12th January 2014

Newsletter for the Parishes of Saggart - Rathcoole - Brittas & Newcastle Parish Team Fr. Enda Cunningham PP St Mary’s Parochial House Saggart. Tel: 4589209 Mob: 087-1380695 Fr. Aidan Kieran CC 1 The Glebe Peamount Road Newcastle. Tel: 4589230 Mob: 087-6397744 Fr. Aloysius Zuribo C.C. c/o The Parish Office St. Mary’s Parochial House Tel: 4589209 Parish Pastoral Worker Mr Sean O’Rourke c/o The Parish Office St. Mary’s Parochial House Tel: 4589209 Mob:087-0540695 Fr. Michael Shortall PC 87 Beechwood Lawns Rathcoole Tel: 4587187 Mob: 087 -2861765 Fr. Michael McGowan PC 7 St. Patrick’s Crescent, Rathcoole Tel: 4589210 Parish Secretary Martina Hopkins The Parish Office St. Mary’s Parochial House Opening Hours: 9.30-1.30 Monday to Friday Tel: 4589209 www.saggartparish.com [email protected]

Eucharistic Adoration Holy Family Church Rathcoole Every Friday 7.30 – 8.30pm Items for Newsletter If you have any items for the newsletter, please contact the Parish Office or email to the addresses given below. Please indicate clearly that the items are for inclusion in the Parish Newsletter. Many thanks. [email protected] or

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The Baptism of the Lord

We pray for Mollie O’Reilly (Saggart) Jim O’Rourke (Newcastle) James Errity (Rathcoole) Jimmy Hayden (Rathcoole) Amanda Cloake (Rathcoole) Noel Noble (Saggart) who are recently deceased. We extend our deepest sympathies to their families and friends. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord And let perpetual light shine upon them. Formal Close of St. Finian’s Bicentenary Year Sunday 12th January, 10.30am In Newcastle Parish, we’ve had a great year in 2013 celebrating the bicentenary of our beloved St. Finian’s Church. This weekend, we will formally draw the year to a close at Mass on Sunday 12th January 2014 at 10.30am. Bishop Eamonn Walsh has kindly agreed to be the celebrant of this Mass. There will be a cup of tea afterwards to mark the occasion. Parish Pastoral Council Meetings Saggart/Rathcoole/Brittas Parish Pastoral Council will meet on Tuesday 14th January at 8.00pm Newcastle Parish Pastoral Council will meet on Monday 13th January at 7.30pm ACCORD Marriage Preparation Courses ACCORD Catholic Marriage Care Service provides Marriage Preparation courses for couples choosing to get married in the Catholic Church. Your decision to get married is a sign of your love and of your desire to be together as husband and wife. ACCORD in helping you to prepare for your Marriage is privileged to be part of your journey and offers you its continued support throughout your married life. ACCORD Marriage Preparation Courses can be booked via the ACCORD website: www.accord.ie Capuchin Day Centre If you’re looking for a good charity to support during the winter months, the Capuchin Day Centre, run by Brother Kevin Crowley OFM Cap, for people who are homeless or in need is a worthy cause. The centre provides 250 breakfasts each day with 400 extra on a Wednesday. The dinner service has increased and is seldom less that 480 with a couple of days in the week exceeding 500. Donations can be sent to Capuchin Day Centre, 29 Bow Street, Dublin 7. www.homeless.ie St. Vincent de Paul St. Vincent de Paul helps those in disadvantage in many ways. If you have any queries please contact :National Head Office: 91/92 Sean Mac Dermott Street, Dublin 1. Phone: 01 838 6990 Fax: 01 838 7355 email: [email protected]

Mass Schedule Saggart: Sunday: 9 am & 11.30 am Weekday: 9.30 am Rathcoole: Saturday Vigil: 6.30 p.m. Sunday: 10 am & 12.00 pm Weekday: 9.30 am Saturday: 10.00 am Brittas: Sunday: 10.30 am Newcastle: Saturday Vigil: 7.00 p.m. Sunday: 10.30 am Weekday: 10.00am Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri. Confession Saggart: Friday, after 9.30am Mass Rathcoole: Saturday after 10.00am Mass Newcastle: Saturday after 7.00pm Mass Baptism Saggart 2.00pm Sunday Rathcoole 4.00 pm Saturday Newcastle 2nd Saturday 4pm Last Sunday 2pm Please contact the Parish Office Marriage Please contact the Parish Office

