Let’s pray with Fratello. 2nd World Day of the Poor. 18th November 2018.

Prepare yourself to the 2nd World Day of the Poor with a daily quote and meditation.

Family “Circle” of Tender Love

Recently someone sent me a collection of old prayers known as “Circle prayers”. Apparently they were popular in Celtic countries like Ireland. Circle prayers ask God to surround us with his love and protection – one beautiful prayer goes like this:

Circle me Lord, Keep protection near, And danger afar.

Circle me Lord, Keep light near, And darkness afar.

Circle me Lord, Keep peace within, Keep evil out.

Circle me Lord, Keep hope within, Keep doubt without.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful of these prayers is the one we know as St Patrick’s breastplate –

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ all around me.

When we are in need, or sad, or ill, or lonely, it’s good to know that God surrounds us with love, care and protection.

I’ve always liked the term “family circle”. It captures that sense of unique closeness, and connection, which Family represents. Here at the World Meeting of Families we celebrate the ‘Good News’ of the Family which is ‘Joy for the World’. This afternoon I will explore how the Family circle of love and prayer and trust and care is so important for the Church, for society, and for the whole world. And even though we all know that sometimes relationships in families don’t always work out, we still hold that circle of relationships within the family – between grandparents, parents, children, siblings, grandchildren – as something special and unique.

My dear mother died just five months ago at the age of ninety (God rest her soul). One of the most moving and special moments for me at that time was when we gathered as a family, circling her bedside, and shared her last Eucharist. I touched the sacred host to her lips and placed a tiny drop of the precious blood on her tongue. The Body of Christ. The Blood of Christ. It was a privileged moment of communion, intimacy and tenderness in our family – as if we were returning to my mother some of the love and tenderness she had shared with us, growing up – but above all to be with her in prayer – it was the least we could do for the beautiful, strong woman who had handed on the faith to us and always prayed for us – her 6 sons and 6 daughters. Mama lived the faith by the example of her prayer, her deep friendship with the Lord, her powerful witness in time of trouble and suffering, the way she offered every moment of every day to God.

Among my earliest memories is of my mother lining us up in the kitchen before school to comb our hair – like steps of stairs – one by one as she combed and brushed, she prayed with us a morning offering – O my God I give to you, all I think and say and do. All my work and happy play, I will give to God today.

These days when I think about living and handing on the faith, I think of my mother and father wrapping us around in a circle of faith, love, service, tenderness.

We often describe God’s fatherly love for us; but don’t we sometimes forget that God’s tender loving kindness is also like the love of a mother which is there for us no matter what, despite our mistakes and sinfulness? And together, the tender love of father and mother in the family – circling their children around with warmth, safety, teaching, learning, mercy, forgiveness, freedom, responsibility, charity, generosity – together this generates and nourishes the first and vital cell of Church and society – which is the family.

Pope Francis speaks about the need for a ‘revolution of tenderness’ in today’s world to melt the ‘hardness of heart’ that is so prevalent nowadays. Hardness of heart. We see it in so much violence, aggression, greed, destruction of property, defamation of character, vengeance, hatred. Instead, a ‘revolution of tenderness’, fostered and nourished in the family circle, challenges us to show sensitivity and concern for everyone and everything, and especially to protect the wonder of life in our common home. And since, as Pope Francis puts it: ‘everything is connected’, this includes the way we care for the environment; how we welcome and accept refugees, the elderly, the unborn, the forgotten and the abandoned; how we acknowledge the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities (seeLaudato Si’ 117).

Family – school of humanity and domestic Church

As the ‘school of humanity’ and the ‘domestic Church’, it is in the family that values are transmitted, the wisdom of generations is passed on, the choices between right and wrong are evaluated, connections with the past are made, links with other families are made and upheld. It is in the family that we first are loved and where we first learn how to love. It is in the family that we discover who we are, where we have come from, our inter-generational relationships, our links with a place, with the land and, of course, with a worshiping community.

Family is all about ‘connection’– family connects us to a home, to the people who are our flesh and blood. Family also links us to a community, a parish, a county, a country, to a history and culture, a language and tradition, our past, present and future. For believers, family also connects them to faith and values, to baptism and a worshiping community. And so that first, vital cell that is the immediate family circle multiplies and divides and multiplies again, connecting us a much larger family of families in the Church and in society.

