Fr John Fitzgerald SJ, the last surviving Jesuit to have been taught in Clongowes by Fr John Sullivan, shared some precious memories at the commemorative Mass which takes place in Gardiner St at 1pm on the third Saturday of every month. A new biography of Fr John Sullivan by Fr Todd Morrissey SJ will soon be published. For Fr Fitzgerald’s homily on 15 November, read on. Read more »
On the 6th November Colm Brophy SJ led ten spiritual directors in a Galway workshop on art. His first objective was to free them from any perfectionism, or sense of inferiority about drawing. Starting with their signatures, he got them to own what was unique to them From drawing simple things like a sun or a moon he moved them to the more personal, to express a feeling in colour and draw an incident from childhood. The workshop aimed to release in the learners a simple, carefree and uninhibited use of oil pastel crayons to express emotions before or after a session of spiritual direction. It opened up a simple but powerful means of self-expression and healing. Colm, whose own watercolour of a summer garden is pictured here (see more), began and ended with that enigmatic line from John 8.7 “Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger.”
As well as Fr Todd Morrissy, Jesuit historian, featuring on the TG4 documentary on the life of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, Cathy Molloy, theologian with the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, took part in a panel discussion on the ‘Spirit Moves’ programme on RTE Radio One on Sunday Nov 16. The hour-long programme presented by Tom McGurk was exploring the implications of the Civil Partnership Bill currently being drafted by the Government. The bill proposes to legislate for couple-relationships which fall outside the scope of traditional marriage. Other panellists included Fr Joe Mullan, Sentator Ronan Mullen, Ciaran Cuffe TD and Patrick Lynch. To listen to the programme click here and select ‘Listen to Latest Show’.
The Jesuit-run parish of Matero in Lusaka, Zambia this week linked up offcially with Star of the Sea Parish, Sandymount, Dublin. Fr Leonard Chiti SJ spoke at all masses in the church on Sunday Nov 16 and outlined how the parishes could help each other. He said Matero parish was spritually rich but materially very poor. The Jesuit Missions Office in Dublin has helped fund classrooms and computers for the many children orphaned by AIDS there (school in Matero pictured here). Parishoners from Sandymount will now assist the Jesuit-run projects in the parish. Fr Leonard, a native of Zambia, spent two years working in Matero Parish and is currently studying in Dublin and living with the Manresa community in Clontarf.
Richard O’Dwyer SJ has been assigned to work with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Ethiopia for the next two or three years, and he generously registered his first impressions of Addis Ababa (pictured here – photo by Sam Effron), the Ethiopian capital, and sent them back fresh to AMDG Express. The country has experienced some dramatic shifts in power in recent decades, but the most palpable problems concern the many people without proper housing or health care. Read his account below. Read more »
The Partners in Mission office hosted an induction course on 13 November for a group of seven people who have recently begun working with various apostolates in the Province. The seven were Sr Teresa Brogan and Majella Moloney (JUST), Elizabeth O’Neill (JRS), Edel Roddy and Eoghan Keogh (Slí Eile), Patrick Muldoon (Sacred Space), and Triona McGee (The Messenger). The course provided them with an opportunity to meet the curia staff and to learn about the Province and the mission of the Society of Jesus. See more photos here.
Fiachra Etchingham, Director of Finance at Gonzaga College (visible behind the magnificent beech tree in picture), assembled representatives of 12 Dublin schools including Gonzaga, Belvedere and Clongowes, to pool their collective experience and to plan fundraising for schools. They worked through an agreed set of topics: motivating donors, alumni relations, the use of fundraising consultants, and recruiting fundraising staff, and found that, irrespective of the type of school or the size of the fundraising goal, their challenges and solutions were quite similar. They agreed to organise further meetings, and possibly invite experts to address them.
A meeting of the Pastoral Coordinators from the Jesuit Schools took place in Clongowes, 6-7 Nov, to look at the RE programmes in place and to share resources and best practice. The picture shows Peter Sexton, Brian Flannery, Frank Clark, Brendan McManus, Danny McNelis, Helen Barden and Grainne Delaney.|
FR PROVINCIAL’S DIARY 17-19 Nov: Galway Visitation |
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Tony O’Riordan SJ was quoted by the Irish Examiner for his advocacy of non-custodial alternatives to prison for women offenders. Using the JCFJ’s research into female prisoners, he pointed out that more than three quarters of them are being punished for ‘non-serious offences’, and are imprisoned for six months or less. “If, as is planned, the number of prison spaces in Thornton Hall is doubled so as to accommodate female offenders, it will discourage the search for alternatives to prison for women.” JCFJ has also brought out the November issue of Working Notes. Read below for a write-up of it. Read more »
There was no escaping the US Presidential election over the last two weeks, so AMDG Express sought a personal viewpoint from Donal Godfrey, the Cork-born Irish Jesuit who is head chaplain in the University of San Francisco. Donal responded at once with an engaging account of his experience on campus, where he was pictured with a life-size cut-out of his favoured candidate. Read Donal’s story below Read more »
As part of their ‘Faith in action’ religious education programme, a group of 18 Transition Year students from O’Carolan College, Nobber, Co. Meath, spent last Friday morning digging in with the Ballymun Global Action Project (GAP), on an environmental project at St. Joseph’s Primary School. Slí Eile, the Jesuit Centre for Young Adults invited this group of students to roll up their sleeves and link in with GAP as part of the Transition Year programme of active faith formation and social concern. Afterwards Slí Eile JVC volunteers living and working in Ballymun welcomed the students to lunch and a discussion of their respective experiences. What had they learned? The message for students was clear – Faith is not only about personal wellbeing and prayer. It is about action for and with others for the greater good.
These busy Jesuits, Murt Curry, Willie Reynolds, Kevin O’Rourke, Colm Brophy and Liam O’Connell were photographed in Thornhill by a sixth busy Jesuit, John Guiney, during a think-in to explore the purpose and role of the mission office, the different faces of mission in Ireland and abroad, and how the Irish Province can reach out to the different frontiers of mission over the next 5-10 years. How did they plan? Read more. Read more »
Two students from Belvedere College, their teacher, and Oliver Murphy, historian and college museum curator were on ‘Today with Pat Kenny’ on Tuesday 11 November, the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day. Oliver Murphy was in studio while students Cillian Hanratty and Richard McDonagh and teacher Tom Doyle were on the phone from Messins, Belgium. They were part of a group of 15 students from Belvedere, from Banbridge Academy in the North, and from Belgium who had spent four days there reliving the experiences of soldiers in the First World War. They even spent a night in the trenches. Oliver Murphy recounted the stories of Belvedere pupils and staff killed in the war, and moving excerpts from letters of Chaplain Fr Willie Doyle SJ were recounted. To hear the broadcast, click here; then click on ‘Today with Pat Kenny’. It begins at 1hr 08mins.
