After a week of resting and travel, we are back in the office today. Well…most of us anyway! My Mom was visiting for the week and after spending some time in France with Molly, we went to the west of Ireland for a day and came back Saturday night. Nick went to London and also returned Saturday. After spending a few days in Taizé, Molly came back yesterday. And we’ll be expecting Emily back from the States today!
This morning we jumped right into things with Kennedy Park’s Confirmation choir rehearsal and then an hour of music planning! It’s amazing to see the progress we’ve made with planning music… now our choirs have a good repertoire and we’re more in tune with each other’s tastes and we know what the congregation knows and what used to take us all day now only takes an hour!
We are also planning for a concert with Vocaré, Sue Furlong’s choral ensemble based in Wexford, on April 26th. (http://vocare.ie/) All of the Clonard choirs will be singing a few pieces on their own and we’ll be doing a few pieces with Vocaré as well! More about that later!
Now that the Passion Play, Triduum, and most of our Confirmation retreats are over…our main focus will be the actual liturgies for Confirmation and First Communion, our musical ensembles for the weekend Masses, and getting things sorted for next year. We still have a few more ACE Masses, radio shows, Confirmation retreats, and other odds and ends; but it’s really winding down. And I’m starting to get sentimental.
After being in France for four days, I really missed Ireland. Introducing my Mom to this country and to all the people that make up our community here really made me stop and appreciate this wonderful opportunity we’ve been given. We are so blessed to be working and living here and if I don’t stop writing I might get a bit emotional.
So we hope you are all still enjoying your Easter Season! And hopefully some warmer weather!
God Bless!
