Weekly Connect From: Dermot Cowhey dermot.cowhey@limerickdiocese.org

13^th December, 2021:

Dear Chaplains/RE Teachers,

As we reach the end of the term, may I take the opportunity to wish you all a restful Christmas and thank you for all your support during the year. It was a difficult year but remember the gift you are for your students is not just for Christmas but all year round. God bless.

The Pope's Monthly Intentions for December, 2021:

Catechists
Let us pray for the catechists, summoned to announce the Word of God: may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

https://www.popesprayer.va/popes-prayer-intentions

To watch the Pope Video - https://youtu.be/aJpxgGQywX8

Bishop Brendan Interview: Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick, along with journalists Ursula Halligan (We Are Church) and Derek Scally (Berlin correspondent for The Irish Times) were interviewed on RTÉ Radio 1's The Leap of Faith, on 26 November last, concerning the Synodal Pathway. Please find attached the related written transcript and link to the audio recording. 

Link:  https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22035894/

Thought for the Day: We publish a ‘thought for the day’ every morning at 7am on the Diocesan Facebook page.

‘Remember, if you are not speaking it, you are storing it and it gets heavy.’ (Christine Isobel)

https://www.facebook.com/dioceseoflimerick

Liturgical Calendar

12^th December: ^:Third Sunday of Advent / An Triú Domhnach den Aidbhint

14^th December: Memorial of St. John of the Cross / Cuimhneachán in onóir d’Eoin na Croise            

18^th December: International Migrants Day

19^th December: Fourth Sunday of Advent / An Ceathrú Domhnach den Aidbhint

21^st December: St Peter Canisius

24^th December: Christmas Eve

25^th December: The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)

26^th December: The Holy Family of Jesus Mary and Joseph

27^th December: St John, Apostle and Evangelist

28^th December: The Holy Innocents, Martyrs

1^st January: World Day of Peace

3^rd January: Feast day of St Munchin

6^th January: The Epiphany of the Lord: Adoration by the Maji

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2020-09-15

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/our-lady-of-sorrows/

Christmas Retreat: Fr Chris O’Donnell has put together a four-night Christmas retreat – ‘Time to Reflect’.  We are delighted to have Dr Jessie Rogers, Sr Betty Baker, Sr Helen Culhane and Sharon Collopy each leading a reflection.  Each event will run online on Tuesday 14^th, Wednesday 15^th, Thursday 16^th and Friday 16^th of December.  Each session will begin at 8pm and finish by 8:45pm.  Registration for the programme is necessary so you can be sent the Zoom link, you can register at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Christmas_Reflections

Manresa Advent Videos:

Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality in Dublin have re-released videos from last year for Advent 2021. The free material is offered to support people who wish to take a day or a few days retreat in their own place. The reflective talks are followed by some pointers for thought and prayer and guided prayer sessions are also offered. Click here for the Advent videos ».

Birth of Saint Columba/ Columcille of Iona:

The final lecture in the Loyola Institute TCD St Colmcille online lecture series commemorating 1,500 years since the birth of Saint Columba/ Columcille of Iona (521-597), will be delivered on Tuesday 14 December 2021 at 7.30 pm.  You can register for the lecture by clicking here.

Diocesan In-Service: The annual diocesan in-service will take place on Thursday 27^th January, 2022.

The web advertisements for Catholic Schools Week 2022, the posters and flyers will be distributed in the coming days.

The overarching theme for CSW 2022 will be Catholic Schools: Living Life to the Full.

  Attachments –

1. Attachment containing the usual links and resources. If you can add to this list, please forward all information to me.
2. Liturgical resources

If you are accessing this from the diocese website and would like to have these resources, please email dermot.cowhey@limerickdiocese.org

To conclude …

As we journey towards the Nativity of the Lord we reflect … 

A Christmas Childhood by Patrick Kavanagh

One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling-post
The music that came out was magical.

The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December-glinting fruit we saw –
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.

To eat the knowledge that grew in clay
And death the germ within it! Now and then
I can remember something of the gay
Garden that was childhood’s. Again.

The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,
A green stone lying sideways in a ditch,
Or any common sight, the transfigured face
Of a beauty that the world did not touch.

My father played the melodion
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.

And old man passing said:
‘Can’t he make it talk –
The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife’s big blade –
there was a little one for cutting tobacco.
And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodion,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.