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22 Sunday Ordinary Time, 28 August 2011, Matthew 16:21-27

The World Youth Day logo - 2011

Just under two weeks ago, 12 days to be exact, I began the pilgrimage to World Youth Day with 24 others. We were led by our Elphin Youth Ministry director, Mr Frank McGuinness, and our spiritual director was Fr Michael Duignan. Members of the inspirational Church music group: Elation Ministries, were among our number as well.

Emblazoned on the front of our group T-Shirts was the World Youth Day logo, as well as the theme of this year's World Youth Day: "Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith" coming from St Paul's letter to the Colossians. (Col 2:7)

The first big gathering was with the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid to celebrate Mass outside at Cibeles Square. There, encouraged by the huge gathering of young people and the vibrancy of the celebration, we were let in on what may be a closely guarded secret here in Ireland: World Youth Day would be one big party from the beginning to the end.

After Mass, as the crowds moved towards the Underground, our group made its way to a local cafe/bar. The musicians in our group got out their instruments and treated us to a feast of traditional Irish music on the fiddle accompanied by African drums. Some other pilgrims from London heard the sound of our music and asked to join with us.

A request came from the owner/manager of the cafe, a young, heavily pregnant woman. She came in to share with us that the child in her womb was dancing along with us in our joy! I was reminded of John the Baptist jumping for joy in Elizabeth's womb at the sight and sound of Our Lady.

The whole experience of World Youth Day in Madrid was refreshing, uplifting, full of life, and simply great fun. Gathering with at least a million others, in the blistering heat & sunshine, as the Pope was given the keys of the City by the Mayor, we danced and sang and got to know one another. There, I met a young couple from Italy – Magdalena and Samuel. We exchanged badges – they giving me one from their home diocese of Alba, me giving them a badge for the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Dublin next summer and encouraging them to come along.

That evening, the Pope told us, English-speaking pilgrims, to make "these days of prayer, friendship and celebration bring us closer to each other and to the Lord Jesus. ... so that we may be joyful witnesses to Christ, today and always." In these words the Pope encouraged us to be full of joy, to be full of prayer and to be jubilant in our celebrating. In this place we were to encounter the joy of meeting other young people of faith, to sing and to dance, to pray and be rooted in our relationship with Jesus. And, we were to bring that joy home! Not to leave it in Madrid! But to share it with everyone – that the Good News is not dreary, bad or sad, but vital, singing, dancing: full of life and joy.

The highlight of our pilgrimage was the gathering at Cuatro Vientos, a military airport on the southwest of Madrid. There, with what turned out to be some 2 million young people, we waited for, and kept vigil with, the Holy Father.

It was the toughest part of the pilgrimage, walking almost 41/2 hours to the site in the midday sun with temperatures hovering around 40C.

As the vigil began around 10pm, a storm blew up with heavy rain and high winds. Neither of these extremes could keep our spirits down. Shortly after, the vigil continued – the Pope smiling, even as he got soaked by the rain and lost the small, white, zucchetto that he normally wears on his head. His hair tousled, the Pope continued to smile, beginning again – "Queridos jóvenes amigos" – My dear young friends – delighting in the patient joy among the gathered pilgrims.

After a short night's sleep outside in our sleeping bags, we gathered ourselves once more at one of the large flat screens and tuned in our small FM radios to the translation in English. This was what we had kept vigil for, the Papal Mass with the biggest open-air Church on earth, for that moment at least.

During his homily, the Holy Father told us: "Christ cannot be separated from the Church any more than the head can be separated from the body (cf. 1 Cor 12:12)."

He then went on to say: "Make Christ, the Son of God, the centre of your life. But let me also remind you that following Jesus in faith means walking at his side in the communion of the Church. We cannot follow Jesus on our own. Anyone who would be tempted to do so “on his own”, or to approach the life of faith with that kind of individualism so prevalent today, will risk never truly encountering Jesus, or will end up following a counterfeit Jesus."

This was especially important for us young Irish pilgrims to hear – conscious as we are of the brokenness and sinfulness of our Church. That Christ is fundamentally connected to the broken and sinful Church is something that we may find hard to take in and accept.

The Pope encouraged us: "Having faith means drawing support from the faith of your brothers and sisters, even as your own faith serves as a support for the faith of others."

