News
Fr Michael's new book - Seamless Robe
To coincide with his recent Silver Jubilee, Fr Michael has published a new book of poems: "Seamless Robe." Proceeds from the sale of the books will go towards the Sacred Hearts Missions in Asia & Africa. To order a copy send €10 (overseas postage add €2) with your name and address to: Sacred Heart Presbytery, St John's Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22. Alternatively use the Paypal feature for Fr Mike's Bike Hike below:
Silver Jubilee Celebrations
To view some pictures from the recent celebrations, pleas click here!
Tenth Sunday of the Year 2013
SILVER JUBILEE OF THE CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART SRULEEN
Homily Notes of
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of
-------------------
Church of the Sacred Heart, Sruleen 9th June 2013
I will let you into a secret.
The first thing I did each morning on the final days before the
Congress was to reach for my cell-phone and go to the ten-day weather
forecast and see what the weather was going to be like.
Being responsible for an event, much of which was to take place
outdoors, you can well imagine my anxiety.
And to make things worse, the ten-day weather forecast kept
changing, leaving me confused as well as anxious and concerned.
Looking back now, I can see that the first thing I should have been
doing each morning was saying my prayers and placing much more trust in
the Lord than in the meteorologists.
The Congress, in fact, was to be something which went way beyond
our plans and expectations.
We all get over concerned about things that we cannot really ever
achieve on our own. We get
concerned about the Church, about the challenge of evangelization, about
reaching out to young people.
We must learn to trust more in the Lord rather than in our own
abilities. We must
learn to trust in the Lord even when we do not always see his activity.
We come today to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of this Church which was
blessed and dedicated by my predecessor Archbishop Desmond Connell in
1988. We look back over
twenty five years of ministry – indeed the origins of this parish
community go back even further to the 1970’s.
I am very happy to be here with you at this celebration.
I am happy because it is in the celebration of the life of a
parish that we can see in a very concrete way how the life of the Church
is lived locally and in the communion of the local Churches and how the
Lord is present with us.
We hear many negative things said about the Church.
Sadly in the years since the opening of the Church the story of
our Church has had its dark moments.
An occasion like this allows us, however, to focus on the host of
good things that have happened over the years.
A celebration like this enables us to come to a deeper analysis
of the good that has been done in and by this parish community and how
goodness, care and love are the dominant driving forces of this parish
and its parishioners and community.
This Church building has been a place where people came to be nourished
by the word of God and to celebrate the mysteries of our redemption, not
as a closed or inward-looking group, but as a community of believers in
Jesus Christ committed to living and spreading the goodness and love of
Jesus in this community.
We have heard something of the history of the parish.
It is impressive to look at the list of those priests who
ministered here; to look at how various congregations of religious
sisters made a huge contribution in the area; at the work of great
schools; at the sense of renewal and commitment of so many lay men and
women. In the
procession of symbols we have recognised the work of the Parish pastoral
Council and the Finance Committee; the work of the schools and the
commitment of parents; the missionary commitment within the parish; the
work for justice; the discreet but constant caring of the Saint Vincent
de Paul Society. I am
particularly happy to learn of the renewal of youth ministry.
Alongside these clear practical examples there is something deeper that
we have to remember. All
those services find their roots in the way we live our faith in Jesus
Christ. They find
their roots in the liturgical ministry of the parish where people have
been accompanied at crucial moments in their lives.
I think of the joy and hope of young families as they brought
their children for Baptism and ask God’s blessing on the new life of the
child. I think of the
happiness, love and commitment celebrated at marriages.
I think of the way people have been comforted and accompanied
when death struck a dear one.
I think of the reconciliation that has been wrought, in the
sacrament of penance, to those whose lives had drifted in the wrong
direction. I think of the
celebration of the Eucharist, at the great events of the Church’s year
and in the daily prayer of those who come for spiritual nourishment.
I think of the many people who quietly called in to this Church
to say a private prayer at a moment of joy or at a moment of distress.
Far too often in our day we are trapped in the many things that we have
to do and in the emptiness of much of the culture that surrounds us.
The Church has the mission to call people to look at and reflect
on the deeper questions of life and where our lives find meaning and
hope. The practical
examples of community and care that we celebrate find their roots in the
message of Jesus Christ as a message of love that has been preached in
this building and has then been put into action in the life of the
community.
As we look back at the past twenty five years we can say that this
community of Sruleen would be a much weaker community had this community
of Christian believers not been there and active and caring.
We give thanks to God for what has been achieved and we recommend
to his mercy those who have passed on form this life.
This is a Church dedicated to the Sacred Heart.
This reflects the charism of the Sacred Heart Fathers and Sisters
who have ministered here over the years.
