At the House of Brigid, we are really good at keeping ourselves busy. Sometimes this means we are busy fending off spiders or planting hydrangea bushes at the house. Other times it means we are busy being commissioned and hosting retreats at Ballyvaloo—which, funny enough, is exactly what we did this weekend.
At the vigil mass on Saturday evening, we were commissioned by Bishop Dennis for our year of service in Clonard. It was a really beautiful ceremony, and a great way to officially begin our ministry in the parish and the diocese as a whole. The Bishop’s homily touched upon the two-way street of mission work, which served as a great reminder of the spirit of mutual education that our community strives to foster. We really cannot thank the bishop enough for welcoming us so warmly to his diocese, and for his presence on Saturday night.
On Sunday afternoon, our work at the diocesan level began in earnest as we welcomed a group of parish musicians to the John of God Center in Ballyvaloo for a day of prayer and reflection. Carolyn and Jess gave beautiful talks on the role of the music minister and the ways in which effective ministry begins with taking care of yourself. It was evident that both talks were very well received during the fruitful group discussion we had later in the afternoon. All in all, the day was a really big success, and we will look forward to offering more retreats like this in the future.
There was also some important community events this weekend. On Saturday night we watched the not so Fighting Irish take on the Stanford Pine Trees in a game of something that closely resembled football. I really don’t want to talk about it. I will say this though; it was nice to be able to sit back and watch a football game and do the normal things people do when watching football games. We ate pizza, we enjoyed a beverage, and we scoured the internet for other people’s wedding photos!?!? Yep, I live with three women.