ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS THE KELLY NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2017 EDITION VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 MSGR. CHARLES A. KELLY, JR. DIVISION 1 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Upcoming Events NEXT Business Meeting MATT DULLAGHAN at St. Joseph Church on February 9th at 7 PM. Regular Monthly Busi- ness Meetings are held on meeting on February 12. rest of the newsletter for the 2nd Thursday of the We hope to resume our more our committee’s pro- month. No meetings are Irish history highlights and gress and plans for contin- held during July and Au- look for a good audience for ued good sales. them. We will also have gust. important proposals, in- cluding an updated annual Finally, the Church Hill budget and the formal initi- Irish Festival ation of our 2017 officers. (www.churchhillirishfestiva l.com) will be on us before you know it. March 25 is Think ticket sales! We’re less than seven week away. well into the season – by Happy February! We are the time you’re reading blessed with much more this, we will have been to Until we meet again, Sláinte seasonal weather recently, several of the parishes, and mhaith agat! Inside this Issue and I hope many of you will can always use help on the take advantage of it and join remaining dates. Check the us at our next monthly Importance of 2 Prayer Division Activities 2 NOTICE: Annual dues of $40.00 or, if over 75 it’s $20.00, are now payable for 2017. Please mail your check to our Financial Secretary Larry Kelly, Prayer List 2 1711 Bellevue Ave. D1216, Richmond, Va. 23227 Some History 3, 4 Please make checks payable to “AOH Msgr Kelly Div”. 2017 Officers 5 Dues can also be paid at our monthly meetings. A SPECIAL THANKS AGAIN TO ALL THOSE ON THE INVOLVED ON THE KELLY TEAM, GREAT EFFORT PAGE 2 FEBRUARY 2017 EDITION VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 THE KELLY NEWSLETTER DIVISION ACTIVITIES REPORT ANY GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS THAT Upcoming Events: Note: St. Edward’s: 2/19, 2/26? POSSESSES A STRONG March 23: Fourth Thursday, The AOHKelly.org website is Above schedules are sub- LEADERSHIP CADRE Sports Page Bar and Grill, currently down as we transfer ject to change. AND A CLOSE 14245 Midlothian Turnpike the AOH domain host to iP- BONDED MEMBERSHIP ___ ower.com and undertake a IS A WINNING March 26-27: Church Hill site redesign. New posters for Raffle Ticket TEAM. Richmond Irish Festival, 25th ___ sales are here and will be & Main available at the next meeting. Raffle Tickets Parish April 2: St. Patrick’s Dinner, Weekend Schedules: O’Toole’s Restaurant, 4800 Forest Hill Avenue St. John: 2/18, 2/25 St. Joseph’s: 3/4, 3/11, 3/18 ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR PRAYER Personal prayer is important holy God and in communion useful to help us internalize in the promotion of our living with him (cf. CCC, n. 2565). and make our own the liturgi- relationship as children of cal and communal texts and God with our Father who is Personal prayer promotes and rites. If this attention is not goodness itself, with Jesus improves our participation in paid, these prayers for that Christ his Son and our Re- liturgical and community one individual will be in dan- deemer, and with the Holy prayers. If heart and mind are ger of approaching words Spirit our Sanctifier. A life of to be properly engaged in ritually recited, but not com- prayer is the habit of being in these two forms of prayer, ing from the heart. the presence of the thrice- then personal prayer is very PRAYER LIST AND IN MEMORIAM Please notify Brother Mike Kevin Walsh-Heart attack. In Memorium Dougherty to add or change the Past President Mike McGee, prayer or In Memorium list. Andy Jennings—He helped recovering from surgery. get the AOH started in Rich- ___ Dan Harrington’s wife Joyce mond. Mike Dougherty and his wife, and Dan, in remission- Ray Olson’s sister Diana. Also Mike’s brother-in leukemia. Sister-in-law of Marie, Lady -law, James Cramsie. Sonny Dorish-Heart attack Hibernian-St. John’s Paul Kiniry, Recovering from Bob Strutton Division Treasurer Bill Mur- a series of strokes. phy Rick Brennan’s wife God grant them eternal rest Home PAGE 3 FEBRUARY 2017 EDITION VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 THE KELLY NEWSLETTER . process of conversion, she held a cross line. The challenge of this Quatrain over him that she had made of rushes tests the students’ creativity and facili- found on the floor around her. Wom- ty with language. An example: A Bit of History en in Ireland still plait rushes into a