Margo Delaney sent us this update:
For this period in our Care for the Earth Ministry we focused on the areas outlined in the Eco-Congregation Ireland document – practical, community, spiritual and global.
Three key sentences from Lorna Gold’s input to the assembly at the Dublin Diocesan gathering of parishes on Friday, November 17th guide the drawing up of this report
“I can’t do much.
But what I do matters.
What we do together matters.”
PRACTICAL
This is the season of falling leaves. Despite their beauty, the large leaves from the Virginia creeper that create such delightful array of colour from early spring to late autumn on the walls of our church, were beginning to pose a hazard and an eyesore. A group of willing parishioners came together to collect the leaves, and Dublin City Council kindly took the bags away.
We reserved some of the most decayed leaves, rich in worms, to enrich the soil in our flowerpots and gardens. It was particularly valuable to have this free, natural compost for the planting of this tree, donated to the church grounds by one of our parishioners. The tree, known as a corkscrew willow, because of its twisted branches, symbolises the convoluted negotiations that will take place at the UN Conference, November 30th to December 12th. We have named it COP 28 TREE ! The tiny catkins, that already bedeck some of the twisted branches, are sign a hope, announcing nature’s amazing resilience in a time of harsh frosts. However, they are also a sign of concern for their early flowering prove inexorable increase in global warming.
In the week leading up to COP 28, members of the Care for the Earth Group contacted the Minister Eamon Ryan, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communication by email and letter, urging him to make a convincing case for a fair and fast phase out of fossils fuels.
SPIRITUAL
Trained by Marc Brady, the Bonnybrook Youth Group held a memorial ceremony to commemorate precious people, pets and any living thing that they loved and had lost. It was heartening that they recognised as a loss the disappearance of living creatures from our natural world as they sang “Beautiful Things“ by Gougon. The poster below, designed by the group, was used as an invitation to the service on November 27th, held in our church.
COP 28: For the duration of COP 28, special prayers are being offered each day that world leaders may be inspired by Pope Francis’s conviction that “everything is interconnected and genuine care for our own lives and our relationship with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others. All it takes is for one good person to restore hope”
Bonnybrook Parish Eco Aware page is updated to give information on COP 28, including references to relevant websites for further information.
GLOBAL
The sale of over 200 hundred Christmas items donated by one family in the parish and generously supported by the parish community brought in almost two thousand euros. This was sent to St Mary Magdalen School, Riwoto, South Sudan, to be used in developing sustainable projects, of if WFP (World Food Programme) fails to deliver food to the school, to buy sorghum for school meals.
FUTURE PLANS
- With the help of an expert from Dublin City Parks Department, learn the names and number of trees on the church compound.
- Continue to work with the Parish Pastoral Council in progressing the work of St Joseph the Artisan Parish to ensure the parish continues to honour the ECI Care for the Earth Gold Award.
