(Permission given to use the above photo)
Janet M Twomey sent us this report:
We recently hosted the ECI candle in The Church of our Lady and St John in Carrigaline, Cork as our way of marking the 10th Anniversary of Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment. It was a joyous occasion at the beginning of Mass when Fr James McSweeney* invited Sofia Petry dos Santos, aged 8, to the altar to light the candle with her mum, Aline. Fr James brought freshly-grown produce to Mass to show how simple it is to grow our own vegetables at home. A seeds basket that we put at the back of the church by Fran Deasy one of our care of creation group members. All seeds disappeared in a jiffy!
With the kind grant we received from ECI, we distributed brochures at all Masses on ‘Growing your own food is yummy’. Not a brochure remained by lunch time on Sunday, a great success.
We prayed for the soul of Pope Francis and the legacy he has left us all to commit ourselves more to caring for the Earth with the skills and talents with which he has endowed each one of us. A Prayer for our Earth was read after Communion.
‘I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a pebble across the water that can create many ripples’ – St Mother Teresa of Calcutta. We’ll continue to create ripples in the Parish of Carrigaline as best we can.
*Fr James often writes beautiful reflections on creation and nature. They are easy to access for everyone on 2u.ie.
A recording of the Mass can be seen here
A lovely photo in the local paper of Fr James and Sofia lighting the candle:
