Bind us together

Gorbals knitting team will help people stay warm this winter

By Brian Swanson

An army of volunteers are knitting for the needy in a winter of rising energy costs – thanks to an initiative by a parishioner from Blessed John Duns Scotus in the Gorbals.

Anna Malone formed a group called Care2Knit by advertising in her church bulletin and on social media asking for volunteers to knit blankets, scarves and hats for families and individuals who need them - and the response was magnificent.

Anna, who used money from her own savings to buy wool and other materials, said: “At the beginning of September I thought I would try and get a group together to knit or crochet blankets, hats, scarves and gloves and with that give a hot water bottle to help those most at risk this winter with the sky/high energy bills.

“Before I knew it, we had 70 volunteers – it’s just incredible how kind people are – and the thing is they are not just from Catholic churches but all over so it’s been a brilliant community effort.

“There was even a lady from the North of Scotland who heard what we were doing and knitted a blanket for us.

“I don’t even meet a lot of the volunteers – they just leave the blankets at the church and then local St Vincent de Paul lads deliver them.

“We have already taken blankets and hats to the Wayside Club and blankets, hats and scarves to Men Matters in Drumchapel as well as other organisations and community centres in and around the Gorbals.

“But we can’t stop here because we need to keep this going through the winter so we are still looking for more volunteers, donations of wool, knitting needles and hot water bottles.”

“And don’t worry if you can’t knit – we have a knitting group in the hall at the church every Tuesday at 11 and everyone is welcome!”

Parish Priest, Franciscan Father Ed Highton said: “We have a great community here in the parish and what Anna is doing is just one of the many excellent examples of that.

“It’s a very good thing she and the other volunteers are doing to help those who need it.”

Anna, who was widowed four years ago, has a background in volunteer work having been a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia and in Romania after the fall of the Ceausescu regime.

To find out more or how to support the work email Anna at  AnnaDHoP@aol.com or call 07469 893292. Donations to Care2Knit can be made through the following link: gofund.me/34fc7075

Bind us together

By Ronnie Convery

A bond between Rome and home and a call to be close to his people … that was how Archbishop Nolan summarised the ceremony of reception of the Pallium, the small woolen collar which he will wear in future as a metropolitan archbishop.

The Pope’s Nuncio (ambassador) to Great Britain travelled to Glasgow to lay the vestment on the Archbishop’s shoulders, according to the desire of Pope Francis that the ceremony should take place in the home cathedral of the recipient.

Archbishop Nolan had been given the pallium in Rome in June by the Pope at a Mass with all the new Metropolitan Archbishops named over the last year, but the ceremony of installation was to take place in each prelate’s home diocese.

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti told the congregation of clergy, religious and lay people in St Andrew’s Cathedral: “This is a symbol of your belonging to the Church of Rome, given to you by the Holy Father, and this Holy Father wanted the installation to take place here.

“The woolen scarf I lay on your Archbishop’s shoulders is made of the wool of lambs and is a reminder of his role as a shepherd. He is to be like the Good Shepherd and you are to feel loved in his sight.

“Please pray for your Archbishop. It’s not easy to be a bishop today. It can be a very heavy burden”. But he added with a smile, “Your man is strong and he knows what he wants!”

The ceremony which followed was historic. It was the first time in history an Archbishop of Glasgow had been installed with the pallium on Scottish soil.

That historic note was taken up by Archbishop Nolan in his homily.

He reminded those in attendance (and those following the ceremony online) of the special title given to the Archdiocese of Glasgow by a Pope in the 12th century – specialis filia romanae ecclesiae – special daughter of the Roman Church, a title reproduced in the colourful mosaic laid on the floor of the Cathedral entrance.

Archbishop Nolan said: “The Pallium represents a sharing in the ministry of the Pope and the work of Christ the Good Shepherd… it’s a reminder that the Archbishop should not be a remote figure but one who is in contact with the flock.

And jokingly he added … “Pope Francis likes to talk about the shepherd ‘smelling of the sheep’. Well I have to say the sheep whose wool went into making this pallium smell OK!”

He went on to appeal for a new sense of common mission.

The Archbishop said: “I have been asked since becoming Archbishop how I can cope with the challenges and difficulties of running a large archdiocese like Glasgow.

“But I cope because they are not my challenges and difficulties, they are our challenges and difficulties. We all have a role to play.”

He went on: “Our talents are given to us to use for others, not just ourselves. So we have to encourage each other to use our talents for the benefit of the wider community, and people have to be allowed to do that – that’s why synodality is so important. It means working together for the good of the whole Church.”

A century of faith marked

By Brian Swanson

When Archbishop Nolan made his first visit to Our Lady of Lourdes to celebrate 100 years of worship at the Cardonald church, he was in good company.

The parish is the only one in Scotland to have hosted two Popes – both Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XV1 celebrated Mass within its boundaries.

