Eaglais na hÉireann – The Church of Ireland
Diocese of Cork, Cloyne & Ross
MALLOW UNION
of Parishes
Sunday 21st March 2021
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
WEEKLY BULLETIN
WELCOME to the Mallow Union weekly newsletter. Please do share this with others, wherever they are and whoever they are, if you think they may be interested in our life as a Christian community. You may want to think of it as a tool for outreach.
THIS WEEK
Sunday’s Gospel reading, with a short reflection on the reading, is also available in video format on the Parish facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Mallow-Union-of-Parishes-153486538476524/
Please find a dedicated time – and space – in your home for a time of worship and reflection each Sunday, either by reading the scriptures and reflection, or watching the video presentation.
For each day of the week, the Church of Ireland lectionary provides readings from Scripture for daily prayer and reflection which can be used at any time of the day.
• Monday 22nd Psalm 23; John 8.1-11
8 pm: In Memoriam – John Coulter
All are welcome to keep the first anniversary of John’s death and to celebrate his life
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81965700449
Meeting ID: 819 6570 0449
• Tuesday 23rd Psalm 102: 1-3, 16-23; John 8.21-30
• 8 pm Select Vestry (open only to members of Select Vestry)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81571044350
Meeting ID: 815 7104 4350 mobile: +35316533898,,81571044350# Ireland
• Wednesday 24th: Macartan, bishop, Clogher diocese circa 505.
Psalm 55; John 8.31-42
• 10.30 am – VIRTUAL COFFEE BREAK by zoom. Please use this link – and invite anyone along you know who may enjoy and appreciate some company. Just drop in with a cup of tea or coffee and bring your unique self to our gathering!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83457039316?pwd=S0VSSklPZzE4V2JFOVBkejd3T2k2QT09 Meeting ID: 834 5703 9316 Passcode: 369698
• 8.00pm – COME and REFLECT: Mark’s Gospel
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85658608356?pwd=Tjh3OW5NaWU2ZlVXU2p4UlFEdjIwdz09 Meeting ID: 856 5860 8356 Passcode: 566106
• Thursday 25th The Annunciation of Our Lord
Psalm 40.5-10; Luke 1.26-38
• Friday 26th Psalm 18.1-6; 10.31-42
• Saturday 27th Psalm 121; John 11.45-57
WHILE SUNDAY WORSHIP AND OTHER EVENTS
TAKE PLACE ONLINE
During this period of Level 5 restrictions, when we cannot safely gather in our churches for worship, our Cathedral church of St Fin Barre in Cork broadcasts a weekly celebration of the Eucharist by Livestream at 11.00am every Sunday. It offers an act of worship in the Cathedral, with music, that enables us to join our prayers to the worshipping life of our wider Church and Diocese. You can access it here
https://corkcathedral.webs.com/
The Church of Ireland also publishes extensive listings of full services being broadcast or taking place online each Sunday. It can be accessed here:
https://www.ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/news/Press/2021/Broadcast-Online-Worship-March 2021.pdf
COLLECT and READINGS for this SUNDAY
COLLECT
Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world: Grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross, we may triumph in the power of his victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Cross as the Tree of Life in the
Basilica of San Clemente Rome
There in God’s garden stands the Tree of wisdom, whose leaves hold forth the healing of the nations. Tree of all knowledge, Tree of all compassion, Tree of all beauty…
See how its branches reach to us in welcome; hear what the voice says, ‘Come to me, ye weary! Give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow. I will give blessing.’
All heaven is singing, ‘Thanks to Christ, whose Passion offers in mercy healing, strength and pardon. Peoples and nations, take it, take it freely!’
Amen! My Master!
From a Hungarian hymn by Pécseli Király Imre (c.1585–c.1641).
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Ju dah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
John 12: 20-33
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Je sus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
THE WISDOM OF
CHRISTIAN TRADITION THROUGH THE AGES for this Sunday
by
Andrew of Crete
(c. 660-740)
We are celebrating the feast of the cross which drove away the darkness and brought in the light. As we keep this feast, we are lifted up with the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin that we may gain the things above. So great and outstanding a possession is the cross that whoever wins it has won a treasure. Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it, and for its sake, the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.
THE RECTOR’S REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
One of the many effects of lockdown has been the restrictions on how far we can travel. In a world of easily available and more affordable air travel, being restricted to no further than 5kms from home feels like a huge deprivation. We had taken long-distance travel for granted. But one feature of tourism – especially tourism to strange and far-away cultures – is that it allows you to fly-in, see what you want to see, return to the comfort of the hotel and the air conditioning, then fly-out again, before returning home to the familiar routine we know so well – and often without much having changed. Sometimes, we may even feel a sense of relief that we’ve left what we saw on our travels safely where it belongs. It’s okay for a fortnight in a nice hotel, we tell ourselves; but we’re not sure we want the daily grind and heat of
life in Mumbai, Mexico City or Malaysia taking over our lives in Mallow or Millstreet and the surrounding areas!
Tourism is nothing new, of course. The author of John’s Gospel tells us, today, that some foreign visitors, some Greeks, have travelled to Jerusalem wanting to see Jesus. Were they, I wonder, like the modern-day tourist, who turns up to have a glimpse of something interesting, before heading back again. Jesus’ response to this seems to be along the lines that ‘There is only one way in which you can really see: and that is when you see Christ lifted up in the pain and the defeat of the cross.’ You can’t simply wander around hoping to glimpse an interesting person. You can’t just be a tourist if you’re really concerned to see Jesus. You have to go where the cross is. That is where the glory of God is revealed.
