Sunday December 3rd, 2023 – 1st Sunday of Advent 

Parish Contact Details:

Parish Office: 2196740

Parish Centre: 2680041

Parish Adm. Fr. Paul Kenny

Parish Email Address:

milltownparishcentre@gmail.com

Parish Web Site: www.milltownparish.ie

Registered Charity Number: RCN 20016166

CHY3: 7424

____________________________________________________________________________

 MASS TIMES

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 10am.

Vigil Mass on Saturday – 6pm

Sunday Mass – 10am and 11.30am.

Thursday – Prayer and Communion Service 10am.

 All Masses and Prayer Services in Milltown Parish will be available online.

These can be viewed at:

http://www.mcnmedia.tv/camera/milltown-parish

 ____________________________________________________________________________

 FORTHCOMMING PARISH LITURGIES

 This Friday, December 8th, is the Feast of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mass on this Holy Day of Obligation will be at 10am

————

Christmas Novena Mass Cards will be available in the Parish Pastoral Centre during the coming week. Masses in Milltown from the 16th – 24th December will be offered for the intentions of all those enrolled.

————

 During this Advent Season, people are invited join with a parish group who wonder and pray with the Sunday Readings. This gathering takes place on Tuesday afternoons in the Parish Pastoral centre from3pm – 4.15pm.

————

Please join with us in our “Prayer for Peace” service which continues in our church on Thursday evenings from 3.30pm – 4pm. Until Dec. 14th.

————

Our Carol Service will take place at 3pm on Sun. Dec. 17th. This will be followed by a Mulled Wine & Mince Pie Reception in the Parish Pastoral Centre. Our thanks to the volunteers who have kindly offered to help with this event. (Please note that the Parish Pastoral Centre will be closed on Sunday morning December 17th in order to allow time for the Centre to be prepared for this reception. which will follow the Parish Carol Service.

————

Our FAMILY MASS ON CHRISTMAS Eve will be at 6pm. If you would like your child to participate in the Mass or join a children’s choir, please email Clodagh or Mairead at milltowngathering@gmail.com

____________________________________________________________________________

 Thank you for your donations to the diocesan collections at Masses on last Sunday. The Offertory Collections amounted to €885 and the Share Collections amounted to €545.

____________________________________________________________________________

The annual St. Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal will take place next weekend. This year’s Annual Appeal is focused on providing help to struggling parents who wonder how they will provide a Happy Christmas for their families. Information on how to donate by phone and bank transfer are on our Parish Notice Boards.

____________________________________________________________________________

 Our Posture at Mass: On the tables at the church doors you will find a leaflet which outline the appropriate times during which we stand, sit or kneel during Mass. We show our unity as an assembled people not only by our sung and said responses during Mass, but also externally.

Copies of this leaflet are also available on this website.

 ____________________________________________________________________________

 This Week’s Feast Days

Wednesday 6th: St. Nicholas, bishop

Thursday 7th: St. Ambrose, bishop and doctor of the Church

Friday 8th: The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mass on this Holy Day of Obligation will be at 10am.

___________________________________________________________________________

 MILLTOWN PARISH’S ACTIVE RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION are having their Annual Christmas Dinner in Milltown Golf Club on Saturday December 9th.  If you wish to attend this event please leave your name and telephone number, together with €50 per person booked into the Parish Pastoral Centre.

____________________________________________________________________________

 CHANGE IN THE CLOSING TIME OF CHURCH

 Please note that the church closes at 4.00pm, with the exception of Saturday evening when it is closed after the 6pm Vigil Mass.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 Due to a shortage of volunteers the Parish Pastoral Centre will only be open to the public on weekdays from 10.30am – 11.30am.  Signed Mass cards are available during this time. Organised classes and meeting will continue as arranged. Please contact the Parish office if you are available to help.

____________________________________________________________________________

In November each year when we pray for our dead, churches enrol the names of our relatives and friends who have departed this life on an annual ‘Altar List of the Dead’. There are envelopes available on the tables beside the entrance doors to the church if you wish to complete your Altar List of the Dead and return it to the church.

____________________________________________________________________________

From 2023 our Parish is in a Parish Partnership with Donnybrook, Merrion Road and Booterstown.

Each parish retains its identity, particular sense of community and its financial independence.

However, the Partnership will be a more formal collaborative arrangement and will focus on the development of a Partnership Council with representatives from all four parishes, reviewing Mass scheduling, setting up Funeral Ministries and extending and supporting Lay Ministries in each parish.

Parishioners will be kept informed of progress.

____________________________________________________________________________

Copies of our Child Safeguarding Policy Statement are on display in the Church porches and in the Parish Pastoral Centre.

____________________________________________________________________________

 The Synod on Synodality – Communion, Participation and Mission, opened in Rome on October 4th, representing the next stage in the process of listening and discerning what God wants from us His People in the world of today.

 Copies of the a “Letter of the XV1 Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God” are available at the back of the church and on this Parish Web Site.