Listen to these beautiful words of Pope St John Paul II where he reflects on the family:

“‘The family is the domestic church’. The meaning of this traditional Christian idea is that the home is the Church in miniature. The Church is the sacrament of God’s love. She is a communion of faith and life. She is a mother and teacher. She is at the service of the whole human family as it goes forward towards its ultimate destiny. In the same way the family is a community of life and love. It educates and leads its members to their full human maturity and it serves the good of all along the road of life the family is the “first and vital cell of society”. In its own way it is a living image and historical representation of the mystery of the Church. The future of the world and of the Church, therefore, passes through the family (JPII in Perth 1986 November)”.

In the family we also discover how we can connect with society, and how we can bring it personal gifts to serving the Common Good and the well being of all humanity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums this up very well:

“The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of love…Family life is an initiation into life in society” (CCC, n. 2207).

During this World Meeting of the Families we will reflect, communicate and distil for our times this beautiful and prophetic vision of God’s plan for marriage and the family which was celebrated at the Synods and which is enunciated so positively in Amoris Laetitia. Of course this Good news, this ‘Gospel of the Family’ has its origins in ‘the creation of humanity in the image of God who is love and who calls man and woman to love according to his own likeness’ (Relatio Synodi 2015, 35).

Amoris Laetitia traces the Gospel of the Family from Sacred Scripture to Church tradition and the teachings of the magisterium. I particularly like the way Pope Francis reminds us how God chose to save us by sending his Son into the world in a human family which was open to receive him in love.

Facing Cultural Challenges in Communicating the Family

We believe that the Church’s proclamation of the family – founded on a circle of faithful loving between a man and a woman which is open to the gift of children who are the fruit of that love – is Good News for society and the world. There is no getting away, however, from the fact that communicating the family in this way can appear increasingly counter-cultural in many parts of the world, including Ireland. This has been accelerated to a large extent by the departure in public discourse from the philosophical and anthropological underpinning of marriage and the family in natural law, and by the erosion of social supports for traditional marriage in the form of constitutional guarantee and positive legislation. In presenting God’s plan for marriage and the family which includes God’s plan for the transmission of life itself, the Church sometimes be accused of being exclusive or lacking in compassion.

How difficult it must be for young people to make sense of all the contradictory messages presented to them by the secular world. They are easily drawn towards an overly emotional and romantic concept of love and marriage which, Pope Francis has observed, ‘can be constructed and modified at will’ (Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, 66). They face considerable pressure to resist becoming ‘tied down’ by commitments, relationships or attachments – to delay or avoid lifelong commitments, including marriage and having children for as long as possible. Employers will often expect them to be flexible, movable, able to travel and work long, unsocial hours. With regard to the transmission of life, they are surrounded by a contraceptive, anti-birth mentality with its increasing indifference to abortion; then, when later they earnestly desire to have children, they struggle with a technocratic, commodification of child-bearing which, if necessary, can be accessed independently of any sexual relationship.

Into this complicated ‘topsy turvy’ world we have the joy and challenge of communicating a clear and positive vision of family and marriage: the Good News that human life is sacred, that each human being comes from God, who created us, male and female; that we are willed by God who loves each and every one of us; that self-giving love and commitment in the marriage of a man and a woman open to life is not only possible, but is a beautiful and fulfilling gift with the power of God’s grace; that chastity is achievable, healthy and good for our young people; that the giving of oneself to another in marriage for life is special, rewarding and a wonderful symbol of Christ’s forgiving, faithful love for his Church.

We proclaim the Gospel of the Family because we believe in it, and we also believe and firmly hope that, with the help of God, it is attainable.

Of course, it is one thing to have a joyful message to proclaim and propose – it is quite another to find effective ways of communicating this message. If no one is listening, it is difficult to communicate! The task of proclaiming the Gospel of the Family in the Church therefore belongs to all of us because it is communicated most effectively from cell to cell, from family to family, witnessing intentionally and courageously, and by lived example, to the Church’s vision.

