St Patrick's Weekend

This year St Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday, which kind of meant we could celebrate all weekend. (Well he is our Patron Saint and it is very good to celebrate his feast day as best we can).  Although because it fell on the 5th Sunday of Lent we had to use the readings etc for the 5th Sunday of Lent rather than for St Patrick's Day, but they were very fitting.  To prepare to celebrate our Patronal feast we held 40 Hours of Adoration in the Parish.  It was a beautiful time and many people came to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. 




Decorating the community centre

As well as preparing spiritually we also needed to prepare some practical things for the weekend, such as decorating the community centre and preparing the Shamrocks that were to be blessed and distributed at all the Masses over the weekend.  We had a lot of fun deciding where to put all the different decorations.  There were loads of them!  The Shamrocks were interesting, there was absolutely tons of them!  They took forever and we had very green fingers when we finished.  But it was all worth it when we seen how pleased people were to be given some at Mass.



Some of our shamrocks ready to go

Fr Alex blessing the shamrock



Community centre all decorated

We were very blessed over the St Patrick's weekend to have Fr John Harris OP with us as our main celebrant.  Fr John is the Regent of Studies for the Irish Dominican Province and also the National Spiritual Director of Youth 2000 Ireland.  He was great, a true preacher.  He spoke well about the New Evangelisation and how we are called to show we are Christian and to proclaim Christ to all.  Before Fr John left on the Monday morning he found some time to give us a lecture about the challenges of the New Evangelisation.  We very much enjoyed having Fr John with us for St Patrick's Day and we learnt a lot from him.




Instead of the usual tea, coffee and sweet stuff after the 11am Mass on Sunday we had some traditional Irish food.  We had some very tasty Irish stew and colcannon as well as some lovely cakes, apple tart and cheesecake.

Summertime: Don't worry, we're still here

Looking at our blog you would think we were having a nice quiet summer - I assure you this is not the case, yes it is nice but it certainly isn't quiet!!  Although the classroom has gone very quiet now that we have no students over the summer it is quite a different story in the office and the parish.  In the office work is continuing in preparation for the new intake of students in October.  There has been a great interest in the school for the coming year and we are constantly in contact with potential students.  We ask that you keep the potential students in your prayers and us also as we discern about each applicant.

Although we are all working hard there is always time for a little break and time of rest.  Deanna has been to Poland for a pilgrimage while Edna had the opportunity to go to Ireland and visit Knock Shrine.  Both Deanna and Ciara were at the Medjugorje Youth Festival at the beginning of August.  Ciara also attended the Youth 2000 Clonmacnois Summer Festival in Ireland.

The Parish has also been buzzing lately with the arrival of the Mother Teresa Exhibition which is taking place in the Community Centre until 15th September.  Definitely worth a visit!  During the second week of the Olympics St Patricks was home to NightFever for a whole week! An amazing week of Adoration and evangelising was had.  Both Anne-Marie and Laurie have been back to St Patricks to help with events in the parish.

Over the next couple of weeks we will hopefully be posting some more detailed information about what each of us have been up to over the summer along with some photos.  Please continue to keep the school, parish and us in your prayers.

Keeping you all in prayer also