Kathleen Forristal

Died on October 17, 2020

The death has taken place of Kathleen Forristal of Bayside, Dublin 13 and formerly of Jerpoint Church, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. Kathleen passed away on 17th October in the care of the staff at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, after a long Illness. Kathleen will be sadly missed by her sisters Nan Collins (Carlow) and Mary Forristal (Galway), numerous nieces and nephews and the staff and residents of Cara Care, Santry, where she spent her final years and was so well cared for. Kathleen was pre-deceased by her parents William and Kathleen, Brothers Edmund, Joe, Larry, Liam and sisters Eilis and Gretta.

Kathleen’s funeral Mass will take place on Tuesday at 11am in the Church of the Assumption, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, followed by burial in St Mary’s New Cemetery, Thomastown in accordance with Government guidelines on public gatherings.

May Kathleen Rest in Peace

The funeral Mass can be viewed online by clicking here

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Reflection

“The sun will be darkened.” How does Pope Francis say we can help bring light back to the darkened sun? And what can we learn from the fig tree?
Dear brothers and sisters, that is the word that makes hope blossom in the world and relieves the suffering of the poor: tenderness. Compassion that leads you to tenderness. We need to overcome our self-absorption, interior rigidity, which is the temptation nowadays, that of the “restorationists”, who want a Church completely orderly, completely rigid: this is not of the Holy Spirit.
We have to overcome this, in order to make hope blossom amid this rigidity. It is up to us to overcome the temptation to be concerned only about our own problems; we need to grow tender before the tragedies of our world, to share its pain. Like the tender leaves of a tree, we are called to absorb the pollution all around us and turn it into goodness.
It is useless to keep talking about problems, to argue and to be scandalized – all of us can do that. What we need to do is imitate the leaves that daily, imperceptibly, turn dirty air into clean air. Jesus wants us to be “converters” of goodness: people who breathe the same heavy air as everyone else, but respond to evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21). People who act: by breaking bread with the hungry, working for justice, lifting up the poor and restoring their dignity. As the Samaritan did.
Pope Francis