Your Parish Pastoral Council is composed of a representative group of parishioners from many walks of life who work in a voluntary, advisory capacity on your behalf, whilst also running homes, looking after our families and working in day jobs. We are happy to give of our time freely for the OLV parish family in this way.

It is appropriate that our final meeting before the summer break occurred on Thursday, June 16^th, immediately preceding Holy Trinity Sunday.  The epistle reading of Sunday's Mass summed up the ethos in which the council members work together, as your representatives, in an advisory capacity to the priests of the parish:

....."help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you".  2 Cor: 11-13.

We always open our meetings with shared prayer:  that, in all our deliberations, we may serve our parish family well and work together in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Since our Listening Evening last September, we have communicated with you, as promised, through the Newsletter and our website www.olv.ie  in September, October, December and April, updating you on our activities and the items which occupy our attention.  As the summer break occurs after the June meeting, our last update was deferred one month to allow us include the agenda of the June meeting.

CHILD PROTECTION

Child Protection is always top of our agenda and we are confident that our Child Protection Policy still serves well to protect the children of our parish.  Our Child Protection Officer has had no reports of anything untoward in this area.  The members of our Council have been vetted by the Gardaí and are undergoing a follow-up vetting in the next few months.  We continue to be vigilant and the policy will be constantly reviewed in the future and updated where necessary.  Our Child Protection Officer and Fr. John attended the recent LAUNCH OF DUBLIN DIOCESAN CHILD SAFEGUARDING AND PROTECTION POLICY AND PROCEDURES  booklet  on April 14, at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe.  We refer you to the address of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in Dublin Diocesan website:  www.dublindiocese.ie under the section Archbishop's Talks and Addresses.  Copies available in the Office on request.

PARISH CENTRE

As we advised in our last Newsletter update, the entire April meeting was given over to the topic of a Parish Centre, launching our feasibility study to help us better understand the cost of construction and upkeep.  Two designated members of the Council visited a number of Pastoral Centres in the Dublin Diocese and spoke with parish representatives.  They reported their findings to the Council at the April meeting. One of the most impressive centres they visited was in Killester, which was originally built many years ago at a cost of €2million and which has an annual running cost of €16,000.  Because of the high running costs, it was necessary to involve a lot of non-pastoral activities which changed the building into a resource centre rather than a pastoral one.  In all centres visited, there is a huge reliance on volunteers to assist in all aspects of operations.

These were purely preliminary investigations, as nothing can be done until all repair work on our church is completed. The study is ongoing.

ONGOING CHURCH REPAIRS

The work required for the Church spire and storm windows has had to be put out to tender again and it is hoped that we will be able to commence work soon.  The spire is in such a state that it seems likely we will have to take it down completely and replace it with a replica (in keeping with the integrity of the building) in lighter, more durable material.  Before this is done, we will have to have replaced all the storm windows and, as these will be manufactured in Germany, it could take some time to complete.

All other work has been completed.

DONATION TO THE ARCHDIOCESE

A donation has been requested to off-set major debt in the Archdiocese. It was unanimously agreed, since Westfield House was originally purchased by the Archdiocese, that we would allow them, as a once-off donation, to keep three years bank interest accrued on the proceeds from the sale of the house. Our parish will still retain the principal and any other interest accrued into the future. The Parish Pastoral Council has requested written confirmation of what exactly this money will fund before making the donation. 

EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS 10-17 JUNE 2012 - "a pilgrim journey"

The theme of next year's Congress is "The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and one another".  The Eucharistic Congress is one of the largest liturgical events and  opportunities for pilgrimage throughout the universal Catholic Church.  It is hosted by a different country every four years.  Denis Palmer (PPC Communications representative) is our Eucharistic Congress link.

The main events of the Congress next year will take place in the RDS, Dublin, beginning with the opening ceremony on 10 June 2012.  Over the week 10 - 17 June, a programme of liturgical and cultural events, workshops and daily celebration of the Eucharist will culminate in an open air Mass and closing ceremony in Croke Park.  We refer you directly to www.iec2012.ie/ (or via our own website www.olv.ie and click the IEC icon) for fuller information.

We have already received our banners and collected our Eucharistic Congress Candle which was blessed at a ceremony in Knock on Saturday, June 25^th,  which was attended by a group from OLV Parish, lead by our Pastoral Care worker Mary Kirk. The PPC will work with the priests, Liturgy Group and parish volunteers to ensure that the lead up to the Congress is memorable for the parish.

PARISH ASSEMBLY MEETING AND CLUSTERING

An assembly meeting for Parish Councils was held in Bewley's Hotel Swords on May 24^th and was attended by members of OLV PPC along with other Council members in our Deanery.  This was the 2^nd of three lectures with Fr. Michael Drumm speaking on "The Church in the Modern World". The meeting was highly informative and Fr. Drumm covered topics such as the "Second Vatican Council" (1962-65) and the "Church in Ireland" from 1960s onwards, including the very relevant topic of "Lay Ministry" which is the very heartbeat of the Church today.

The idea of an "Outreach" type of Project, which would be shared by parish groupings or cluster parishes "Working Together in Mission", has been proposed and will be discussed in more detail at the next assembly meeting.

It is also envisaged that our cluster group of Parishes will also address this topic at our next meeting in the autumn.

We hope you all have a wonderful summer and we ask you for your continued prayers and support as we go into our second two-year term on the Council.