 ___________________________________________________________________________

MESSAGE FROM CROSSCARE

You may come in contact with people who experience food poverty through your work.

We help families and individuals with food supplies, and through our caseworkers, with any other issues that have brought them into poverty, for example, the rising cost of living, debt, illness, increasing rents or lack of access to social welfare.

We have food collection and casework centres across Dublin – in Finglas, Ronanstown, Jobstown, Nutgrove, Bonnybrook, Blanchardstown and Dublin 1. We   plan to establish more where needed.

Close to 500 families and individuals, including 300 children, have needed help with food from us since the start of the year, and we know many more need our support. Please share details of this service (below) through your networks so we can reach as many people in need as possible. Email: foodcaseworkservice@crosscare.ie. Phone: 01 8913022.

 _____________________________________________________________________________

 MILLTOWN PARISH ACTIVE RETIREMENT GROUP continues their GENTLE EXERCISE TO MUSIC CLASSES In the Parish Pastoral Centre on Thursday at 11am.

_____________________________________________________________________________

We require additional volunteers to help prepare and serve tea and coffee in the Parish Pastoral Centre on weekday mornings. Please call into the Parish Office if you are available to help.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Quote from Laudato Si

“If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and that includes religion and the language particular to it” (L.S. 63)

Laudato Si (2015) is the second encyclical of Pope Francis. This encyclical has the subtitle “on care for our common home“. It is a worldwide wake up call to help humanity understand the destruction that man is rendering to the environment and his fellow man.

Laudato Si can be downloaded from the laudatosi.va website. Copies of the encyclical are available from Veritas for € 4.99.

_____________________________________________________________________________

BETHANY

 Rathmines & Rathgar Bethany Bereavement Support Service (incl. Milltown & Ranelagh)

December can be a difficult month for those of us who are bereaved.  If you feel the need of a listening ear, please consider availing of our service.  Our December listening session will take place at:

Rathmines Parish Centre (to the left of the church entrance) on the second Wednesday of the month,  13th  December, at 10.30 a.m.

For operational reasons it is no longer practical to offer evening sessions in either Rathmines or Rathgar.  However, we may occasionally be able to facilitate those who wish to avail of our service and cannot make a morning meeting. For further information please phone:

087 2841276 (Siobhán) or 086 3282151 (Marie).

You may also avail of the Bethany service at Clarendon Street church on the first and third Tuesday of the month at 11 a.m.

The Bethany service is confidential, non-judgmental and open to all who have suffered bereavement or other significant loss and who need to speak in a supportive setting.  Our trained listeners are here to help. This is a free service.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Parish are inviting girls and boys, who have received their first Holy Communion, to join our team of Altar Servers.

  Training will be provided for this Ministry. Parents are required to complete an Application Form before their children commence training.

Please contact the Parish Office at 2196740 / 2680041 if you wish to receive an Application

Form for your son or daughter.

 _____________________________________________________________________________

 Milltown Parish has a Vacancy for a Project Worker / Caretaker

Community Employment Ref:  CES: 2220302

 Duties to include:

Routine setting up of facilities for service users.

Reception – Meet and Greet Visitors

Operation of Coffee Dock – Prepare and Serve Refreshments

General Cleaning Duties

Sale of Mass Cards

Light Gardening Duties

Other Ad hoc duties as required.

Eligibility to participate on CE is generally linked to those who are 21 years of age or over and in receipt of an Irish Social Welfare payment for 1 year or more.

For further information please call Milltown Parish Office at 2196740/2680041 or email milltownparishcentre@gmail.com.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 Driver Appeal: For the last 30 years the Mary Aikenhead Day Centre have been providing a Meals on Wheels service to people in our community. They now require additional volunteers to deliver these meals. Drivers are also required to bring clients to and from the Day Centre. If you are available to help please contact the centre at madaycentre@gmail.com or call 2698995.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 BANK ACCOUNT REMINDER

Our accounts in Ulster Bank are now closed.

We would kindly request donors to complete their new Standing Order Forms and return the confirmation slips to the parish.

If you are not already a donor to the Family Offering we would ask you to consider doing so.

Bank Standing Order Forms for donations to the new Family Offering Account are available at the church doors.

_____________________________________________________________________________

 COINS – CHANGE FOR GOOD: Help save children’s lives by donating your non euro coins to this voluntary organisation. They upcycle these coins in order to provide a pediatric MRI scanner that will save lives into the future. For further information please see our notice boards and the koinsforkids website.

__________________________________________________________________________

 For your information: For security reasons we have our CCTV cameras back in action in our parish church.

___________________________________________________________________________

Copies of our Child and Vulnerable Adult Safeguarding Policy Statement are on display in the Church porches and in the Parish Pastoral Centre.

_____________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in starting a Rosary/Divine Mercy Group in the parish please contact Mary at 0872959518

___________________________________________________________________________

The Legion of Mary has resumed its meetings in Bird Avenue Church, Clonskeagh.    They meet in St. Joseph’s Oratory every Wednesday at 7.30p.m.   New members and visitors are always welcome.  For further information please contact Una 087 2253845.

