Africa,

St Patrick's Missions 

January/February 2020, Vol. 85 No. 1

Happy New Year! We have packed in a wide variety of articles which we hope will inspire and uplift you this January. We start off with Fr Michael Kane’s account of the sights and sounds typical of nature in and around St Patrick’s, Kiltegan at this time of year. Who knows…you may even catch a glimpse of one of those “murmurations” he talks about, if you’re lucky! And if the outdoors is not your thing, Rose Mary O’Reilly writes a truly inspiring account of the activities of the Mullahoran Apostolic Society. This energetic group of volunteers has been supporting our priests – and others – on the missions for fifty years. After this report, catching that “bus to Mullahoran” may well be the hot ticket in 2020! We are given an account of a parallel group in Nigeria – The Friends of St Patrick – who held their national congress meeting in Lagos late last year. We, in St Patrick’s, feel truly blessed and are very grateful and encouraged by your support and that of many other similar groups, both here in Ireland and abroad. Thank you for all that you do to help us share God’s love with others.

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We’ve been hearing a lot about the situation in the Amazon over the past several months – you remember the raging forest fires and the synod in Rome. Against that background, you’ll be interested to read in “From the archives…” that some of the challenges relating to that part of the world have been on the agenda for a very long time. Is it time we saw some action?

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Fathers Donal Dorr, John O’Callaghan and Michael Long direct our attention to another one of the critical issues of our time: the environment. Also in this edition, we are delighted to launch a new series of articles on spirituality by St Patrick’s Fr Frankie McAuliffe. Albert Fiedeldey, from South Africa, shares his experience of being on pilgrimage from Notre-Dame de Paris – post fire – to Notre-Dame de Chartres. And for the Feast of the Month we take a look at Caravaggio’s famous painting “The Conversion of St Paul” which you can check out on your next visit to the Eternal City.

I hope you enjoy our first issue of 2020.
Editor.