{"id":3609,"date":"2020-04-24T14:21:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T14:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/?p=3609"},"modified":"2020-04-25T11:32:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T11:32:07","slug":"confirmation-first-holy-communion-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/confirmation-first-holy-communion-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Confirmation &#038; First Holy Communion Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>To Priests, Teachers, Parents and Candidates for First Holy Communion and Confirmation in the\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>April 24\u00a02020<\/p>\n<p>Dear Friends,<br \/>\nEaster greetings and good wishes to All.<br \/>\nFirstly, I would like to say to all our school pupils preparing for the sacraments this year: it<br \/>\nis now nearly six weeks since your schools closed. Life has changed considerably for you,<br \/>\nyour family and for the entire country. You are now at home without contact with your<br \/>\nfriends from school and other activities. I am sure you miss them very much as you miss<br \/>\nvisiting other family members \u2013 especially your grandparents. This is a great challenge for<br \/>\neveryone. I am sure you will show great courage in following all that is asked of you at this<br \/>\ntime to protect one another.<br \/>\nI have received a number of requests for information about the Sacraments of First Holy<br \/>\nCommunion and Confirmation &#8211; as to whether they will be held as previously planned in the<br \/>\nparishes of the Archdiocese. As we come to the end of the month of April and the Easter<br \/>\nseason progresses it is now certain that all the plans and preparations we have made for<br \/>\nthe reception of the Sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation will not be<br \/>\nrealised.<br \/>\nThese ceremonies are big occasions and bring many people together to celebrate with those<br \/>\nreceiving the sacrament. However, following guidelines from the government, right now it<br \/>\nis impossible to gather large numbers of people because of the risks involved for the spread<br \/>\nof Covid-19. I am sure this will be a big disappointment for many people, including myself.<br \/>\nI really appreciate and enjoy the confirmation ceremonies that I participate in.<br \/>\nTo all of you preparing for these sacraments this year I would like to state that your First<br \/>\nHoly Communion and Confirmation will happen when it is safe to do so. The planning of a<br \/>\nnew date will involve your local Priests, your Teachers, your Parents and, of course, the<br \/>\nassurance from the government that it is safe to hold the ceremony.<br \/>\nI wish you every Blessing and Joy this Easter Season. I invite you to pray with me the words<br \/>\nof Psalm 26, that all your families and friends may be safe at this time:<br \/>\n<em>\u201cThe Lord is my light and my help, Hope in the Lord, hold firm and take heart\u201d.<\/em><br \/>\nYours in Christ,<br \/>\n+ Kieran O\u2019Reilly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To Priests, Teachers, Parents and Candidates for First Holy Communion and Confirmation in the\u00a0Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. April 24\u00a02020 Dear Friends, Easter greetings and good wishes to All. Firstly, I would like to say to all our school pupils&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3614,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions\/3614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.holycrossballycahill.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}