19.06.2017
Church Keys Exchanged at Beautiful Ecumenical Service in Hollywood
The historic St Kevin’s Church in Hollywood was packed yesterday evening (Sunday June 18) for a unique ecumenical service cementing the ties between the Church of Ireland and Catholic members of the local community.
The Bishop of Glendalough, Archbishop Michael Jackson and the Archdeacon of Glendalough, the Ven Ricky Rountree, attended the service along with local Parish Priest, Fr James Prendiville. It was led by the Rector, the Revd Leonard Ruddock who welcomed parishioners from both Hollywood Parish and Blessington Union of Parishes.
In March members of the local community met in St Kevin’s Church to launch Hollywood Tidy Towns’ initiative to restore the walls in the churchyard. At that time Fr Prendiville praised the work that had been done on restoring St Kevin’s Church and Mr Ruddock presented him with a key to the church and said he was welcome there any time. Last night, Fr Prendiville used his key to let himself and the other clergy into the church and at the end of the service Mr Ruddock was presented with a key to the church in Hollywood.
Fr Prendiville delivered the sermon and spoke of members of the Church of Ireland community who had impacted his life. “People are affected by who we are. This hasn’t anything to do with religion. That doesn’t matter. We have come together here as one body, one group of believers in God,” he said.
He said St Kevin’s was a historic church which 20 years ago when he first saw it was dilapidated. He paid tribute to the community who had lovingly restored it.
Turning to the Gospel [Matthew 9:35–10:8] Fr Prendiville said that the people Jesus chose as his disciples were ordinary people. “Sometimes we write ourselves off. Each of us has qualities and God can speak to a lot of people through each of us,” he said. “ The kind of people we are will show God’s love to those around us. Each of us will affect others and God will do great thinks through us. You may be a small group of a large group – it doesn’t matter. There were only 12 apostles and look what they achieved.”
Archbishop Jackson thanked the whole community for coming to the service and thanked Fr Prendiville for his words and encouragement. He said the readings for the service had spoken strongly of communities. He said that Jesus asked the disciples to put themselves in the hands of those they met. He suggested that there was a realism in the commission and said that continued today as people witness in the midst of terrorism and violence and murder. “It invited us to a solidarity with fellow Christians and a solidarity with our neighbours both in Ireland and around the world,” he said.
The Archbishop encouraged people to read themselves into the Scriptures and see the wonderful sense of community throughout history. He praised the community of Hollywood for its positivity and for seeing what they could do together and said that Hollywood Tidy Towns was doing remarkable work. “We had a church which was almost in ruins and now it has a new and special existence for the whole community. Many faith journeys began here as pilgrims made their way to Glendalough and we must build on it afresh in our own day to develop the faith. We are sent out daily as God’s emissaries, as God’s missionaries and as God’s children to meet God’s children and the more we can enable this to happen in Hollywood the better,” he said.
Mr Ruddock thanked Fr Prendiville and the parishioners of Hollywood for attending the service and said he was grateful for the beautiful atmosphere and sense of community at the service.