As our journey through Lent continues apace, as Easter draws ever-closer, Christians all over the world are poised around the mystery of the cross. That is where we will really see Jesus. And once we see him as he is, we can’t just look on with detached interest, go back home, and get on with life in the same old way.
That’s what being a Christian, fundamentally, is all about. We are marked with the cross at our baptism. The cross is firmly impressed into our identity. That is how we see Jesus. But, interestingly, that is how Jesus gets seen by the world. It can be challenging to realise this. It invites us to step outside of the familiar and comforting surroundings of the gathered church community, where most of us know one another and feel content among people we recognise. It challenges us to discover how Jesus gets seen by the world: not on the smooth surface of niceness, or in the quiet purring of a well-regulated institution; or even in our aver agely respectable lives. Rather, we are being invited to explore how Jesus gets seen when we do what he does, when we are lifted up, as he was, in self-giving love; when we look not to ourselves and our own needs; but to our neighbour, to the people who are not in church every Sunday. The church grows wherever the Christian community is looking outwards. If we look only to our own needs, our own agenda, our own bank balance, how can we expect others to let go of their fearful grasping and self-obsession? By involving ourselves, by looking outward into our communities, this is how we can show the world what it means to see Jesus. Now, that could sound like the preacher getting carried away with grand ideas and high ideals. No practical rooting, you might say; and you would be absolutely right. So here’s one simple suggestion.
These coming weeks, which take us to Easter, are vital for us as a Christian community. They are the one opportunity in the year we have to stop all the shallow chatter, the worries and distractions that go with keeping the show on the road, the temptation to believe we have all the answers, and simply look at Jesus lifted up on the cross. As we begin Passiontide 2021, we are invited to step back from the pressures and simply see what the crucified love of God is holding out to us – both as individuals and as church communities. If we can, then there’s a chance that we will allow some time and space for Jesus to look back at us. By simply making that time and space, it also allows others to look at us and get a sense of how Jesus might be seen by others.
What we bring to our worship during Holy Week and Easter is all part of this. We will bring many things. Gratitude and satisfaction, for sure. There will also be the moments that don’t make us feel very much gratitude: those moments where we’ve had to face brick walls and misunderstanding; hurts given and hurts received; and the simple sense that there are times when we feel we’ve been asked the impossible. We bring those hurts and failures, as well as our good moments, and we take them to the one who is lifted up on the cross. And, if we will dare too look up, in thanks, in sorrow, in need of healing, in our willingness to heal, as well as our determination to recognise what is not right among us, that will be the moment we stop being casual tourists. That is the moment when transformation becomes possible, when we become what we are all called to be: friends and followers of Christ.
‘We want to see Jesus’, say the Greeks, the strangers, the outsiders, the ones knocking on the door in the Gospel. And that’s why we must enable them to see him. What we have to say and show is a community of human beings who are, ourselves, wanting to see more of Jesus. This is how we show the world that the one who is lifted up on the cross, is lifted up to draw all people to himself – not just the nice, successful, articulate people; not just the people who are like us, and who are liked by us: but all people.
Perhaps we could offer no better prayer, this Holy Week and Easter, that people will have been drawn to Christ crucified and risen in all that we do, in the good moments, and the bad moments. Because, if they do, there’s a chance that they will have seen our true humanity, and the truth of God’s endless love for all the peoples of the earth.
NEWS ITEMS FOR THIS WEEK
Mallow Union of Parishes
The Church of Ireland
serving people at the ‘Crossroads of Munster’
The Reverend
MEURIG WILLIAMS
Rector of Mallow Union
(022) 21473
mllwyd@aol.com
Please contact the Rector or the churchwardens at any time if you need pastoral support – or know of anyone in our parishes who would appreciate being contacted.
We also have two Diocesan Readers in our parishes whose ministry we value – Avril Gubbins (022 24267) and Emmanuel Adebisi (0868 467464)
Parish Website
www.mallow.cloyne.anglican.org/ Follow us on social media
• Holy Week and Easter: Zoom details of online services for each day, from Palm Sunday to Easter Day, will be available in next week’s bulletin. Please make time to join in with worship during this week when we celebrate the events at the heart of our Christian faith.
• There is a meeting of the Select Vestry next Tuesday, March 23rd. A provisional date for our Annual General Vestry has been set for Thursday, April 15th. Both meetings are via Zoom beginning at 8.00pm sharp
• The Bishop has recorded a video message for all those who are preparing for Confirmation (as well as those who had hoped to be confirmed last year) along with their families and can be found at
• The Bishop has also written a pastoral letter to the Diocese on the first anniversary of lockdown and the suspension of public worship, expressing his thanks and reassuring everyone in the Diocese of his support and prayers. You can read the letter on the Mallow Union Facebook page (see address towards the top of this Bulletin),
FOR YOUR PRAYERS
• Please remember in your prayers all who are isolated and anxious, the sick at home and in hospital (as well as the health service professionals who care for them, along with family and neighbours) and all who are grieving. We give thanks to God for all who have received their vaccination – and pray for those waiting to be called.
• We pray, too, for all who work in broadcasting and the media.
• We commend to God’s mercy all who have recently died, along with those we have loved and lost whose anniversary of death occurs at this time of year, remembering especially John William Coulter.