_______________________________________________________________________

The Dodder Action is an umbrella group of volunteers who want to maximise the potential of the River Dodder as an amenity for the people of Dublin.

They organise working groups to regularly go out and clean the river banks with equipment from Dublin City Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and Dublin South County Council.

More information on this group can be found on the Dodder Action website.

___________________________________________________________________________

 Home from Home Dodder Area Community Sponsorship Group

Community Sponsorship for refugee resettlement: Can you help?

Community Sponsorship is an alternative model to state-led resettlement under which local groups of volunteer’s source accommodation for a family and provide a ready-made network of support and friendship when the families come to Ireland.

Outcomes for both resettled families, sponsors and local communities have been demonstrated time and again to be extremely positive.

A local Community Sponsorship group was formed in this area in late 2021 and we hope to welcome a family during 2022.

To do this we need to find accommodation and raise sufficient funds to provide the required support over a two-year period.

Please consider how you might be able to help.

For more information or to donate, see https://www.homefromhomedodder.com/

___________________________________________________________________________

Diocesan Synodal Pathway Prayer

We stand before You, Holy Spirit, as we gather together in Your name.

With You alone to guide us, make Yourself at home in our hearts;

Teach us the way we must go and how we are to pursue it.

We are weak and sinful; do not let us promote disorder.

Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path nor partiality influence our actions.

Let us find in You our unity so that we may journey together to eternal life and not stray from the way of truth and what is right.

All this we ask of You, who are at work in every place and time, in the communion of the Father and the Son, forever and ever.

Amen

___________________________________________________________________________

Archbishop Dermot Farrell has published a Pastoral Letter on Climate Crisis – ‘The Cry of the Earth – The Cry of the Poor’. Hard copies of this publication are available for sale on the Parish Book Stand. On line copies are on the Diocesan website.  Archbishop Farrell’s introduction to this Pastoral Letter is available on this website.

Remarks by Archbishop Dermot Farrell at the launch of the Pastoral Letter, are available on our Parish Website.

 A Prayer for Our Earth

All powerful God,
you are present in the universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with your peace, so that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned
and forgotten of this earth,
so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty,
not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle,
for justice, love and peace.

A Prayer for Our Earth was published in Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’.

___________________________________________________________________________

 Prayer for Spiritual Communion

 My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament.

I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul.

Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally,

Come to me Lord, come at least spiritually into my heart,

and unite my soul completely to You.

Never let me be separated from You.

 Amen.

___________________________________________________________________________

Glenstal Abbey – Stations of the Cross

There is a recording of the Stations of the Cross available on the Glenstall Abbey website. You can access these Stations of the Cross on the video section of the Glenstall Abbey Website https://www.glenstal.com/abbey

 ___________________________________________________________________________

Support Services

 TOWARDS HEALING is a support service, funded by the Catholic Church for Survivors of Institutional, Clerical and Religious abuse. This service provides Helpline Support and Counselling.

The Freephone number is 1800 303 416 and the website address is: www.towardshealing.ie

 ALONE manage a national support line and additional supports for older people who have concerns or are facing difficulties relating to COVID-19.

Professional staff are available to answer queries and give advice and reassurance where necessary.

The support line is open seven days a week, 8am – 8pm, by calling 0818 222 024

Generation Tech

Generation Tech is a free service and is run by volunteers. Volunteer run FREE HELPLINE to help older people in Ireland with tech issues.

Our volunteers are tech experts and work in shifts from 8am-8pm Monday to Friday. Support is provided over the phone.

If you need help with smartphones, tablets, social media, apps, PCs, printers, etc. CALL US on: 01-9633 288. 

 Aware – Support & Self Care Groups

If you, or those with whom you work wish to connect with people in relation to your mental wellbeing, please consider using the Phone In and Zoom Support & Self Care Groups, the Support Line or Support Mail, now and throughout the holiday season. These services provide support, coping skills and information – and most importantly help people who are in distress to know and feel that they are not alone in their experience.  For more information about the groups https://www.aware.ie/support/support-groups/ and all of our services on www.aware.ie

Rathmines & Rathgar Bethany Bereavement Support Service (Including Milltown & Ranelagh) Offer a monthly listening sessions for those of you who have suffered a bereavement or another significant loss.  For further information on this free service please contact: 087 2841276 (Siobhán) or 086 3602198 (Anne).

Individual meetings can be arranged at Milltown. Please phone 087 2243787 if you require this service.

 The Irish Hospice Foundation Bereavement Support Line is 1800 80 70 77 and is open from 10am – 1pm from Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays). If the line is busy when you call, they can call you back if you leave your contact details.

The Mary Aikenhead Centre in Donnybrook operate a ‘Meals on Wheels Service’ for our area. This service provides a healthy meal delivered direct to elderly and housebound person’s homes five days a week Monday to Friday. If you are an elderly person from this area and would like to avail of this service, please contact the Centre at 01 2698995.

___________________________________________________________________________