Pew Sheet – 19th March 2023

The Rector writes ‘In my sermon about the Woman at the Well last Sunday, I mentioned a quote from the English writer Dorothy L. Sayers which had been posted by Hilary Dring on Facebook on International Women’s Day. Some of you asked me for a copy of it so I have printed it here in full.

‘Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another.

A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was Completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.”

2nd April Palm Sunday:

9:30am Morning Prayer in St John’s. Palm & Passion Liturgies

11am Morning Prayer in St Mary’s including Palm Procession, with Palm Liturgy in the Rectory Grounds before returning for Passion Liturgy in the church.

3rd April Monday of Holy Week:

10.30am Holy Communion in St Mary’s

4th April Tuesday of Holy Week:

10.30am Holy Communion in St Mary’s

5th April Wednesday of Holy Week:

10.30am Holy Communion in St Mary’s

6th April Maundy Thursday:

12 noon Diocesan Chrism Eucharist in St Factna’s Cathedral, Rosscarbery.

7:30pm Maundy Thursday Eucharist in St Mary’s, including washing of the feet.

9pm until Dawn ‘Night Watch’ / ‘Gethsemane Watch’ , Overnight in St Mary’s Church . Come spend an hour in silence.

7th April Good Friday:

10.30am St John’s – Morning Prayer with Litany

12 noon Stations of the Cross in St Mary’s Graveyard with our sister church of Our Lady & St John

7.30pm St Mary’s – Evening Prayer with Litany

8th April Saturday of Holy Week:

9pm St Mary’s – Easter Vigil Service , confirmation candidates reading the first lesson, Pascal candle lit from outside byre.

9th April Easter Sunday:

9.30am St John’s – Easter Eucharist

11am St Mary’s – Easter Eucharist

There will be a box at the back of St Mary’s Church in the next few weeks for
Easter Egg donations for Cuan Lee , the women & children’s refuge centre in Cork City. Thanks!

The Owenabue Garden and Flower Club, Carrigaline will host “March, a Harvest of Spring Flowers” Floral Demonstration by Ger Crowley AOIFE at our Spring Show on 27th March 2023, includes Horticulture
Competitions for Spring Flowers, at 8pm in St. Mary’s NS, Waterpark,
Carrigaline – all are welcome,
visitors €7.

Random Notes CDXXII

Travelling to Tanzania this week was disrupted by a four hour flight delay from Heathrow to Doha. This meant we missed our connecting flight from Doha to Kilimanjaro and had no choice but to wait for the next flight 24 hours later. So a day in Doha at British Airways’ expense was on the cards. It took us nearly four hours to get out of the airport and to our designated hotel, mainly due to the need to organise visas for all the stranded passengers.

After a few hours’ sleep at the hotel, we decided to head out for some food. My colleague Ali has an extensive family network and a charming young man called Ghassan arrived at our hotel to escort us around Doha for the afternoon. Qatar is one fifth the size of Ireland with a population of 2.9 million. But its capital is spectacular, especially the high-rise suburbs of Corniche, Lusail and Pearl Island. There are lots of modern skyscrapers which are very brightly coloured at night. Some turn into huge animated displays.

After a pleasant Lebanese late lunch in Corniche we went on to Pearl Island for coffee.

There were five of us sitting around chatting as the afternoon went into evening and the sky darkened. The conversation ranged from football to politics, including Palestine, Ireland and the Western Sahara. It was a very pleasant evening. Afterwards we went to Souq Waqif to look at the market stalls and get a plate of a cheese dessert.

One of the topics that came up in conversation was the blockade of Qatar from 2017 to 2021. This did feature in the news at the time but not very prominently. The pretext was alleged terrorist activities by the Qatari government. But the local views, as told to us, was that Qatar’s neighbours, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE were very upset that Qatar did not share the spoils of hosting the 2022 World Cup.

After the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in 2014, there was a huge amount of investment to upgrade the country’s infrastructure and build the required stadiums.

The numerous construction deaths have been well document. Nevertheless, Qatar felt it has spent enough on staging the World Cup to decline offers by its neighbours to host some of the matches. This appears to have triggered a fit of sour grapes where Qatar was blockaded, greatly impeding the passage of people and goods. The 43-month blockade only ended after an intervention by Turkey and a mutual recognition that the focus should be on Iran. While Saudi Arabia and Egypt have reconciled with Qatar, relations with the UAE remain frosty.

Ali and Ghassan explained to me that those large extended families which I mentioned at the start are split across countries where relationships could be better. While international relations are slowly improving, the personal cost was huge and there is still much bitterness expressed on social media. This is especially upsetting in a culture where hospitality, generosity and family are everything, as I witnessed when I saw my companions doing their best to pay for meals and drinks before anyone else noticed!