St. Aidan’s Church in Brookfield, Dublin has been refurbished. “So what?” you might say. Ah, but this was different. Here’s how it happened.

This ‘refurbishment’ started life as an image in the mind of the parish priest of a few tins of paint spread on the four walls. Local women invited into the church to consider this image and choose colours for the walls shook their collective head and asked “What about the ceiling? Something has to be done about the ceiling!” You see the fact is that there was no ceiling and there had been no ceiling in this Church for over twenty five years. The tin roof was the ‘ceiling’.

The congregation all down those years had made the acquaintance of every seagull that whacked its dinner onto the roof during the Sunday Eucharist. And the congregation could tap their feet along with the many and varied dance routines of the hailstones when they came to perform. So, yes there was an important question to be addressed in “What about the ceiling?” Suddenly the image in the parish priest’s mind took wings and flew aloft to include a ceiling.

Things rested so, but not for long. The women then reminded their priest of the windows and how they rattled and clapped out an accompaniment to the liturgical celebrations and the powerful winds that come along uninvited to visit the church in these days of climate change.
They also reminded him of how the coughing in the Church had risen to a crescendo over the years and was a worrying barometer of the failing health of the faithful. Now the image in the parish priest’s mind adjusted to included windows, and yes they would be double-glazed.

Things rested so, but not for long. “What about the sanctuary?” the women asked.  “What about the sanctuary? What’s wrong with it?” blustered the  priest. “The sanctuary is the most sacred part of the Church.” thundered the women. “ It should be beautiful!” There was no argument. On this point priest and people were one. The parish priest had stood in that sanctuary often enough to know that the women were right. Beautiful was not a word you could use to describe it. Adequate might describe it but beautiful never would. Now beauty began to light up the image of both priest and people.

Things rested so, but not for long. Then came the icons. The priest asked “Does anyone know where we might get a Crucifix ?” It just took a phone call for Colette Clarke to give her icon of the Crucifixion to the Church. Four years earlier an iconographer in the parish had completed an icon of St. Aidan the patron saint of the  parish and had kept it until  priest and people longed for beauty in their Church.

When Archbishop Diarmuid Martin came to bless the newly refurbished Church he incensed and blessed the icons of  The Crucifixion and St. Aidan. In this sanctuary space the Crucifix shines with the peace of Christ and St. Aidan looks down blessing his parish.

Rosaleen Hogan
South Central Province