out the scroll on each side of the lamb-image: Adoremus in aeternum sanctissimum sacramentum.  Parishioners of a certain age will remember singing that at Benediction long ago.

Benediction, of course, means Blessing, and the priest blesses the congregation with the host in the monstrance. Which brings us to the Eucharist, and the Eucharistic Congress taking place in June. There are, of course, the big events being organised in the RDS and Croke Park for that week (June 10-17, see link, right-hand side of this page), but what is happening in the parish, one may ask?  A few volunteers have stepped bravely up to the mark and have been meeting over the past few weeks (under the auspices of the Parish Pastoral Council) to prepare some events. There is no blueprint for this, and we are just doing our best to mark this occasion locally. I know that many people feel it's a bad time to organise such an event, and we sincerely hope we don't come across as a group of 'religious fanatics' in any way.  No, we're just a group of people who agreed to do something, something we're not too sure about but which we hope is positive, hope-giving, cheering in some way etc.  And if all these good things add up to 'religious', then surely 'religious' is basically ok?

You will have seen the new display boards in the churches. That's one concrete sign of things happening.  More such signs, we hope, will be announced soon. Needless to say, all suggestions and offers to help out would be very welcome.