Christian Unity Week 2026 in the Nenagh area

The Church of Ireland Nenagh Union of Parishes is joining the Catholic Odhrán Pastoral Area to invite Christians of all traditions in the Nenagh area to an ecumenical prayer service for Christian Unity Week, in St Patrick’s Church, Puckane, on Thursday January 22^nd at 7pm. All are welcome!

The service will be based on resources prepared by the faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church, part of the Oriental Orthodox tradition, along with their brothers and sisters of the Armenian Catholic, and Evangelical Churches. Armenia became the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion in 301AD, well before the Roman Empire’s embrace of Christianity. The resources have been distributed by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

The title of the service, ‘Light from Light for Light’, is inspired by the Nicene Creed, whose 1700^th anniversary we commemorated last year. In it we declare Christ is ‘light from light’, and we add ‘for light’, because Christ shines God’s light into this troubled world, bringing us into loving communion with each other and with God. The service is adapted from the ‘Sunrise Service’, one of the daily prayer hours of the Armenian Church, compiled by their great 12^th century patriarch St Nersess ‘the Gracious’.

We will share the light of Christ, as the flame is passed on from the Paschal candle to candles held by the congregation, filling the church with light. And we will affirm the faith we share by saying together the Nicene creed in its original form, before the ‘filioque’ schism.

Joc Sanders from the Church of Ireland Nenagh Union says: “God surely loves the diversity of our Christian traditions, just as he loves the wonderful diversity of life he has made. We do not all need to worship in the same way, nor even hold exactly the same beliefs. But when we gather to pray together as Christians of different traditions, I believe the Spirit urges us to the unity Christ prays for, which is unity in diversity. We have much to learn from each other. We need each other to be salt and yeast to build God’s kingdom in the world.”

Echoing him, Deborah O’Driscoll, Minister for Catechetics in the Odhrán Pastoral Area, comments: “God calls us to unity, not uniformity. Each of our Christian traditions has its own gifts to share, and when we come together, we enrich one another through the love of Christ. Let us celebrate the diversity God has made and recognize that, though we may worship differently, we are one family in faith. Unity doesn’t mean thinking the same way—it means walking together in love, listening, and learning from one another as we strive to build God’s kingdom together. We are better together than apart.”

Who was Mary, the theotokos?

Mary Magnificat by Laura James

A reflection for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 13 Jan 2026

The Magnificat which we have just heard, Mary’s great song of praise, is set in the lectionary in place of a psalm for this Tuesday. I’m not sure why, but it does give us us the opprtunity to reflect on who Mary really was.

The background to the Magnificat is this. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, has travelled to a hill town to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist. ‘When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb … For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”’.

And Mary responds with the Magnificat.

Most of us, I suppose, have grown up with a rather mawkish image of Mary as meek and mild, a demure teenager who couldn’t say boo to a goose. This has been reinforced in art, and in many of our favourite hymns and carols. ‘Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head’, we sing in one hymn. ‘Mary was that mother mild’, we sing in another. Gentle Mary – mild, meek, the handmaid of the Lord, head bowed in reverence. Can’t you see her there in so many paintings, stained glass windows, and Christmas cards?

But this is not the real Mary that we meet in her own words. The Magnificat is no sweet lullaby - it is a battle cry, bold and defiant. Secure in her faith in God as her Saviour, she cries out, ‘From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name’. She is certain that God cares for the poor, the powerless, the hungry, those with least in society, just as he cares for her: ‘The Lord has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty’.

We short-change Mary when we idealise her as meek and mild. The real Mary was a fighter. Fierce to protect her first born son, Jesus, when she fled as a refugee with him and Joseph from the wrath of Herod. Fierce for God’s justice and righteousness to flow down upon ordinary people such as her.

This is how we should remember her. This is why we should revere her. And for this reason she is an example to us in these troubled times, when the powerful behave as if might is right and trample on the lowly.