Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sat 24^th                  8:00 pm Des Henry (M)

Sun 25^th                 10:00 am                      People of Community (M)

Mon 26^th     Ss Joachim & Anne (parents of the BVM)

                                                10:00 am              Private Intention (M)

Tues 27^th               10:00 am              Private Intention (M)

Wed 28^th               10:00 am              Private Intention (M)

Thurs 29^th             St Martha

10:00 am        Private Intention (M)

Fri          30^th         St Peter Chrysologus (bishop)

10:00 am        Private Intention (M)

Sat 31^st                   St Ignatius of Loyola (priest)

4:00 pm          Special Intention (A)

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sat 31^st                  8:00 pm Private Intention (M)

Sun 1^st                    10:00 am                      People of Community (M)

Readers of the Word

Saturday 31^st July 8 pm …. (M)

Sunday 1^st Aug 10am: …… (M)

1^st Reading Ex 16:2-4, 12-15. Psalm Ps 77.

2^nd Reading Eph 4:17, 20-24. Gospel Jn 6:24-35.

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 25^th July: Focus: Offer your gift, however inadequate, with thanksgiving, trusting the power of God. – Today’s sign from John’s Gospel, the feeding of the five thousand shows the power of God. The boy gave five loaves & two fish. It was a small amount, but it was all he had. Jesus took the loaves & gave thanks, & God provided food for many. We, too, can benefit from these three steps: Offer what we have. Give thanks. Expect God to act.

Priesthood in Achonry Diocese – It is worth saying “yes” to God: Six residential weekends in Mullaghmore over the coming months for men who are exploring a call to priesthood. For more info contact Vocations Director, Fr Paul Kivlehan, 094-9860011, or 087- 3683535, E-mail pkivlehan@achonrydiocese.org  

BAPTISM: We welcome into the Christian community through the Sacrament of Baptism Alayia Marie O’Hara, Tubbercurry.

Wedding: Congratulations & best wishes to Sandra Davey, Tubbertelly, & Daniel Davey, Chaffpool. Their marriage was celebrated in Achonry Church on Saturday 10^th July.      

We wish them many years of health & happiness

Baptisms;
The most recent news mentioned the postponement of Baptisms for the first time. I understand this is emerging from the experience of large urban parishes where there are high numbers of baptisms, one case mentioned was in Dublin where there is a backlog of 150 baptisms. Our situation is very different. I will leave this to the discretion of priests in their local parish, but I believe with minimum numbers present & all the safety measures in place, then the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism can proceed safely. 

Cemetery Masses;

This time of year is a time when Cemetery Masses take place. The Bishop has discouraged them this year. I will bless the graves & say the prayers privately, however, you will be able to join in on Facebook.

First Holy Communion;

The provisional date for First Holy Communion is set for Saturday 25^th Sept. Hopefully all will be able to proceed according to plan.

Conclusion;

The latest news concerning the Delta variant is somewhat discouraging, however, there was good news too. The go-ahead to use the various vaccines on all age groups should speed up the process of vaccination & help in the race against this virus. Please try to follow the advice given by Dr Tony Holohan & those qualified in the field of contagious diseases. Do not follow the advice of mavericks who are breaking the simple rules & are causing the continued spread of the virus. The brutal reality of flaunting the recommendations means more infections, more long covid, & more ruined lives. Thank you for the various efforts you are making. It is wearisome but I encourage you to "keep the heart up."

Covid 19: The number of deaths worldwide is now over 4,166,000. That’s 68,000 deaths last week. Republic of Ireland deaths 5,026. That’s 20 deaths in Ireland last week. The number of positive cases in Ireland is now 291,400, so 1 in every 17.1 has tested positive

Achonry Farmers Market: The Farmers Market continues every Saturday from 10am to 1pm in Nace O'Dowd Park. Thank you to the large number of volunteers who make this happen. We are appealing to members of the community to support the market to ensure its continued success. Drop in for a cup of tea/coffee & meet the locals in this friendly environment. The market has a new & unused stall & if anyone has any items for the stall please drop them in to the market. Thank you.

Prayer for Grandparents & the Elderly

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.
Lord Jesus help families and society to value
the presence and role of grandparents and the elderly.
May they never be ignored or excluded, but always encounter respect and love.
Help them to live serenely and to feel welcomed in all the years of life which you give them.       
Mary, Mother of all the living,
keep grandparents and the elderly constantly in your care,
accompany them on their earthly pilgrimage,
and by your prayers, grant that all families
may one day be reunited in our heavenly homeland,
where you await all humanity for the great embrace of life without end. Amen!

