Carmel O’Neill sent us this latest news:
On Sunday June 30th, Blessington, Lacken and Valleymount parishioners assembled in Valleymount Community Hall to bid farewell to our parish priest Fr Richard Behan and Pastoral worker Aine Egan.
Fr Richard has been very supportive of our eco journey which began just before Covid in 2020. He was most helpful on making plant choices and generously donated to the planting of trees, shrubs and bee pollinator perennials in the church grounds of all three churches. He also gave the use of the the grounds behind the Parochial House for the creation of a community garden.
We will also miss the input given by our pastoral worker Aine who helped organise blessing and prayer services with the children preparing for the sacraments. She also forged strong links with the Church of Ireland community in particular with the Crib exhibition and the Women’ World Day of Prayer. We wish them both every blessing in their new parishes as we pledge to continue to work and pray for the protection of our common home.
On Sun July 14th, a group of 30 parishioners from Blessington and neighbouring parishes travelled to Knock with the intention of walking through the new Creation garden adjacent to the Museum. Our walk began with a reading of Psalm 19 taken from Psalms for every Mood written by our late PP Fr Kevin Lyon. As we traced the evolution of our planet through the 30 steps along the way, we marveled at the excellent bullet points displayed on each marker and how each stage on the evolution journey was cleverly interwoven with a quote from Scripture. The walk concluded with with prayers of thanksgiving for the team who worked on this project and we also offered prayers for the farming community who are concerned about fodder shortage in the coming months.
In early June, a group of Tidy Town volunteers with permission from Wicklow County Council cleared two shrub areas at the front of Blessington church. These shrubs had become woody and straggly in recent years and no longer looked attractive. The Tidy Town Volunteers teamed up with the parish ground volunteers and transformed the area with a colourful display of annuals , candytuft and nemisis along with bee friendly pollinators- Lavender, Salvia and Nepeta. This has opened up the church grounds and made it visually attractive for busy commuters on the N81 or for for walkers on their daily stroll through the village.