Sacred Hearts Ireland England Province

Good morning dear friends. Yesterday was an important feast day in our Congregation, associated with the beautiful statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace, which came into our possession in 1806 just six years after we were founded. (Please see a more detailed history in the attachment below.) A custom from that time which still continues to this day, is that our missionaries would be blessed with the statue before beginning their journey. Our Lady Queen of Peace, pray for us.
https://www.olqpmo.org/70

Our Patron: OUR LADY OF PEACE Our Lady of Peace Our Parish Patron July 9 is the feast of Our Lady of Peace The original 500-year old statue of Our Lady of Peace enshrined in the Sacred Hearts Congregation&rsq Read More...

Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart from Sacred Heart Church, Sruleen, Clondalkin, Dublin 22:

https://www.churchservices.tv/sruleen/archive/uploads/6vkQBeX6rgbyK82

Sruleen Parish, Clondalkin, Co Dublin - St John's Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, , Ireland Sruleen Parish, Clondalkin, Co Dublin - Live Streaming - St John's Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, , Ireland

Please keep the newly elected Leadership team of the Ireland-England Delegation of the Congregation in your prayers: (l to r) Frs Vincent Fallon ss.cc.(Vicar,) Michael Ruddy ss.cc.(Coordinator,) Chris McAneny ss.cc. (Councillor.)

Good morning dear friends and happy birthday! One of my favourite features in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome is Bernini’s beautiful Holy Spirit stained glass window, high up on the sanctuary wall. The image of the dove reminding me of Gerard Manley Hopkins closing lines of ‘God’s Grandeur’: “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” Delia Smith the author and TV cook has some inspiring and thought provoking words when speaking of the Holy Spirit when she says: “I believe one of the signs of a life lived in obedience to the word of God is serenity. Serenity in a person is a sure sign of faith built on a rock of trust. And to achieve this we need to build up a relationship of real trust by learning how to trust God in the little everyday circumstances of our lives. If you are a person who tends to worry, why not start right now? Just pray and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind some small anxiety that has been nagging away at you, then simply ask God to deal with it. Every time you feel it is coming back to ni**le you, just say a short prayer: ‘Into your hands, Lord, I commend such and such.’ Then when you see how simply and easily God deals with it, offer thanks and take another step in trust.” Have a great Pentecost - Birthday of the Church. With prayers and good wishes. M
ps also attached a reflection on Pentecost by Fr Derek ss.cc.

https://youtu.be/SCgGdUWKtWE

PENTECOST 2022 In this short reflection I ask how to reconcile COVID, Ukraine and the shooting in Texas with the spirit moving all over the world.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz2tMisI50U

Memorial Mass | Fr. Donal McCarthy, SS.CC. Permission to Stream the music in this service is obtained from One License with license #706207-A, CCLI with license #1760331. All rights reserved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=V9mPAR2oQt4

Spirit Lives: Father Bill Moore, SS.CC. at Square i Gallery, Claremont Created by Square i Gallery in honor of Fr. Bill Moore, SS.CC., Holy Name of Mary Parish, San Dimas, CA.Fr. Bill, as he was known to all, was a celebrated ar...

WE**AM at the bottom of this the linked webpage below. Funeral Mass at 10.30 USA Time which is 3.30 pm England/Ireland

https://www.hathawayfunerals.com/obituary/FatherDavid-Reidsscc

Obituary for Father David Patrick Reid, ss.cc. | Hathaway Funeral Homes Share memories & support the family

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter by Fr Michael Ruddy ss.cc.

Were you ever home alone? Maybe the rest of the family were away. You come downstairs in the morning and you notice the mail, which is usually on the floor under the letterbox is on the hall table. Maybe it’s there from the day before and you hadn’t noticed. As you look out the kitchen window, you notice the wheelie bins have been put out for collection. Maybe a neighbour thought you were away too, and kindly put them out for you. You turn to put on the kettle and see a little whiff of steam coming from the spout and when you touch it, it is still warm. Now you’re beginning to get a little unsettled or maybe scared, so you go to the bottom of the stairs and shout up, just in case the family returned during the night, unexpectedly. ‘Honey!’ ‘Sugar!’ ‘Maple syrup!’ or whatever way you address your beloved, but no reply. Going back into the kitchen, how did you miss your favourite breakfast all laid out for you, the one you only have on Sundays: ‘The full Irish!’ Sausages, bacon, eggs, black AND white pudding, and the soda bread already buttered for your convenience. Well if it wasn’t a member of the family, it was certainly someone who knew your tastes, someone who wanted the best for you.

