Icon on the way to local churches
THE ICON for the World Meeting of Families will be on display at churches in the four main towns of County Wexford from the end of this month.
It will be at St Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, on the evening of Monday, January 29, departing after 10 a.m. Mass on Wednesday, January 31; at Bride Street Church in Wexford from noon, on January 31, departing after 10 a.m. Mass on Saturday, February 3.
Fr Jim Fegan said the icon would be at St Aidan’s for the 10 a.m. Mass, conducted by Bishop Denis Brennan, at the Feast of St Aidan on January 30, which would make it an even more special occasion that it normally is.
The icon, made specially for the World Meeting of Families, will be on display from noon at St Mary and St Michael’s in New Ross on Saturday, February 3, until Tuesday, February 6, departing after 10 a.m. Mass and finally at St Michael’s in Gorey from noon on Tuesday, February 6, departing after 10 a.m. Mass on Saturday, February 9.
The Pope is due to visit Ireland or the World Meeting of Families in August this year, in what will be the first papal visit to Ireland since Pope John Paul II addressed a crowd of one million people in the Phoenix Park in 1979.
Recently, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said that the visit will cost around €20 million.
While it may be possible for the pope to go outside Dublin and he has been invited to Our Lady’s Island, he would mainly be here for the World Meeting of Families, although there is a suggestion he may go to Northern Ireland as well.
Fr Fegan said the main purpose of the icon is to invite people to come as part of the preparations for the World Meeting of Families. Accompanying the icon is a petition box, for prayers and petitions, which following the visit to the Model County, will in the first instance go to the two contemplative orders in Wexford, the Carmelites in New Ross and Adoration nuns in Wexford town who will take up the prayers and petitions and pray for those people. ‘All the petitions will be brought to the final mass on August 29 and all will be offered up, hopefully by the pope,’ said Fr Fegan.