That title is however something which brings us back to what is
central in the mission of the Church. One of the great temptations of
all of us is that we create an idea of God which suits our own ideas or
our own state of mind rather than the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Our celebration of the Sacred Heart brings us back to something
very fundamental about the God that is revealed in Jesus Christ: our God
is a God of compassion and care, a God who is rich in mercy.
The Sacred Heart is an image of God’s love and how that love
irradiates into our lives and into our world.
The Gospels are full of stories of how Jesus mercy goes way beyond our
expectations. God’s mercy
is generous. We tend to put
limits on that mercy and somehow to limit God’s mercy to categories of
our own regarding who deserves mercy and forgiveness and to whom Jesus
should show his generosity.
At times we can be like the figure of the brother of the prodigal who
rejected and even resented God being generous and merciful.
We have to learn to trust in God’s mercy.
God’s mercy is without limits in our human sense.
Our trust in God’s mercy must become free from those human
factors which hinder us from recognising that Gods’ mercy reaches out to
all and that that means his mercy reaches out to me and that he wants to
come into my life, not to judge me and condemn me, but to free us from
entrapment in evil and hopelessness.
The Gospel reading we have heard just now tells us something about how
we, the community of the believers of Jesus Christ, should bring the
message of God’s caring mercy to the world around us.
In the Gospel two processions meet unplanned; the procession of
those who gather around Jesus to hear his words and the sad funeral
procession of the child of a woman who is a widow.
Jesus immediately notices the grief of the women and Jesus is moved.
He brings a message of life to the woman and her daughter, a word
which overcomes doubt and grief and even death itself.
This encounter is a sign of what the resurrection means.
Jesus carries out a life-giving gesture.
He does it, however, in a totally non-demonstrative way.
He raises the Child by a single command. There are no long
formulas and gestures.
There is no sense in which he carries out a show or a public
relations exercise. He
heals and he hands the child back to her mother.
Through Jesus’ action her grief is replaced by a renewed life and
hope.
In today’s society in which the church community often encounters signs
of grief and hopelessness among those around us, those who are not in
the procession of believers, but in suffering in the harsh procession of
life. The call to the
Christian community is that of being a witness to life and hope and to
restore something of the hope that the men and women of our time yearn
for.
The Christian believer does this never asking for anything in return.
The love of God is gratuitous. The good that is done by believers
witnesses solely to the fact that our God is a God of mercy and
compassion and hope. My
with you this morning is that after these celebrations in which we look
back on twenty five years of mission in this Church, from today onwards
we will look forward to see how we can witness to God’s love in our
changing world, convinced that our future will need the message of God’s
love just as much and even more than we do in our time.
We must learn to trust more in the Lord rather than in our own
abilities. We must
learn to trust in the Lord even when we do not always see his activity.
Saint Damien Display
"Damien's recent Feast Day on the 10th May saw the blessing of a new display dedicated to Saint Damien at our Sacred Heart Church, Sruleen, Clondalkin, Dublin 22. 'In the Footsteps of Saint Damien" comprises 12 displays with accompanying prayers that traces Damien's life from Infancy to Canonization. The final display is adjacent to a first class relic of Damien that came from Molokai and was generously given to us by our Hawaiian Confreres. Please come along and reflect on the life of one of our great Sacred Hearts, and pray at his relic."
Fr. Pearse's web diary from his visit to Rome in February 2011
10th Feb 2011
Said a little prayer
for all in St. Peter's today....as you can see also had an ice cream
with Sr. Mary surrounded by the brothers...
9th Feb 2011
A lovely sunny day in
Rome...the day begins with Eucharist and a good breakfast for the day
ahead....more stories of houses and young people as far away as
Indonesia and Polynesia to Madrid and Cootehill...all with the spirit of
the Hearts, and looking for ways to spread the Love of God among and
with these young people....the majority of our young people are now in
Africa and Asia, with a few also in Poland, Spain and Chile....we
continue tomorrow but we can look forward to half day and a trip
downtown to St. Peter's and maybe a stop for a Pizza Italian style....
8th Feb 2011
From Sruleen to Rome on a Sunday evening flight arriving on time to be met by one of the community . Already the house is alive with brothers from Indonesia, Polynesia, India, Spain, Poland, Africa , Columbia, Chile,Philippines, with a variety of languages...did have a chance to visit St. Paul's Cathedral before we got our meeting started today. The food is good, the welcome and hospitality first class. Our discussion today was a brief introduction of each one present, plus a few words from Fr.Javier...he presided at the Mass for Fr. Pat in Sruleen. Then the focus was on what was happening in the respective areas as regards the young people in formation around the world....