14 Feb 2025 – Friday of Week 5 (Valentine’s Day) Feast: Ss Cyril and Methodius, Patrons of Europe. Cyril, 826-69 and Methodius, 815-85, were brothers from Thessalonica in Greece. Devised the Cyrillic alphabet for Slavonic translations. (St Valentine details: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=159) 1st Reading: Acts 13:46-49 The missionary courage of the apostles, later emulated by the mission…
13 Feb 2025 – Thursday of Week 5 1st Reading: Genesis 2:18-25 Woman stands equal to man, as they are joined as one flesh The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God…
Presider’s Page for 16 February (Ordinary Time 6) Happy are they who their trust in the Lord: worry will not come their way, their lives will bear fruit. The prophet Jereimah’s words are reflected in the Psalm, as we are invited to trust in the one who never disappoints. Penitential Rite We recall moments when we…
12 Feb 2025 – Wednesday of Week 5 1st Reading: Genesis 2:4-9, 15-17 God creates Adam and sets him in the garden to cultivate it These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant…
11 Feb 2025 – Tuesday of Week 5 World Day of the Sick Optional Memorial: Our Lady of Lourdes, Mary appeared there in 1858 to the fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous – ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’ St Gobnait, lived in Ballyvourney, Cork,…
10 Feb 2025 – Monday of Week 5 Memorial: St Scholastica, virgin, died c 543, sister of St Benedict. PAtron of convulsive children. 1st Reading: Genesis 1:1-19 God creates light, sky, earth and sun, moon and stars, in the act of creation In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth…
09 Feb 2025 – 5th Sunday (C) Trust in God is needed not only by fishermen but by all Christians. We need it more than ever, today (1) Isaiah 6:1-8 Isaiah responds to God’s call with enthusiasm In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty;…
08 Feb 2025 – Saturday of Week 4 Internal Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking Optional Memorials: St Jerome Emiliani, died 1537, founded the Clerks Regular of Somaschi to care for orphans and the poor. Patron saint of orphans. …
07 Feb 2025 – Friday of Week 4 Optional memorial: St Mel (Feast Ardagh & Clonmacnois), died in 488, a Brit who came to Ireland with Patrick, ordained in Ardagh. Gave the religious veil to Brigid. 1st Reading: Hebrews 13:1-8 A call to hospitality, contentment, care of prisoners and the persecuted Let mutual love continue….
06 Feb 2025 – Thursday of Week 4 Memorial: St Paul Miki and Companions, martyred at Nagasaki, Japan in 1597. Six Franciscans, seventeen Franciscan Tertiaries and three Jesuits died suspended on crosses. 1st Reading: Hebrews 12:18-19, 21-24 The sacrificial blood of Jesus opens up a new Covenant You have not come to something that can…
05 Feb 2025 – Wednesday of Week 4 Memorial: St Agatha, martyred in Sicily in the third century. Patron of bell-founders. 1st Reading: Hebrews 12:4-7, 11-15 Trials will come but they yield spiritual fruit In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten…
Presider’s Page for 9 February (Ordinary Time 5) Everyone who believes God’s word is called to pass on the Good News. Like many who have gone before us, including the prophet Isaiah and the apostles Peter and Paul, we may not feel up to the task. But God helps us every day. Penitential Rite We…
04 Feb 2025 – Tuesday of Week 4 1st Reading: Hebrews 12:1-4 Around us a cloud of witnesses, and Jesus himself, to encourage us Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with…
03 Feb 2025 – Monday of Week 4 (Cycle 1) Optional Memorials: St Blaise, died 315, bishop, martyred in Armenia, a physician. Patron of those who suffer disease of the throat. St Ansgar, Frenchman who became AB of Hamburg in ninth century. Apostle of Scandinavia, patron of Denmark. 1st Reading: Hebrews 11:32-40 Great past examples of…
2 February 2025 – The Presentation of Our Lord 1st Reading: Malachi 3:1-4 When God’s Messenger arrives, he will refine the people See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight…
1 February 2025 – Saint Brigid of Kildare 1st Reading: Job 31:16-20; 24-25; 31-32 Job’s generosity towards the needy is reflected in St Brigid’s works of charity I have never withheld anything that the poor desired, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel alone, and the orphan…
31 Jan 2025 – Friday of Week 3 Memorial: St John Bosco, 1815-88, born in Piedmont, founded the Salesians. Patron saint of youth and Catholic publishers. 1st Reading, Hebrews 10:32-39 Do not abandon hope, but trust in God’s promises Remember those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with…
Presider’s Page for 2 February (The Presentation of the Lord – Candlemas) It’s forty days since we celebrated the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Today we remember his Presentation in the Temple. This feast is also called Candlemas; candles are blessed because today Jesus was revealed in the Temple as the light of all peoples….
30 Jan 2025 – Thursday of Week 3 Optional Memorial: St Aidan (Feast, Ferns and Dublin) or Maedoc (Mague),c 550-626, studied in Wales, founded monastery in Ferns. Bl Margaret Ball, imprisoned for teaching Catholicism, harbouring priests and having Mass said in her home. Died in Dublin Castle 1584; and Bl Francis Taylor, born in Swords, Dublin, Mayor…
29 Jan 2025 – Wednesday of Week 3 1st Reading: Hebrews 10:11-18 Jesus offers one sacrifice that sets up a new covenant with God Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a…
