Pew Sheet – 25th February 2024

The Rector writes  ‘I’m writing this while I’m down in Glenstal Abbey (I had to bring my PC down to work on stuff ahead of time which was the main reason for the ‘Retreat’)  It really is such a lovely place.

I have been coming here each year since my pre-ordination retreat in 2005. Well almost every year, there was of course that little Pandemic in between. There is a lovely feeling here of total peace  and to be able to sit and enjoy the

Benedictine Monk’s sung liturgies is a real treat. It’s so nice to just sit in the pew and let the sound wash over me, with nothing to do… although I do pray for you all.  

Here are a couple of photos from today, one of the many walks in the grounds and of the beautifully modern church. By the time you’re reading this I will be back to the grindstone of course! Ah well, all good things come to an end.’

Random Notes CDXLIX

In the late 1970’s and early 80’s, we used to go on family holiday’s to a lovely tiny cottage in Toormore, West Cork.
Every morning, I would be the first up and walk to the shop where Mrs Jermyn would arrive from her kitchen in her apron and serve me with milk in a strange square carton and the Cork Examiner. I would buy a few cheap sweets, probably spaceships with sherbet in them and she would always hand me a few extra! The old fashioned bell on the blue double doors would ding again as you left.  The simplicity of life for those two weeks was just heaven for a young boy, I would be messing around down by the shore for the day, then my mother would shout from the cottage when dinner was ready. Mrs Jermyn also played the organ in the local Church at Altar. 
Behind the cottage, up in the hills, there was a group of hippies living in an isolated encampment of mobile homes and caravans. I didn’t really know what a hippy was then. From the 1960’s and onwards a lot of British, Dutch and German young people who were fleeing an “established” way of life, and
indeed “The Establishment” were drawn to the freedom of West Cork. Their love of growing vegetables, a “make-do-and mend” policy probably inherited from their parents during WW2 as well as the occasional “smoke” all fitted in with the alternative lifestyle that was probably questioned but accepted by the locals. I’ve always felt that the West Cork attitude of not being impressed by fame or fortune is part of the anonymity that foreigners are attracted to. Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack restored Kilcoe Castle overlooking Roaringwater Bay, and the locals just let them get on with their lives. 
Then in the 1980’s, a lot of these people’s children were sent to Rochelle House as boarders and were my classmates in Ashton. Their posh sounding surnames and lovely, warm open attitudes were a pure joy to share and will stay with me forever.  The hippies of West Cork are now an accepted
element of society and their legacy is engrained in life down there.

RCE 

Dates for your Diary

February

26th  Owenabue Garden and Flower Club 8pm St Mary’s School

28th  Online Zoom Lenten Study begins          – Reading the Apocrypha over weeks. 8pm   

March 

1st   Women’s World Day of Prayer 7pm Our Lady and St John’s Parish     Centre. All welcome.

3rd     MU Famine Lunch after 11am Service

6th   Online Zoom Lenten Study  8pm

9th   Whist Evening 8pm Canon McCrea Hall, St Mary’s School

13th  Online Zoom  Lenten Study 8pm

20th  Online Zoom  Lenten Study 8pm

Holy Week & Easter :

24^th  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.

25^th – 27^th  Monday – Wednesday  of Holy Week: 

10.30am Holy Communion in St Mary’s

28^th  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 feet

9pm until Dawn    ‘Night/Gethsemane Watch’ , in St Mary’s Church

29^th  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 – Service of Tennebrae

30^th  Saturday of Holy Week:

9pm St Mary’s – Easter Vigil Service, Pascal candle lit from outside byre.

31^st  Easter Sunday:

9.30am St John’s – Easter Eucharist  11am St Mary’s – Easter Eucharist