During the two historic visits, in 1982 and 2010, Bellahouston Park, which is part of the Southside parish, was the only place large enough for open air Masses, giving Our Lady of Lourdes a distinction that will never be repeated.

The parish was also home for a short time to the late Archbishop Tartaglia, who died on January 13 last year, the Feast of St Mungo, and who began his ministry as an assistant priest in the parish in the early 1980s.

Archbishop Nolan, the principal celebrant at the Mass of thanksgiving, has also become part of the folk lore of the parish.

Parish priest Father David Wallace explained that in early February this year he was in the bell tower of the church with an engineer testing the bell following repairs and at the very moment it rang so did Father David’s mobile telling him of Archbishop Nolan’s appointment!

Turning to the Archbishop at the end of the anniversary Mass, Father David drew laughter from the congregation when he said: “I think we can safely say that we were the very first parish to sound the bells to celebrate your appointment – even although we didn’t plan to!”

These were just some of the many memories shared as parishioners gathered in joyful celebration at a Mass of thanksgiving to mark a century of worship in a parish that was once largest in the Archdiocese.

But it started small.

In 1922, as more families poured into the area, parish priest Father Henry Edgar was tasked with drawing up plans for the first church, which still survives as the present day church hall, and which was designed for a congregation of 500.

It was built quickly, but sadly Father Edgar died before the first Mass took place.

The next milestone in the parish history came in 1933 with the appointment of Father, later Canon, George Galbraith who was to serve the parish for the next 27 years.

When he arrived it was clear a larger church as well as a new school were needed to serve the 500 Catholic families now living in the area.

Within the next six years Father Galbraith secured both church and school.

Today’s church on Lourdes Avenue was dedicated in March 1938 during the year of the Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston Park. The large cross near the church came from the Catholic Pavilion at the exhibition and has remained there ever since.

One of the most generous benefactors of the new church was the Green family who owned Green’s Playhouse, in Renfield Street later the Apollo and now the Cineworld cinema.

The Greens, who often attended Mass in a chauffeur-driven Bentley, gifted the high altar, the Pietà and stained-glass windows.

The official opening of Our Lady of Lourdes was celebrated on Pentecost Sunday, 28 May 1939, just four months before the before the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939.

Over the years ten parish priests and 44 assistant priests have faithfully served at Our Lady of Lourdes.

Monsignor John Gilmartin, who served between 1995 and 2017 is the only former priest from Our Lady of Lourdes who is still alive and was among a number of priests who took part in the anniversary mass.

His successor Father Wallace, said: “How could we not celebrate? A hundred years of worship is a significant anniversary for our parish which has seen so many changes with so much to be thankful for.

“The Covid years were particularly difficult for every parish but although attendances are down not just here but in other churches things are slowly getting back to normal.

It may be that we have fewer numbers of Church faithful but we strive to be more alive and hope-filled for, as Archbishop Nolan said, we must not just celebrate the past but look to the future

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.”

Glasgow’s ‘gift to the world’

By Brian Swanson

Stella Maris, the global charity for seafarers and sailors founded in the Dear Green Place over a hundred years ago, has become one of Glasgow’s greatest gifts to the world.

That was the uplifting message from Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen at a Mass of thanksgiving in St Mungo’s Townhead marking the charity’s 102nd anniversary.

Bishop Gilbert, speaking in his capacity as Scotland’s Stella Maris promoter told over a hundred delegates to the charity’s 25th World Congress: “It began here in Glasgow in 1920 with people reaching out to other people in a faith-inspired collaboration with the Lord in response to a special exercise in compassion”.

Bishop Gilbert, who was joined around the altar by bishops and priests from London, Taiwan, India and Africa, added: “It is as simple in the end as one human being reaching out to another. Person to person. Heart speaking to heart.”

Earlier Bishop Gilbert recalled that a Swiss Jesuit priest, Father Joseph Eggar and Br Daniel Shields, a lay brother, both serving in St Aloysius, Garnethill, set up a movement to pray for sailors and fishermen docking on the Clyde a century ago which laid the foundations of Stella Maris.

Similar movements had sprung up all over Europe most of which faded away during the First World War.

Bishop Gilbert added: “However in Glasgow there was an energy that was ready to resume which inspired enthusiasm as the war ended.”

Young men from St John’s Church in Portugal Street, in the Gorbals, Bishop Gilbert said, were among the first to recognise the value of visiting sailors on board ships, to show friendship and to pray with them as Stella Maris volunteers do to this day.

“Now Stella Maris has grown wonderfully from these first seminal beginnings it has become global and has so many collaborators in so many places and in all of this we can see the spirit of God hovering over the waters.”

After the centenary Mass delegates were offered a Civic Reception hosted by Glasgow’s Lord Provost at the City Chambers.

Delegates also enjoyed a well-received and thought-provoking play called “Star of the Sea” written by Stephen Callaghan of Archdiocese of Glasgow Arts Project which traced the origins of Stella Maris and had been commissioned to mark the charity’s centenary.