CHURCH OF THE SACRED HEART, BELMULLET Sunday 10.30am, Monday 8.00pm, Tuesday to Friday 9.30am, Saturday Vigil 8.00pm CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES, GLENCASTLE Sunday 12.00 noon, Wednesday and Saturday 10.15am Fr. Michael Reilly P.P. 097-81426 or 086-0847179 Parish Office, Chapel Street, Belmullet, Co. Mayo 097-20777 E-mail [email protected] A new CCTV system has been installed in the Sacred Heart Church, Belmullet and also covering the church grounds. No Masses in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Glencastle Masses will be celebrated in The Sacred Heart Church Belmullet and can be viewed on line on churchtv.ie and click onto Belmullet Please Note that due to Government Restrictions on all Public gatherings Masses are celebrated online only starting on 26th of December in The Sacred Heart Church, Belmullet and can be viewed on our webcam at churchtv.ie and click onto Belmullet. Fr. Michael Reilly wishes you all a very happy and joyful Easter and sincere Thank You to all who helped at the Easter Ceremonies and in the Church in any way. MASS TIMES - BELMULLET Sun Apr 18th 10.30a.m. Tommy Lennon - Month’s Mind -- Bridget Sweeney, Glengad - 1st Anniv -- Sonny Shevlin -- Denny, John, Barbara & Rita Garvin -- Annie & Pat Coyle, Bernadette & Cyril Duignan & Francis Scahill - - Mary & John McAndrew, Carrowmore --Michael McDonnell - 15th Anniv & 80th Birthday Remembrance Wed Apr 21st 10.00a.m. Eddie McAndrew - 100th Birthday Remembrance -- Maura Sheridan -- Tom, Rose & Paddy Murphy & Patrick & Julia Murphy -- Mary &William Barrett Thurs Apr 22nd 10 .00a.m. Paddy & Marcella Shevlane Fri Apr 23rd 10.00a.m. Keiran Gannon & Mary McNamara & Deceased Gannon & Coyle Families -- Annie & Sean Heneghan & Deceased Heneghan Family Sun Apr 25th 10.30a.m. Kathleen Barrett - Month’s Mind -- Jim Kelly -- Maura & Willie Walshe --Edward & Teresa Barrett, Derrycorrib -- Theresa & Kevin McDonnell & Dec McDonnell & McAndrew Families -- Bernadette Lavelle & Dec Lavelle Family RECENTLY DECEASED Please pray soul of Adrian Howard, Glencastle, Mary Maloney nee Barrett, Shanvogroomeen/Solihull, U.K. wife of Pat Maloney & Margaret McArthur U.K. sister of Tess Reilly, Mulhern Crescent Michael Ruddy, Alt/Virginia, USA Brother of Gus Ruddy (Funeral arrangements will be announced later) May they rest in Peace SUPPORT FOR THE PARISH Thank you to parishioners for your generosity to the Priests’ Easter Collection. We are grateful that you are remembering the parish and our priests at this time of year. Thank you GIFT OF LIFE “Life itself is the most precious gift of all. I give thanks to God for this ultimate gift without which nothing else is possible. In these days we are all very aware of the need to protect the life of every child in the womb. However, it is paradoxical, and in some ways the ultimate delusion, to extinguish this most fundamental right of all, the right to life of the innocent child, in the name of personal and civil rights. May the Lord open our eyes to see the image of God in every child at every stage of their lives” Bishop Dermot Farrell. To doubt is part of our faith YOU could say that St Thomas is your patron saint and mine. Because at some point in all of our lives, no matter how strong our faith, we are confronted with the reality of doubt. Doubt is a universal experience. In fact, it’s part of the essence of faith. As a famous theologian once said, absolute certainty is the very opposite of faith. Sooner or later what we believe is confronted with difficult and sometimes expected realities. Believing is easy when all is well but when the storms of life come, it can be difficult to reconcile them with a God of love. Family difficulties, the breakdown of an important relationship, the sudden onset of serious illness, the death of those we love can all place question-marks against what may, up to then, be a confident faith in a God who loves us and cares us. Or we may have prayed for some favour for ourselves or a family member and it is if all we hear are the echoes of our own words reverberating back to us. And suddenly we’re confronted with a God of silence. That’s why a compelling truth about the nature of faith is contained in the following lines: I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining I believe in love, even when I’m alone, I believe in God even when he is silent Just a thought! Don’t get disheartened. Try to strengthen your will more and more. The will has to be fed. You’ve gotta grease it up once in a while. Determination and desire are what will grease up your