Summer Sessions at Coleman Music Centre: The Sessions continue Wed 28^th July at 8.30pm Adm €10 & will continue opn the Wednesdays of August. We have added new Lunchtime Concerts which take place on July 30^th at 1pm, these will also continue for August. Adm €5. Booking essential call 071 9182599.

The Visitor Centre & Music Shop are open all year round Monday to Saturday 10am to 5.30pm. Log on to colemanirishmusic.com.

North West STOP invites you to greet the dawn in Sunrise for STOP any morning of the bank holiday weekend (31 Jul-02 Aug) to support their free counselling services in the Northwest. Sign up at: https://www.njuko.net/sunrise-for-stop/ to receive a t-shirt registration pack & follow us on Facebook or Instagram for updates: "North West STOP" Access our counselling service by call or text to 086 777 2009

Free Training! Enrolling Now: If you struggled at school, have been long term unemployed, are recovering from or living with an illness or would benefit from extra support, the National Learning Network could be for you. We offer the expertise & time to enable people to flourish. QQI courses include: IT & Business Skills (home & centre based), Sports & Gym Instructor Studies, Fast Track to Employment & more. If you are registered with the DEASP you could be entitled to the free training, Continuous enrolment, payments are protected & people under 26 could gain extra training allowance. Contact: Castlebar@nln.ie; (094) 9022770; Breaffy Road, Castlebar, or see our website www.nln.ie. 

Message from Pope Francis

“I am with you always”

Dear Grandfathers & Grandmothers, Dear Elderly Friends,

“I am with you always” (Mt 28:20): this is the promise the Lord made to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. They are the words that he repeats to you today, dear grandfathers & grandmothers, dear elderly friends.  “I am with you always” are also the words that I, as Bishop of Rome & an elderly person like yourselves, would like to address to you on this first World Day of Grandparents & the Elderly. The whole Church is close to you – to us – & cares about you, loves you and does not want to leave you alone!

I am well aware that this Message comes to you at a difficult time: the pandemic swept down on us like an unexpected & furious storm; it has been a time of trial for everyone, but especially for us elderly persons. Many of us fell ill, others died or experienced the death of spouses or loved ones, while others found themselves isolated & alone for long periods.

The Lord is aware of all that we have been through in this time. He is close to those who felt isolated and alone, feelings that became more acute during the pandemic. Tradition has it that Saint Joachim, the grandfather of Jesus, felt estranged from those around him because he had no children; his life, like that of his wife Anne, was considered useless. So the Lord sent an angel to console him. While he mused sadly outside the city gates, a messenger from the Lord appeared to him and said, “Joachim, Joachim! The Lord has heard your insistent prayer”.  [1] Giotto, in one of his celebrated frescoes, [2] seems to set the scene at night, one of those many sleepless nights, filled with memories, worries and longings to which many of us have come to be accustomed.

Even at the darkest moments, as in these months of pandemic, the Lord continues to send angels to console our loneliness and to remind us: “I am with you always”. He says this to you, and he says it to me. That is the meaning of this Day, which I wanted to celebrate for the first time in this particular year, as a long period of isolation ends and social life slowly resumes. May every grandfather, every grandmother, every older person, especially those among us who are most alone, receive the visit of an angel!

At times those angels will have the face of our grandchildren, at others, the face of family members, lifelong friends or those we have come to know during these trying times, when we have learned how important hugs and visits are for each of us. How sad it makes me that in some places these are still not possible!

The Lord, however, also sends us messengers through his words, which are always at hand. Let us try to read a page of the Gospel every day, to pray with the psalms, to read the prophets! We will be comforted by the Lord’s faithfulness. The Scriptures will also help us to understand what the Lord is asking of our lives today. For at every hour of the day & in every season of life, he continues to send labourers into his vineyard. I was called to become the Bishop of Rome when I had reached, so to speak, retirement age & thought I would not be doing anything new. The Lord is always – always – close to us. He is close to us with new possibilities, new ideas, new consolations, but always close to us. You know that the Lord is eternal; he never, ever goes into retirement.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (28:19-20). These words are also addressed to us today. They help us better understand that our vocation is to preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young, & to care for the little ones. Think about it: what is our vocation today, at our age? To preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young & to care for the little ones. Never forget this.

