On Saturday 24 March 2018, the Feastday of St Macartan, patron of the Diocese of Clogher, the prayer petitions placed by families from across our diocese over recent months will be entrusted to members of religious congregations and communities. This will take place during a liturgy in St Macartan’s Church (‘the Forth Chapel’) at Augher (Parish of Clogher), Co Tyrone, beginning at 1pm.
During the liturgy, the petitions will be entrusted to the five religious congregations and communities in our diocese, namely, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of St Louis, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the Passionists and the Sacred Hearts Community. The petitions will be joined to the prayers of these communities and the whole Church over the coming months, before they are transferred to Dublin where they will be presented during the concluding liturgy of the World Meeting of Families.
Families from every parish in the diocese will take part in the liturgy which will be presided over by our Diocesan Administrator, Monsignor Joseph McGuinness. St Macartan’s Church at Augher (The Forth Chapel) was chosen for this event as it is in the parish of the ancient seat of our diocese, to which countless families have been joined over the centuries. St Macartan’s features in the writings of the William Carleton (1794-1869) it being the setting for his story ‘The Midnight Mass’. St Macartan’s was also the pro-Cathedral for the diocese before the episcopal see was transferred to Monaghan in 1851. A Clogher native, Archbishop John Hughes, first Archbishop of New York and founder of St Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue, preached at St Macartan’s in January 1846.
Everyone is welcome to take part and to recall and renew our prayerful petitions for family and friends as we joyfully anticipate the World Meeting of Families in Dublin next August and celebrate the joy of love.
