It the end of a distressing day, Fr Brendan McGee washed the blood from his knees, the blood of a murdered parishioner. It is one of the most striking episodes chronicled in a new book on the history of my parish, which this weekend marks its Golden Jubilee.
St Michael’s Parish was created in 1976, though the church itself was built in 1971. It is a building that literally bears the scars of the Troubles. “Have you seen the bullet holes?” I was asked one day. Writing the commemorative book, I learned that the church walls still bear the scars of violence, just like the wounded body of Christ.
Our church should have opened around the Feast of St Michael in September 1971 but was delayed a few months due to the Troubles. It was dedicated in November, on the Feast of Christ the King.
Tragedies
Throughout this year, I’ve heard many stories of lives touched by Christ’s love.
Fr McGee, later Canon McGee, served in the early days of St Michael’s, which is in the heart of West Belfast. His was an astonishing life, well-lived as a true shepherd tending his sheep.
On May 12, 1972, Fr McGee was called out to a nearby murder scene, one of many he attended. Parishioner Pat McVeigh, an innocent Catholic ex-serviceman, had been gunned down by the British army in a hail of bullets. Fr McGee anointed Pat before going to tell his family the terrible news. He later recalled: “That night, as I prepared for bed, it distressed me to wash Pat’s innocent blood from my knees.”
Fr McGee also faced down the IRA when members of the youth wing, the Fianna, came to pilfer bricks and other equipment for riots and barricades from the church building site – and the adjacent new primary school, St John the Baptist. “Leave the people’s school alone – their children are in need of it,” he insisted, rather courageously. A local IRA leader showed up and Fr McGee won the stand-off.
The tragedy inspired a peace movement led by the children’s aunt Mairead Corrigan. She shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Belfast woman Betty Williams”
I’m sorry not to have known Fr McGee. My family left the district for Canada in 1971 due to the escalating violence. It still amazes me that I have ended up a few streets from where I started.
The first funeral after our parish was created was that of the three Maguire children, whose shocking road deaths – due to a high-speed chase between the British Army and the IRA – occurred outside our church. The tragedy inspired a peace movement led by the children’s aunt Mairead Corrigan. She shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Belfast woman Betty Williams.
On another occasion, Fr McGee heard heart-rending sobs as he entered St Michael’s Church to prepare for mass. He found four teenage boys, distressed over the murder of their friend, Daniel Rouse, an innocent Catholic shot twice by the UDA. “We consoled each other,” said Fr McGee, “and prayed together. For me that was the day our Church St Michael the Archangel fulfilled itself.”
Joy
Throughout our history, there has also been great joy, and consolation.
The first child baptised in the parish was Philip Hodgkinson who became a physician, and is now a consultant anaesthetist at the Ulster Hospital. He said St Michael’s will always hold a special place in his heart as his baptism marked “the beginning of a life-long connection to the church.”
“St Michael’s was a huge part of my childhood, shaping many of my happiest memories, teaching me important values, and giving me a strong sense of community and belonging.”
Another parishioner, Joe Hunter, who passed away a few weeks ago, had the foresight and skill to organise and design our parish draw – which, 35 years later, reaps great benefits for the parish.
When the Troubles raged, St Michael’s was both a spiritual and social centre, a place where dances, fundraising concerts and sporting events were organised. “The parish was my social life,” said parishioner Peggy McKenna. These days men and women have so many more options when it comes to entertainment but St Michael’s remains a place for spiritual and community connections. “There’s a community of love here,” said Tess Molloy, our sacristan. “An atmosphere of caring for one another. It’s beautiful. I’ve made friends here.”
In an interview for the book, she spoke of a deep conversion in her life following a retreat through Clonard Youth Ministry”
With fewer priests, the laity has more opportunity these days to serve. St Michael’s has lay funeral ministers and bereavement ministers commissioned by the diocese, along with an expanding programme for children’s adoration and bible study. And in line with current trends, St Michael the Archangel is part of a wider parish group: the Black Mountain Family of Parishes.
Mia Joy, our youngest Eucharistic Minister, is still a student at the local St Genevieve’s High School. She was born in India but raised in Belfast. In an interview for the book, she spoke of a deep conversion in her life following a retreat through Clonard Youth Ministry. “We were in praise and worship and I was praising and craving God and asking for his love and I started crying and I just felt filled with love,” she told me in an interview for our Jubilee book. “I had been anointed at that moment. I just flooded in tears.”
While some parish groups have withered away, our Adoration Committee, Children’s Adoration, St Vincent de Paul and Rosary Group are flourishing.
Jubilee
There is a sense of anticipation about our Jubilee.
