Holy Week approaches
No sooner have we completed our Mission/Retreat experience in our parish than we are into Holy Week. On behalf of Fr Pat Coughlan CC and Fr Michael Cullinan, priests of the parish, we want to thank most sincerely, the members of the pastoral council, the volunteers who came on board to visit all the homes of the parish, the posters arrangers in many places and on the roadsides the choirs, the sanctuary symbol assemblers, the mission book distributors and all who came faithfully and participated in the Masses and Mission experiences.
For all it was hard work but not to be forgotten. We have a sense of who are in our faith community as opposed to be actually living in the parish. We thank Fr Laurence Gallagher and Fr Derek Meskell CSSR who lead the mission. We will do follow up and together see where we go from here.
We are close to Holy Week. Good Holy Week Liturgies are our shared teaching. We are truly people of memory. But our memory is not just about the past but rather how this shared memory interprets the present for us. We are living in the time that God now loves his people. But God needs many volunteers to make His Presence a lived reality for the poor, the suffering, the wealthy, the powerless and the powerful.
The carrying of the palm branches not only calls to mind that entry, of Jesus into Jerusalem but our journey in life in Christ. We must not think of Christ somehow apart and distant from us. Remember and how we forget that we rejoiced at Christmas that God is among us. He took on our human nature to draw us into the divine life. With the palm branches in our hands and real faith in Christ who walks with us there is no need for us to lose hope even when our plans and dreams seem to be falling apart.
Wise people take the Way of the Cross as a Lenten experience. We will have our Ecumenical Lenten Way of the Cross on Good Friday from St Carthage’s Church to the cathedral at 12 midday. Today where do you look for a theology of suffering? In our secular world we want to deny that there is suffering in lives. We salute the memory of Charlie Bird, RIP, who in his years living with motor neurone, the disease he had to live with but he did not let the disease take over his life. We salute and pray for all who are burdened with motor neurone and those accompanying them with great gentle love.