Parish News & Events
ACCORD COLLECTION 15th/16th February
The annual collection for Accord Dublin, the Diocesan Agency for Marriage and the Family, will be made at all Masses on the weekend of February 15/16.
IRISH CATHOLIC ARTICLE
Click here for a PDF of an article recently published in the Irish Catholic, by Fr Gareth Byrne, Moderator of the Diocesan Curia and Chairperson of the Building Hope Pastoral Strategy Implementation Group. The introduction to the article, titled Risking a journey that...
Preparation Masses for First Holy Communion and Confirmation 2025
First Holy Communion: On Saturday's at 6pm, 25th January, 15th February, 15th March, 29th March. Confirmation: On Saturday's at 6pm, 18th January, 8th February, 8th March, 5th April..
Archbishop Farrell’s homily for launch of the Jubilee Year
Launch of the Jubilee Year 2025 “Pilgrims of Hope” Homily of Archbishop Dermot Farrell St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Sunday, December 29, 2024 (Also available at https://dublindiocese.ie/jubilee-year-launch/) “Jesus then went down with Mary and Joseph, and came to Nazareth...
BUILDING HOPE PLANNING RESOURCE
The Building Hope Pastoral Strategic Planning Resource 2025–2027, launched at the recent workshops, is now available at https://dublindiocese.ie/planning-resource/.
Reflection on Today’s
Gospel Reading
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of the places I like to walk since coming to Finglas is the Botanical Gardens. Regardless of the season of the year, I find it a lovely place to walk. Within the Gardens, my favourite place is the walk along by the River Tolka. There are lovely trees and plants along the river. Rivers can be lovely places to walk because of the abundance of plant life and, often, animal life to be found there. In countries with much less rainfall than ours, like the land where Jesus lived, the banks of rivers are often the only places where nature thrives. Today’s first reading speaks of a ‘tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream; when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green’. The responsorial psalm speaks of a ‘tree that is planted beside the flowing waters, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves shall never fade’.
In both the first reading and the psalm, the tree that is fully alive, because it is planted alongside flowing waters, is an image of those who put their trust in the Lord, who have the Lord for their hope, and who delight in what the Lord wants. These are the truly happy and blessed people, because they have entrusted themselves to the Lord, who is the true source of life, and who alone can sustain and nurture us, even in times of heat and drought, when life becomes a real struggle. All of today’s readings invite us to ask, ‘Who are the truly blessed or happy people?’ That is the question Jesus is inviting us to ask in today’s gospel reading. He suggests there that the people the world considers happy are not always the truly blessed ones. Jesus refers to the very rich who have their fill of everything, who are always celebrating, who are spoken well of by others. Most people would think that they have really made it and might look upon them with envy. However, Jesus is saying there that those who appear to have everything are often the least fortunate and blessed, because when all is going well we can easily forget God. We can cut ourselves off from God who is the source of true happiness and blessedness.
In the gospel reading also Jesus refers to a very different kind of group. It is really the group of his disciples. He is addressing himself directly to his disciples, fixing his eyes on them as he speaks. He refers to them as ‘you who are poor, you who are hungry, you who weep now, and you who are hated and driven out by others, on account of the Son of Man’, because of their allegiance to Jesus. They have made themselves extremely vulnerable ever since they threw in their lot with Jesus. Most people would consider them unfortunate. Yet Jesus declares them happy and blessed, because their relationship with him is more important to them than anything the world has to offer. They have come to recognize the truth that God alone, present in Jesus, can give their lives the fullness, the joy, which they so deeply desire. Jesus is saying that there is a lack, an emptiness, in all our lives that only he can fill. We can sometimes try to fill that emptiness in other ways, by grasping after what we think will bring us happiness, but, in reality, will always let us down. If we look upon the Lord as our only genuine treasure, if we give him first place in our lives, seeking to do what he wants, that will often mean taking what seems like the more difficult path, the path of self-giving rather than self-seeking. In the eyes of many, we will be losing out. Yet, in reality, we will be taking the path of life, a path that is life-giving for ourselves and others.
One of the questions that the readings this Sunday invite us to ask is, ‘Where do we really place our trust?’ If we place our trust, our hope, in the Lord, and live out of that trusting relationship, we will be like that tree planted alongside flowing waters whose foliage stays green, even when the heat comes, even in the year of drought. In the words of the gospel reading, we will be happy and blessed, even if we appear to be losing out by the standards of the age. The Lord invites us to keep seeking him out, just as the tree seeks out the life-giving stream by means of its roots. If we do so, we will have a foretaste of the joy of our eternal destiny. In the second reading, Saint Paul says that our final destiny is to share in the Lord’s own risen life, a life over which death has no power. In this earthly life, the Lord fixes his eyes on us, as he fixed his eyes on the disciples in the gospel reading, and he calls out to us to come to him to find life in the here and now, to become fully alive as human beings, and so become a source of life for others.
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