It makes no difference how old you are, whether you still work or not, whether you are alone or have a family, whether you became a grandmother or grandfather at a young age or later, whether you are still independent or need assistance. Because there is no retirement age from the work of proclaiming the Gospel and handing down traditions to your grandchildren. You just need to set out and undertake something new.

At this crucial moment in history, you have a renewed vocation. You may wonder: How this can be possible? My energy is running out and I don’t think I can do much. How can I begin to act differently when habit is so much a part of my life? How can I devote myself to those who are poor when I am already so concerned about my family? How can I broaden my vision when I can’t even leave the residence where I live? Isn’t my solitude already a sufficiently heavy burden? How many of you are asking just that question: isn’t my solitude already a sufficiently heavy burden? Jesus himself heard a similar question from Nicodemus, who asked, “How can a man be born when he is old?” (Jn 3:4). It can happen, the Lord replies, if we open our hearts to the working of the Holy Spirit, who blows where he wills. The Holy Spirit whose freedom is such that goes wherever, and does whatever, he wills.

As I have often observed, we will not emerge from the present crisis as we were before, but either better or worse. And “God willing… this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing… If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators… If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might discover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human frailty can experience a rebirth” (Fratelli Tutti, 35). No one is saved alone. We are all indebted to one another. We are all brothers and sisters.

Given this, I want to tell you that you are needed in order to help build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the world in which we, together with our children and grandchildren, will live once the storm has subsided. All of us must “take an active part in renewing and supporting our troubled societies” (ibid., 77). Among the pillars that support this new edifice, there are three that you, better than anyone else, can help to set up.  Those three pillars are dreams, memory and prayer. The Lord’s closeness will grant to all, even the frailest among us, the strength needed to embark on a new journey along the path of dreams, memory and prayer.

The prophet Joel once promised: “Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men will have visions” (3:1). The future of the world depends on this covenant between young and old. Who, if not the young, can take the dreams of the elderly and make them come true? Yet for this to happen, it is necessary that we continue to dream. Our dreams of justice, of peace, of solidarity can make it possible for our young people to have new visions; in this way, together, we can build the future. You need to show that it is possible to emerge renewed from an experience of hardship. I am sure that you have had more than one such experience: in your life you have faced any number of troubles and yet were able to pull through. Use those experiences to learn how to pull through now.

Dreams are thus intertwined with memory. I think of the painful memory of war, and its importance for helping the young to learn the value of peace. Those among you who experienced the suffering of war must pass on this message.  Keeping memory alive is a true mission for every elderly person: keeping memory alive and sharing it with others. Edith Bruck, who survived the horror of the Shoah, has said that “even illuminating a single conscience is worth the effort and pain of keeping alive the memory of what has been.” She went on to say: “For me, memory is life.” [3] I also think of my own grandparents, and those among you who had to emigrate and know how hard it is to leave everything behind, as so many people continue to do today, in hope of a future. Some of those people may even now be at our side, caring for us. These kinds of memory can help to build a more humane and welcoming world. Without memory, however, we will never be able to build; without a foundation, we can never build a house. Never. And the foundation of life is memory.

Finally, prayer. As my predecessor, Pope Benedict, himself a saintly elderly person who continues to pray and work for the Church, once said: “the prayer of the elderly can protect the world, helping it perhaps more effectively than the frenetic activity of many others.” [4] He spoke those words in 2012, towards the end of his pontificate. There is something beautiful here. Your prayer is a very precious resource: a deep breath that the Church and the world urgently need (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 262). Especially in these difficult times for our human family, as we continue to sail in the same boat across the stormy sea of the pandemic, your intercession for the world and for the Church has great value: it inspires in everyone the serene trust that we will soon come to shore.

Dear grandmother, dear grandfather, dear elderly friends, in concluding this Message to you, I would also like to mention the example of Blessed (and soon Saint) Charles de Foucauld. He lived as a hermit in Algeria and there testified to “his desire to feel himself a brother to all” (Fratelli Tutti, 287). The story of his life shows how it is possible, even in the solitude of one’ s own desert, to intercede for the poor of the whole world and to become, in truth, a universal brother or sister.

I ask the Lord that, also through his example, all of us may open our hearts in sensitivity to the sufferings of the poor and intercede for their needs. May each of us learn to repeat to all, and especially to the young, the words of consolation we have heard spoken to us today: “I am with you always”! Keep moving forward! May the Lord grant you his blessing.

Rome, Saint John Lateran, 31 May 2021, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

FRANCIS

"A world at prayer is a world at peace"

“The Family that Prays together stays together”