Look who came to church on Sanctuary Sunday, 22 June!

 


Sanctuary Sunday 2025


“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”   

Matthew 25: 35-36


Look who came to church on Sanctuary Sunday in the Aughaval Parishes!


It was a lovely surprise following the service on Sunday 22 June in St Thomas's Dugort -- after thinking and praying during the service about Refugee Week, the meaning of Sanctuary and the implications for us as part of God's church and as individual Christians -- to hear a knock on the church  door and on opening to see our very favourite refugee character - P.B. - Paddington Bear!


Paul Kirubakaran, Revd Suzanne and George Keegan
in St Mary's Church, Westport 
(where the Holy Trinity congregation continues to meet pending repairs to HTW).


Over the Sanctuary Sunday weekend, in Castlebar, Westport and Dugort, we took a serious look at these weighty matters, of the needs of those who find themselves without a safe home and in great need of sanctuary.  You can read more on the subject here:






Mrs Dorothy Shaw, Turlough, 
one of those who, in the autumn (2024), 
with her grandchildren 
and others from the Aughaval parishes, 
came to the Westport Cinema to see the latest Paddington Movie, 
Paddington in Peru. 


The sermon in the churches concluded with an old reflection of hospitality, in The Gaelic Rune of Hospitality, from the Carmen Gadelica (as below). In Castlebar this  was shared by Dr Eamon Smith (Diocesan Reader) and in Westport by Barbara Sheppard (Parish Reader). The words were drawn from this year's resources for Sanctuary Sunday produced by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.




We saw a stranger yesterday.

We put food in the eating place,

Drink in the drinking place,

Music in the listening place,

And with the sacred Name of the triune God,

He blessed us and our house,

Our cattle and our dear ones,

As the Lark says in her song,

Often, often, often goes the Christ,

In the stranger’s guise.



(The Gaelic Rune of Hospitality, from the Carmen Gadelica)



Collect for Sanctuary Sunday







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