Together we proclaim the Gospel of the Family because we are convinced that the welfare of the family is decisive for the future of the world! Or, as Pope St John Paul II loved to put it: “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live”.

Pastoral Challenges in Communicating the Family

Three years ago I had the privilege of attending the Synod on the Family in Rome, 2015. It was very moving for me to hear the bishops as shepherds of the Church describing the hopes and anxieties that face their flocks – the families of the world. We heard passionate, first-hand accounts of forced migration, persecution and war; we were shocked by the extent of human trafficking and the exploitation and commodification of women and children. We heard about ‘wombs for hire’, child soldiers, forced prostitution and the exploitation of street children in large cities. We shuddered at the prevalence of abuse and domestic violence. We considered the challenges presented in some cultures by polygamy, arranged marriages, mixed and inter-faith marriages. We spoke about the pressures on family life from individualism and isolation and the spread of abortion, euthanasia and gender ideology. We faced the reality that in many countries the majority of marriages take place without any reference to faith or to God. At the same time, however, we shared our tremendous admiration and gratitude for the many families who do their best in complex situations to persevere, to grow in love and to generously witness to commitment, forgiveness, and lifelong faithfulness.

The overwhelming sense among the bishops at the Synods was a desire to be with all families, and especially with those whose homes are visited by tragedy or violence and those who, for whatever reason, have experienced breakdown in their relationships and those who may feel excluded from the Church for this reason or other reasons. The Synods and Amoris Laetitiawere clear that we need to be mindful of those who have begun new relationships and unions, and find sincere and truthful ways of welcoming and including them in the life and worshiping community of the Church.

This World Meeting of Families provides us with another opportunity to propose ways of accompanying families in these, and other difficult situations, including developing a ministry of care for those whose marriage relationships have broken down, conscious that the Christian message of truth and mercy converges in Christ.

A the Synod on the Family 2015 Synod, I really sensed that desire among the bishops to help all God’s people find God’s plan for them, knowing that no one is excluded from the circle of God’s love and that all are included in the Church’s pastoral activity (e.g. see Relatio Synodi, 34).

In bringing our message about marriage and the family into the world, we are challenged to find and learn new ways of communicating our sincerely held perspectives about family and other matters. We realise that we must do so now alongside those of other faiths and none, and thereby continue to encourage conversations at a national and international level on the importance of the family. We must also be aware that in the aftermath of child abuse scandals and other shameful episodes of the past, there are those who feel they can no longer trust our message, perhaps because they have been directly hurt and betrayed in their families by their experience of Church, or because the revelations of such heinous crimes have shocked them to the core. In his 2010 Letter to the Catholics of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI alerted us to the fact that the sins and crimes of sexual abuse in the Church have not only had tragic consequences in the lives of victims and their families, but they have also ‘. obscured the light of the gospel’. For me, that is particularly true about the Gospel of the Family.

State support for family

But still, if we truly believe the Good News that the welfare of the family is decisive to the future of the world, then how can we keep from singing and proclaiming this vital truth? We must work together with all people of goodwill to encourage the State to support the family, and especially the uniqueness of the faithful and exclusive union between a married man and a woman as a cherished space for the bearing and upbringing of children. In doing this, the State is not only caring for its citizens, but it is also strengthening and nurturing the foundations of society itself. As Pope Francis has said: ‘The family deserves special attention by those responsible for the common good, because it is the basic unit of society, which brings strong links of union that underpin human coexistence and, with the generation and education of children, ensure the renewal and the future of society.’

Taking inspiration from the powerful 1983 ‘Charter of the Rights of the Family’, we might discuss with public representatives in our various countries: to what extent does public policy support Family and Life, freedom of education and conscience, a proper work-life balance, which respects the role of mothers and fathers? What do our economic and social policies say to poorer families, particularly those policies which impact directly on family: the needs of children and the elderly; tackling the proliferation of drugs, alcohol, gambling and other addictive behaviours which can destroy home and family life? How do welfare policies and benefit programmes support families who are most in need and who are so easily targeted and exploited by loan sharks and other criminal elements? How can we better assist young people who wish to establish a family, mortgage a home, take out insurance, but who may sometimes be convinced by economic policy to remain single?

