As you celebrate the feast today, I would like to draw your attention to a project that is continuing the legacy of St Patrick in our land. As you know secularism is growing in Ireland and the faith is struggling. But despite all the bad news you hear, there are shoots of a new springtime for the Gospel in Ireland, and St Patrick is nurturing, once again, new means of evangelising the people and land of Ireland.
One of these new shoots is the foundation of a new Order in Ireland, in our diocese of Meath. Many of you will know of Dom Mark Kirby and his new Benedictine Order of Perpetual Adoration. Based at Silverstream, near Stamullen in County Meath, he and his young monks are planting a precious seed that will, we pray, grow into a great tree for years and centuries to come. There are a number of young men who have applied to join the Order and Dom Mark is anxious to receive them into a programme of discernment. Given the number of those interested, a strong, young community would not be long in forming.
However, as always, money is scarce, and the monks are in need of financial help not only to buy and restore the priory, but also to meet the day to day bills of the community. Things are very tight at the moment. I would now like to appeal to readers and to all who come across this post to consider sending a donation to this new Order, as much as you can afford. To do so will help not only the foundation of a new Order in the Church, but will help provide a place of prayer and refuge for those in Ireland who are working for the New Evangelisation and for priests, for whom the new Order has a particular concern. If you have a credit card, or PayPal, you can easily donate at the Priory website here.
If you have been blessed with wealth, I would ask you to consider contacting Dom Mark to discuss making a foundational donation - a sum which would help them buy the priory and restore it. This is a work for the Church Universal in assisting a new Congregation, and also a act of charity towards the Church in Ireland for which this new community of monks will be offering their lives in prayer and reparation.
If you know someone who has been blessed with wealth, I would ask you to approach them and, as above, ask them to contact Dom Mark to help him and his new community.
Thank you for reading this. As a priest here in Ireland, and I speak for many priests here, I see the hand of God in this new Order and their being in our midst - Dom Mark and his monks, few though they are now and many they could be, have brought hope to us after what has been decades of darkness, suffering and scandal. We are doing our best to help financially, but such projects need major benefactors, as the history of the foundation of monasteries, Orders and congregations show us. Please help: whatever you can give, please give. Donations can be send to the monks through their website here.
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