He advised us that: "Growing in friendship with Christ necessarily means recognizing the importance of joyful participation in the life of your parishes, communities and movements, as well as the celebration of Sunday Mass, frequent reception of the sacrament of Reconciliation, and the cultivation of personal prayer and meditation on God’s word."

My experience of World Youth Day was an upbuilding of my own personal faith, and the common faith I share with you, and with millions of other people throughout the world. It opened my eyes, once more, to the great truths of Christianity and the wonderful diversity of cultures that make up our universal Catholic Church. The joy-filled memory of those days will help me to persevere and endure the testing moments that we are living through in the present time.

20 Sunday Ordinary Time, 14 August 2011, Matthew 15:21-28

The Canaanite Woman and Jesus

Four years ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It is called the "Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels". Almost brand new, it was opened in 2002 after the previous Cathedral of St. Vibiana was badly damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

The Archbishop of Los Angeles at the time was Cardinal Roger Mahoney. The fundraising for the Cathedral, which cost something in the region of $250m, was a huge project in itself. The archdiocese managed to secure a large amount of finance from the Walt Disney company, and from other such notaries as Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mention these two because neither one is rooted in Roman Catholicism. And yet, both contributed sizeable sums of money, in the millions, to the project.

The Cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, citing a piece of Scripture that we have just heard proclaimed today – the last line of the first reading from the prophet Isaiah: "My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."

Nowadays, when we consider the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, we become afraid that we are, somehow, not being respectful to Christians of other denominations, churches or ecclesial communities; to people of other faiths; or to people of no faith.

We wonder if it is politically correct to tell other people about our faith. The place of faith in the workplace, in school and in third-level is hugely challenged. The implications of our shared faith, for political, cultural, social and moral life, rarely gets a mention these days. We have witnessed the privatisation of faith. Far from bringing the gospel to the public market place, we are tempted to carefully secure it's powerful message within the walls of the Church buildings our communities have inherited.

"My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."

It is interesting to reflect briefly on the terms: 'My house', as understood by the prophetic writer called Isaiah. For him, the house is three things: it is God's house, the Temple; it is the Royal House of Israel and Judah; and it is the Chosen people.

For us Christians, "God's House" is the building that we call the Church, for us it is here, the Church of the Sacred Heart, Roscommon. But that is not all God's House is.

It is also the Royal House, the Family & Lineage that each of us participate in through baptism in Christ Jesus. The House of God is the People of God.

The Church is the people, not the building. Even more, the Church is the People of God, gathered to pray, to worship and to be nourished by the Word we share and the Bread we break.

Isaiah adds another definition – God's House will be a house of prayer. God's house, people first and building second, are the core ways to enter into relationship with God in the conversation we call prayer. And then one more addition – God's House will be for all peoples. This completely redefines the role of the Chosen People in God's plan of salvation. They will, eventually, reach out to welcome all peoples into the Royal House of God, by means of the salvation offered in Christ.

It is interesting that the Canaanite woman, an outsider in Jesus' Hebrew worldview, approaches seeking his healing help. As a Canaanite woman she is entirely opposite to Jesus – she is a woman, not a man; a Canaanite, not a Jew. In terms of gender, religion and politics, she is beyond the pale. So, Jesus does not answer her.

As Jesus walks northwest from the sea of galilee, out towards the edge of Israel as we know it, almost crossing over into modern-day Lebanon, this outsider comes seeking him. He does not go seeking to connect with other people; he does not go seeking to convert. But, she recognises him for who he is – and in her vulnerable moment of need, when her daughter needs God's touch, she appeals beyond her own gender, her own religion and her own politics to the One Master, the One Lord of all.

"My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."

We may be worried about proclaiming the Good News of Jesus to people who may not share our world view. We need not worry. Our task is to simply share, gently, the joy, the hope, the love, the reconciliation, and the fullness of life that we have in Christ. We don't need to worry about the Church, or about the future. All we can offer, is real, genuine and honest witness, to the good things we share in because of our relationship in prayer with Christ. The rest we can leave to God.

19 Sunday Ordinary Time, 7 August 2011, Matthew 14:22-33

Fear

Gathering with you this morning for the first time is a privilege for me. We are, all of us, making a change. I have just moved here yesterday as Fr Kevin moved out to Rooskey. For the past year I have served as chaplain of IT Sligo, and it was with some surprise that I learned that I was to become curate here in Roscommon town. I am glad to be here with you and I pray that our getting to know each other over the time we have together will be mutually beneficial to us all.