In asking these questions of public policy makers we are not suggesting that we want the State to overly intrude into, or replace, the important autonomy of the family. On the contrary. We do so because we believe that if the institution of the family is harmed, then all of society suffers. As the vital circle and community of love and support in society, the family is much more than an economic or social unit. It is a privileged space for care, education, health promotion, mediation, security, community cohesion and safety. When the family is neglected by society, social problems multiply and become increasingly more complex. It would be a mistake to neglect the importance of the family in favour of some kind of ‘society of ones’, founded upon the undisputed supremacy of the ‘pure individual’ – to replace “we” entirely with “me”. Again, on the contrary, individuals thrive best with the nourishment, primary support and ‘wrap-around’ care of the family. All those simple, everyday gestures of love, trust, gratitude, concern, forgiveness, healing and challenge that are part and parcel of family life, help to create stability, solidarity on which society depends.

In entering this kind of dialogue, we in the Church are of course very conscious from our pastoral experience that family relationships do not always work out, and can even require direct intervention for the safety and well-being of families members. We must also be cautious about thinking that people who disagree with us on the issue of the Family are necessarily hostile. The engagement of people of faith together with all people of good will in conversations about family, marriage and other critical life matters is to be encouraged and welcomed. Drawing upon its rich tradition of social teaching, the Catholic Church will sometimes bring uncomfortable questions into such a dialogue. However, in an atmosphere of respectful encounter, it is possible for two-way, critical interaction and conversations to take place between religious traditions and the broader culture, including constructive critiques of social, political, legal, and economic practices as they affect the family.

Conclusion

Friends, this World Meeting of the Families gives us a privileged opportunity to communicate the Gospel of the Family ‘ad intra’, and ‘ad extra’, as good for society and good for the Church; in short, a message of Joy for the world! The family is a gift for the Church and a gift for society!

To conclude I offer some words from the Second Vatican Council, where Gaudium et Spes (47-48) speaks about “fostering the nobility of marriage and the family”.

“The well-being of the individual person and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family”…

“For, God Himself is the author of marriage , endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes.(1) All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole”.

So finally, my friends, conscious that Pope Francis offers us the Holy Trinity as an icon of Love for our reflection during this World Meeting, I pray with you as I began, an ancient Celtic circle prayer, this time a prayer of blessing for your family and for the family of families that is the Church:

The compassing of God the Father be on you,

The circling of the God of life.

The compassing of Christ be on you ,

The circling of the Christ of love.

The compassing of the Spirit be on you ,

The circling of the Spirit of Grace.

May the compassing of the Three shield you this day, this night and always. Amen.

22 August 2018.

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.

1. If one member suffers…

In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: “he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite.

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christ’s betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25)” (Ninth Station).

2. … all suffer together with it

The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person. A solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is “a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centeredness, for ‘even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light’ (2 Cor 11:14)” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165). Saint Paul’s exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9).

I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future.

Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: “If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he wished to be identified” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord’s command.1 This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says “never again” to every form of abuse.

It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God’s People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives. 2 This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that “not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people”.3

Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say “no” to abuse is to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.

It is always helpful to remember that “in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Church’s members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as God’s People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For “whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world” (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).

It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.

Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people’s sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combatting all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience.

In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be “a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race” (Lumen Gentium, 1).

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it”, said Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Son’s cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus’ side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, “to insist more upon prayer”, seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ.

May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them.

FRANCIS

Vatican City, 20 August 2018

Archbishop Eamon Martin, announces the following clergy appointments for the Archdiocese of Armagh, effective 8 September 2018.

Archbishop Eamon thanks the priests for their continued ministry and service in the Archdiocese and wishes them well in taking up these new appointments. He also thanks the people of the Archdiocese of Armagh for their ongoing prayers and support of their priests. He encourages them to welcome their new pastors in the coming weeks.

V Rev Bobby McKenna, PE, AP, Lower Killeavy, to retire, remaining in residence at the Parochial House, Camlough.

Rev Bernard King, SM, CC, Glassdrummond (Upper Creggan), to retire and return to his Marist Congregation.

