On Thursday evenings in St. Teresa’s Church, Clarendon Street in centre-city Dublin, a different religious congregation leads Evening Prayer of the Church. This is an initiative of for the Year of Consecrated Life being celebrated in 2015.
It was the privilege of Holy Faith to lead the Evening Prayer Thursday, 12th February. Clarendon Street is very much part of our history of involvement in inner-city schools founded by Margaret Aylward. In her welcome, Sr. Rosaleen, expressed the delight of all Holy Faith Sisters to be back in the city centre, so near to our first house in nearby Crow Street, now known as Temple Bar, and close to our former convent and schools on the Westbury Hotel site where the sisters ministered for almost 100 years.
We called the prayer “Wake up the World” from the message of Pope Francis to all consecrated religious. The theme of faith was brought out through using quotations of Margaret Aylward between the psalms and also through the hymns “Fan into flame the gift you’ve been given”, written by our own Marie Dunne, and the hymn for the year of Consecrated Life “Wake the World with Dawning Joy”. We used sung antiphons from this hymn which called us to wake the world with words of faith, hope, love and joy. We ended with the reminder to live joyfully the aims of the year given by Pope Francis.
Over 40 Holy Faith sisters were present and we were also joined by religious of other congregations, friends, relatives and colleagues and many regular evening Mass-goers. The sense of joy and unity continued with animated chat and very welcome refreshments in the lovely adjoining Carmelite Centre.
Note: The Year of Consecrated Life hymn is available to download free in audio format together with melody-line and full score sheet music from the website of the US National Religious Vocation Conference: http://www.vocationnetwork.org/articles/show?id=455