There’s a similar experience in the post Resurrection appearances of the Risen Lord, where the Disciples do not at first recognise who it is that’s in their presence.

So Mary Magdalene at the tomb, thinks Christ is a gardener until he speaks her name. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus, don’t know who the stranger is that joins them on their journey and explains the scriptures to them, that is until he shares a meal with them and breaks the bread.

The disciples who went fishing, didn’t know who the stranger on the shore who was preparing breakfast for them, until they saw how he divided the bread and fish as he had done in the feeding of the five thousand. And in today’s Gospel, the disciples recognise their Risen Lord in the way he greets them as he has always done: ‘SHALOM - peace be with you,’ and to leave them in no doubt, shows them the wounds in his hands and his side.

It is interesting that the tense of that greeting ‘shalom,’ is imperative, so it’s more than just ‘hiya,’ or ‘hello,’ but Christ is giving us a command: ‘Be at peace.’ Work for peace. Never tire in bringing about peace: peace within yourself, within your family, among your friends and neighbours and with all those you are not on good terms with.

St Seraphim of Sarov, a monk of the orthodox tradition said something really amazing in this regard, when he said: ‘Learn to be at peace, and thousands around you will find salvation.’ Not a few, not hundreds but thousands!

This peace building is not easy - the invasion of Ukraine has shown us that it is so much easier to destroy than to build. Within seconds, one shell can obliterate something that has taken years to build.

Linked to this imperative to work and build peace is as we have seen in the Gospel: ‘Forgiveness,’ and like peace, something that Jesus in his ministry pleaded and prayed for us to take seriously: ‘How often must I forgive my Brother? Seven times? Not seven times but seventy times seven.’ ‘And this is the way your Heavenly Father will deal with you if you do not forgive your Brother from your heart.’ ‘If you come to the altar of God and there discover your brother has something against you - leave your offering and go first and be reconciled with your brother.’

So crucial and so indispensable is forgiveness, that Jesus placed it front and centre of the prayer he taught us in the Our Father, which we cannot pray with honesty and integrity nor receive God’s forgiveness unless we ourselves are prepared to forgive. Likewise, at the Last Supper, at the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus told us that his blood poured out for us, is for the forgiveness of sins in the new and eternal covenant. So again, how can we with any integrity receive his body and blood if we carry unforgiveness in our hearts and if we are unprepared to use the grace of the Eucharist to forgive as we have been forgiven.

This is heavy stuff, isn’t it? These are two ‘biggies’ of our Christian lives and faith: peace-building and forgiveness. This is the heavy lifting required of each and everyone of us who call ourselves Christian. But let’s not become despondent that what Christ asks of us and commands of us is beyond us, because the whole context of the Gospel today is the new life, hope, grace and energy that the Holy Spirit gives us to live this life. For God will never ask us to do anything that he hasn’t already and beforehand given us the grace and the wherewithal to accomplish.

Have you ever felt something was beyond you, but did it anyway? Did you surprise yourself at how you did it? And did such an achievement have something to do with how you called upon the Holy Spirit to help and inspire you? I hope so.

And so we come to the Eucharist today, where all our lives, our struggles, our hopes, our dreams, our sinfulness, our victories, our disappointments, our losses, our desires for ourselves, our loved ones and our world are gathered up and taken up into the heart of God, ‘in Christ,’ through the Holy Spirit. Because all life, our lives, become breathed upon with the peace of Christ which only he can give. The gifts of bread and wine, made by our own hands and which symbolise our whole lives, are breathed on by the Holy Spirit at the Consecration, whose peace that descends into the gifts, become in a mysterious and paradoxical way the grace and gift of peace for our own hearts and Christian lives in the week ahead.

So this week, when we are called upon, challenged to do something difficult in terms of our faith and our Christian lives, remember: God has already given us the grace, strength and peace of this Sacrament to live out our belovedness as sons and daughters of God our Father.

Maybe coming down to breakfast tomorrow morning and seeing certain things in place, will remind us: that the Risen Lord is with us, He has promised never to leave us and goes before us to prepare and assist us in every aspect of our day. All we have to do is acknowledge His presence, and ask Him through the Holy Spirit to be with us.

https://youtu.be/WzGhKscST7Q

Holy Week 2022: Some reflections In this short and final video for Lent we look at Holy Week from the perspective of Jesus, always seeking to understand his life, passion and death in the co...

https://youtu.be/Sg30Sa1JKUg

Lent Reflection 2022: Is that all there is? In this fifth Lenten reflection I try to take into account some of the global issues affecting our world today. Two questions are on the lips of many people...

https://youtu.be/qQIEPb9Ilhk

Lent Reflection 2022: One step at a time In this short Lenten reflection I try to understand how being human is to be wounded which means that all of us are in need of reconciliation and acceptance....

