April 2016
FROM
THE RECTOR On
Friday 4th March World Day of Prayer took place here in St.
Maelruain’s as the RC Diocese were having prayers in their parishes that night,
in preparation for their ‘Opening the Door of Mercy’ conference that weekend.
Rev. Avril Bennett preached and Joyce Smart played the organ. Thank you to
Valerie for organising the service as usual. We had coffee at the back of the
church following the service which had proved to be successful after our
Diocesan Come and C service in February.
I attended the end of the local RC Deanery
meeting and joined them for lunch in St. Mary’s Priory. It was an opportunity
for me to offer my condolences on the recent sudden passing of Brother Michael
Neenan.
Now and Then’s production of ‘Godspell’
took place from Tues 8th -
Fri 11th in St. Mary’s Priory. It is really a joint production with
members of our congregation taking part both on stage, in the choir and back
stage. They also use our facilities in the run up to ‘show time’ both for
rehearsals and planning meetings. It was a great success and thoroughly enjoyed
by all involved including the audiences!
March continued along with our Lenten BACI
series on each Wednesday of Lent along with a well attended service on St.
Patrick’s day. We had services each day of Holy Week and celebrated Easter in
our beautifully decorated church. Thank you to Regina Donoghue, Vivienne Bright
and their helpers for doing such a
fantastic job with their creative floral displays. I would also like to thank Regina and Vivienne for
the beautiful posies they presented to all the ladies in the congregation on
Mothering Sunday.
On Saturday 19th there was a ‘Date Night’ run by the seven
churches who organised the Alpha Course and the ‘Concert of Hope’ to support
marriages. The event was held in a local African Church
with two churches doing each course for the dinner. We were on ‘tea, coffee and
tray bakes’, thank you to Gail Sheridan and Saule Cameron, pastoral worker from
St. Thomas’, Jobstown, for their help.
Along with dinner there were brief talks on marriage and each couple was given
an envelope with conversation starters with ‘Mr and Mrs’ style questions. It
was an enjoyable evening which continued with a short dance.
On Sunday 20th following our
family service, tea and coffee was in aid of parishioner Anthony Nwanze school trip
to Mumbai. Rockwell
College are taking a
group of students to Mumbai in aid of the Irish Charity ‘Local Lives’. We had a
donation of two beautifully hand crafted Easter eggs, made by the culinary arts
department of the ITT
College. Unfortunately as
they didn’t sell at the family coffee Anthony brought them home and raffled
them off on his road with the funds raised going to the trip. Magda Manly had
hand crafted lovely crocheted dolls with Easter Eggs inside, one of which was sold
at family coffee in aid the trip and the others raffled on Anthony’s road. Good
luck to Anthony!
On Sunday 3rd April the Flower
Festival Committee presented the parish with a new Holy Communion Chalice and
two bible stands. Thank you to the committee not just for these gifts but also
to reiterate our thanks for the re roofing the stable and the defibrillator for
the Parish Centre.
God Bless William.
THAI
DINNER David Gibson will
give a report on his recent Mercy trip to Thailand with a thank you Thai
dinner in the small hall on Sat 16th April at 7.00pm. Please phone 086 101 8860 if you would like to
attend to give an idea of numbers for catering.
MOTHER’S UNION / FAMILIES FIRST On March 14th Brian Murtagh of YMCA spoke to us about the
work of the YMCA in West Tallaght area. He
reminded us that when YMCA initially came to Tallaght, their office was in our
Parish Centre. They run PAKT (Parents
and Kids Together) and One2One Mentoring programmes, providing one to one
mentoring and recently have launched a youth gospel choir. They are currently seeking mentors, ie one
hour per week commitment to one young person aged 8-16 years. Their next training programme for mentors
will be in September 2016 but if you are interested please contact Brian on 086
8250296 or full details on the One2One Mentoring Programme can be accessed through the YMCA Ireland
website http://www.ymca-ireland.net
They also run a
charity shop MANNA in Brookfield Enterprise Centre and welcome any household
items and clothing in good condition. Contact
Linda at 087 2392409.
Our AGM and Bring
& Buy will be held on Monday 11th April when we will also
arrange our summer outing.
Mother’s Union Holy Communion and
Tea Party for indoor members in St. Bridget’s, Stillorgan on Saturday 23rd
April at 3.00pm.
