JRS brings Christmas cheer to migrant kids

Jesuit Refugee Service Ireland ran a very successful Christmas toy appeal, collecting a huge number of toys for distribution to more than 120 children of migrants and asylum seekers. The organizer of the appeal was Audrey Hogan of Slí Eile, and its success made for a memorable Christmas party in Clondalkin Towers on Friday 19 December. Thanks to the Trojan work of Nicola Morris and Elizabeth O’Rourke in preparing the event, all 90 of the children who attended received some special Christmas gifts. And they received them from the hands of Santa Claus himself, who more usually masquerades as Brendan MacPartlin SJ.

Deacon Cathal

On 4 January Bishop John O’Riordan C.S.Sp. laid hands on Cathal Doherty and a Spiritan priest from Congo, who were to be the last two diaconal ordinations in Kimmage Manor. It was a parish ceremony, at the 11.30 Sunday Mass, followed by a family lunch in Milltown. The stole put up something of a struggle before settling on our 40-year-old Cathal, symbolically inducting him into the clerical state. The new deacon is pictured here, properly be-stoled, with Kevin O’Rourke SJ, and Bishop O’Riordan.

Is Henry really a Jesuit?

An article in the Irish News of 5 January recalled the reconciliation work of Henry Grant SJ twenty years ago. One of the Protestants who attended Henry’s workshops was John McMichael, who was murdered in Derry in 1987. After a first exposure, John asked a loyalist friend: Is Henry really a Jesuit? His difficulty in believing it stemmed from the caricature of Jesuits as ‘Vatican storm-troopers’ which he and many loyalists had inherited.

Help name a new Jesuit Website!

Conall O’Cuinn SJ, Irish Jesuit Vocations Director, is working with web developer Shane Lyons to develop a new website which aims to help people who have had a ‘call’ experience explore and deepen it. Conall invites the readers of AMDG to brainstorm with the team for a suitable name for this new website. DeepDown.org is already taken. So what would you suggest? Why not email your ideas to vocationpromoter@jesuit.ie? Read more »

Short notices

• Sr Avril O’Regan RLR will lead a series of seminars in Manresa on ‘Movies that Matter’. Participants will view a film and then reflect together, through the eyes of faith, on the issues and values raised. The series begins with March of the Penguins, on Wednesday 14 January.
• The Jesuit Refugee Service Ireland launched a new website recently. It has a news service, many downloadable resources for people (especially in schools) who work with migrants and refugees, and an interfaith and intercultural calendar of commemorations and events. The website was built by the Jesuit Communication Centre.
• The RTE website features the Belvedere sleep-out: by Christmas Eve the boys had raised €126,000 for two charities, the Peter McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland.

A life of passion: Peter McVerry SJ

“There’s an orderly kind of aimlessness in the basement of 26 Sherrard Street…” So begins Kathy Sheridan’s Saturday Interview with Peter McVerry SJ in the Irish Times, 20 December 2008. She evokes wonderfully the unique atmosphere in the drop-in centre in Dublin 1, a kind of “all-day common room for lost children ravaged by homelessness, drugs, domestic chaos, illness and a catastrophic sense of worthlessness”. The banter between Peter and the lads is easy and trustful. Some of them address him as ‘Hedge’ – an allusion to the hedgehog-like character of his hair. Kathy’s interview is wide-ranging, covering Peter’s childhood, his schooling, his young Jesuit life, and his passion for the work with homeless youngsters which he has been doing since he took a Corporation flat in Summerhill in 1974. Read the full text below.  Read more »

Losing John Dunne

In the consciousness of Irish Jesuits, the dominant mood this Epiphany is of loss. It is just a week since we buried John Dunne, who had been Socius (companion, secretary, counsellor, support) to the last two Provincials, a cheerful, competent, selfless presence at the heart of the administration. Conscious of his terminal state with galloping cancer, he worked until he dropped, a good model of Winnicott’s prayer: ‘May I be alive when I die’. He had served Galway, Gonzaga, Eglinton Road and Sandford Road as superior; and the Institute of Guidance Counsellors as their president for many years. A crowd of friends, from all the chapters of his life, packed Gonzaga chapel to overflowing in a memorable funeral Mass, and responded warmly to Brian Grogan’s affectionate homily. It was a good send-off, one which John would relish. But the loss is heavy, most of all for his sister Anne. Read more »