This Saturday the Bishop of Down Alan McGuckian will celebrate our Jubilee Vigil Mass, when parish musician Patrick Davey will debut a new mass setting he composed in honour of St Michael the Archangel. And parishioners will be presented with a newly minted commemorative coin, struck especially for the occasion, with the expert care of a Dublin company, Abbey Badges Ltd.
It is easy to get down-hearted about the state of the Church these days but even St Paul wrote about times of ‘stress’ 2,000 years ago.
A voice for these times, globe-trotting Catholic evangelist Michelle Moran, will be speaking over three days at our Parish Mission on September 28, 29, and 30. Her theme: Jubilee Joy: Encountering God’s Grace.Yes we face the challenge of attracting a new generation to the sacraments, but there is reason to hope. “If there are difficulties and troubles in the Church,” said Parish Faith Worker, Elaine Kelly, “that is a sign of life. St Michael’s is moving forward as best it can in obedience to Christ. I see life all around me in St Michael’s especially in the baby – in his father’s arms – whose cry can be heard and is received with joy. The people in our church want to be there and still come in large numbers, to listen to the Gospel and do their best to follow it. Thank God the numbers are swelling, attracted by the Gospel and a happy shepherd, Fr Ciarán Feeney, who loves his sheep!”
=====
It’s hard to feel sympathy for the Alliance Party leader Naomi Long who uses the word ‘cis’ to describe biological women. Her party has been at the forefront of identity politics and trans rights. An Alliance assembly member Eoin Tennyson last week spear-headed a bill to ban conversion practices covering both sexual orientation and gender identity. Christian parents and pastors are among those concerned that conversations on these issues could be criminalised.
Trans ideology is based on the notion that you can change your sex, that there are multiple genders and sexuality is fluid and the rest of us should fall in line – regardless of science or personal creed.
Days ago Ms Long complained on X/Twitter that she was deliberately misgendered by a “transphobe masquerading as a women’s rights protector”. Ms Long spoke of “biological realists” who often ask her “disingenuously” to define a woman. “Yet,” she whinged, “a subset are happy to imply I’m a man.” Alliance politicians, like everyone else, reap what they sow.
=====
A Belfast woman told me some years ago about a relative whose marriage had disintegrated. Among the divorcing couple’s many issues was what to do about embryos they had frozen. The Catholic couple had received a bill from a medical facility and had to decide whether to keep paying to store embryos they had no intention of nurturing.
I thought of them as I read the news that a Greek woman had given birth to a child from an embryo frozen 22 years ago. This should shock us into realising the humanity of the unborn. What are we doing to our children?
Celebrating 50 years of faith at St Michael’s Parish
It the end of a distressing day, Fr Brendan McGee washed the blood from his knees, the blood of a murdered parishioner. It is one of the most striking episodes chronicled in a new book on the history of my parish, which this weekend marks its Golden Jubilee.
St Michael’s Parish was created in 1976, though the church itself was built in 1971. It is a building that literally bears the scars of the Troubles. “Have you seen the bullet holes?” I was asked one day. Writing the commemorative book, I learned that the church walls still bear the scars of violence, just like the wounded body of Christ.
Our church should have opened around the Feast of St Michael in September 1971 but was delayed a few months due to the Troubles. It was dedicated in November, on the Feast of Christ the King.
Tragedies
Throughout this year, I’ve heard many stories of lives touched by Christ’s love.
Fr McGee, later Canon McGee, served in the early days of St Michael’s, which is in the heart of West Belfast. His was an astonishing life, well-lived as a true shepherd tending his sheep.
On May 12, 1972, Fr McGee was called out to a nearby murder scene, one of many he attended. Parishioner Pat McVeigh, an innocent Catholic ex-serviceman, had been gunned down by the British army in a hail of bullets. Fr McGee anointed Pat before going to tell his family the terrible news. He later recalled: “That night, as I prepared for bed, it distressed me to wash Pat’s innocent blood from my knees.”
Fr McGee also faced down the IRA when members of the youth wing, the Fianna, came to pilfer bricks and other equipment for riots and barricades from the church building site – and the adjacent new primary school, St John the Baptist. “Leave the people’s school alone – their children are in need of it,” he insisted, rather courageously. A local IRA leader showed up and Fr McGee won the stand-off.
I’m sorry not to have known Fr McGee. My family left the district for Canada in 1971 due to the escalating violence. It still amazes me that I have ended up a few streets from where I started.
The first funeral after our parish was created was that of the three Maguire children, whose shocking road deaths – due to a high-speed chase between the British Army and the IRA – occurred outside our church. The tragedy inspired a peace movement led by the children’s aunt Mairead Corrigan. She shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Belfast woman Betty Williams.
