Photo was taken on Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork (Irl)

Live street entertainment always adds life, energy and buzz to a street. Shoppers were highly amused as a seemingly double act charmed its audience. Both would be motionless, then one would move, then both would move and yet only one was for real! All added up to some great entertainment.

Thought on Sunday – February – 21/02/2010

The following reflection is by Rev.Joseph Cassidy

The word ‘lent’ has different meanings in English. He leant against the wall. She lent me some money. If you’re from Cork ‘he ran the lent of de field!’ The Lent we’re talking about means ‘springtime’, so the emphasis is on growth, on renewal and on new life.

If Lent is to mean anything in our lives, it has to be a season of renewal. Lent is a stretching time, a challenging time, a seasonal reminder of the intrinsically challenging nature of the Christian life. As an exercise in penance – out of a desire to grow in self control perhaps – people give up things during Lent like sweets, cigarettes or drink. I wouldn’t quarrel with that at all. All that is part of the Lenten spirit.

The one point that i would emphasise, however and that I’d like you to remember, is that Lent is not primarily about the extraordinary. It’s about the ordinary. It’s not primarily about extra things, like sweets or cigarettes, it’s about those things that are part of our everyday lives. Lent is a time when we make a fresh start, when we try again, a little bit more earnestly, with sincerity and honesty, to live up to the responsibilities and challenges of our Christian lives.