The greatest threat facing our country is that any person, or family, should feel excluded and, in all of the difficulties confronting our country, be without hope. It is a sin against everything that Christmas is about and everything that it stands for.
In Cuan Mhuire centres, Christmas has always been a time for open doors, welcome and warmth. Even when, back in the early days, we had little, there was always enough to go around. In the old Dairy in Athy, where Cuan Mhuire began, no one was ever excluded.
This year, the pressures on Cuan Mhuire, and on our entire sister voluntary bodies and agencies, are greater than at any time I can remember.
Source: Sr Consilio Fitzgerald, Irish Independent, 24/11/2011