After a morning spent "at leisure", we headed off across the Liffey towards Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean McDermott Street to celebrate Mass.
At this point, I need to pause and apply appropriate approbation to our coach driver, Conor, who has manoeuvred our touring coach through the sometimes restricted streets of Dublin with the skill of a tailor threading a needle. Today was certainly a prime example of this!
The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes sits within what can only be described as a deprived neighbourhood of Dublin, and yet has a beauty of its own that is hard to fully capture in words. We were made to feel "most welcome" (as the Irish keep telling us in many different contexts) yet in a way very different to our time in St Andrew's Church yesterday.
For me the most significant feature of this church is that it is the home of the Shrine of the Venerable Matthew Talbot, who needs no real introduction. Matt Talbot lived, workds, and died in the parish community in which the church sits.
After lunch back in the centre of Dublin, where we were allowed to "go feral and unsupervised" as our guide, Fionnuala, describes it, we travelled to Mercy International Centre on Baggott Street, the first House of Mercy established by Catherine McAuley.
Our visit, coincidentally, fell on Mercy Day, the annual celebration of the founding of the house and, this year, the 199th anniversary of that event. Among the photos you will see the logo that was launched today for the bicentenary celebrations in 2027.
We toured the Centre, and we heard Catherine's story. We visited her grave in the garden, and we wandered into her office, that place from which she orchestrated the spread of the Sisters of Mercy from Dublin across the world. This was not my first visit to Baggot Street, and yet it was still a joy to hear once again the story - particularly after attending the opening and blessing last Friday of the Catholic College in Medowie that bears her name.
