Mission in Dublin

Just before we were to leave for two weeks of mission in Dublin, I spoke with the person in charge of the Emmanuel Community in Ireland (Linda). We both said, "What were we thinking?!? Planning two parish missions in a row!" Anyway, we did it and we survived.

We left for Dublin on Saturday 2nd June and went straight to the parish of St Martin de Porres in the suburb of Tallaght. We each stayed with local families and were given a very warm welcome. We stayed for one week during which time we spoke with the people on the streets, in schools, in the shops, at home, in the church, and of course in the pub. Most of the time it was cold and rainy but we had two good 'summery' days.

 Obviously the schedule was very gruelling for the ESM students

A condition of us doing two missions in a row was that we have a day off in between. A coach took us to Glendalough which is about an hour and a half out of Dublin. It rained all day but that didn't spoil our fun. We were happy to be out in nature and to be able to run and play like kids. It was so much fun.

Some dear little dear

After one week in Tallaght we moved to the city centre for a parish mission at St Andrews in Westland Row. This was our main reason for coming to Dublin. The priest who was in charge of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress had requested that we come. We had been planning this for a couple of years. It was a wonderful to be on mission during an event like the Congress. After so much bad publicity for the Church (due to the scandals of some bad individuals) the people of Ireland were able to see the Church in a new light - young, vibrant, healthy, good, true, beautiful....etc.

We spent a lot of time singing hymns in front of the church and speaking with people. We invited them to come and pray or to merely accept a small gift - a piece of paper with some words from God. On the most part, it was very well received.

Street evangelisation

We were kept very busy during the week. Apart from attending some of the Congress, we visited schools, shopping centres, and organised events in the church. We also bumped into some old friends..

 Fr Fred and Hele

 Fr Aurelio (in the Eucharistic Procession)

My Kev, Hele and Kevin McNena (who did the ESM with me ten years ago) 

The ESM students stayed in a nearby youth hostel. The Team stayed in a distant hotel. It was great popping into the bar dwonstairs on some nights. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was karaoke night one night. Kev, Fr Benoit and Eliane blessed us with their musical abilities!

We got to speak to lots of people who were also staying at the hotel. I spoke with a lovely couple who had experienced a lot of suffering in their lives. We prayed for them together (while Kev was organising his first song).

Kev and Fr Benoit singing 'Morning Has Broken' 

 Eliane, Theresa, Fr Benoit, Hele and Kev

We all went to the Closing Mass of the Congress on the last day. The numbers for the Opening Mass were a little disappointing (12 000 people). There were 78 000 at the Closing Mass. It was amazing. Before the Mass started there was some music. I was so happy to hear 'The Priests' sing. They are great. After the Mass there was a screening of a speech from the Holy Father. It received a standing ovation.

 Cris, Anna, Kev and Hele (wearing our beautiful Congress volunteer t-shirts)

 Members of the Emmanuel Community in Ireland

After the Closing Mass we went back to the parish for dinner and to pack things away. Then a few of us went to the pub to celebrate the fact that we were still standing...by sitting down to drink our guiness.

Anne Schneibers, Hele, Kev (and Anne's friend)

We went back to Rome on Monday 18th June - the school year is coming to an end........

Catch up time

I will do a short blog post to summarise the events of May...

We spent a lovely afternoon catching up with some quality Aussies. We saw Fr Withoos, and Matt and Julie MacDonald and their five gorgeous kids.  When the kids told us that we would be having three gelati, I thought they meant that we would have three flavours. But it was actually gelati from three of the best places in Rome. It was in fact, a gelati crawl. Kev and I didn't have the endurance of the others, and only made it to two of the places.

Gelateria della Palma

Giolitti

The following weekend, Kev and I were invited to a surprise party for Cardinal Pell to celebrate 25 years as a bishop.  The party took place on the rooftop of Domus Australia. It was a lovely evening.

The cardinal was genuinely suprised to see us all there. Kev and I were also surprised to see that we were the only laity - and I was the only woman. Luckily I was wearing a black dress with a white scarf so I fit right in. Kev on the other hand, was wearing a blue jumper and shirt - he was soooo out of place. I was embarrassed for him!

We had a 'simple' BBQ (as simple as you can have at such a fancy-shmancy place). Kev struggled with the tomato sauce and sprayed it all over my dress and the floor.  Overall, our presence was very discreet.

Cardinal Pell with his tiramisu cake

Fr Withoos and Kev

The following weekend we caught up with Fr Robbie who was my parish priest in Sydney. He has been in Rome for longer than us, but we had never managed to catch up. So we went to his place (one of the American residences) for Mass and a lovely lunch.

