01.10.2013
Blooming Wonderful Flower Festival Draws Hundreds to Tallaght
St Maelruain’s Flower Festival and Festival of Hands drew to a close on Sunday evening (September 29) with a special service at which the preacher was the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson. The service, which took place amid a blaze of floral glory, was also attended by Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Eammon Walsh.
Over the three days, festival organisers estimate that hundreds of people from all over Ireland came to the Tallaght church to view the fabulous flower arrangements. They also visited the neighbouring parish hall to where the Festival of Hands was held displaying a vast array of locally crafted items.
The theme of the flower festival was ‘The Circle of Life’. It featured 23 unique flower arrangements, each representing a stage in the circle of life from birth to death. The stunning arrangements were created by local people but they were overseen by internationally renowned designer, Richard Haslam, a member of the Interflora gold medal winning team at Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows in the UK.
In the adjacent parish centre the Festival of Hands featured exhibits by local crafts people through the media of painting, photography, calligraphy, knitting and stitching, handmade cards, handbags, jewellery, stone work, woodturning, silk painting and nail art. Local man Benny Myers and associates gave talks about beekeeping.
In his sermon to the packed church, Archbishop Jackson, praised the organisers and those who helped out with the festival. “We gather this afternoon to celebrate God’s creation along with the gifts and skills of creation given by God to his people. We do so in ways which are joyful, colourful and fragrant,” he stated. “This is the work of God in this parish church and within this community. This parish has ancient roots and modern life all in one. We delight to be here. We thank and congratulate all of those – the rector, the members of the Festival Committee, the parish and the community – for this labour of love and this Festival of Flowers.”
He added that the festival came at a time of year when parishes across the Church of Ireland gave thanks for the harvest in all its many forms. “The harvest consists in everything which God gives to us and everything we give back to God in times of need and in times of abundance, in times of happiness and in times of sadness. In September and early October we turn our minds and our hearts to God in order to give thanks and praise to the God on whom we depend the whole way from field to supermarket, from road accident to AndE, from poverty to survival,” he said. (The Archbishop’s sermon is available to read in full below.)
One of the organisers, Regina Donoghue also addressed the service saying that the festival was the result of 13 months of planning. She said they had received great support from the parish and from the wider community in Tallaght. She paid tribute to Richard Haslam for all the help and advice he had given them despite being ill.
St Maelruain’s Rector, the Revd William Deverell said he had not been allowed into the church while the floral exhibits were being put together. “On Thursday evening when I was finally allowed into the church I was very touched and very overwhelmed when I saw the sheer vibrancy of colour and creativity,” he recalled.
Over 100 volunteers, including members of Tallaght Community Council, helped with the festival and the Rector thanked them, the committee and Richard Haslam for bringing the project to fruition.
Photo Captions: Top – Members of the committee of St Maelruain’s Flower Festival which took place in Tallaght over the weekend are pictured with the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson; Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Eamonn Walsh; and parish clergy the Rector, the Revd William Deverell; Auxiliary Priest, the Revd Avril Bennett; and reader, Victoria Osho after the festival closing service on Sunday September 29.
Bottom – The flower arrangement representing ‘Confirmation’ in the ‘Circle of Life’ which was the theme of St Maelruain’s Flower Festival. The arrangement depicts the Holy Spirit coming down to the Confirmation candidates who are represented by the single roses.
Sermon of the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson
Flower Festival, St Maelruain’s, Dublin
Sunday September 29 2013
Reading: St Matthew 6.25–34
St Matthew 6.28: …consider the lilies of the field, how they grow….