Feast Day of The Good Father - Died 27th March 1837

Father Coudrin never looked on himself as “proprietor” of his community. He saw all too clearly that his work was not his own; one of the names which he used most often to identify it was “the Work of God.” The community’s foundation, growth and development were, for him, the result of the at times miraculous action of divine providence, which showed its love in a thousand ways.

He felt it necessary to integrate himself into the community, without seeking in authority a pretext for placing himself above it. He had a horror of being addressed as “Reverend,” and the only title he would accept was “Father,” because it expressed the relationship of affection and the responsibility he felt toward his brothers.

He exercised his authority with a real sensitivity to persons and he recognized that he had no monopoly on ideas. He recognized the prophetic charism of the Good Mother, once he had carefully put it to the test.

He directed his work as would a good manager, taking care not to waste youthful forces which the Lord had sent him: “Take care of your health!” He stimulated, encouraged and reproved with discernment. Understanding and very tender hearted, he nevertheless knew how to speak the painful truth when necessary. No one could have been less domineering than he and more open to collaboration and dialogue. He often asked advice from the superiors and the brethren.

In this respect, he watched and checked, day by day, the activity of the houses and the conduct of the members: “Bring me up-to-date”; “Be sure to write me.” He was just as concerned with the devotion of souls and the freedom of consciences, as with the health of bodies. He did not confine his concern to his religious but extended it to their families, especially their parents. He recalled constantly the fundamental norms and the need of preserving the spirit of the Congregation.

Often absent from the Mother House, he kept present to all the communities through his letters — short, precise, and illuminating by his heart and above all by his spirit, through which he maintained cohesion and unity in outlook and action.
Because he knew he was God’s steward, he brought to everything a peace of heart, a faith in Providence, a purity of intention and outlook, a naturalness and a simplicity of action along with the vigor of a leader of men. He was a realist, with a realism born of natural dispositions and confidence in God, rooted in the charity of Christ and the conviction that he was doing the “Work of God.”

If there was one thing which Father Coudrin lacked, it was that kind of diplomacy which takes advantage of people and seeks scheming ways to arrive at its goals. He was always very clear and to the point. No one was ever in suspense as to what he thought or what he wanted, and he proposed it with firmness, though leaving each individual his proper responsibility.
During his time in office, which lasted for 37 years, everyone always felt that he was in truth, the “Good Father.”
(The Rule of Life.)

Prayer to the Good Father:
Dear Good Father, on this the anniversary of your return to the One who you always spoke of as ‘The Good God,’ we ask you to intercede for us to Him, in these days of uncertainty, invasion, displacement and fear. You knew what it was like to fear violence and hatred and to be confined for weeks on end, yet you used your time well: reading, praying and Adoring. And during this time, the Good God spoke to your heart and gave you a vision of a new and bright future full of faith, hope and love. Following this time, the Good Lord filled you with new courage to bring His compassion to so many. May we, with the help of your intercession, also use our time well to come into your presence and be still long enough to allow our hearts to be touched by the Lord’s love. Then in the security of this love God has for us, may we bring new faith, hope and love to all we know, especially to those most in need. Amen.

https://youtu.be/xUenF05B8ww

LENT REFLECTION 2022: I’M ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL In this third reflection for Lent I reflect a little bit on what it means to be human and how by ourselves we are unable to create any kind of family or soci...

https://youtu.be/bfsNlU21AXc

LENTEN REFLECTION 2022: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE Taking the lead from Pope Francis’ message for Lent 2022, this short reflection reflects on the need for us to ‘keep on loving’, especially in times when our...

https://youtu.be/F27SUn9qkgE

LENTEN REFLECTION 2022: (1) GIVE PEACE A CHANCE This short Lenten reflections was put together during the onset of the attack on Ukraine by Russian Forces. Pope Francis, pained by what he sees taking place...

