Glimpses of Ministry - Stillorgan, Co Dublin

Sr Finian welcomes you to Beech Park, Stillorgan! Despite being retired for a good number of years she is still active in a variety of ministries:

She goes to a group in Foxrock - where there are all manner of activities such as sewing, knitting, making vestments and altar linen (all proceeds for people in poorer countries), sharing prayer and companionship. Sr Finian also attends an Active Retirement group in Blackrock - where there are options such as keep fit to music, language lessons and outings.

 

In Blanchardstown, near Dublin, Sr Mary Clancy is a Eucharistic Minister in the parish church and helps with the local Charismatic Prayer Group. This is as well as working in two charity shops and running a small group in St Joseph's Hospital which follows the SPRED (Special Religious Education) programme for adults and children with learning difficulties. She also helps to prepare children with autism for Confirmation.

 

 

Sisters Anne Kelly and Joyce Cullinane work as chaplains in St James' Hospital, Dublin. The Chaplaincy team to which they belong is interdenominational in character and all members are professionally trained for their work. There are also lay volunteers who come from the local community and are trained as Ministers of the Eucharist and of the Word. The team provides a 24 hour on-call service. This ensures that patients and families who need it have support or religious ministry at any time, day or night.

 

 

 

Sr Margaret O'Neill

Sr Margaret O'Neill works as a volunteer in Leopardstown Park Hospital Day Centre with a group of deaf and blind people. She is a voluntary help-line worker in the Alzheimer head office in Dun Laoghaire and does reflexology and therapeutic hand care in Carysford Nursing Home, Dalkey. The work in the nursing home is sponsored and insured by the Irish Red Cross of which Sister is a member.

Sr Margaret writes: "Most of my religious life has been spent working with deaf children in a residential setting. When the school closed ten years ago it was a traumatic time in my life as I was then in my late fifties - too young for the pension and too old to start a new job.

I always had an interest in Holistic Healing so I spent a year in the Irish School of Natural Healing where I got my diploma in Reflexology and Reiki 1 and 2, all of which I really enjoyed. It opened a whole new world for me. At present I am putting it into practice mostly with the elderly in nursing homes. I can also practice Hand Massage which I did with the Irish Red Cross.

To learn and understand more about the world of people with Alzheimer's I did my training as a volunteer for the help-line. I am grateful for this opportunity to help people over the phone, sometimes just by listening.

Last but not least is my first love - deaf people. I am very lucky to be able to spend some time each week with the adult deaf in the Day Centre where I interpret sign language for the hearing people and try to get communication going with the two groups. This can be great fun and very life-giving for us all.

As I look back on the past ten years and the very different apostolates in which I find myself, I feel it is very much in the spirit of our Foundress and I thank God for having directed me here."

Dublin to Brazil and back in 40 years

Working on the Missions had always attracted me, so when the Congregation founded a new Mission in Brazil in 1955 I immediately volunteered so found myself making a long, arduous journey to Parana to work with the poorest of the poor in and around Bocaivuva do Sol. Brazil was not so accessible in those days so our journey was our first taste of how the other half lives; long delays, heat and lack of knowledge of our destination meant we arrived in the early hours of the morning.

Women and children were the focus of our missionary efforts. People lacked the basics of life; food education, medicines and access to just treatment, as well as often having to give birth in dire circumstances. Life in the Bush was always unpredictable, exciting and challenging but for the joy of being present at the birth of new life sustained my hope. What did I find on my return to Ireland 40 years later - a thriving Brazilian community in whose life I hope to share. The wheel has come full circle. Sr Mary Finbar Keenaghan

Also ....

See the account of her vocation by Sr Una Cullen who lives in the Stillorgan community.