We gather this afternoon to celebrate God’s creation along with the gifts and skills of creation given by God to his people. We do so in ways which are joyful, colourful and fragrant. This is the work of God in this parish church and within this community. This parish has ancient roots and modern life all in one. We delight to be here. We thank and congratulate all of those – the rector, the members of the Festival Committee, the parish and the community – for this labour of love and this Festival of Flowers. It comes at a time of year when, across the Church of Ireland, we give thanks for the harvest in all its many forms. The harvest consists in everything which God gives to us and everything we give back to God in times of need and in times of abundance, in times of happiness and in times of sadness. In September and early October we turn our minds and our hearts to God in order to give thanks and praise to the God on whom we depend the whole way from field to supermarket, from road accident to AndE, from poverty to survival.
…consider the lilies of the field, how they grow…
St Matthew gives us a picture of Jesus teaching the people and taking examples from what they see around them. This is to help them to understand the world in which they live and also how to handle themselves in it. His emphasis is on a good understanding that the Kingdom of God is present in the world. It is for us to show that we are part of it and proud to belong to it and that we ourselves want to avance its glory here on earth. One of the ways this plays out is by the ways in which we set to one side anxieties about things and people we cannot change however much we might like to and, instead, we are invited to rejoice in the things of beauty which surround us. Our preoccupation with everything else so often makes this impossible. And the lesson from the lilies of the field is that they grow – growing is what they do – and they are more beautiful that King Solomon and the magnificence of his beauty, his court and his courtly clothing. In and of themselves, they do not make this happen, it is something which God does to and for them.
The ways in which flowers grow brings us straight to a knowledge of the goodness of God in the creation. We might well and rightly consider, as St Matthew’s Gospel suggests to us,but we do not need to understand how they grow in order to be able to enjoy, to delight and to admire. Most of us, myself included, do not and can not understand but we can still enjoy the beauty of the flowers and, in particular, the decorations of flowers which surround us here in this church today. We might also consider where they grow. Sometimes flowers are in well–ordered and well–bordered gardens; sometimes in waste ground; sometimes in the fields. Colour and background combine to hold our attention and to think of God in heaven showing us his love on earth and at the same time God on earth showing us his love here on earth every bit as much.
… thy toil not neither do they spin … The writer is very clear that the flowers are beautiful but, unlike us, they do not make efforts to be beautiful. But surely the idea is that we might just have got it the wrong way round in thinking that it is the effort itself which makes us beautiful. Maybe when we find ourselves looking at things like flowers which are beautiful, God in fact is telling us that we are beautiful because of God’s grace given to us already, whatever we think of ourselves. There are things which we can do, there are relationships which we can create and form which flowers cannot do – and these are the contributions to the on–going work of creation and kingdom which God has given specially to us. We need not to be too hard on ourselves. We need to let God give us the beauty of his grace. We need to let it shape us as people of God and people of beauty.
Perhaps the other important thing which this well–loved story shows and teaches us is that we are to continue to have trust in God beyond what we can do for ourselves. Repeatedly we are faced with a whole range of eveyday anxieties. The problem for us is that these anxieties are real and they are very real for people in Ireland today: what are we to eat, what are we to drink, what are we to wear. And so we are brought back to the practical way of God, the ways in which we do have to connect earth and heaven; the ways in which there is no way out of helping one another if we are to be children of God for others and children for God. God’s kingdom and God’s justice are not a hot–air balloon which hangs above us; God’s kingdom and God’s justice connect in very real ways with the ways we connect with one another in need and in distress. A Festival of Flowers such as there is here for us all to enjoy in St Maelruain’s Parish Church gives us time to consider how much God cares for us and how beautiful we are to God and because of God.
I should like to thank once again everyone who has made our enjoyment today possible. I should also like to thank those members of this parish and community who have given of themsleves so generously to make this festival possible. You have given happiness to so so many and I hope that you feel a proper pride in what you have done and given to others. I take you finally to the last Book of the Bible; I ask you to remember that it too has growth and flowers and natural life in its abundance – and the wider purpose of healing and justice to which you ansd this Festival of Flowers point each and every one of us here today.
And thank you all for this challenge and this joy.
… on either side of the river stood a tree of life, which yields twelve crops of fruit, one for each month of the year. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations … Revelation 22.2