Rector's Letters
Please find below an archive of the Rector's Letters from this and previous months.
JULY Dear Friends, It is a tale of two health projects: one a state of the art pharmaceutical plant, the other a national hospital, awaiting much needed replacement, both adjacent on Pottery Road in Kill Parish. In May of this year Pfizer who operate the pharmaceutical plant announced its closure by 2014, if a new buyer is not found. Up to 210 jobs will go if the plant is closed. Pfizer made the announcement as part of a restructuring of its operations in...
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JUNE Dear Friends, Benamore, Eagle Wood, Glebe Terrace, Kelston, Rockbrook Hall, these are only a sample of the new building developments in Kill Parish. In fact there are up to over a dozen of these developments, some occupied, others awaiting purchasers. They are and will become distinct communities within the Parish. Over the summer months small teams of visitors will set out to make contact with the residents of these developments. The purpos...
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MAY Dear Friends, The Christian faith rises or falls on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If Christ is not risen, then our faith is in vain. At Easter we celebrate the truth and reality of the Resurrection. Christ is indeed risen. Each Sunday, the first day of the week, as we gather for worship, we do so in the presence of the Risen One. May is a month when all of nature seems to rise. The hedgerows are white, green leaves shin...
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APRIL Dear Friends, As we approach Easter, the battle between good and evil rages all over the world. Ireland is no exception. One of the most iconic images of battle was the horrific picture of a naked nine year old girl, napalm burned, crying, arms outstretched, towards the camera. It came from an air raid on a Vietnamese village by the Americans in 1972. The name of the little girl was Phan Thị Kim Phúc. The helicopter commander who organ...
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Dear Friends, One springtime I found myself browsing in a New York book store, when I came across an intriguing book title How The Irish Saved Civilization. The word Irish is seldom coupled with the word civilization, which we associate with the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. According to Thomas Cahill, the author of the book with the intriguing title, the flickering flame of western Christianity survived by clinging to the western seaboard of Ireland. Patrick, whose day we celebra...
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FEBRUARY Dear Friends, February is considered as the first month of Spring in Ireland. Given the winter we have had, Spring will be welcome as the earth renews itself. In the middle of the month Lent begins, a season when the Church is renewed, culminating in the recreation of the Resurrection celebrated on Easter Day. Can I encourage you in a journey of renewal this Lent? There are many ways in which you can be part of this renewal. &...
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JANUARY Dear Friends, A new year, a new decade indeed! It seems only a blink when we were worrying over the Y2K bug, which would halt the world as we knew it and the scramble for 00 car plates, as 2000 came around. Since then much has changed. The decade of decadence gave way to Make and Mend. The Celtic Tiger was hunted to the verge of extinction and Ireland became a global destination, not only for tourists but newcomers to our shores. The P...
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DECEMBER Dear Friends, The lists lengthen in the run up to Christmas; correct addresses, enough cards and stamps, shopping for gifts and food, arrival and departures. December is so often a frenetic month, when it seems that we don’t have a minute to ourselves. Into all of this, we have the birth of Jesus Christ, who is the reason for the season. Where does Jesus come in our Christmas lists? Can I encourage you to bring Jesus into the heart of ou...
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NOVEMBER Dear friends, November is the month of remembrance. It represents the dying of the year and is a time for reflection. Economically the year 2009 has been catastrophic for Ireland, bringing huge dilemmas and damage to many people. Jobs have been lost, salaries seriously reduced, businesses buried and projects put on the shelf. Parish life has been touched by the uncertainty generated by the recession. Nonetheless the Parish this ...
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OCTOBER Dear Friends, Ha Tikvah is Hebrew for “the Hope”. This month we celebrate “the Harvest” in a service of Thanksgiving. At one time Kill was very much a country parish but those days have gone: so why celebrate Harvest? In a sense Harvest represents in a very real way evidence of “the Hope”. This Harvest we want to focus on is Fields of Life, an Irish Christian charity, bringing “the Hope”...
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SEPTEMBER Dear Friends, To be a Christian is to be someone who prays in the name of Jesus. Prayer is not simply a solitary activity; it is also an expression of the community of God’s people. Prayer is at the heart of the community of faith in Kill in Sunday worship. People from the congregation lead the weekly intercessions. In Growing Groups which gather in homes around the Parish, prayer is a central feature of the life of the group. For many ...
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AUGUST 2009 Dear friends, The Irish countryside is verdant in late summer, trees are in full leaf. Stands of beech trees are nature’s cathedrals. Beeches have their ardent admirers. Gilbert White, clergyman and naturalist of the Eighteenth Century thought the beech “the most lovely of all the forest trees, with its smooth bark, its glossy foliage and its graceful pendulous boughs”. In the opening Psalm of the Psalter, Psalm 1...
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JULY Dear Friends, Sixty years ago, this summer, one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published. Twenty-five years have elapsed since the eponymous year. The novel by George Orwell focuses on a repressive totalitarian régime and follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant, whose rebellion against the system leads to his arrest and torture. Since its publicatio...
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JUNE Dear Friends, Spread the word, God is back. The media in general portray evangelical Christians, such as Ned Flanders in the Simpsons, as society’s losers. But in a just published book, God Is Back: How The Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World by John Micklethwait, Editor of the The Economist and Adrian Wooldridge, its Washington correspondent, the authors argue that the battle between faith and modernity is beginning to swing from “God&rsqu...
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MAY Dear Friends, The mid 1800s were turbulent times. Throughout Europe thrones toppled, governments reeled, revolution was in the air. In Ireland the legacy of the Great Famine saw thousands embarking on the emigration ships. They were difficult days. In Co. Antrim a young man came to faith in Jesus Christ. A short time later three of his friends also came to faith. These young men were so moved by God by the plight of Ireland that they ag...
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APRIL Dear Friends, From small acorns grow mighty oaks. Fifty years ago Bertha Marsh planted a small seed which was to grow and become a significant part of Parish life. In the old church hall and school, around a dozen children, including two boys, began the first season the 22nd Company of the Girls’ Brigade. Since those small beginnings, hundreds of girls have passed through the ranks of the Company. On the first week-end in Apri...
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MARCH Dear Friends, In many historic European cities exchanges grew up to trade money, insurance and commodities. The Dublin Stock Exchange is a local example. As cities developed through trade, churches were built at the heart of commercial activity. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was at one time Rector of one such church, St. Nicholas, Durham, in north east England. He wrote a book about the church entitled The Church In...
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FEBRUARY Dear Friends, February 2nd in Punxutawney, United States is “Groundhog Day” when “Phil” the groundhog awakes to predict how long the winter will last. This quirky local event became internationally known in the comic film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray as the hapless reporter covering the story. It will take more than “Phil” to predict when the economic winter, chilling Ireland and e...
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JANUARY Dear Friends, New Year is a time for getting into shape. Diets and exercise regimes rank high in the list of resolutions for this time of the year. So often they are among the first to be abandoned. Churches need to be in shape for the task of mission. Our God is a missionary God, who calls His people into mission, locally and globally. What does mission look like? During the first half of 2009, as a church, we are going to explo...
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FEBRUARY Dear Friends, February 2nd in Punxutawney, United States is “Groundhog Day” when “Phil” the groundhog awakes to predict how long the winter will last. This quirky local event became internationally known in the comic film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray as the hapless reporter covering the story. It will take more than “Phil” to predict when the economic winter, chilling I...
» read more