Eaglais na hÉireann
The Church of Ireland
MALLOW UNION
of Parishes
Sunday 7th March 2021
The Third Sunday in Lent
WEEKLY BULLETIN
WELCOME to the new Mallow Union weekly newsletter. It builds on the structure and purpose of the Monthly Newsletter which has been an invaluable feature of the parish over many years. This Weekly Bulletin is very much work in progress, but I hope it will provide all the information you need for the coming week, combining the weekly prayers and readings from the Book of Common Prayer, along with a reflection, as well as other news that is important to our life as a Union of parishes. 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 even want to think of this Bulletin as a tool for mission.
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 8th Psalm 43; Luke 4. 24-30
• Tuesday 9th Psalm 25. 1-10; Matthew 18. 21-35
• Wednesday 10th Psalm 147. 13-21; Matthew 5. 17-19
• Wednesday morning at 10.30am – 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
• Wednesday evening at 8.00pm – LENT STUDY GROUP exploring the Gospel according to St Mark. This takes place each Wednesday in Lent. Do feel free to join us when you can – there is no obligation to ‘be there’ every week. Each session is self-contained. You can access the link here
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7550331231?pwd=b0VhVVRPZkdpRVdtSkNsUEVua3FRUT09 Meeting ID: 755 033 1231 Passcode: 1QGTzz
• Thursday 11th Psalm 95; Luke 11. 14-23
• Friday 12th Psalm 18. 6-16; Mark 12. 28-34
• Saturday 13th Psalm 51. 1-2. 17-20; Luke 18. 9-14
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 February-2021.pdf
COLLECT and READINGS for this SUNDAY COLLECT
Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Orthodox Icon of the cleansing of the Temple Lord here thou hast a Temple too, and full as dear as that of Zion; and as full of sin. Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein; enter and chase them forth and cleanse the floor… that they may never more profane that holy place where thou hast chose to set thy face. And then if our stiff tongues shall be mute in the praises of thy deity, the stones out of the Temple wall shall cry aloud.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-67)
Bishop of Down & Connor
Exodus 20.1-17
Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
John 2.13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered
THE WISDOM OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION THROUGH THE AGES for this Sunday
From a Commentary by Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
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Let us acclaim God by singing ‘We belong to you; you have redeemed us.’ All who proclaim this faith are like living stones that are built up into the temple of God… Human beings themselves are the temple where God’s gifts are asked for and received… Those who pray in the temple of God are those who pray in harmony with the Church, in the unity of the body of Christ, which consists of the multitude of believers throughout the whole world. Because they are praying in the temple, that is in harmony with the Church, they gain a hearing for they pray in spirit and in truth… If we wish, God’s voice is our voice; we can listen to its music and sing it in our hearts. But if we refuse, we shall be like the traders in the temple of old, pursuing our own selfish interests.
THE RECTOR’S REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
Just over a week ago, President Michael D Higgins gave an extensive interview to Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times. I was struck by one of his observations about the decades of violence that punctuated the Troubles in the North. On both sides of the conflict, he said, young men from disadvantaged communities, where unemployment was high, opportunity was short, and anger was simmering, had become easy recruits to terrorism and extortion. Today, the recent news reports of increasing numbers of ‘drugs busts’ by the Gárdi in Dublin’s North inner-city, illustrate how disadvantaged communities can still be easy prey to extortion and violence.
It reminds me of an insight I once heard from a specialist in international security. He was commenting on the rise of terrorism in the Middle East. Religious and ethnic conflict alone is not a fundamental cause of global instability, he insisted. In fact, one of the root causes of conflict is economic injustice: the widening gulf between those who have access to education and wealth; and those who do not. To amplify the point, he cited the example of how a rising number of young men in Saudi Arabia, who had increased access to secondary education, found themselves leaving school, with respectable qualifications, just as the price of oil fell sharply in the late 1990s, only to discover they had no jobs to go to. Many of them were angry and were effortlessly recruited into organizations like Al-Qaeda. Had jobs – and the economic prosperity that came with them – been more available, their commitment to the extremist agenda would have probably been less likely.
It’s worth bearing all this in mind when we hear the account of Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the Temple. Near the beginning of John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to erupt out of nowhere, coming into the Temple, upsetting the peace that the authorities worked so hard to maintain, enabling them to retain their grip on power and ensure that the money kept coming in. He is enraged at the extent to which the ordinary people – the poor people – are being ripped off. In the very place where all Jews believed God had made his home, there was an effective extortion racket in full swing.
