Congratulations to Jamila Zaidan (Fairyhouse Lodge), Jack Hickey (Clonkeen), Leo Brazil (Jamestown Park), Noah Reilly (Jamestown Park) and Callum Smith (Seagrave Park) who were baptised recently.

­­­Please pray for Bernard Smith (Dunboyne), brother in law of Peter Hartnett (Ratoath) who died recently. May he rest in peace.

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A meeting of the Children’s Liturgy Group will take place in the Parochial House on Wednesday 7^th June at 8.00pm

Ratoath Community Art Group (recently formed in the Community Centre) meet on Tuesdays from 8.30pm to 10.00pm and on Fridays from 10.00am to 1.00pm. All budding artists are welcome. Contact Doug Gibson on 087-9138080.

Ratoath Parent & Toddler group is now running every Thursday from 10.00a.m. to 12noon in Ratoath Community Centre. Everybody welcome -contact Deborah on 086-1708208

Ratoath Musical & Drama Society: Come and join us in bringing musicals and plays to Ratoath’s brand new theatre “The Venue”. Anybody over the age of sixteen, with an interest in theatre is welcome to come along to the launch of the Ratoath Musical and Drama Society on Wednesday 7^th June at 9.00pm in  Ratoath Community Centre.

                            Ratoath Harps Lotto Results  6.9.12.16. No Jackpot Winner.

              Tuesday                  Sean & Mairead Hughes             

        Friday                     John Eiffe

              Saturday                 There will be no morning Mass in the Nursing Home on 10^th June

Excerpt of the address of Pope Benedict XV1 on his visit to Auschwitz

Auschwitz-Birkenau, 28 May 2006

 To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.

Twenty-seven years ago, on 7 June 1979, Pope John Paul II stood in this place. He said: “I come here today as a pilgrim. As you know, I have been here many times. So many times! And many times I have gone down to Maximilian Kolbe’s death cell, paused before the execution wall, and walked amid the ruins of the Birkenau ovens. It was impossible for me not to come here as Pope.” Pope John Paul came here as a son of that people which, along with the Jewish people, suffered most in this place and, in general, throughout the war. “Six million Poles lost their lives during the Second World War: a fifth of the nation”, he reminded us. Here too he solemnly called for respect for human rights and the rights of nations, as his predecessors John XXIII and Paul VI had done before him, and added: “The one who speaks these words is ... the son of a nation which in its history has suffered greatly from others. He says this, not to accuse, but to remember. He speaks in the name of all those nations whose rights are being violated and disregarded ...”.

Pope John Paul II came here as a son of the Polish people. I come here today as a son of the German people. For this very reason, I can and must echo his words: I could not fail to come here. I had to come. It is a duty before the truth and the just due of all who suffered here, a duty before God, for me to come here as the successor of Pope John Paul II and as a son of the German people - a son of that people over which a ring of criminals rose to power by false promises of future greatness and the recovery of the nation’s honour, prominence and prosperity, but also through terror and intimidation, with the result that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power. Yes, I could not fail to come here. On 7 June 1979 I came as the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, along with many other Bishops who accompanied the Pope, listened to his words and joined in his prayer. In 1980 I came back to this dreadful place with a delegation of German Bishops, appalled by its evil, yet grateful for the fact that above its dark clouds the star of reconciliation had emerged. This is the same reason why I have come here today: to implore the grace of reconciliation - first of all from God, who alone can open and purify our hearts, from the men and women who suffered here, and finally the grace of reconciliation for all those who, at this hour of our history, are suffering in new ways from the power of hatred and the violence which hatred spawns.