Retrouvaille Marriage Support Retrouvaille: is a programme designed to provide help and support to married couples who are undergoing difficulties in their relationship. It is also for couples whose marriages are in crisis, who are separated, or divorced, but want to try again. For confidential information about or to register for the upcoming programme beginning with a weekend on February 14th – 16th 2014, visitwww.retrouvaille.ie or email: [email protected] or phone Anne & Tony 014953536, Anne & Mike 01 4500922 or 086 4135440. School of the Word Fr. Kieran O’Mahony OSA St. Mark’s Junior NS, Springfield ‘The Old Testament God’s first chosen people, their story and ours’ - run by Fr. Kieran O’Mahony, OSA will take place in St. Mark’s Junior National School on the 13th January (across the road from the St. Mark’s parish church, Maplewood Road, Springfield, Tallaght) and then on consecutive dates in January 20th, 27th (February dates: 3rd, 10th, 17th) at 7.30pm. We would like to invite you to take this opportunity to join us for this programme. Admission is Free. ALL ARE WELCOME! This is an excellent opportunity to take up a little study of the scriptures. Irish Hospice Foundation Workshop Overview of Loss and Bereavement The Irish Hospice Foundation is holding a two day workshop on 23/24 January from 9.15am-4.15pm in the Irish Hospice Foundation, Bereavement Education & Resource Centre, Morrison Chamber, 4th Floor, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin 2. The workshop is an overview of Loss and Bereavement. Psychotherapist and Counselling Supervisor Brid Carroll will present this workshop she presently counsels children, young people and families dealing with loss and change through death separation and illness, she also provides training to groups to deal with these issues. The workshop will help participants to understand the normal reactions to grief and loss and explore how reactions can be more complex and require greater interventions. Cost is €190 includes light lunch/tea and coffee. To book a place phone 01 6793188 or email: [email protected] for further information www.bereaved.ie or www.hospicefoundation.ie All Welcome Trinity College Researchers Seek Study Participants Researchers at Trinity College Dublin are currently recruiting participants for a study looking at how sharing meals can be good for our mental and physical health. We are looking for 100 adults aged over 60 who are living alone, and who would like to receive a visitor once weekly for 8 weeks during 2014. Your visitor will be fully trained, and Garda-vetted, and aged over 55. Your visitor will bring ingredients for a meal that you will both prepare and enjoy together. We are also looking to recruit individuals aged 55+ who would be interested in undergoing our training and delivering the program. We will cover the costs of the meal, so there is no cost associated with participating! If you are interested in finding out more, please email [email protected] or call 01 896 8414.

Come and See! Monastic Vocation Weekend Friday Evening January 24th 2014 to Sunday Morning January 26th 2014 An opportunity for men of ages 22 to 45 to find out more about monastic life and to listen to God’s call by sharing the rhythm of the monastic day in prayer, silence, reading, work and community life. There will be some reflection together on the monastic vocation, some input from the monks and an opportunity to speak one-to-one with a monk. WHO IS IT FOR? This might be for you: If you feel attracted to monastic life and wonder whether it might be for you; If you have thought sometimes that God might be calling you to religious life, but have hesitated to take the first step; If you would like the support of a small group as you enquire about monastic vocation. To apply for a place or to find out more, email [email protected] or write to Fr Columba McCann OSB, Glenstal Abbey, Murroe, Co Limerick. If you wish to apply for a place, please do so at least a week in advance, that is, by Friday 17th January

Extract from the Christmas Homily of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin Jesus reveals to us that God is not to be found among those who flourish in the superficial, but in the real world where people survive to make ends meet... The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not the God of the magic-wand who turns the challenges of life, Cinderella-like, into a fairy tale. Jesus tells us that being human is about being really authentic. If the only cold and snow we really encounter at Christmas is the cotton wool and spray of the shop windows, then we miss the message of Jesus and our lives will remain within the artificial and superficial. If we perfume away the deeper realities of what life is about – our own lives and the lives of those around us – then we reject the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ which alone can save us and change us. The story of Jesus birth is not just a nice fairy tale. It is also about the harshness and the sinfulness and the self-centredness which exists in human hearts which Jesus came to change and which can so easily be institutionalised and consolidated into structures in society which entrap and imprison. Church and State have separate roles; faith does not impose any particular political or social order. Politics and economics are never an end in themselves. Harshness and corruption and disregard can become consolidated in any model of society, numbing or replacing that vision of the prophecy of Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading: lifting up the yoke that is weighing on our brothers and sisters, breaking the bars which weigh heavily across their shoulders, and removing the rod of oppression and abandonment which frustrates their aspirations. Christmas is not just a day, it is a way of life, where day after day the focus of politics and economics - and above all of the choices we all make in our own daily lives - always contain within them, and not just as something external and extra, a preferential love for the poor. Politics and economics are at the service of people and their true effectiveness is to be discerned and measured – before, during and after austerity - in how they respond to the needs of the poor and the marginalized.