rusty wheel called ‘the will’. Once your will is in God’s Will you won’t have the problems you had before. Pope Francis Easter Blessings May the Lord bless you this Easter time: Bless you with faith, guard you in doubt; Bless you with hope, uplift you in despair; Bless you with love, keep you from fear; Bless you with peace, calm you in trouble; Bless you with mercy, help you to forgive; Bless you with joy, comfort you in sorrow; So your heart may rejoice in Him who is Risen. Amen. EASTER MESSAGE - FR. MICHAEL “What strange times we live in” have become the opening words to so many conversations over the past year. New terminology has become common place and are almost clichéd by now; “self-isolating”, “social distancing”, “safe-distancing”, “cocooning”, “sanitising”… all reflecting the unprecedented situation we now find ourselves in, not just in Belmullet or Mayo but all over the world. We have literally been confined to barracks, living and working from home, for those for whom that is possible. The importance of community has become so evident, and it is so encouraging and heartening to see the positive effect of the great efforts of so many across Erris and Belmullet. So much of our work and efforts as Church is in creating commnity. Pobal Dé, Teach an Phobail . The Body of Christ, building up a community that not only prays but puts the Christian message into action and radiates the caring presence of Christ in our parishes. Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine . We live in each other’s shadow. Where would we be without the help of neighbours and people around us? This year, more than ever, and in the light of the pain and suffering around us, Easter takes on a whole new significance and meaning as it mirrors where we might be at the present time and lifts us above and beyond that to hope of better times. Despite whatever challenges we have, deep down we are Easter people, we are people of hope, we have an indomitable spirit within us, because we are baptised! As Irish people we have an ingrained toughness, a natural resilience. We survived difficult times down through the centuries, we survived a famine that threatened to wipe us out completely. I know we will pull through this crisis as well, with the help of our faith and the care of each other. By way of a parting message, just three parting words of advice: Stay at home, Stay safe, Look out for each other, especially our elderly and vulnerable neighbours! Keep hopeful, keep the faith and pray to God for an end to the Crisis, soon after Easter! A heartfelt thank you to all who support our Parish so generously and all who help out in anyway. A sincere thank you to Fr. Kevin and Fr. John who help me in the cluster. EASTER HOPE One of the words which we associate most strongly with Easter is “hope”. It is a word that has become a bit debased in the way we use it nowadays. “I hope so” very often means “I would like to think this or that might happen, but I doubt if it will”. Nothing could be further from the victorious and positive nature of our Easter hope. Easter falls at a season of the year that is full of hopefulness. Longer evenings, Spring flowers, birdsong, and the sap rising in the trees. The whole creation (at least in the Northern hemisphere) is bursting with hope and the promise of new life. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead brings that hope to a new level of reality. Far from the resurrection being simply a metaphor that religious people use for natural renewal, as some believe, it is the yearly renewal of the Earth in Spring which is an anticipation of the resurrection; a sign pointing to something greater than itself. A shadow in search of a substance. Transience moving towards permanence. That is how the creator God has imprinted something of Himself into the fabric of the world. He has made if full of intimations of eternity, for instance in beauty and in music which are where many of us find the strongest suggestions of intense joy and infinity. These created things won’t fulfil our yearning for eternal fellowship with God, but they will arouse it, and prepare us to find it unexpectedly, in the servant life and death of Jesus Christ. Even today there are other signs all around us, not this time in nature or in music, but in the human lives which our eyes have been opened to value, often for the first time. It has been a tough year since last Easter, and many people, Christians and others, have found ways of making the best of a bad job by helping one another in ways that we haven’t been used to doing before.