SONGS
OF PRAISE There will be a
‘Favourite’ Songs of Praise with introductions in Taney Church
on Sunday 17th April at 7.00pm.
GIRL’S BRIGADE The annual 26th Company St Maelruains Girls' Brigade
display will take place on May 7th at 3pm in the Parish Hall. It promises to be
a great show for all the family. So if you'd like to see the type of dancing
and singing that we do, why not come along.
TABLE
TENNIS
It's hard to believe we are nearly at the end of another table tennis year. We
will be starting to play off for the trophies next week, all being well.
Following the play offs, hopefully we will have our night out, postponed since
Christmas.
We would like to express our condolences to Tommy
Dunne whose mother passed away at the end of March.
FLOWER
GUILD
Thank you to the ladies that turned out to help decorate the Church for Easter.
Your help was much appreciated and I think everyone would agree that the Church
looked lovely for Easter Sunday. Thanks to Percy Griffin who arrived with a
selection of beautiful yellow flowers and to those who left flowers with Hazel
for us. Thanks also to Valerie, who, as usual, provided us with tea, coffee and
biscuits as we worked.
We would welcome new people who would like to join us
on the flower rota. It involves providing flowers, with another person, once a
year as it stands and helping to decorate the Church at Christmas, Easter and
Harvest. No experience necessary at all, just the willingness to help out!
ST.
MAELRUAIN’S FLOWER FESTIVAL On Sunday, April 3rd, the flower festival committee
were delighted to present the parish with a new Communion Chalice. Over, the
last three years, since the festival took place, various work has been carried
out and different items have been purchased with the money that was raised by
the flower festival.
The first thing done was to plant Spring bulbs all
around the Parish Centre to brighten the area . Next, the roof on the stables
was replaced, as the roof was in bad repair, leaking and unsafe. A
defibrillator was bought for the parish centre and one person from each parish
organisation was trained in it's use. We hope nobody ever needs the
defibrillator, but it's wonderful to know it is there if anybody is in
trouble.
We would like to thank John Doran from
Blessington who made the two stands for the Bibles that sit on the organ.
He did a great job on them and they are very suitable to hold the Bibles
correctly.
Our final purchase was the Communion Chalice which we
hope the Parish will have and enjoy for many years to come. The presentation
last Sunday was a lovely way to bring the flower festival to a final
close.
The fundraising committee, Vivienne Bright, Regina
Donoghue, Janet Edgely,
Miriam Gibney, Carol Laughlin, Mary Lucas and Patricia
Slack would like to thank all the helpers, of which there were many, for all
the hard work over that sunny week end in September 2013. It was a pleasure to
have been involved with the project and many friends were made through the
festival.
BOWLS Our bowling club won
the Gordon Miller Memorial trophy in Greystones beating Whitechurch bowling
club in an exciting final for the second year in a row. Well done to all
players and subs. We are coming to the end of our league Matches.
WHIST
DRIVE The April Whist Drive is on Monday 17th
at 8.00pm in the Small Hall. All
Welcome!
CRAFTY CHATTERS Crafty Chatters meet on the
first and third Tuesday of each month at 2.00pm in the small hall. Come
along and bring whatever craft you are working on or learn a new one! A
warm welcome awaits all.
PRAYERS FOR THE PARISH continue on Monday evenings at 8.00pm, in
the Main Hall, needs your support.
BIBLE STUDY of the reading for the following Sunday continue on Tues evenings at 8.00pm
upstairs, Parish Hall.
PARISH COFFEE Thank
you to everyone who came to our coffee morning on the 1st April. The
donations on that day totalled €126.50, and will be given to the Alice Leahy
Trust for the Homeless. Many thanks again. Our next Coffee Morning
will take place as usual on the last Friday of the month, 29th April at
10.30am. At present we are missing Benny Myers, one of our stalwart
regulars, due to illness, and we send our best regards and hope to see you back
soon. Another of our folk missing in action is Carol Laughlin, hope you
too are on the mend and will able to join us again soon.
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY The SUMMER
SALE will
take place on Saturday 28th May in the Parish Centre. Please do what
you can to make this fundraiser a success! Please attend on the day, buy raffle
tickets, donate prizes and items for the sale.
