Saint Catherine & Saint James with Saint Audoen
Canon Mark Gardner (Editor) Tel: 01 454 2274 Mobile 087 266 0228
The Revd Martha Waller (Curate-Assistant) Tel: 01 868 1655
Email: markgardner@eircom.net
Bernard Woods (Diocesan Lay Reader) Tel: 01 808 5304
Review Distribution: Doris Brooks Tel: 01 453 0887
Website: cja.dublin.anglican.org
Service times every Sunday
10.00 Eucharist, St Audoen, Cornmarket (without variation).
(Parking in Francis Street is free on Sundays).
11.30 Eucharist (and Sunday School), St Catherine & St James, Donore Avenue.
(Service of the Word, or Family Service, Second and Fourth Sundays).
October events
Sunday 13 October Trinity XX, 11.30 Service of the Word and Holy Baptism.
Wednesday 16 October 11.00 School Harvest Thanksgiving.
Friday 18 October 7.30 Community ‘Harvest Gathering’ St Audoen’s.
Details of this new development are being worked out. http://dublincommunitygrowers.ie/
Sunday 20 October Trinity XXI, 11.30 Family Service and Harvest Thanksgiving.
Wednesday 23 October OPW Visitor Centre closes for the Winter.
Sunday 27 October – Sunday 3 November, School half-term, and therefore no Sunday School.
SUNDAY 3 NOVEMBER We plan to hold a Parish Consultation after the morning service. This is intended as an opportunity for our young parish to meet and for you to have your say on every aspect of church and parish activities – what works? What could work better? New initiatives? What do you really think?
More details over the next few weeks but for now keep the date in your diary. It’s important we have as many people at the consultation as possible!
Des Cox
St Catherine’s National School
The School has doubled in size since the building was extended ten years ago. With a roll of 161 pupils, we have been allowed to appoint another class teacher. This is real sign of hope not only for the Parish but for the old city centre as a whole, but what a challenge for the staff!
Dublin community gardens – Weaver Square Community Garden
“Weaver Square Community Garden started in May 2011 on a derelict site owned by Dublin City Council in the Liberties area of Dublin. The site contains the Community Garden and 28 individual allotments let out by the council. The main focus of the Community Garden is to create a safe and relaxing green space for all to use and enjoy. We hope in the future to have more emphasis on the garden as a learning experience, with open days & workshops and other related talks.”
The French Huguenots who brought their weaving skills to Dublin long ago settled around St Luke’s Church, and it was their trade which gave its name to Weaver Square. Where there were until recently blocks of flats, there is now a garden, and also a site suggested for a park.
The Church’s round of feast and fast
In the Health & Family section of the Irish Times (10 Sept) Padraig O’Morain writes Sometimes I wish that there was an annual ceremony in which we would all meet up at the end of the year, not to make resolutions to turn ourselves into super-beings but to collectively honour our regrets, our missed opportunities, the things we did and the things we did not do. In such a strange ceremony we might recognize ourselves in each other and we might find peace.
Seamus Heaney
In the Church Times (6 Sept) Paul Vallely (University of Chester) tells that he heard of the death of the poet on his way to visit the library of Trinity College Dublin. A translation of an ancient Irish poem was on display there, as if to pay tribute to Seamus Heaney:
A stream of wisdom of blessed God
Springs from my fair-brown shapely hand
On the page it squirts its draught
Of ink of the green-skinned holly.
‘Heaney became the prisoner of neither side in his nation’s Troubles. By writing for himself, he wrote for us all. Diversity was part of God’s ordinance. Two buckets were easier carried than one, he said.’
Filming in Poland
Susan Jackson from Dublin Community Television have been filming the Dublin Homeless Football Team as they participate in this years Homeless World Cup, in Pozan, Poland, with the support of the Parish. https://vimeo.com/72157023 – Opening Parade.
Professor Séan Freyne
With a few pages of the New Testament scattered before him, Séan Freyne enthralled the Divinity students (including Mark Gardner) in Trinity College Dublin when he arrived in the early 1980’s. His stimulating lectures were greatly enjoyed. Sadly there were some who treated him with suspicion because he had been a Roman Catholic, although he had left the ministry and got married!
The Revd Val Rogers, Rector of Westport, who has had a similar journey in life, writes: A native of Toreen, Seán was one of a trinity of great theologians from the area, alongside Enda McDonagh from Bekan and Enda Lyons from Ballyhaunis. He studied in Rome, exploring the issue of ‘Bishop Collegiality’ while the world’s Bishops attended the Second Vatican Council.
He was a priest to his fingertips, a faith-filled man rooted in the Resurrection – ask anyone who has ever attended any of his lectures or heard him speak about Scripture.
The attendance at his funeral is proof – if proof were needed – of his priesthood. To say that all strands of society were in attendance is too general a term. We know Presidents, An Taoiseach and people from across the political divide mingled with believers from all denominations and none.
There were sporting people from all disciplines with GAA men and women providing a fitting tribute to a game he loved deeply. Gays and lesbians were there, alongside bishops, priests and ministers. Politicians of all hues were equal. All were united in grief, paying respects to a gentle soul who refused to be judgemental.
Psalm 22, for all its supposed loneliness, ends positively. ‘And my soul shall live for him, my children serve him. They shall tell of the Lord to generations yet to come, declare his faithfulness to peoples yet unborn: ‘These things the Lord has done.’
