Divine Mercy Sunday
On Divine Mercy Sunday, especially this Divine Mercy Sunday, during the Covid-19 Pandemic, we continue to rejoice in the course of Easter celebrations. Mercy is not just one aspect of the Gospel of Jesus. Mercy is its very centre.
The Woman and the Poor Man
We all know well of the great, but dangerous work, being done in the fight against the Coronavirus by the health professionals and also, of course, all others who make a vital contribution in their work and ordinary lives. At times they may come across some person in need, and as time goes on they most likely will. An example from another time of great need and danger, The Great Famine, comes to mind.
A poor man came to the door of the great grandmother of the Ulster Poet, John Hewitt. The poet wrote of the grave consequences:
“There is not a chance now that I might recover one syllable of what that sick man said, tapping on my great grandmother’s shutter and begging, I was told, a piece of bread.
For on his tainted breath there hung infection, rank from the cabins of the stricken West, but she, who by nature quickly answered, accepted in return the Famine-fever.
And that chance meeting, that brief confrontation, consigned her to eternity”.
This little verse is a thought in tribute to the ordinary people who are trying to save people from the Coronavirus in our own country and all over the world and who fall victim to it themselves, as did so many during the Great Famine and to which the little poem refers. People not statistics.
COMMUNITY CALL
Éire Óg has joined up with other groups e.g. Gardaí, An Post, Civil Defence, Cork County Council to help the vulnerable or isolated in our community, if needed at this time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
If anyone needs help or knows of anyone who does, please phone 1800 805819 or locally John Hourihan 086 3178214, Éire Óg Co-ordinator.