Eaglais na hÉireann – The Church of Ireland
Diocese of Cork, Cloyne & Ross
MALLOW UNION
of Parishes
Sunday 11th April 2021
The Second Sunday of Easter
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
Wednesday 14th April: 10.30am ‘COFFEE BREAK’ for all who would like half an hour of friendship and conversation:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83457039316?pwd=S0VSSklPZzE4V2JFOVBkejd3T2k2QT09
Wednesday 14th April: 8.30pm-9pm COMPLINE (Night Prayer) in the Easter Season: A short evening service to enable us to continue to celebrate the hope of Easter:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81583163646?pwd=dWJHUmZvQVFlT2tRL25KRUQ1cGdqdz09 Meeting ID: 815 8316 3646 Passcode: 286285
Thursday 15th April: 8.00pm ANNUAL GENERAL VESTRY. Please see note by the Vestry secretary below. Do contact Linda Deane if you wish to join the online Annual General Vestry meeting. She will send you the agenda and the zoom link.
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
The Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, Dr Paul Colton, has published his Easter sermon on the Diocesan Youtube channel and it can be viewed here
Scripture Readings for Daily Prayer this week
The Church of Ireland offers these passages of scripture, which can be used at any time of the day, to aid our prayer and reflection as we continue with our Easter celebrations in company with Christians throughout the world.
Monday Psalm 2.1-9; John 3.1-8.
Tuesday Psalm 93; John 3.7-15.
Wednesday Psalm 34.1-8; John 3.16-21.
Thursday Psalm 34.1, 15-end; John 3.31-end
Friday Psalm 27.1-5, 16-17; John 6.1-15
Saturday Psalm 33.1-5, 18-19; John 6.16-21
COLLECT and READINGS for this SUNDAY
COLLECT
Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification: Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Christ & St Thomas by Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-88)
Let me but feel the marks of Jesus’ passion,
Let me but see where nails and spear have passed;
Let it be proved if even God’s compassion
Can break death’s mould and our old lives recast.
Jeremy Davies (b. 1946)
Acts 4. 32-35
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any posses sions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
John 20.1-18
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ But Thomas (who was called the Twin*), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe*that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
THE WISDOM OF
CHRISTIAN TRADITION THROUGH THE AGES for this Sunday
from
Easter Day Sermon 2021 by The Most Reverend Dr Michael Jackson
Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough
What can we… learn from this long–drawn–out chapter of St John’s Gospel [John 20]? The first thing is that it is an internal conversation. The church and the churches are far too keen on internal conversations… The conversation needs to turn outwards. Easter is but part of the total story. Pentecost is the next stage where community and values begin to interact with cultures that are external rather than internal. The second thing is that the church which will emerge from these early encounters will have to find its place and make its way in a world that inevitably makes its own way without the church and has little interest in its internal workings or preoccupations. The lingering memory of a time of triumphant influence, of the days of punching above our weight in our own head, is increasingly unhelp ful both to self–understanding and to missional urgency. Christ is our mission, not us or more of us. So, what are we to do in a time when the coronavirus is here to stay rather than ready to leave?… We cannot but try, through small steps, to do what we can do in our own person and in our own community in a spirit of resurrection now. Care, however understood, however interpreted, is a witness to life. So, surely, is the resurrection, don’t you think?
THE RECTOR’S WEEKLY REFLECTION ON THIS SUNDAY’S GOSPEL
After the loud, triumphant shouts of praise on Easter Day, we have arrived one week later at (what is traditionally called) ‘Low Sunday.’ If our lives were not overshadowed by the pandemic, many of us would probably be away today; and the numbers of people in church would certainly be down. After the trumpet-sounds of Easter Day, we are all entitled to a week off, we tell ourselves. But the season of Easter goes on: in fact, it last for longer than Lent. Easter is fifty days of rejoicing taking us to Ascension Day on the 40th day – and on to Pentecost, which is exactly what it says on the tin, the 50th day!
Easter now invites us to fifty days of rejoicing. The texts of Scripture that we shall encounter over these coming weeks, and the language of our prayers, are all suffused with Easter hope and joy. The Church calls us to make this a time to celebrate and face the future with a spring in our step. But not everyone feels like rejoicing to order. Wall-to-wall cheerfulness can be draining, especially if there are things going on in your life that don’t make it easy to smile or laugh or sing.
Last Sunday, we heard how Easter began for the disciples ‘while it was still dark.’ And today, as we hear the account of Thomas’s doubts, the story begins as darkness is falling and the evening begins. It is dark when Jesus appears to the fearful disciples. But it is also dark when Thomas, astonishingly, manages to miss the events that took place on the evening of the first Easter. He missed the risen Lord’s giving his disciples his peace and the showing of his hands and side. He missed the risen Jesus breathing on them, as he gives the Holy Spirit. Not only was he not with them; but when he was told what had happened, he did not believe it. It was dark and Thomas was waiting for the light so he could see for himself. He was given a second chance, when the disciples gathered in the house once more. Jesus came to them and again he gave them his peace. And then he invited unbelieving Thomas to touch and see and feel for himself. Darkness gives way to the dawning of a new day, a new recognition, a new confidence and trust.