On another occasion, Fr McGee heard heart-rending sobs as he entered St Michael’s Church to prepare for mass. He found four teenage boys, distressed over the murder of their friend, Daniel Rouse, an innocent Catholic shot twice by the UDA. “We consoled each other,” said Fr McGee, “and prayed together. For me that was the day our Church St Michael the Archangel fulfilled itself.”
Joy
Throughout our history, there has also been great joy, and consolation.
The first child baptised in the parish was Philip Hodgkinson who became a physician, and is now a consultant anaesthetist at the Ulster Hospital. He said St Michael’s will always hold a special place in his heart as his baptism marked “the beginning of a life-long connection to the church.”
“St Michael’s was a huge part of my childhood, shaping many of my happiest memories, teaching me important values, and giving me a strong sense of community and belonging.”
Another parishioner, Joe Hunter, who passed away a few weeks ago, had the foresight and skill to organise and design our parish draw – which, 35 years later, reaps great benefits for the parish.
When the Troubles raged, St Michael’s was both a spiritual and social centre, a place where dances, fundraising concerts and sporting events were organised. “The parish was my social life,” said parishioner Peggy McKenna. These days men and women have so many more options when it comes to entertainment but St Michael’s remains a place for spiritual and community connections. “There’s a community of love here,” said Tess Molloy, our sacristan. “An atmosphere of caring for one another. It’s beautiful. I’ve made friends here.”
With fewer priests, the laity has more opportunity these days to serve. St Michael’s has lay funeral ministers and bereavement ministers commissioned by the diocese, along with an expanding programme for children’s adoration and bible study. And in line with current trends, St Michael the Archangel is part of a wider parish group: the Black Mountain Family of Parishes.
Mia Joy, our youngest Eucharistic Minister, is still a student at the local St Genevieve’s High School. She was born in India but raised in Belfast. In an interview for the book, she spoke of a deep conversion in her life following a retreat through Clonard Youth Ministry. “We were in praise and worship and I was praising and craving God and asking for his love and I started crying and I just felt filled with love,” she told me in an interview for our Jubilee book. “I had been anointed at that moment. I just flooded in tears.”
While some parish groups have withered away, our Adoration Committee, Children’s Adoration, St Vincent de Paul and Rosary Group are flourishing.
Jubilee
There is a sense of anticipation about our Jubilee.
This Saturday the Bishop of Down Alan McGuckian will celebrate our Jubilee Vigil Mass, when parish musician Patrick Davey will debut a new mass setting he composed in honour of St Michael the Archangel. And parishioners will be presented with a newly minted commemorative coin, struck especially for the occasion, with the expert care of a Dublin company, Abbey Badges Ltd.
It is easy to get down-hearted about the state of the Church these days but even St Paul wrote about times of ‘stress’ 2,000 years ago.
A voice for these times, globe-trotting Catholic evangelist Michelle Moran, will be speaking over three days at our Parish Mission on September 28, 29, and 30. Her theme: Jubilee Joy: Encountering God’s Grace.Yes we face the challenge of attracting a new generation to the sacraments, but there is reason to hope. “If there are difficulties and troubles in the Church,” said Parish Faith Worker, Elaine Kelly, “that is a sign of life. St Michael’s is moving forward as best it can in obedience to Christ. I see life all around me in St Michael’s especially in the baby – in his father’s arms – whose cry can be heard and is received with joy. The people in our church want to be there and still come in large numbers, to listen to the Gospel and do their best to follow it. Thank God the numbers are swelling, attracted by the Gospel and a happy shepherd, Fr Ciarán Feeney, who loves his sheep!”
=====
It’s hard to feel sympathy for the Alliance Party leader Naomi Long who uses the word ‘cis’ to describe biological women. Her party has been at the forefront of identity politics and trans rights. An Alliance assembly member Eoin Tennyson last week spear-headed a bill to ban conversion practices covering both sexual orientation and gender identity. Christian parents and pastors are among those concerned that conversations on these issues could be criminalised.
Trans ideology is based on the notion that you can change your sex, that there are multiple genders and sexuality is fluid and the rest of us should fall in line – regardless of science or personal creed.
Days ago Ms Long complained on X/Twitter that she was deliberately misgendered by a “transphobe masquerading as a women’s rights protector”. Ms Long spoke of “biological realists” who often ask her “disingenuously” to define a woman. “Yet,” she whinged, “a subset are happy to imply I’m a man.” Alliance politicians, like everyone else, reap what they sow.
=====
A Belfast woman told me some years ago about a relative whose marriage had disintegrated. Among the divorcing couple’s many issues was what to do about embryos they had frozen. The Catholic couple had received a bill from a medical facility and had to decide whether to keep paying to store embryos they had no intention of nurturing.
I thought of them as I read the news that a Greek woman had given birth to a child from an embryo frozen 22 years ago. This should shock us into realising the humanity of the unborn. What are we doing to our children?
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