Hannah moves to wider challenges

Hannah Evans (third from right) with TY students Nicole Kidd, Brian Coyne, John Harney, Gareth Hogan and Emily Lynch at a recent fundraising Cake Sale.

As reported here a couple of weeks ago, Kilcullen's pastoral worker Hannah Evans is leaving to take up a new challenge with the Catholic aid organisation Trocaire, writes Brian Byrne.

The first pastoral worker to be placed in Kilcullen, two years ago under a Dublin Diocese programme, people in the parish would agree that Hannah leaves behind her a very discernable level of achievement in Kilcullen.

At a time when the shortage of vocations has left many priests seriously overworked, particularly in rural parishes, Hannah's stint in Kilcullen has stimulated lay involvement in pastoral matters, especially—but not exclusively—at the all-important young people level.

Her new appointment is as Church Officer with Trocaire, which involves working on pastoral resources such as Liturgy Packs used in the organisation's work in the social justice area. She will also be working with all of Trocaire's representatives in the various dioceses. In some ways it is similar to what she has been involved with in Kilcullen, though on a much larger scale.

"I'll be dealing with the provision of resources for Family Mass, for instance, and making suggestions for music, Prayers of the Faithful, Gospel readings and that kind of thing. There will also be an involvement with schools."

Though she will be based in Maynooth, Hannah's new position will also involve going out 'in the field' to see at first hand where the the work is focussed. This includes travelling abroad, and her first such trip, with colleagues, has already been organised to Uganda.

But she won't be forgetting Kilcullen. It was the first rural parish she worked in, and she admits that she didn't know what to expect when she arrived first.

"It was daunting coming in cold, on my own. But people really came on board, and though there were plenty of challenges, there were plenty of triumphs too. I had great freedom, and the space to be creative, and I enjoyed that very much. And I hope that some of the things I was involved with will have left at least a little bit of lasting impression."

They are likely to. For instance, her connections with the students of Cross & Passion College who have been working towards their John Paul II Awards are likely to last a long time.

Not to mention the ladies of the Suas Knitting Group, one of the fruits of an Active Ageing Week involvement which has resulted in women of all ages revisiting the craft of knitting.

Indeed, they combined with the CPC Transition Year students to run a Palestine Awareness event which provided not just money in the form of spontaneous public donations, but also a consignment of new-born baby sets for a maternity hospital in Bethlehem and its outreach service.

"The Transition Year students who got involved are really great, and I would hope that somebody would step up to the plate and take that whole Youth Ministry under their wing and keep it going. It is something that has to be renewed every year."

Hannah would like to see the Pastoral Council making a particular effort to support the Youth Ministry and continue the work that has already been started. "Somebody needs to really grab it by the horns and go with it. Especially to catch the young people on the way out of school before they are gone out of the parish to College or wherever."

The existence of parish elements like the Baptismal Team Funeral Team are also 'crucial' parts of Kilcullen's parish makeup now, she believes. "They extend—or in some cases re-extend—the welcome into the Church, sometimes for people who haven't been part of the Liturgy for a long time. They can have a huge responsibility, guiding a whole family through such times. The teams must provide a really good experience, and let the people know there is always a place in God's house for them—and that the parish needs them too."

She is firmly confident that they will grow to be part of an integrated support system to wherever Kilcullen as a Catholic parish will go in the future.

She leaves Kilcullen knowing that she has done her bit to make that happen. The experience also affected her in herself. "I think I grew an awful lot in the last two years. I got to know so many people and they had a great influence on me."

The community she leaves behind wishes her well on her future adventures.


This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.