21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Harvest Festival and Four County Vintage Tractor and Car Run.

In Aid of Carrick and Ballynarry Church Renovation Fund.

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Saturday 1st September.

Harvest Festival in Sheelin Park.

3:00 pm to 6:00pm.

Country Market in Clubrooms.

Fresh Home Produced Breads, Cakes, Jams, Fruit and Vegetables on sale.

Demonstrations: - Butter Making, Patchwork, Crocheting and Oil Painting.

Competitions: - Name the Doll, Guess cake weight, etc.

Tea and Refreshments Served.

Family Fun on Pitch.

Children: - Bouncing Castles,  Fun and Games.

Adults & Teenagers: - Shot-putt, Golf, Basket Ball shooting, Skittles,

Digger Duck Dip.

Dog Demonstration at 4:00pm.

Harvest Mass.

Mass of thanksgiving in Ballynary at 8:00 pm.

Fruits of the Harvest will be placed in front of the Alter giving all of us a opportunity to thank God for them.

Barn Dance.

Barn Dance and BBQ in Buddy’s at 9:30 pm.

Music by Chuck and June.

Spot Prizes Galore.

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Sunday 2nd September.

Four County Vintage Tractor and Car Run.

Assembly and Breakfast for participants at 10:30am at Fitzsimons’ Finea.

Run Commences at 12:00 Noon.

Returning to Fitzsimons’ for Refreshments and BBQ.

Live Music and Spot Prizes.

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Fr Frank and Parish Council

invite you all to come and enjoy this Family Fulfilled Weekend.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Perpetual Novena to Our Lady of Knock.

The National Public Novena takes place each year at Knock Shrine from the 14th to the 22nd of August. Prayer leaflets may be had from the Shrine Office. Two sessions are held daily, namely at 3:00 pm and 8:30 pm except on Wednesday 15th and Sunday 19th, when ceremonies commence with anointing of the sick at 2:30 pm. After Concelebrated Mass in the Basilica there is a Procession to the Apparition Gable. A procession of the Blessed Sacrament is held in the afternoon and the beautiful candlelight procession takes place at night. For those who cannot be present the Novena may be made at home or in the local Church. This gives them a share in the Masses and prayers being offered each day at the Shrine.

Prayer to Our Lady of Knock

Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, you gave hope to your people in a time of distress, and comfort them in sorrow. You have inspired countless pilgrims to pray with confidence to your divine Son, remembering His promise, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find”. Help me to remember that we are all pilgrims on the road to heaven. Fill me with love and concern for my brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those who live with me. Comfort me when I am sick, lonely or depressed. Teach me how to take part ever more reverently in the Holy Mass. Give me a greater love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Pray for me now, and at the hour of my death. Amen.

Olympic Gold Medalist

When Katie Taylor’s hand was held aloft as Olympic champion in the Excel Arena in London on Thursday evening, it was one of those sublime moments in sport that won’t be forgotten.

The jubilant scenes around the country and the huge TV audience which watched her fights in London illustrate how her achievement has touched even those with only a casual interest in sport. It has been the fulfilment of a sporting dream for Taylor as well as the Irish sporting public.

All the years of anonymous practice, of lonely fights in obscure places, of struggling for recognition in a sport that barely existed, all the prayers that they shared: it had all led to her historic victory.

“My dad said if I did go a couple of points down just stay calm. I just had to stick to the game plan. It was great to pick up the two points but at the end I didn’t know what way the score line went. It was a great last round.”

“Because I trained so hard since I was 10 or 11 years of age,” was how Taylor accounted for this performance. “And I serve an amazing God and without Him I wouldn’t be sitting with this medal around my neck. I am there but for the grace of God. I serve Him. I am nothing without Him.”

Following her victory , a whole generation of Irish youngsters will be inspired to take up sport. Katie’s shinning example is already laying the foundation for the next generation of Irish Olympians.

One of the mottoes of London 2012 has been “Inspire a Generation”.

Katie Taylor has done that and more.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Croagh Patrick

The annual pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick took place on Sunday last. After making the pilgrimage, the popes representative in Ireland, Archbishop Charles Brown said that making the pilgrimage up Ireland’s holiest mountain had been a “beautiful and unforgettable experience” and that it was personally gratifying to see a crowd of thousands making a journey of faith.

“I think that it is a great expression of the continuity of the Faith in Ireland,” he said. “On the first level I would say that it is a great confirmation for me that the Faith is very deep and in spite of everything it continues. “ And the second thing is that every pilgrimage is an image of the life of faith, and this pilgrimage, which is quite difficult, is a great image of what it means to be a Catholic. “It means in a sense to struggle for the life of faith, to fight for one’s faith, to put one foot in front of the other, to always go forward, to help one another on the path.”

 

The Shoeshine Boy

Shoeshine boys are on the lowest rung of the ladder in the Third World—almost always homeless, and often as young as five or six years old, they eke out a miserable living on the streets of every African capital. By day, they aim to make enough to keep hunger at bay; at night, they sleep together in small groups in doorways or disused buildings.

The young boy who shone my shoes in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, that day was no different. Barefooted and clothed in rags, he couldn’t have been more than nine of ten years old. Without the chance of education, he was doomed to spend the rest of his life on these streets and, most probably, to die on them.

My shoes shined, I stood up and paid the young lad before walking on into the city. Fifteen minutes later, arriving at the door of my hotel, I heard a shout and looked around to see the shoeshine boy running after me. Perspiration dripping from his forehead, he held out his hand with a smile. He was holding my wallet, which I must have dropped by his stall earlier.

One of the most extraordinary things about this story is that I was due to fly the following day to Guinea to buy supplies for a project we had just opened, and as a result I was carrying at lease $5,000 in my wallet. The notes were bulging out of the sides. This boy had found more money than he could ever dream of making in his entire working life and he was offering to give it back to me. He didn’t have enough money to buy shoes, but he hadn’t touched a note in the wallet.

The Third World is full of contradictions, but none more striking than this: in the midst of some of the worst poverty, you can discover the greatest human qualities.

John O’Shea. Founder of Goal.

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

An honest man’s the noblest work of God.

Robert Burns (1759—1796)