On Friday 18 March the Eucharistic Congress Bell began its journey to the parishes of the Armagh Diocese for a total of 15 days. From Armagh the bell will be brought on foot from diocese to diocese by teams of volunteers.

On Thursday night, 24th March, the bell arrived into the parish of Lower Killeavey at 9.30 pm and on Friday morning, pupils from all four schools in the parish went to the Good Shepherd Church in Cloughreagh to celebrate its visit.St Joseph’s PS Bessbrook, St Peter’s PS Cloughreagh, St Malachy’s PS Camlough and St Pauls HS Bessbrook  were all represented and participated in the celebration of the Mass.

The bell will move onto the Dioceses of Dromore, Down and Connor and Derry and onto the remaining dioceses. It will also be taken to the World Youth Day event in Madrid in July and will be taken to Lourdes as part of the Annual Dublin Diocesan pilgrimage. The first stage of the bell pilgrimage will be completed on 29 January 2012.

The Congress Bell has its origins in the Dominican Convent in Portstewart in County Derry.  It was used most recently to ring in the Jubilee Year 2000 in Glendalough, Co. Wicklow.

The bell, a reminder of the tradition of St. Patrick’s Bell, will represent the call to faith, to prayer, to conversion and the vocation to service and to mission.

The bell has been fitted into a carrying frame in which it will be brought on foot from place to place around Ireland by teams of volunteers. It is hoped that it will be a focal point for gathering and for prayer, in cathedrals, parish churches and places of pilgrimage between now and June 2012.

In our preparation of the Eucharistic Congress, we have been asking people to think of it as a journey rather than just an event. Some of those who came to the last Congress in Dublin in 1932 have spoken to us of their mammoth journeys on foot or on bicycles. For this Congress we are asking people to engage in an interior journey of renewal. That is where the symbolism of the bell comes in. The bell will go on its journey around the country, but it will invite all those who hear it to begin an interior journey of renewal.