Later in the week, Cardinal Pell came to the ESM for dinner. He has often done this in past years. After dinner we moved to the lounge area and had a Question and Answer session with the Cardinal. The students were able to ask him any questions they liked.  It was a really great evening.

It was a good month for Aussie -catch-ups!

Quick trip to Aus

Okay so this is few weeks late, but better late than never! On Tuesday April 24 I (Kev) jumped on a late night Emirates flight from Roma to Sydney so that I could go to the wedding of my bro Danny and el amor de su vida Laura. Things are always busy at the ESM, so I could only take a few days off, meaning that the whole trip would take  five days. I landed in Sydney sometime on Thursday morning and took the ridiculously expensive Airport train to Leumeah where I was met by dad. Within two hours I was on Campbelltown Golf Course playing with two of my brother in laws, Pete and Kev. While it wasn't the most impressive of rounds of golf, it was certainly a great way to spend the day and a good way to try and trick my body into staying awake till night time. I made it to dinner okay, but flaked out even before dessert was served. Overall not a bad effort as I had had maybe four hours of broken sleep over perhaps forty five hours!

Friday 26th was the big day and all went great. It was good to meet Laura for only the second time and to meet some of her Columbian family. I was able to catch up with a whole bunch of family and friends all in one day, which is pretty good. The wedding went off without a hitch, with only little Harry, aka Frodo, the ring-bearer having a whinge. It was an early reception at the Catholic Club and the effects of sleep deprivation and jetlag meant I was unable to take full advantage of the free booze that was on offer...quite a disappointment.

Danny and Laura

Saturday was a lazy day, with a trip into Campbelltown being the feature ... while it isn't Rome, it does have the benefit of some wonderful things like, footpaths, grass, trees, traffic lights, clean air, shops that sell things you actually need, manners (did I say that?), and most importantly the Harlequins Rugby Club! I stopped off and watched some rugby there for an hour or two and I must say I was tempted to start playing again. Some of the boys running around had far more gray hair than me, and most of them looked like they had be grazing in some pretty good paddocks... After the footy, I caught up with a mate Tim and then headed home.

That night I caught up with a number of my brothers and sisters, and met my new niece Scarlett for the first time. I then packed bags, said good bye to mum and dad, and some relatives who were at mum and dad's place, and then headed to my sister Annette's place. I stayed there from around midnight till 2am watching rugby on tv and then Pete, her tubby hubby, drove me to the airport. I arrived just before 3am and had to wait 10 minutes for the airport to open. I checked in and waited another hour before security opened, and then jumped on a plane at 6am. I got back to Rome on Sunday night, just in time to see the last part of the Kazakhstan / Latvia cultural evening at the ESM. Needless to say, I was keen to get to bed after travelling 33,000km in five days!

Visitors

Last week we were blessed with the visit of our friends Mary and Keiron. They were popping into Rome for a few days before gallavanting around Ireland. On Monday night we went out for dinner at our favourite local restuarant that guarantees good food, bad wine and bad service at a very reasonable price - it's quite charming.

Then I caught up with them again on Wednesday after attending the audience with the Pope. I hadn't been to one of these audiences in about ten years, so it was a lovely way to spend my morning. I met Mary and Keiron afterwards, and we wandered off in search of a restuarant for lunch. Luckily you never have to go far to find food in Italy. We had some yummy pizzas and (good)wine. It was so good to see them again and to get all the news about Melbourne and the Bookshop.

Keiron, Mary and Hele

I am so grateful to them for their visit. Perhaps one day some other 'friends' from the CCB will come and see us!

Time out

After Easter, Kev and I took a short flight on a tiny plane to Rimini which is on the east coast of Italy. We got a ridiculously good deal on a four-star hotel there. Originally we had planned to visit some lovely places in Europe but when the time came, we were just so tired that we decided that we  needed to rest. What better place to do nothing than in Rimini - it's a real dump. But that's ok. We ate, slept, prayed, and watched the final season of 24. (With this chapter of my life closed, I don't know how to go on).

The highlight of our week was breakfast. Each day we had a full buffet which was available until 11:00am. Most days we had cereal, fresh fruit, yoghurt, bacon, eggs, tomato, sausages, cheese, fresh fruit juice and coffee. There was also a sign for pancakes cooked on request. So we requested pancakes. We were the only ones who ever did this - I don't understand why. By about the fourth day, instead of going up to place an order, the waitresses came to us and asked if we wanted pancakes (remember, this was a buffet, not table service). By the fifth day we merely had to nod at them and the pancakes would arrive.

