Nancy Stewart, a 107-year-old woman
from Clonard, County Meath is attempting a virtual Mass tour across Ireland
while in lockdown.
She and her granddaughter, Louise Coghlan, have been shielding together
since last March and have decided on this spiritual challenge!
There are 32 counties on the island and so many churches to join in
virtually from the comfort of the kitchen.
Louise has tried to find different things with which to occupy her
elderly grandmother and found that when she asks Nancy if she wants to watch
Mass her "eyes light up like I'd just given her a million euros".
Apparently Nancy, whose favourite saint is St Anthony, often known as
the patron saint of lost things, can hardly believe that she has found and can watch
Mass on a computer or a phone from her comfy armchair on any day of the week.
"I feel so happy and so refreshed sitting happily in my own
kitchen, in my armchair looking at Mass."
Canon Jo adds: It is amazing and marvellous that we can worship safely
in our homes and that we have the technology to keep in touch and worship
together by phone or on line. You don’t need to be a centenarian or have any
other reason to use the internet for worship in seeking to keep yourself and
others safe from the virus.
We all know it feels different, and for many of us it is similar to what
must be Nancy’s biggest regret, as a devout Catholic, that she cannot literally
share in the communion itself. Yet this can be a spiritual lifeline as we focus
on all that Jesus has done for us, his willingness to sacrifice himself, his
broken body and pierced side on the cross - the call to us to follow his way of
love, knowing that He is always with us.
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