cross, as St. Bridgit’s Association With St. Brigid did, and Forgiveness— Fire these women hang their creations in their It confirmed your saintliness On the first day of February, some- kitchens. The St. Brigid’s cross I have, To people needing heroes. where in Ireland, a ewe is born. This is which is pictured above, was plaited by a pleasing sign of spring, as are the days an extraordinary Irish woman, Nancy The world owes you endlessness. which are visibly lengthening. In Ire- Stevens, a woman whose pantry was land, the first day of February is widely always full in spite of her endless giving celebrated at St. Brigid’s Day for to her family, friends, and strangers From “The Irish Cultural Society Writ- Christians, and as Imbolc for present- who crossed her threshold. She was ing Contest”. See “Wild Geese”. day pre-Christians. also the first one up each morning to Brigid is also associated with fire, alt- tend to the fire that was always burn- Anybody feel game? hough this association seems to date ing in her kitchen, a fire that warmed back to the pre-Christian goddess Brig- me on many days and in as many ways. it. There was an inextinguishable fire The story of Brigid resonates with ___ at Brigid’s religious house in Kildare women, which is why I wanted to post which burned for 500 years but pro- her story on the first day of February. duced no ashes. I think most of us can The Holy Wells of Ireland relate to the idea of an inextinguishable In honoring her this day, we honor all by Bridget Haggerty women who have showered us with fire, be it burning in a fireplace or in About 60 years ago, a survey claimed our hearts. But the lingering mystery both tangible and intangible gifts from there were as many as 3,000 holy for me in this story is that men were their pantry, stoked those inextin- wells in Ireland - more than in any not allowed near this certain fire in guishable fires which burn in all wom- other country in the world. Where Kildare. en’s hearts, and taught us to wail like a once a pagan sacrifice may have taken Brigid is also said to have wailed the banshee should a child be taken from place, today a bride might look into first keening in Ireland upon the death us. (Susan O'Dea Boland; WildGeese) the waters for good luck - or a cripple might bathe in them, hoping for a of her son. I was familiar with keening ___ from Irish literature, but I was not cure. aware that the origin of this in Ireland The Gaelic Quatrain was a woman mourning her son’s In Irish myth, wells and springs are death. But this should come as no sur- A Gaelic Quatrain is a four-line verse depicted as originating in the Other- prise that this dreadful sound, a direful using a complex, ancient Gaelic struc- world - that parallel dimension whose moaning chant, would come from the ture. The first line of the verse is three inhabitants have the power to control heart of a woman who has lost her son. syllables; the following three lines are the natural forces of this world. From seven syllables each. The rhyme struc- sources in the Otherworld, water My final story about Brigid rests with ture tasks the poets to rhyme lines one, flows into our world to fill springs or what is known as a St. Brigid’s Cross. two and four, and to cross rhyme gush forth as rivers such as the Boyne The story tells us that St. Brigid con- the third line rhyme with the and Shannon. These bodies of water verted a man on his deathbed. In the third syllable of the fourth (Continued on page 4) Home PAGE 4 FEBRUARY 2017 EDITION VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 THE KELLY NEWSLETTER OTHER St. Patrick’s Day will be here soon! (Continued from page 3) still said to appear in a well's ing and the dead was at its Elements of pre-Christian depths to those seeking omens thinnest point, and often Celtic religion persist in the and others are closely for the future. The fish motif visions of the good people configuration of holy well sites identified with goddesses - may derive from a belief that were seen in sacred places. and the practices that have well goddesses could take the been performed for genera- Bóann and Sionann, for Elements of pre-Christian form of a fish. Also, salmon tions. Surveys of well sites by Celtic religion persist in the example, who are thought were often credited with being researchers such as Walter and configuration of holy well to be bearers of "iomas" - the "light Mary Brenneman indicate that sites and the practices that part of that illumines" - meaning the many sites actually consist of have been performed for the insight and wisdom that comes three elements: the well, generations.