A chara, - Did your Millennium 2000 supplement miss the real celebration?
In our parish, we had two celebrations: a sunset celebration at 4 p.m., and an ecumenical celebration at 11.30 p.m., for midnight. A member of our parish had a bet with his son. His son said there would be only eight people at the 11.30 celebration. His father thought there would be 18 or more. The father won. There were about 40 - more, in fact, than the son found is the pub he went to! As well as that, we had about 200 people at our 4 p.m. sunset celebration. All this in a small parish, without any hype.
If you were to survey parishes around the country and make a count, perhaps you'd find that the numbers at their celebrations would greatly outnumber those at the "big" events - not, of course, that these local celebrations are "real" news. Just normal. - Is mise,
Padraig McCarthy, The Presbytery, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow.