11th February, 2024

Adamstown Parish Newsletter

Weekend of Sat 10th & Sun 11th February 2024

Volume 24.  Number 6

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ADAMSTOWN LOTTO

The next draw in the Adamstown Lotto takes place this Monday 12th Feb in the Community Centre for a Jackpot of €8,600. Please leave books back in Cullen’s by 8pm on draw night.  Do buy a ticket and be in with a chance.

ADAMSTOWN SHOW NOTICE

Adamstown Show Committee invites everyone to join them for an Ecumenical Service in remembering all those who have gone before us, our family and friends and especially those associated with the show in any way past and present.

We feel privileged to carry on the show, especially as we celebrate our 75th Show this year. The Ecumenical Service will be celebrated on Friday 23rd February in St. Abban’s Church at 7.30pm with refreshments served afterwards in Cullen’s Lounge. Everyone is welcome and please be sure to spread the word.

The 75th Adamstown Show will take place on Saturday 6th July 2024.

ADAMSTOWN SHOW COMMITTEE AGM

Our Annual General Meeting will take place in the Community Centre on Wednesday 21st February at 8pm.

With this being our 75th Show, we need more volunteers than ever to come on board, so whether you can give time to attend a few meetings, the week in the run up to the show or just on show day, we’d love to see you at our AGM.

Everyone is welcome.

ADAMSTOWN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

ASSOCIATION

ACDA are facilitating the training of First Responders and personnel in the use of AED in the Adamstown area.

If you would like to renew your defibrillator training or to be trained as a First responder, please contact Majella Stafford on 087 2719723 or at adamstown.ms@gmail.com before the 28th February. There will be an information evening for those who sign up on Wednesday 13th March.

Time and venue to be confirmed.

The AED is a valuable resource in our community and its use can help save many lives.

ADAMSTOWN GAA NEWS – GOLF CLASSIC

Adamstown GAA One Club Golf Classic on

Friday 10th May in New Ross Golf Club.

Tee Times: 8.00am – 5pm.

Amazing Prizes on the day.

Book now for your ideal Tee Time.

Contact Lorcan on 087 6148503.

Main Sponsor –  M & C Furlong Transport.

The Adamstown GAA Club extends their deepest sympathy to the Furlong family on the death of John Furlong, Templenacroha.  Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

THURSDAY NIGHT CARD GAMES

The Thursday night card games continue in the Community Centre at 8.30 each week. Winners on Thursday 7th Feb were: Kathleen Whelan, Pat Quinn, Phil Jackman, Tom Rochford, Tom Wickham, Matt O’Neill, John Hanley.

ADAMSTOWN ICA NEWS

Adamstown ICA Guild’s monthly meeting will be held in Coláiste Abbáin, on Wednesday February 14th at 8pm.

Competition on the night is for an Easter Card measuring 7 x 5 and must contain embroidery. Hostesses on then night will be Eileen Thorpe and Geraldine Bradley.  Any donations for the Women’s Refuge would be most welcome, toiletries, dried & tinned food products and vouchers please, no clothes due to present lack of storage. Adamstown ICA Guild would like to send ‘huge’ congratulations to Mary Darcy from Ballyfad ICA Guild, on her recent election to National President of ICA. Mary is only the third President from Wexford, since ICA was founded. It was founded in Wexford by Anita Lett in 1910, her grave is in Clonmore Graveyard, Bree. The ICA garden in Bree, is the site of the first ICA meeting, and is well worth a visit.

Ladies, join your local ICA Guild, you will make friends for life.

SYMPATHY

We extend our deepest sympathy to Kathleen & Pat Lawlor, and family Knockreigh on the death of Kathleen’s sister Mrs Mabel Doyle, Liam Mellows Park, Wexford on Sunday 4th.

Our sympathy also to her sons, sisters, extended family, neighbours and friends. Her funeral Mass was celebrated in the Church of the Annunciation, Clonard, on Wednesday followed by burial in St. Ibar’s Cemetery, Crosstown.

Mabel was predeceased by her husband Owen Doyle

(formerly Glenour, Adamstown).

May she rest in peace.

CHRISTIAN MEDIA TRUST – SOUTH EAST RADIO

In the Christian Media Trust programme ‘Faith Matters’ this Monday 12th Feb at 8.30pm one of those being interviewed will be Catherine Dunleavy.

LOURDES TICKET DRAW

We are delighted to resume the Lourdes Ticket Draw again this year following four years of missed draws.

Tickets costing €5 will be available in the next few weeks, with the draw taking place on Easter Sunday at 10.30am Mass 31st March 2024. The Pilgrimage takes place from Thursday 16th May – Tuesday 21st May.

Over the years many parishioners have had the opportunity of joining with the Diocesan Pilgrimage having been lucky enough to win a ticket and have had a wonderful experience there.

CHURCH NOTICES

IN MEMORIAM

Sat 10th – Jack, Marie, Patrick & Annie O’Gorman, Kellystown (A) Also – deceased members of the Cullen family, Lambstown (A)

Sun 11th – Tom Lacey, Woodview Drive (A)

Also –        Ann Byrne, Raheenduff (A)

Sat 17th – Paddy O’Connor, Newtown (A)

Sun 18th – Alice & Mary Connors, Woodview Drive (A)

Pray for Mabel Doyle, Wexford who died during the week

Pray for Patrick Lawlor, Newtown & John Mythen

May they rest in peace.

Mass on Ash Wednesday 14th February at 9.30am.

Trócaire Boxes will be available in the Church Porch, please take one home with you and support the great work of Trócaire.

Mass each week day morning at 9.30am.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every Thursday from 10.00am – 1.00pm.

ASH WEDNESDAY

In the readings today there is a great consciousness of our sinfulness, as we pray ‘Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned. There is also a sense that the time to repent and turn back is now.  The Gospel tells us how to approach that renewal of our lives. It puts before us the remedy in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These three strands of Lenten observances are as ancient as Christianity itself.

There is no substitute for them. ‘Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. If we have not all three together, we have nothing’, says St. Peter Chrysologus.

READERS OF THE LITURGY

Sat 10th – T.J. McDonald.      Sun 11th – Neasa Cloney

Sat 17th – Anthony McGee.   Sun 18th – Kathleen O’Connor

Sat 24th – Eoghan Greene.  

 Sun 25th – Amelia Swierczynska.

A THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

The rainbow is a reminder of God.

Is that why we link it with the treasure at its end?

Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be (Matt 6:21)

DIOCESAN NOTICE

Please Note the Church Gate collection in aid of the Youth Pilgrimage to Medjugorje in April 2024, which was to take place on 18th & 19th February, has now been cancelled.

PRAYER FOR THE WEEK – Morning Prayer

Father, I thank you for another day when I am called to live the joy of being a Christian. Help me to be a person more and more compassionate and close to those around me.

I offer this day for the intentions of the Holy Father, offering my thoughts, words and deeds for his intentions. Amen.

(Pope’s Worldwide Network of Prayer)

This Sunday 11th February – Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes.

At her Requiem Mass in 1879 Bishop Lelong, praised “the work of God” in the humble virginal life of Bernadette Soubirous and in the marvels of Lourdes, which were the consequence of her faithful witness. Every year we remember and marvel at “the work of God” when we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Lourdes, a small village in the South of France was chosen by God as the place on earth where He would send his mother with a message for the world. Bernadette was a poor young girl of little education who suffered from asthma. She was only fourteen years of age when Our Lady first appeared to her on the 11th February 1858. Seventeen more times she would appear to Bernadette entrusting her with some amazing messages. God often seems to pick out those who are simple, ungifted, untalented, ordinary ‘nobodies’ to spread His message. Bernadette was one such person and would have been seen as a person of no importance in her small little known village. But because of her, the village of Lourdes is now known across the world. Pilgrims come from every Continent to pray at the Grotto. Bernadette may have been a simple untalented ‘nobody’ in human reckoning but chosen by God to bring a message to the world in 1858 she is now remembered and lives on in the minds and imaginations of millions all over the world.

(St. Martin’s Magazine)

REFLECTION – Touching – -( Flor McCarthy, SBD)

Many of us are afraid to touch other people.

We give a few pennies to a beggar,

but make sure there is no contact between us,

not even eye-contact.

Jesus didn’t stand off or keep his distance.

He wasn’t afraid to touch others.

He touched lepers, sinners, sick people, and even the dead.

Physical contact is precisely what gives people,

especially sick and wounded people,

a sense of warmth and joy.

By the very act of touching another person,

we accept that person exactly as he or she is.

Lord, give us warm heart and kind hands.

WEDNESDAY 14th – Feast of St. Valentine

In 1835 an Irish Carmelite John Spratt was visiting Rome. His fame as a preacher had gone before him. The elite of Rome flocked to hear him and he received many tokens of esteem. One such token came from Pope Gregory XV1 (1831-1846) and were the remains of St. Valentine.

On Nov 10th 1836, the Reliquary containing the remains arrived in Dublin and were brought in solemn procession to Whitefriar Street Church and were received by Archbishop Murray of Dublin. With the death of Fr. Spratt interest in the relics died away and they went into storage. During a major renovation of the church in 1950/60’s they were returned to prominence with an altar and shrine constructed to house them and to be venerated. Today the shrine is visited throughout the year by couples that come to ask St. Valentine to watch over them in their lives together.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day