By Sarah Mac Donald - 17 July, 2014
A commemorative tile is to be erected in St Mary’s Church Staghall in Drumlane as a permanent reminder of Kilmore diocese’s Triduum for the Year of the Holy Name of Jesus.
The diocesan Triduum of prayer last weekend was organised by the Kilmore Diocesan Pastoral Centre.
People from across the four deaneries of the diocese as well as adjoining dioceses came to St Mary’s to hear guest preacher, Fr Liam McCarthy OFM, from the Franciscan Community in Galway preach.
He gave talks from Friday to Sunday.
Bishop Leo O’Reilly of Kilmore was the principal celebrant of Sunday morning’s Mass assisted by Fr Liam McCarthy and Fr Gerry Comiskey with Fr Enda Murphy and Seán Coll as Masters of Ceremonies.
Bishop O’Reilly described the name of Jesus as powerful because “by invoking it we invoke the presence and the power of Jesus, the Risen Lord.”
“The apostles invoked his name to heal the sick. St Paul tells us that, ‘at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord’.”
“There is an extraordinary paradox in our culture here in Ireland”, he said.
Most Rev Bishop Leo O’Reilly erected a plaque to commemorate the Year of the Holy Name of Jesus at Staghall Church. Photo: Lorraine Teevan
“On the one hand there is great devotion to the name of Jesus, great faith in the power of his name and great reverence for it in our prayers and liturgies. But side by side with that, there is an extraordinary level of misuse and abuse of the name of Jesus.”
“His name is often used thoughtlessly and carelessly to express frustration, anger or impatience, but more often nowadays, I think, deliberately and blasphemously”.
He concluded by saying that part of the prayer over the three days was “atonement for the abuse of the name of Jesus and repentance for our own misuse of it”.
At the end of Mass, Bishop O’Reilly blessed a commemorative Holy Name tile which will be erected in St Mary’s Church.
He also blessed tiles which people had obtained for their own personal use during the Triduum.
