Spring Newsletter 2021
Gift
Day
On behalf of the select Vestry I would like to thank everybody who really stood
up to the plate and gave so generously to our Gift Day last November, the
response was amazing and the sum of €18030 was raised. A heart felt ‘thank you’
to all who donated. As we face into our second year of the pandemic we appeal
to all parishioners to try and continue giving their weekly donations. If you
normally donate by envelope but have yet to collect your box please call myself
on 086 803 0239, the parish office 462 6006 to arrange.
If you would like to give either online or to
arrange a standing order our bank details are: Bank of Ireland, Tallaght
Village Account Name: Tallaght Parish Church IBAN: IE23BOFI90134370091470 BIC:
BOFIIE2D. Donations accepted by post or dropped to the parish office 462 6006.
Please keep in mind
that we have been unable to have any of our usual fundraisers like our Christmas
Sing along and Summer Sale and we have had no community rental income from our
halls so our financial crisis will continue into the foreseeable future. We had
a shortfall of almost €15000 in 2020 and unfortunately this year has got off to
a bad start. Please support your parish in order that there will be an open
church in Tallaght for continuing worship into the future.
Easter Vestry We have been
instructed by the Dioceses that an Easter Vestry must take place so we are
having our Easter Vestry via Zoom on Wednesday 21st April. To
access the meeting please contact the Rector on 086 803 0239. Please join the
meeting and see how your parish is doing, all input is welcome.
From
the Rector I have finally mastered how to be in two places at one
time! In my role as a Canon to Christchurch Cathedral I was due to preach on 7th
February. Thankfully the Cathedral were gracious enough to accept a recording
of my sermon so that I was able to take our own Sunday service on Facebook live
here in St. Maelruain’s at the same time.
The Tallaght Person of the Year awards were unable to be
held this year due to Covid but it was touching that Amy and Lionel were both
proposed for Certificates of Appreciation, Amy for singing and playing the
ukulele for online services and Lionel for filming and streaming our services
on Facebook live along with updating our FB page with posters and icons to
represent the theme of each service as Facebook have lost the service titles on
the main index.
Christmas Day was our last service with a congregation
after opening for just a few short weeks in between lockdowns before we were
back to services only on Facebook live. There are now over one hundred and ten services
which can be viewed on Facebook or on our Parish Website as we continued with
live streaming so that our vulnerable parishioners and our immigrant
parishioners could continue watching church. You can still
‘attend church’ virtually with all services broadcast live on Facebook or can
be viewed via our parish website www.stmaelruains.ie if you are not on Facebook.
Our Taize Style Vine Service, currently online, with two
churches in West Tallaght, Jobstown and Fettercairn along with the Priory
beside us in Tallaght Village are held every Saturday evening on a rotating
basis between the four Churches. As it happens St. Maelruain’s turn falls on
the fourth Saturday of every month and in January fell on 24th which
happened to be the end of The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. As it was
‘The conversion of St. Paul’ that weekend I decided to use that theme for our
Taize service. As a Pharisee Paul had been so certain he was right about God
but after his experience on the road to Damascus he was stopped in his tracks
and committed to spreading the word of Jesus as the Messiah to Jew and Gentile
alike.
Also during Christian Unity week I took part in an applied
Leaving Certificate religion class, which I normally do in person, in Mount
Seskin Community School, Jobstown, on video call. I have a longstanding
relationship with the school chaplain Paddy Doyle especially during Christian
Unity Week. The class was looking at how COVID has affected religious organisations.
I spoke of how many services we had on Facebook and the challenges that come
with videoing services live. I reiterated that we only had a congregation in
the church on fourteen occasions for over a year so I don’t know how one is
meant to survive financially.
In the past during Lent we used the Bible Association of
the Church of Ireland’s (BACI) Lenten courses which I always found very good,
created by Canon Ginnie Kinnerley, to
whom I feel indebted to for Lenten courses that focused on a five week course for mid week use, I also liked
the fact it was Irish and dealt with
issues relevant to us here in Ireland, for example in the
run up to the marriage referendum. BACI has now merged with the Hibernian Bible
Society so there wasn’t time this year for the Bible Society to come up with an
Irish course but they secured a course on mental health using the well known
characters of the Bible. I feel that people have had a very difficult start to
the year with the delay in roll out of the vaccines, I didn’t ever think I’d be
saying being too young was a disadvantage!
