CLONMACNOIS PARISH BULLETIN DECEMBER 31st 2017
ENVELOPES FOR 2018 Envelopes for the new year 2018 will hopefully have reached your home (if not please let me know). We thank our distributors.
Contributing through the envelope system has the extra benefit for the parish because the parish, as a charitable institution, can reclaim tax on your contributions, provided your total for the year reaches €250 or more. The envelope system is necessary for a paper trail as evidence that you have contributed.
Note your number may change from year to year with changes.. Thank you for your continued support.
BAPTISM - The next meeting for parents in our pastoral area who have a child for baptism will be held in the Parochial House in Ballinahown on Thursday 18th January & after that Thursday 15th February. Please contact me in advance.
OFFERTORY Dec 24th €690 Xmas Day €1,520
CHRISTMAS DUES envelopes are welcome. Many thanks. January Monthly Envelope falls due Jan 7th
. GAA Minor Club calendars available in Killeens & Morans- €5. Also available after Mass.
Sat 30th 8:00p.m. Paul Kelly (4th A.)
Monday Jan 1st 12 Noon World Day of Prayer for Peace—Margaret Gleeson (A)
Tues Jan 2nd 10:00amCommunion Service
Wed Jan 3rd 10:00a.m. Mass.
Thurs 4th 10:00a.m. Mass.
Fri 5th (First Fri) 10:00a.m. Mass (Exposition 10:30-11:00a..m)
Fri 5th 8:00p.m. Vigil of Epiphany
Sat 6th Jan 8p.m. Vigil of Sun Michael & Stephen Shrahan
ST. CIARAN’S, CLONFANLOUGH
Sun 31st. 10:30a.m. Peoples Intention
Thurs 4th Jan 2018 @7p.m. Eve of 1st Fri
Sat 6th 2018 @10:30a.m. Epiphany
Sun 7th Jan 2018 10:30a.m. Peter & Earl Kelly
MINISTRIES
Shannonbridge: Sat 6th Jan 2018@8p.m.
Altar Servers: Group 4 Darragh, Lauren & Isobel
Reader: Catherine Doolan
Euch. Minister: Sinead Ryan
Church Cleaners Shannonbridge (weekly) Mairead Darcy, Martha Murphy, Marie McManus
Clonfanlough:Sun 7th Jan 2018 @ 10:30
Altar Servers:Group 1 Abigail K,ConorS
Reader: Alan/Leanne Devery
Min. of Eucharist: Kay Kelly
Monthly Cleaning Rota (Jan) Mary Guinan,Anne Guinan
INTER-DENOMINATIONAL CAROL SERVICE January 6th at 4p.m. in Shannonbridge Church Extraordinary General Meeting of Shannonbridge GAA on Sunday 7th January @5p.m. in GAA Clubhouse
New Year: A Reflection on Time Tomorrow sees the first day of the year, it’s a peculiar day. Today we are more conscious than at any other time of the year of the passage of time. On this day, we look back to the year that has passed, and forward with some anxiety to the year that stretches out ahead of us. Conservative creatures that we are, we are more inclined to look back than to look forward. At least the past is known to us, it has been absorbed by us; we are most comfortable with the familiar. But the future is impossible to grasp. Whether we like it or not, we have all been changed, for good or for ill, by the year that has passed. Old father time has left another footprint on our faces.
Some of us may have lost loved ones during the year, either through death, emigration or broken relationships; others may have been broken by sickness or circumstance; others may have been changed by marriage, or the birth of a child. Whatever our individual circumstances, we have all been changed in some measure by the year that has gone. The challenge to us now is to be reconciled to this new self, to make ourselves at home with our changed circumstances. If we are to live fully human and productive lives, this reconciliation is essential. Otherwise we will waste ourselves and our days in pining after what is impossible or what is no more.
New Years Day then is above all a day for reflection on time and how we use it. Fast transport today means that we save time in our travels.What have we done with the time saved? Do we spend the time saved watching rubbish on TV, for example? No skill, no art, is honed or developed without time and devotion. The greatest poets will spend hours and hours working on a single verse. Seamus Heaney has written that his most valuable possession is his fountain pen; his next most valuable possession is his waste paper basket. If we are to develop any skill, it demands time. This of course applies to love and relationships. Any of you with children will know that they demand enormous time. If you neglect to spend that time with them now, you may be sowing the seeds of disruption for the future. The same applies to love and marriage. If time is not given to the partner, the relationship will soon deteriorate if not disintegrate.
There are things money cannot buy but time can achieve: another person’s respect and trust, and a clear conscience. We pay for each in instalments, by the way we use our time. On the other side of the coin,we learn to our cost that what took years to build up can be torn down in a few careless minutes.When we abuse time, we risk serious damage to our happiness. It has been said that we die clutching in our hands only that which we have given away in our lifetime. How we experience time as it ebbs from us will be coloured very much by the way we used it when we had plenty of it. In this sense, time is full of eternity. The egg timer was a great image. There we saw the sands of time run out before our eyes. It is the most effective illustration we have of the ebb & flow of time. Time literally runs out before our eyes. But the more conscious we become of this, the more we will treasure time as a gift.
CLONMACNOIS PARISH STATISTICS 2017
Baptisms 7 (2 resident) First Communions 10 Marriages 3 Funerals 10
Fri 5th Jan @8p.m Shannonbridge
Sat 6th Jan @ 10:30a.m Clonfanlough
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