V Rev Stephen Duffy, PE, Adm, VF, Termonfechin, to be PP, Lordship.

V Rev John McGoldrick, Adm, Aghaloo, to go on loan to the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida.

V Rev Pádraig Murphy, PP, Lordship, to be Pastor Emeritus and Priest in Residence, Jenkinstown, and Diocesan Archivist / Curator.

V Rev Paul Clayton-Lea, PP, Tallanstown, to be Pastor Emeritus and Priest in Residence, Termonfechin assisting in local parishes.

V Rev Aidan Murphy, PP, Termonfechin, on return from sabbatical studies, to be PE, AP, VF, Coalisland (Ballyclog and Donaghenry).

V Rev Seán McCartan, PP, Ardboe, to be Chaplain to the Irish Defence Forces, based at Aiken Barracks, Dundalk, and Gormanstown Army Camp.

Rev Shajan Panachickal Michael, Eparchy of Kothamangalam, India, to be CC Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk, and serve the Syro-Malabar Community.

V Rev Paul Byrne, PP, VF, Coalisland (Ballyclog and Donaghenry), to be PP, VF, Termonfechin.

V Rev Phelim McKeown, PP, Kilsaran, to be Pastor Emeritus and Priest in Residence, Caledon (Aghaloo), assisting in local parishes.

V Rev Michael Sheehan, Adm, Kilsaran, to be Adm, Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk.

Rev Neil O’Donoghue, Vice-Rector, Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary, Dundalk, to join the Theology Faculty, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Rev Eugene O’Neill, CC, Coalisland (Ballyclog and Donaghenry), to be PP, Coalisland (Ballyclog and Donaghenry).

V Rev Paul Montague, Adm, Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk, to be PP, Tallanstown.

Rev Anselm Emechebe, MSP, CC, Ardee and Collon, to be PP, Kilsaran.

V Rev Mark O’Hagan, Adm, VF, St Patrick’s Parish, Dundalk, to be PP, VF, St Patrick’s Parish, Dundalk.

Rev Radoslaw Szymoniak, SChr, CC, Dungannon, to return to his Society of Christ Congregation for a new assignment.

Rev Linos Dube, currently assisting in the Parish of Lordship, to be CC, St Peter’s Parish, Drogheda

Rev Leonard Okoli, MSP, on sabbatical, to be CC, Keady and Derrynoose.

Rev Maciej Zacharek, CC, St Peter’s Parish, Drogheda, to be CC, St Patrick’s Parish, Dundalk, and Director of Studies at Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary, Dundalk.

Rev Seán McGuigan, CC, Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk, to be PP, Ardboe.

Rev Brian Slater, CC, St Patrick’s Parish, Dundalk, to be CC, Ardee and Collon.

Rev Deacon Paul O’Reilly, newly-ordained, to serve in St Patrick’s Parish, Dundalk, and Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk.

Looking forward to the World Meeting of Families, the Relics of Saints Louis and Zelie Martin and their daughter, Saint Therese of Lisieux visited St Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday 12 August 2018. The Relics arrived at the Cathedral for the 11am Mass on that morning and they left at 9am on the morning of Monday 13 August. During that time, people had an opportunity to come and venerate the Relics of the family that embodies what is best in family life and they offer a wonderful example of what a family can become.

St Therese of Lisieux, otherwise known as The Little Flower is one of the most popular saints in the history of the Church and Pope St Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times”. At a young age, she felt the call to religious life and at the age of fifteen, she became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite Community in Lisieux in Normandy. After nine years as a religious, she died at the young age of twenty four and she was canonised a saint in 1925. Her feast day is 1st October. Three years ago, Pope Francis canonised her parents and they were the first spouses in the history of the Church to be canonised as a couple. Blessed Roses will be available in St Patrick’s Cathedral during the visit of the Relics.

Prayer for the Family
Father in heaven, you called Saints Zelie and Louis Martin to holiness through their married life. You gave them as Mother and Father to St Therese of Lisieux. Through their intercession, we ask you to bless married couples, bless our children and grandchildren. Guide us as citizens to make the kind of decisions that will support family life. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. AMEN