I feel like I need to start this blog post by offering a word of explanation. It has been a while since I’ve posted in this space. For my past two Monday slots, I’ve been traveling—first to London to visit my brother, and then around Ireland with my family who came to visit for the Easter holidays. Thankfully, my wonderful housemates were willing to fill in during my absence. I’m back now though, and am planning on posting in place of my globetrotting housemates in the near future. So get ready for a steady diet of blog posts by yours truly. (Surgeon General’s Warning: A stable diet of Patrick’s blog posts has been shown to cause a wide variety of side effects ranging from headaches and insomnia to spontaneous combustion. Yes, spontaneous combustion is a thing. Trust me, I’m a doctor.)
This past weekend was a busy one, as Teach Bhríde branched out to a different part of County Wexford. On Saturday, we spent the day in Rahine—a small country town about a half hour from Wexford—hosting a retreat for young people preparing for confirmation. It was a really wonderful day that culminated in the celebration of mass with the children and their families. On behalf of all of us in the community, I would just like to extend our thanks once again to Fr. Jim Furlong and the members of the Adamstown prayer group for allowing us the opportunity to work with the youth of their parish. They will certainly be in our prayers as their confirmation approaches in the coming weeks.
The rest of the weekend followed our standard routine with the Saturday vigil mass followed by Children’s liturgy and Folk Group Mass on Sunday evening. We’ve also been fortunate enough to have Clarisa’s parents here with us for the last few days, so we’ve had a good time getting to know them. I also think it’s safe to say that they’ve had a good time getting to know some of the more colorful characters from our parish.
The week ahead brings more busyness with preparations for our final class mass of the year in full swing. There’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s all work we’re looking forward to. Check back on Friday to see how it all went.