We hear that Gospel, today, as we live in an increasingly individualistic age. Even in Ireland, with its strong sense of family and community bonds, almost anyone under 60 belongs to the ‘me’ generation. There are many of us who see Thomas as a kind of hero. He is the disciple who dared to doubt, the one who needed to see with his own eyes – and in his own way. The experience of his fellow-disciples was
very much second-best for Thomas. But Thomas’s doubts, though they are given an honoured place in the Gospel, are not the last word. Jesus’s final response to Thomas is a blessing on those who have be lieved without seeing, who have trusted because their fellow-believers have trusted.
That’s worth pondering whenever – and wherever – we are prone to believe that this is a ‘me-centred’ world. I am quite clear that that the Church must be a place where individuals can probe, question, de bate and explore. It’s a place where we need to be honest enough – and accommodating enough – to
admit that we don’t know all the answers. It’s a place where we should never dish-up simplistic answers to complex and, sometimes, heart-breaking, questions. And the Church must be a place where no one individual should ever assume that he or she has unfettered access to the truth. We are not a club for lone rangers, who imagine we are cut above, where any of us presumes to know better than anyone else. Rather, we are a community, walking together, learning together, seeking greater understanding in com pany with one another in the here-and now, of course; but also in company with those who have gone before us, down the centuries, and have made it possible for us to be here today. That calls for us to lis ten more attentively, to search more deeply, and to be alert to voices and experience other than our own. Very often, it is these other voices that can be our most effective teachers.
In a world where the advertisers spare no energy in persuading us that their brand is superior, and every thing else is inferior, the story of Thomas in today’s Gospel sounds a note of resistance. If our Christian faith is simply a matter of personal choice and preference, when I will only associate with those who are like me and who think like me, when I am convinced that what I believe is more important than what
the Church believes, a vital part of the Gospel is lost.
‘Reach out your hand’ said Jesus to Thomas, ‘and put it into my side’. Thomas is invited, compelled, to touch the truth of Christ’s wounded body. That wounded and risen body is now you and me – the Church, as the body of Christ, alive and at large in the world. The Gospel never rebukes us for our unbelief; but it challenges any preference to stay away from the body of Christ and exist in our own private bubble. The risen Lord does not condemn Thomas for his unbelief – and will never condemn us for our unbelief. But darkness gives way to light as Christ reveals himself most clearly to Thomas: not when he is alone, but when he is with the others. Thomas may have taken himself away from the gathered body; but Jesus is endlessly patient with him, he comes to him, gives him his peace once more, when he is part of the fragile community of the Church.
Legend has Thomas taking the Gospel to India and millions there now trace their faith back through him. Remember Thomas’s exclamation in the Gospel, ‘My Lord and My God’. That is the authentic cry of faith: a faith we do not invent for ourselves according to our own preferences; but a faith created in us as we encounter the risen Christ in company with one another, as the Church. Every time we read the scriptures together and, when we are able to, celebrate the Eucharist together, we are invited into that living encounter with the risen Lord. No wonder we need a season longer than Lent to take it all in. The journey of Easter has only just begun – and today’s Gospel invites us to make that journey together.
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
∙ Our Annual General Vestry will be held next Thursday, April 15th. It will be held on Zoom beginning at 8.00pm. Please take a moment to read Linda Deane’s message here:
“The Annual General Vestry meeting for Mallow Union will take place via Zoom on Thursday 15th April 2021 at 8.00pm. Those parishioners intending to participate in the AGV should email the secretary at lindadeane@hotmail.com and you will be sent an invitation to the meeting on Zoom and a copy of the Agenda. Copies of the audited accounts will be sent out on the day of the meeting to all attendees. Please let Linda know via email, no later than noon on 15th April the day of the meeting if you will be attending to ensure that the invite, agenda, accounts and any other papers are with you ahead of the meeting. If you are unable to attend you may record your apologies with Linda by email or text (086 8185290). Our apologies for having to hold this meeting online as we appreciate that not everyone has access to Zoom, but hopefully next year we can return to our normal practice.”
∙ An act of worship by Zoom for Wednesday Evenings I hope that, by providing a short act of worship at 8.30 pm on Wednesdays, those who wish to can have some space to reflect and join with others in celebrating the Easter mysteries. Details of the link are on the front page 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 pray for all those known to us who are in need of our prayers.
∙ We give thanks to God for all who have received their vaccination – and pray for those waiting to be called.
∙ We pray, too, for those who are homeless – and all those for whom home is no place of safety.
∙ We commend to God’s mercy all who have recently died, remembering especially Kathleen Deane, along with those we have loved and lost whose anniversary of death occurs at this time of year.