St Margaret's RC Church, Lochgilphead
St Margaret’s RC Church
Argyll Street,
Lochgilphead,
Argyll,
PA31 8NE
01546 602380
Email: parish_priest@lochgilpheadcatholic.com
Website: http://www.lochgilpheadcatholic.com/
Contact: Marian.pallister@zen.co.uk
Mass is celebrated in St Margaret’s Lochgilphead at 10.00am each Sunday and in all Saints Episcopal Church, Inveraray at 12.30 each Sunday.
St Margaret’s Catholic Church in Lochgilphead was not built until the 1920s. In the decades before that a handful of Catholic families (most of them Italian immigrants) worshipped in a house in Union Street. After the Reformation, when many beautiful carved stone crosses were smashed and churches became places of Protestant worship, Catholicism was kept alive by monks and priests who traveled from Ireland and secretly celebrated the Eucharist throughout rural Argyll. Today, St Margaret’s is packed on Sundays and perhaps a dozen or so attend weekday Masses.
_______________________________________________________________________________
A prayer
Before time began, You knew us and loved us
when the seas gouged the tops of our mountains.
You knew us and loved us
when the glacier made its infinitesimal progress
through a space we now know as Loch Awe.
You knew us and loved us
when the stones were raised and men planted their crops
according to the solstices - calculated by their primitive accuracy.
You knew us and loved us
when blood was shed, when cruelties were dealt,
when boats sailed on tides of tears.
You knew us and loved us.
You walk with each Argyll generation.
You will be with our children and our children’s children to the end of time.
But – there will be no end as there was no beginning.
Tapadh leat, Lord
Back to Argyll Churches
Photo at top (St Margaret's Church) © Copyright David P Howard and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.