Shannonbridge

Clonmacnois Parish

January 23rd 2022

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Tom Cox (Adm) Tel. 090 9674125/ 0868319500

Email: clonmacnoiseparish@gmail.com

WEB shannonbridge.blogspot.ie

FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/tomas.macconchoille (Live)

https://fb.me/saintciarans (saved to it afterwards)

THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

‘He sent me to bring the Good News to the poor’

We always pay special attention to the inaugural address of a leader outlining, as it usually does, the vision of the new regime. Today we listen with special attention as Jesus delivers his first sermon in the synagogue in Capernaum. It is His ‘mission statement’ and His mission will be different. He will have a special concern and care for the last, the least and the lost. During His public ministry, He will put flesh on the words of that first sermon. He will touch the untouchable. He will invite the outsider in. He will welcome the sinner home. He will in short, proclaim the equal dignity of all God’s children. G.K. Chesterton, poet, writer and convert to Catholicism, proposed a simple, everyday image to explain the heart of Jesus’ mission: ‘People are equal in the same way that pennies are equal. Some are bright; others are dull; some are worn smooth; others are sharp and fresh. But all are equal in value, because each penny bears the image of the sovereign, each person bears the image of the King of Kings’.

FROM THE DESK

Can I be a Healer. This is the prayer for “Unity Week”, Christian unity. For me , one of the saddest experience is to see a family divided, friends who “fall out”, or neighbours not speaking to each other, often for years. I too know the hurt in the past of “being blanked”. In the modern world of social media, we cancel people . A “falling out” often begins in misunderstanding, is nurtured by hurt, festers in suspicion and ends in the exclusion of a family member, a neighbour or a former friend. Sometimes there will be one person who stirs the pot of suspicion and division. Some even get a kick out of it. Always too , there is one who seeks to be the healer, to make allowances, to see the bigger picture, have a sense of perspective and a sense of humour: the one who is a mender of fences. Every form of division in a family, workplace, club or neighbourhood , affects the whole community. It is like a blockage to the beating heart of a parish, that is Jesus of the Holy Eucharist. Can I be a healer, a mender of fences?. Can I be a person of forgiveness and making allowances?. Can I be the one who stretches out the hand across the broken fence of days, months or years, that awful broken fence of exclusion, silence and hurt?. I will be the better for it………

SHANNONBRIDGE

Saturday 22nd 7pm Vigil Mass St. Vincent.

Mon24th Jan 10am St. Francis de Sales ,

Tues25th Jan 10am Conversion of St. Paul,

Wed 26th Jan 10am Saints Timothy and Titus,

Thurs, 27th Jan. 10am St. Angela Merici

Fri 28th Jan. 10am St. Thomas Aquinas

Saturday, 29th January. 7pm

(Re-scheduled “Do This In Memory Mass” with our 2nd&3rd Class)

CLONFANLOUGH

Sunday 23rd Jan 2022 10:30am John Loonam & Loonam family. Dan Edwards & Edwards Family

Mon 24th Funeral of Kathleen Molloy Glebe (no time given as we went to print)

Sunday, 30th January. Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 10:30am

RECENT DEATH - Please pray for the repose of the soul of Ciarán (Harry) Kearns, Clonfanlough. Kathleen Molloy (Glebe) May they rest in peace.

OFFERTORY January 16th €1,305

UPCOMING FEAST DAYS

Jan. 24th St Francis de Sales As the bishop of Geneva (Switzerland) he worked to rebuild the Catholic faith after the Reformation. He died in 1622.

Jan. 25th The Conversion of St Paul Following his conversion on the road to Damascus, the onetime persecutor of Christians became a teacher and preacher of the people.

Jan 26th Ss Timothy & Titus (First century)

Jan 27th St. Angela Merici St. Angela Merici was an Italian religious educator and founder of the Ursulines. She was born on 21 March, 1474 in Desenzano, a small town on the shore of Lake Garda in Lombardy. When Angela was only 10 years old, she and her older sister became orphans. Raised by a wealthy uncle elsewhere, when she returned to her hometown and found many refugees there from wars of that time. Angela gathered around her women like her under St. Ursula’s protection. The Ursulines opened orphanages and schools. Angela Merici died on January 27, 1540, and was canonized in 1807.

