MASS
TIMES
Monday & Tuesday,
10 am.
Wednesday, Feast
of the Epiphany,
Vigil Mass on Tuesday
at 8 pm,
Wednesday, 8.30
am & 11 am [Anniversary Mass
of Neil McDaid, Gleneely at 11 am
Mass];
Thursday, 10 am;
Friday, 8 pm [Month’s
Mind of Annie Long Cloncha];
Saturday, 10 am.
Saturday Vigil:
8 pm;
Sunday: 8.30 am
& 11 am.
Confessions
Saturday, 7.15 pm—7.45 pm;
This Week’s
Anniversary Mass:
Saturday Vigil Mass 8 pm: Mary Ellen
McConologue Carrowmore
Next Week
Saturday Vigil 8 pm: Rose McLaughlin,
Gleneely.
Weekly
Offering: €1,480; Development
Collection, €780; Ceili Club
Donation: €220; Bocan Choir
Donation for 2009: €500. Thank
you for your generosity.
Whist
Whist resumes on Friday 8th January
at 8.45 pm
Snowball - €70 for 186 or better
All the
sick of the
parish will be
attended on Wednesday
& Thursday at the
usual times.
Bereavement
Alone yet never quite alone,
I face an empty chair –
But sometimes in the silence,
I imagine you are there.
The good companion of the past,
No longer here with me;
And yet in some mysterious way,
You keep me company.
Thought or spirit?
Does it matter?
Words are meaningless.
I only know that in my times of
greatest loneliness;
I felt that you are somewhere near
though nothing’s seen or said,
The bitter moment passes and my
heart is comforted.
I receive the strength I need,
Am rescued from despair;
Maybe that’s the way God works
the answer to a prayer.
Though my loss is grievous and the
future is unknown,
I face the years that lie ahead,
Alone yet not alone.
Youth Club
Rota – 8th January 2010
Lizzie O’Brien, Marian Keddy,
Jason Conroy, Helen O'Connor, Kieran
O'Connor.
Monster
Bingo Session in the Ballyliffin
Hotel today Sunday at 3
pm. €1,000 must go on the second
last page.
€12 + €20 [including sheet].
Wise Words
To pray is to open a door where
God may enter.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel
WONDER
Wonder is the opposite of cynicism
and boredom; it indicates that a
person has heightened aliveness,
is interested, expectant, responsive.
It is essentially an ‘opening’
attitude…an awareness that
there is more to life than one has
fathomed, an experience of new vistas
of life to be explored as well as
new profundities to be plumbed.
Rollo May
Would all
readers call into the sacristy after
Mass to collect their
Rota for
January – June.
The
Deep End – Born of God
Fr Tom Cahill SVD
The United States eased restrictions
on sex selected embryos in 2001.
Since then ‘medical tourism’
for ‘family balancing’
has increased. The total cost of
procedures, travel and accommodation
to ensure the birth of a baby of
the desired sex can reach €23,000.
I wonder how much time, effort and
money the parents subsequently spend
on rearing the child to be ‘holy
and blameless before God in love’.
Today’s Second Reading [Eph.
1: 3-6, 15-18] tells us that God
chose us – even before the
foundation of the world –
to be holy and blameless before
him. That’s God’s choice
and our calling regardless of our
sex. When being male or female becomes
more important than being a person
then we’ve lost the run of
ourselves.
As we evolve, and hopefully mature,
on this planet and learn to control
Nature more and more the challenge
is to allow God to be God in our
lives, i.e., to leave things in
God’s hands, to use an old
fashioned expression. Maybe even
to leave anything in God’s
hands . Why should we, when ours
can do what we want them to do?
Apart from the moral issues involved
in so much invasive procedure and
its consequences where fertility
and birth are concerned, such as
the fate of embryos who don’t
pass muster to see the light of
day, the more basic question of
whether we should accept life as
it comes arises. There’s no
easy yes or no to that.
But as people of faith we note that
while Jesus’ birth was not
without planning, his life was without
calculation.