Rimini hasn't managed to escape from the 1980s...I think it's really stuck. Everything is old-fashioned, but not in a recreated way, it just never moved on. This suited me fine. One night we had dinner in a pub and a Simply Red album was playing. It reminded me of my dear friend Daniella who used to listen to them. So it was nice..the first time. By the third lap we were a bit sick of it. The food was good so we went back to the pub for dinner the next night and guess what album was playing. Yep! We asked the waiter if he could change the music. He asked why, knowing that we had been there the night before. We said that five times is enough! So he put on hits of 1985 instead.

After seven days of relaxation, we caught the plane back to Rome and the third millenium.

Easter

Once again, Easter in Rome was beautiful. We usually have a retreat for the Triduum at the Domus and invite others to join us. The location is not ideal though, so this time we went to a retreat centre just out of Rome. There were about 100 people all together.

We started with the Chrism Mass at St Peter's. There were about 2000 priests. This is so encouraging to see so many priests supporting their local bishop - in this case, the Pope.

Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI

After Mass we went to the retreat centre. At night the Triduum began with the Mass of the Last Supper. The Mass finished with a procession of the Blessed Sacrament to an area at the back of the church where we 'watched and prayed' with Christ in prayer. It was so beautiful.

We spent Good Friday back in the city. As usual our students dramatised the Via crucis at St Peter's Square (the ESM is the only group given permission to do this). It was so powerful and moving. Many people gathered around to watch. Here is an article about it printed in Zenit.

Jesus cries out in agony before dying on the Cross

Later we had the service of the Passion of the Cross at the Centro San Lorenzo. We spent most of the day in silence and fasting.

Holy Saturday was pretty quiet in the lead-up to the Easter Vigil. The Mass is really long but very beautiful. There are eight readings before the Gospel. When it came time for the first reading, we sat down and waited for the reader to go up the front. We waited....waited....no one. I started wondering to myself who was supposed to read. Then I had an agonising pang of terror. I was supposed to organise all the readers but simply forgot to do it. Luckily one of out students realised that nothing was happening so he did the first reading. Then Kev and I discretely asked others if they would do the other seven readings while the Mass was going on. Thankfully one of our Team guessed that I also hadn't asked people to write Prayers of the Faithful, so she managed to organise that too.  I was only given one job to do and I stuffed up. Oh well, it turned out ok.

After Mass, we all sang songs of praise with the word 'Alleluia' to our hearts content, after refraining for 6 weeks. Then we had a party. I felt really really old amongst all the young people with so much energy.  It was nice to be joined by four of our kids from last year.

Hele, Kev, Paul, Martijn, Maria Ana and Monika

We went to bed at about 2:00am. And got up not long afterwards to get to Mass at St Peter's.

Kev and Hele (photo taken by one of our students. We don't need our chins, I suppose)

Hele and Kev with our students

After Mass we went back to the retreat centre for lunch. Then packed up and returned to St Peter's for a time of singing/praying/evangelising with the WYD Cross.

This was the end of our retreat. We were all pretty tired, but had enough energy to stay up at the Domus and share some drinks and chips until pretty late.

Christ is Risen.....Alleluia!

Palm Sunday

Apart from the liturgy, Palm Sunday in Rome is special for another reason - it is World Youth Day! Usually WYD occurs in a different world city every two or three years. For all other years, WYD is on Palm Sunday in Rome. So this year, Kev and I spent the last four days at a WYD Conference with delegates from 98 different countries. The Conference took place in Rocca di Papa, which is in the hills above the lake at Castel Gandolfo. Kev was helping with all the music for the Conference. We were there from Wednesday until Saturday night. This was all in the lead-up to Palm Sunday.

Once again the ESM was part of the procession at St Peter's for Palm Sunday. We got there nice an early, and entered through the Bronze Door of the Vatican to wait for the procession to start. We were each given a massive palm. So while we all waited, we were constantly poked in the eye and donged on the head with other people's palms. It was fun!

Then we processed out into the Square amid the crowds of people waving palms. We cirlcled around the obelisk while the Pope arrived to pray the opening prayers.

The procession began again, and we walked up toward the basilica to be seated in front of the altar.

Hele & Kev

The Mass was long but so beautiful. Three of our students did readings. Another three of our friends received Holy Communion from the Holy Father (Bernard, Jill Ann and Carly).

Bernard receiving Holy Communion from Pope Benedict XVI

The WYD conference finished with lunch at the Centro San Lorenzo. After this, Kev and I went home....exhausted....with a busy week ahead.