PEWS WERE removed and tables installed so 400 people, many of them homeless, could have lunch in St Andrew’s Church on Dublin’s Westland Row yesterday. It was part of lead-in celebrations to next week’s Eucharistic Congress.
Organised by Crosscare, the event’s guests included Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who said “this is just to say that the congress reaches out to those who won’t be able to to come”. Crosscare’s work was not possible “without the people who come here to the Eucharist”, he said. Crosscare director Conor Hickey said it closed three of its food centres for the day and invited its regular attendees to come to St Andrew’s. Sr Briege Keenan of Crosscare’s refugee service in Cabra thought the lunch a “fantastic idea”. Most refugees were not Catholic but, as one who accompanied her to St Andrew’s said, “It doesn’t make a difference what religion we are, we all serve the one God.”
l St Mary’s parish on Dublin’s Haddington Road is showing an exhibition of vestments used there since the mid-1840s. It opens on Saturday at 3.30pm, when the Lassus Scholars will sing a short programme of sacred music. Admission is free.