Archbishop: We must say no to war, we must say yes to peace and we must pray by Catholic Church on https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/J7JTPkSy3oEjibAQ8

Archbishop: We must say no to war, we must say yes to peace and we must pray The Most Reverend John Wilson spoke passionately to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic community in the UK about the disastrous consequences that war has brought to Ukraine. The Archbishop of Southwark was

A Christian Prayer for Peace in Our Time
�O God, author and giver of peace,�in whose image and likeness each of us has been created�with a human dignity worthy of respect on earth�and destined for eternal glory,�Listen to the cry that rises from every corner of this fragile earth,�from our human family torn by violent conflict:��Give peace in our time, O good and gracious God,�that peace which, as your son Jesus Christ told us�and as we have experienced in these days,�is a peace which the world cannot give.��To world leaders grant the wisdom�to see beyond the boundaries of race, religion, and nation�to that common humanity that makes us all your children�and brothers and sisters to one another.��To those who have taken up arms in anger or revenge�or even in the cause of justice�grant the grace of conversion to the path of peaceful dialogue�and constructive collaboration.��To the innocent who live in the shadow of war and terror,�especially the frightened children,�be a shelter and strength, their haven and hope.��And to those who have already lost their lives�as victims of human cruelty and chemical warfare,�open wide your arms and enfold them all�in the embrace of your compassion, healing, and everlasting life.��Grant this through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord.�Mary, Mother of all and Queen of peace, pray for us.
�- Peter J. Scagnelli

https://clearmems.com/father-kenneth-barnes/

Father Kenneth Barnes – Clearmems Kenneth was born on 6th January 1931 to John Arthur Barnes and Emily Readett in 19 Church Street, Great Harwood, Lancs, England. He was educated at St Hubert’s Infant School, Great Harwood, Lancs, England; Junior School, RAF, Halton, Bucks, England; St Hubert’s Elementary School, Great Harwood, ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEzvYUnYPe8&t=36s

A Prayer of Hope to Saint Brigid This Prayer of Hope to Saint Brigid has been put together to celebrate her Feast Day on February 1st. Saint Brigid has been described as a woman of faith, fe...

IN MEMORIAL
FR. KENNETH BARNES, SSCC RIP (1931-2022)
Ireland-England Province
Called Home to the Lord - Saturday 8th of January 2022
at Ealing Hospital, London, United Kingdom
Kenneth was born on 6th January 1931 to John Arthur Barnes and Emily Readett in 19 Church Street, Great Harwood, Lancs, England. He was educated at St Hubert’s Infant School, Great Harwood, Lancs, England; Junior School, RAF, Halton, Bucks, England; St Hubert’s Elementary School, Great Harwood, Lancs, England; Pro-Theological College, Brasted, Kent, England; Theological College, Lichfield, Staffs, England; and Jaffrey, New Hampshire, USA.
He entered the Novitiate of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in Cootehill on 10th May 1959 and made his First Profession on 11th May 1960 in Sacred Heart Chapel, Tanagh, Cootehill, Co Cavan. He studied at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, USA from 1960-1966 and was Ordained on 19th June 1966 in Immaculate Heart of Mary, Great Missenden, Bucks, England.
APPOINTMENTS
1966—1967 : St Aidan’s, East Acton – Ealing, London, England
1967—1969 : Pound Hill, Crawley, Sussex, England
1969—1986 : Sacred Hearts Convent, Epsom, Surrey, England
1986—2022 : Sacred Hearts Community, Ealing, London, England
Kenneth was predeceased by his brother John and sister-in-law Enid. Ken will be deeply missed by his brother Alan Keith, sister-in-law Sheila and nephews Matthew, Andrew, and Simon, his wide circle of friends, and his Religious Family.”
MICHAEL RUDDY SS.CC.
PROVINCIAL
Ireland-England Province

Please remember in your prayers Fr Ken Barnes ss.cc. (1931-2022) from our Ealing Community, London who died last night in Ealing hospital. Rest in Peace dear Brother. Arrangements and obituary to follow later.

https://youtu.be/EUTk3E2lDnk

The Christmas Story / La Storia del Natale- A Duet: Mary Pierce and Maurizio Marchini (Original) Mary Pierce and Maurizio Marchini share The Story of Christmas through the beautiful blend of their voices. Sending Peace, Love, and Joy to everyone this Chr...

https://youtu.be/pKs5-cXTApM

acb 4 a series of reflections for Advent

https://youtu.be/O35t-iaFkro

Advent 2021: Listening with the heart God is always looking for ways to speak to us. For our part we must try to listen to what God is saying to us through others, through nature, through events...

https://youtu.be/rdeOeQTTWZ0

Holy Name of Mary - Third Sunday in Advent/ Profession of Temporary Vows Holy Name of Mary - Third Sunday in AdventProfession of Temporary Vows - Brother Sepulona, Brother Juan Carlos, Brother Tavite, Brother Marc, Brother Gaberieli

https://youtu.be/R_1r-Xs12eI

acb 3 a series of reflections for Advent