3 Jan 2015

4th January 2015 - SS102fm Year in Review 2014 - 2nd Sunday of Christmas

On this weeks programme the team does their annual review of the previous year 2014, we find out who our patron saints for 2015 are going to be and we have our regular reflection on the gospel of the Sunday.

You can listen to the podcast of this weeks programme HERE.

Review of the Year


As is customary at this time of the year we have our review of 2014 from a church perspective looking at the highs and lows of the year in Ireland, Limerick and around the globe with a special focus on what has happened with Pope Francis over the last twelve months.

You can listen back to our review of 2014 HERE excerpted from the main programme podcast.

Links to items raised during the review of the year and websites to keep an eye on during the year.

Limerick - Synod 2016
2014: The year in review in Catholicism 

Also check out Rome Reports who have prepared a short video for each month of 2014.

Gospel - John 1:1-18


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”)From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Reflections on the gospel:

Sacred Space - John 1:1-18
Irish Carmelites (OCarms) - reflection
Bring It! A Christmas Reflection on John 1:1-18


Patron Saints 2015

On Sacred Space 102fm for the last couple of years we have taken a Blog Patron Saint who in 2014 was the Franciscan St Bonaventure. 

We also each took a personal patron saint:

Anne - Pope St Paul V
John - St Michael the Archangel
Lorraine - St Cecilia
Shane - St Andre Bessette
So for 2015 who are our celestial guides for the coming year?!?


Blog Patron 2015 - St Joachim

Husband of Saint Anne, elderly father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Grandfatherof Jesus Christ. Probably well off. Tradition says that while he was away from home, he and Anne each received a message from an angel that she was pregnant. Believed to have given Mary to the service of the Temple when the girl was three years old. Joachim is mentioned in neither historical nor canonical writings.

The information we have on Joachim derives mainly from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James.

Patron saint of fathers,grandfathers and grandparents.


John's patron for 2015 - St Jerome Emiliani
A careless and irreligious soldier for the city-state of Venice, Jerome was captured in a skirmish at an outpost town and chained in a dungeon. In prison Jerome had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned how to pray. When he escaped, he returned to Venice where he took charge of the education of his nephews—and began his own studies for the priesthood. In the years after his ordination, events again called Jerome to a decision and a new lifestyle. Plague and famine swept northern Italy. Jerome began caring for the sick and feeding the hungry at his own expense. While serving the sick and the poor, he soon resolved to devote himself and his property solely to others, particularly to abandoned children. He founded three orphanages, a shelter for penitent prostitutes and a hospital. Around 1532 Jerome and two other priests established a congregation, the Clerks Regular of Somasca, dedicated to the care of orphans and the education of youth. Jerome died in 1537 from a disease he caught while tending the sick. He was canonized in 1767. In 1928 Pius Xl named him the patron of orphans and abandoned children. Feast day February 8th.

Anne's patron for 2015 - St Augustine of Hippo
St Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in Numidia (Roman province of Africa). He is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in the Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are City of God and Confessions. St. Augustine of Hippo is the patron of brewers because of his conversion from a former life of loose living, which included parties, entertainment, and worldly ambitions. His complete turnaround and conversion has been an inspiration to many who struggle with a particular vice or habit they long to break. Also patron saint of printers. His feast day is 28th August.


Lorraine's patron for 2015 - St Josephine Bakhita of Sudan    
Born to a wealthy Sudanese family, she was kidnapped by slave-traders at age 9, and given the name Bakhita (lucky) by them. Sold and resold in the markets at El Obeid and Khartoum, finally purchased in 1883 by Callisto Legnani, Italian consul who planned to free her. She accompanied Legnani to Italy in 1885, and worked as a nanny for the family of Augusto Michieli. She was treated well in Italy and grew to love the country. An adult convert the Christianity, she joined the Church on 9 January 1890, she took the name of Josephine as a symbol of her new life. She entered the Institute of Canossian Daughters of Charity in Venice, Italy in 1893, taking her vows on 8 December 1896 in Verona, Italy and serving as a Canossian Sister for the next fifty years. Her gentle presence, her warm, amiable voice, and her willingness to help with any menial task were a comfort to the poor and suffering people who came to the door of the Institute. After a biography of her was published in 1930, she became a noted and sought after speaker, raising funds to support missions.


Shane's patrons for 2014 - St Veronica 

When Christ fell on his way to the Golgotha, a woman wiped his face with a towel; an image of Christ remained on the towel. This woman was Veronica; this incident is all we really know about her, and the relic has become her symbol ever since. Patron saint against bleeding, against hemorraghes, domestic workers, dying people, laundry workers, linen weavers, maids, photographers, seamstresses, washerwomen

If you would like to pick a patron saint for 2015 check out the Saint Name Generator from Jennifer Fulwiler over at Conversion Diary

Liturgical odds and ends

Online could be confusing for people this week as we have divergences in the liturgical calendar. In the USA and UK the feast of the Epiphany is celebrated on the Sunday (4th January) where as in Ireland we still observe it on the 6th January.

Saints of the Week

January 7th - St Raymond of Penafort
January 8th - Saint Athelm of Canterbury
January 9th - Blessed Józef Pawlowski

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