If you offered a sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem, you had to change your currency. Judea in the first century was under Roman occupation, of course, and the common currency was Roman coinage. It was the ultimate blasphemy to bring a coin bearing the Roman Emperor’s image into Judaism’s holiest place. Roman Emperors claimed to be divine, so you can begin to understand why the currency issued by the Romans would have compromised the holiness of God that the Temple proclaimed. But there is more than enough evidence to suggest that the exchange rate was exorbitant. The moneychangers in the Temple were wringing the last penny from those who could least afford it. So Jesus erupts in anger – and violence. His anger is directed not only against the money traders, but also the temple authorities who allow this abuse of the devout poor. This is a huge public gesture by Jesus and it’s neither prudent nor safe –which is why, after the momentous events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, his disciples remembered what was written in Psalm 69: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’.
When the roots and foundations of faith are side-lined by a desire to generate profit, while disregarding the needs of those trapped in the cycle of poverty, something is basically wrong. Jesus insists that the Temple is the spiritual home of the whole nation, not a club to benefit a small number of individuals who are interested only in themselves. Jesus’s anger boils over at the spectacle of those who observe the laws about how the temple ritual is to be performed, on the one hand; but who conveniently ignore the law which protects the refugee, the widow and the orphan, on the other. Both are ethical demands of the all-holy God of Israel. When one law is flouted in favour of another, the sacredness of the temple is in question.
This Gospel doesn’t make comfortable reading; but it’s good to hear it at this stage of our Lenten journey. It prompts us to ask, ‘what is the point of our churches and what makes them sacred places?’ Are they sacred because they are old; or because things have happened in particular ways for longer than anyone can remember? Are they sacred because we go to them (when it is safe) on Sunday mornings instead of going to the supermarket or the gym? Are they sacred because people want their children baptized; or because people want to be married? Maybe they are.
But might it actually be that churches are sacred place because everyone is welcome and the barriers that divide race and language, and rich and poor, should not even exist in the first place? Could churches be sacred because the word of God takes priority over any political, economic and social ideology? Might they be sacred because we do not align ourselves with those who extort, exploit, bully and control others? Are they sacred because those who gather in them, week after week, are open to be changed by the redeeming love of God; where worship of God invites us to move on from what we are, to become the people God is calling us to be?
This morning’s Gospel invites us to recognize that, if ever our churches, wherever they are, become associated with greed, exclusion, and social or economic injustice, they will stop being sacred places. Churches, like the Temple in Jerusalem, can become materially associated with values, actions and attitudes that undermine the very core of the Gospel they are built to proclaim.
I began by suggesting that economic injustice poses a threat to peace and cohesion in our world. The Gospel, this morning, speaks of how economic injustice caused Jesus to erupt with violence. May be, as we travel towards the halfway point of our journey through Lent, we need to allow this disturbing image of Jesus to challenge and encourage us. In a world where people are desperately seeking lasting peace, and others long for a greater degree of depth in a shallow world, we may be able to offer others what the English poet Philip Larkin called ‘a serious house on serious earth’; and what the Welsh priest and poet R.S. Thomas called ‘a laboratory of the spirit.’
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 the parish whose ministry we value – Avril Gubbins and Emmanuel Adebisi.
Parish Website
www.mallow.cloyne.anglican.org/ Follow us on social media
The Select Vestry met virtually on Thursday February 25th. Here are some notes of the meeting, kindly prepared for us by Diana Buckley:
• The Parish Register of Vestrypersons was updated. • The 2020 accounts are about to be audited. The Treasurer was thanked for her work.
• The Rectory will be painted this year and mowing of Rectory lawn will be attended to, either by the Rector himself or through Council scheme.
• St James Mallow – work on tower and vestry to commence after Easter, when restrictions are eased.
• St Mary’s Castletownroche – Some minor roof repairs have happened and oil for heating has been delivered.
• St Mary’s Doneraile – water in the car park has been sorted. • The Safeguarding Trust have completed diocesan audit and will sign off on the parish Child Safeguarding Statement shortly
• The annual Health and Safety Statement has been completed. • It was agreed to send 500euros to the Bishop of Cork’s Pastoral Care Fund.
• The Rector shared draft details of services for Holy Week and Easter which would all be held by Zoom. An online event/service would be organised as a focus for younger people in the parish.
• Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 23rd. • A provisional date for our Annual General Vestry: Thursday, April 15th. Both meetings at 2000
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), all who are grieving. We pray, too, for all who serve our country and communities as members of An Garda Síochána.
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. In particular, we extend our sympathy to David and Linda Deane and family on the death of David’s first cousin, George Deane of Carrigaline.