Scottish Catholic Observer

As a second update from the International Eucharistic Congress 2012 today I would like to share the following thoughts from Cardinal Keith O’Brien as I had missed his input before my last post.

In my last blog I spoke about the Ecumenical Liturgy of the Water and the Word which took place yesterday, Monday. Because of the ecumenical nature of the whole day yesterday there was no Congress Mass for all participants. Cardinal O’Brien therefore went to Mass in the Irish language in the parish of Donnybrook, Dublin. The Mass was concelebrated with Cardinal Sean Brady and some of the priests of the Irish speaking areas of the West of Ireland. The congregation was vast and was full of enthusiasm and the spirit of prayer.

Later yesterday, as already mentioned at the Solemn Liturgy of Water and the Word, the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough presided and was assisted by Bishop Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity and Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk who is the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations and a permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Cardinal O’Brien was much impressed with his sermon on the Holy Eucharist after which the three principal celebrants of the Liturgy blessed Holy Water as a remembrance of baptism and sprinkled the people as a memento of their incorporation into Christ.

In the evening yesterday, Monday, Cardinal O’Brien was taken by Fr Paul Coyle of Dublin Archdiocese to the Parish of the Miraculous Medal, the Church set aside for the Scottish pilgrims in Clonskeagh, where the cardinal and some Scottish pilgrims were welcomed by parish priest Fr Kevin Bartley (above). The parish had pulled out all stops to welcome their guests and to entertain them with a great concert of traditional Irish music while at the same time illustrating a musical history of the Church in Ireland. The story of the Mass Rocks in Dublin area during the Penal times was narrated and accompanied by music on the harp and traditional Irish instruments. At the end of the concert the cardinal was presented with a book written by the parish priest—who is an accomplished historian—telling the story of the ‘Penal Places, Peoples and Mass Rocks in the Archdiocese of Dublin’.

At the reception afterwards, Cardinal O’Brien met a fellow Archbishop, Archbishop Adrian Smith from the Solomon Islands. The cardinal and the archbishop had received the pallium from Pope John Paul II in Rome 27 years previously, in June 1985. He was at the Dublin Congress together with his Auxiliary Bishop John Doaninoel.

Immediately the cardinal noticed in the packed Hall after the concert two rows of the Little Sisters of the Poor from Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh. They were coming back and forth in relays from Scotland to Ireland so that they could all experience something of the Eucharistic Congress, though obviously because of their work with the elderly they could not all by in Dublin at the one time! In Cardinal O’Brien’s words ‘the Parish of the Miraculous Medal couldn’t be thanked enough for the hospitality given to Scottish pilgrims; it was wonderful.’

— Auxiliary Bishop Stephen Robson is the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland’s national delegate for the 50th International Eucharistic Congress. He was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh on June 9 2012 before heading to IEC 2012.