The realisation that even with the vaccine, the public health advice of
‘wear a mask, keep you distance, wash you hands and reduce your contacts’ will continue well into the foreseeable future.
I feel as a result, some people’s mental health is under pressure despite the
lengthening evenings. The course we used 'Lifting the Lid' which explored Scripture through the lens of mental
well-being tells us one in four people will experience a diagnosable
mental health issue in normal circumstances in their life time and that there
are serious ramifications for opening up about it, be it in work or in social
situations therefore people suffer in silence. I hope the course was of benefit
especially to those suffering with mental health issues, for those who are
supporting their loved ones and in making the rest of us more aware.
14th March saw Mothering Sunday and it occurred
to me that we are now into second year of annual services in the pandemic, St.
Patrick’s day last year being the first of our Facebook live services. We now
have more than one hundred services on
Facebook, all of which can still be viewed.
On Saturday 20th I was invited by CAPRO an African
Lay Ministry group to speak to their on line monthly Zoom prayer group on
encouragement in these days of waiting to receive the vaccine.
It was Palm Sunday
on 28th March and my videographer arranged Pampas grass in place of
palm leaves and it was very effective. The Bible readings for Holy Week period are the same every year and as I
compared last year’s Monday in Holy Week
video I noted when looking at the reading of Judas complaining about Martha
anointing Jesus’ feet in expensive perfume instead of selling it and giving to
the poor that Jesus responded by saying
that the poor will always be with you but
I will not always be here. Last year
this reading made me ask about our housing crisis and that perhaps the
predicted ‘great Covid correction’ and the government rent freeze might help
reduce the cost of housing, a year on and how wrong could I have been!
I was grateful to the Taize
Vine group who promoted our online services for each day of Holy Week. They
had a Camino style walk around Tallaght on the Monday afternoon of Holy Week
and we had the church open (literally with all doors wide open, on what was a
very windy day, for ventilation) for private prayer. I was able to take the
opportunity to talk about the building and the Church of Ireland in general. It
was nice to be able to have the time to talk about the church to the visitors
as I wouldn’t like to interrupt the conversation during their cup of tea after
our fourth Saturday of the month Vine Service.
Before Easter Sunday
I sent a whatsap video of the little Scottish girl that’s been doing the rounds
questioning the use of Chocolate at times of celebration especially Easter and
whether Jesus liked Chocolate or not! She wondered what was it all about but
had the cuteness to realise that bunnies don’t lay eggs and the contradictions
of being allowed chocolate in excess on special occasions while it was a cause
of obesity! This little vignette of a preschooler’s confusion of Easter and her
dad’s lack of answers gave me ‘food for thought’ for my sermon on Easter Sunday
as I explained the Easter egg represents the empty tomb and also represents new
life. I went on to say that when Mary Magdalene visited the tomb she was not
expecting a physical resurrection and hence mistakes Jesus for the gardener.
God bless William
Funerals On Saturday 19th December the funeral
and burial of Eileen Whitten took place in the graveyard of St. Maelruain’s.
Eileen and Stuart were founding members of our Bowls Club so members of the
club formed a ‘Guard of Honour’ for Eileen while keeping social distancing in
place. Our sincere condolences to Eileen’s daughter Lynn,
son-in-law Joe, grandchildren Jonathan, Philip and Christopher, family and
friends.
The funeral of Arthur Blennerhassett took place in St.
Maelruain’s on Thursday 11th February. Arthur was one of our oldest and
long standing parishioners and he will be sadly missed by all who knew him. Our
deepest condolences go to his wife Hyacinth, to his children Walter, Leslie,
Kathleen and Alan and to his wider circle of family and friends.
The funeral of our
Nigerian parish reader Victoria Oyinade Osigbade-Osho took place in St.
Maelruain’s on Thursday 25th February. We extend our deepest
sympathy to her husband Samuel Sr., to her sons Samuel Jr. and Solomon and to
her extended family and friends. She was taken from us all too young.