. MINISTRIES IN CHURCH

CHURCH CARE Marion McManus, Catherina Slattery, Ann Corbett Clonfanlough: Mary Guinan, Anne Guinan (Jan.)

READER Jan 29th 2022 @ 7pm Dympna O’Carroll Jan 30th @ 10:30 Declan McEvoy Eucharistic Minister John Mitchell (S/B), Jan 29th /Kay Kelly C/f) Jan 30th Church Counters Clonfanlough (Jan)

NEW CONSTRUCTION STUDIES PROGRAMME - Will be commencing at Banagher FET Centre on Monday 14th of February 2022. Modules include: Renewable Energy Systems, Concreting, Floor and Wall Tiling, MIG Welding and NZEB Awareness, Thermal Insulation Installation and Safe Pass Training. A training allowance is payable where applicable. For further details you can contact: (M) 085 8016195 or 085 8051912

WEEK OF PRAYER CHRISTIAN UNITY From 18th—25th January, the week of prayer for Christian unity is held. The theme for the 2022 Week of Prayer is ‘We saw the star in the East, and we came to worship him.’

SHANNONBRIDGE GAA LOTTO DRAW Jan 17th 2022 Numbers drawn on FB Live 5–9-18 -30 No Jackpot Winner. No Match 3 winners. Jackpot now €3,000

GRANDPARENTS DAY 26th Jan

We celebrate the contribution of grandparents, who support children in so many ways, including the handing on of our faith. This is the prayer for grandparents— Lord Jesus, you were born of the Virgin Mary, the daughter of Saints Joachim and Anne. Look with love on grandparents the world over. Protect them! They are a source of enrichment for families, for the Church and for all of society. Support them! As they grow older, may they continue to be for their families strong pillars of Gospel faith, guardians of noble domestic ideals, living treasuries of sound religious traditions. Make them teachers of wisdom and courage, that they may pass on to future generations the fruits of their mature human and spiritual experience. Amen.

C a n d l e m a s D a y Wednesday 2nd February is C a n d l e m a s Day, the Feast o f t h e Presentation of Jesus and the Day of Consecrated Life. The Blessing of Candles will take place at all Masses on Candlemas Day. Candles for both Church and home use can be left into any of our churches. We thank all those who donate candles for use in our churches.

SHANNONBRIDGE EXERCISE CLASSES Aerobics class Wed 7:30pm, Pilates Class Thursday 11am. More Details phone 087 2410587

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK Catholic Schools Week will be celebrated in schools across the island of Ireland from Sunday 23 January - Sunday 30 January. The theme for Catholic Schools Week 2022 is ‘Catholic Schools: Living Life to the Full’. During Catholic Schools Week families, parishes and schools are invited to participate in a week of celebration of Catholic schools reflecting on their contribution to the common good of society. For Catholic Schools Week, Fr Gareth Byrne, (Dublin) will celebrate Sunday Mass broadcast on RTE One television on 30 January 2022 at 11am.

SYNODAL PRAYER As we are called to embrace this synodal path of the Synod 2021-2023, this prayer invites the Holy Spirit to operate within us so that we may be a community and a people of grace. We stand before You, Holy Spirit, as we gather together in Your name. With You alone to guide us, make Yourself at home in our hearts; Teach us the way we must go and how we are to pursue it. We are weak and sinful; do not let us promote disorder. Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path nor partiality influence our actions. Let us find in You our unity so that we may journey together to eternal life and not stray from the way of truth and what is right. All this we ask of You, who are at work in every place and time, in the communion of the Father and the Son, forever and ever. Amen.

WE LOOK WITH UNCERTAINY:

As we seem to be moving from Pandemic to Endemic– there are no protocols as yet put out for us. However let us all take this re opening at our own pace. This poem speaks

We look with uncertainty

beyond the old choices for

clear-cut answers

to a softer, more permeable aliveness

which is every moment

at the brink of death;

for something new is being born in us

if we but let it.

we stand at a new doorway,

awaiting that which comes…..

daring to be human creatures,

vulnerable to the beauty of existence.

learning to love. Anne Hillman