Day 1: Travel from the US to Ireland

Day 1: Travel overnight from a US airport to Ireland. A group will be leaving from Newark, NJ. Call Celtic Tours to join this group. 

Day 2: Tuesday, Sept 17, 2019 Dublin

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland 

DAY 2: You will meet your Irish Driver/Guide in the arrival’s hall of the Dublin airport and he will escort you to the waiting motor coach for your tour. Depart the airport and travel into the capital city for a panoramic city tour. You will then visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, before moving on to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. Then some free time in Dublin to take in one of the museums or wander the streets. You will meet back up with your driver and he will take you into the Dublin suburbs to Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel for the first of a 3-night stay. Dinner at your hotel this evening.

REFLECTION

The Celtic soul is intuitive, leaping readily beyond the here and now. It is imaginative, playing gleefully with the symbolic and mythical. It is inclusive, caught up in family and community. It is wide open in its hospitality. It is God-centered in its day-to­-day orientation toward life. It is given to storytelling and song, in the company of friends, over a pint in the local pub.

A Celtic spirit sees God’s action as integral to moment-to-moment living. Every aspect of life is enabled by God and enlivened by God. It is the kind of God-awareness that inspired many Irish mothers (including Bridget’s mother, Bridie) to begin each day with the phrase: “In the name of God.” The awareness of being immersed in the holy in the midst of a circle of love like a cocoon or a womb which God has woven around you–this is core to the Celtic understanding of life. Praying with Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver

(Praying with Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver p. 4)

PRAYER 

A Friendship Blessing

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.

SONG 

Anam Cara by Jan Novotka

https://youtu.be/Co-1RvbMK4c

You are here in my soul. It is here where we are one. Fullness is what I know!
Oh, such Presence, gentle Presence, with you! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!

Can it be? Is it true? My soul finds rest in you! It’s as if with you I’m home.
Oh, such fullness and completeness with you! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!

Now I know. I’m at peace. “Anam Cara” is your name. Holy is this love that flows,
Gift that’s given as a blessing for all! Anam Cara! Anam Cara! Anam Cara!

Day 3: Wednesday, Sept 18, 2019 North of Dublin

Day 3: After a full Irish breakfast, you will depart for the Hill of Tara. Then on toMonasterboice for some photos. And continuing on to Newgrange/Knowth to view the passage tombs. Afterwards, you will travel north to Dundalk to visit St. Bridget’s Shrine. Then enjoy some local touring in counties Louth and Meath before returning to the castle for dinner and overnight.

REFLECTION

At Bridget’s Shrine
The Celtic soul takes seriously the pronouncement of Jesus that those who “do it to one of the least ones, do it to me.” A similar awareness is told in a legend of Brigit who gave away to the hungry a basket of apples given to her by a wealthy admirer. On being admonished for distributing a personal gift to the indigent, Brigit’s reply was: “What is mine is theirs.” This is the world vision behind true Celtic hospitality. It is this value system that empowers our compassionate outreach in today’s ministry of peace and justice. It enlivens this century’s awareness of humanity as a global village for whose welfare each one of us is accountable. (Praying With Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver p.6-7)

Faughart, which according to folklore is the birthplace of Saint Brigit, is located near the border of south Louth and north of Armagh. Faughart is a peaceful place, surrounded by trees and a panorama of the Irish countryside, including the Gap of the North, the Plain of Muirthemhne, and the town of Dundalk. As you walk in through the entrance, you see a shrine with a statue of Saint Brigit on top of the roof. At the bottom of the steps leading to Brigit’s shrine are various statues: Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, Saint Co­lumcille, the first missionary, Saint Malachy, twelfth-century reformer and archbishop of Armagh, Saint Oliver Plunkett who was martyred for the faith during the period when Catholicism was suppressed by Henry VIII. The statue of Brigit is located above all these, and looks as if she is suspended among the surrounding and majestic tall trees. To the left of the shrine is a holy well with its water spouting like a fountain. (Praying With Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver, pp. 25-26)

Down the hill are prayer stones, stations of the cross, and a quiet stream. Several of the stones are identified as places where pilgrims come to pray for specific bodily ailments: there is the knee-marked stone, the waist-marked stone, the eye-marked stone, and so on. (Praying With Celtic Holy Women (2003) Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver, pp. 25-26)

PRAYER
Celebrating Brigit’s Gifts for Our Lives

Holy Brigit, your attitude of openness and generous welcome provides a model for us, especially valuable for the many people today marginalized by their traditional religion. You lived the spirit of Jesus who himself embraced outcasts, who challenged the authorities of synagogue and Temple, and who dined with the lowly. Your inclusivity reminds us that we all belong at the Banquet of Love, the heavenly feast. Here all of us find our home, the place where we are loved totally, tenderly, and passionately in the heart of God.

Let us pray together a table blessing attributed to Brigit:

“I should welcome the poor to my feast, for they are God’s children. I should welcome the sick to my feast, for they are God’s joy. Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place, let the sick dance with the angels.”

SONG 

Beatitudes by Noirin Ni Raian on Celtic Joy CD

https://youtu.be/2mTVGj0jVRY

Antiphon: Amen! Truly, I say to you, gather in my name, I am with you.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Blessed are the gentle, they shall inherit the land.

Antiphon: Amen! Truly, I say to you, gather in my name, I am with you.

Blessed are those who mourn, they shall be consoled.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, the justice of God shall be theirs.

Antiphon: Amen! Truly, I say to you, gather in my name, I am with you.

Blessed are the merciful, mercy shall be show unto them.

Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall behold their God.

Antiphon: Amen! Truly, I say to you, gather in my name, I am with you.

Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God.

Blessed are those who suffer in the cause of right,

the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Antiphon: Amen! Truly, I say to you, gather in my name, I am with you.