Diocesan News
Social Action Celebration Service Gives Snapshots of Hope For The City
Participants in the Dublin and Glendalough Social Action Service with Archbishop Michael Jackson.
An uplifting service celebrating social action took place in St Werburgh’s Church in Dublin’s city centre, featured a host of inspirational people and projects. ‘Worship for the City’ highlighted the wonderful work being undertaken by a number of social action projects but also prayed for the city and its people.
Organised by the Dublin and Glendalough Committee for Social Action, the service aimed to inspire others to get involved in social action by hearing the personal stories of the speakers.
Among the contributors were Brother Martin of the Capuchin Friary on Church Street, Dublin, who highlighted the work of the Capuchin Day Centre which feeds 700 people six days a week. Joe Donnelly from the Anchorage Project in Ringsend, which involves a community café, childcare projects and a garden centre and aims to serve the local community while also helping communities in the developing world, read prayers.
Kelda Barnes from the Darndale Childcare Project which caters for 267 children aged 0–12 years in disadvantaged communities also prayed, this time for those who volunteer for the service. Three women and two volunteers from Tiglin Women’s Group highlighted their experiences of the Ashford based centre which aims to provide a solution to life–controlling addiction through a programme which has a Christian ethos. The new Tiglin Worship Group, who were giving just their second performance, also sang.
Graham Jones told of the work of the Solas Project in Dublin 8 which aims to see communities rejuvenated through education and sport and to build up young people to overcome all the limitations put on them by disadvantage.
The service opened and closed with words from Archbishop Michael Jackson who referred to the reading for the day from the Gospel of John about the Good Shepherd which he said came to mind when hearing about those who worked and volunteered for the many projects that nurture, care for and protect people.
Afterwards the Archbishop said the service had provided ‘snapshots of hope, visions of truth and pictures of reality’. ‘We have been taken and led gently by the hand to see that all of creation is to be found here in the city,’ he said. He added that reality was sold to us as consumerism and a commodity but in fact reality was about relationships and the recognition that we are made in the image of God. In a time of austerity, sharing the love of God cost nothing, he said.
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
087 2356472
Contact Details
Lynn Glanville
[email protected]