I would like to offer you some brief biographical details – I am the youngest priest of the diocese. I was ordained in 2008 in my home parish of Riverstown, at the Church of the Assumption, Sooey, Co. Sligo. Before that, I was in Maynooth for seven years from 2001-2008, preparing for ordination to priesthood. And, before that again, I spent three years at IT Sligo studying Civil Engineering, which I still love.

I was educated at Summerhill College in Sligo, and completed my leaving cert there in 1998.
My hobbies include all things automotive, especially cars. For a number of years I volunteered as a marshall at the Sligo stages of the Circuit of Ireland Rally. And, in my teenage years I was a keen cyclist, winning an All-Ireland medal in the process, even if you wouldn't think it to look at me now!

Fear is an incredible thing. It has both positive and negative effects in our lives. It can save us from falling off a cliff, but it can also paralyse us and even stop us from taking the step that may sometimes be necessary to save ourselves.

Fear is what Mothers and Fathers drill into their children to stop them putting their hand into a fire. And yet, fear of water can paralyse a child trying to learn to swim.

Fear has both positive and negative effects on us.

Fear speaks to the Church that we find ourselves part of today. And, while we feel afraid of what is happening to our Church, we must also not allow our fear to paralyse us from taking the necessary steps to save ourselves.

It seems to me, from our gospel passage today, that the core activity of the Christian, when faced with fear, is to rely on God. And be reliance on God I don't mean that we ignore what is happening around us. What I mean is that we will find it most difficult to interpret the 'signs of the times' with 'eyes of faith' if we are not people of prayer.

Relying on God means placing our trust in God.

Relying on God means trusting that even in the midst of what can seem like a difficult and painful experience of truth, God is there. God is in the painful discoveries that we are making about our Church. And God is the reason that we continue to be people of faith.

Like the disciples out on the lake, we find ourselves afraid and overwrought, even sinking. And yet, all the while, Jesus is saying to us: "Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid."

I look forward to getting to know you all. Please pray for me as I get to know my new parish and community.

17 Sunday Ordinary Time, 24 July 2011, Matthew 13:44-46

Final Doxology - My first Mass

I think that it's fair to say that this week has been a painful week to be a priest. It doesn't compare to the pain of the many victims of abuse. Their pain is much greater and is lifelong.

But, nonetheless, this week has been a painful week to be a priest. The speech by An Taoiseach in the Dáil forced me to ask the question: what is my homily going to be about this Sunday? And, if I am honest, initially I was very angry with Mr Kenny for saying the things he said. Again, I felt ashamed to be a priest, ashamed to be part of the hierarchy of the Church. Ashamed, indeed, to be tarred with the same brush as those who have abused children in their care, and even more to be associated with those who attempted to shield abusers from the justice of the State.

So, back to my question: what is my homily going to be about this Sunday? In being angry with Enda Kenny, I wanted to lash out at him, and at his government. I was tempted to politicise my homily and to criticise him for being populist, and for being somewhat cavalier with the truth.

However, it was in conversations with my priest-colleagues, and with my colleagues in IT Sligo, that I began to hear another side to An Taoiseach's speech in Dáil Éireann. And that side is that Mr Kenny captured the anger and the injustice felt by many of us Irish people, at all that we have discovered about the Church over almost twenty years since the the Brendan Smyth case brought down the government in 1994.

And, while I might be somewhat critical of Mr Kenny on the core issue of truth; I can stand beside him in the anger that he expressed, the anger and rage that many people across our country feel inside.

So, if my homily is not to be a political attack on our Taoiseach, then what is it to be? A homily is supposed to break open the Word of God, for the People of God, in light of the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church, the faith of the community and the preacher and any current issues and affairs, both global and local, that affect the life of the believing community.

The pulpit is not the place for political rhetoric. The pulpit is supposed to be succour and help for the People of God in the living out of their faith.

Another way of saying this is that the preacher is called to form the hearts of the believing People of God in faith, hope and love.

So, where is the hope in these times? To whom can we en-trust our hearts?

A question that I ask myself on a regular basis is: Why do I continue to be a priest? With everything that has come out of the darkness and into the light – why remain? Why give my life to the Church, and be associated with some of the most evil actions that human beings can imagine? When there is no status left for priest or bishop: why stay?

The only answer that satisfies me when I ask this question of myself, is that I didn't become a priest because I wanted to do good things for the Church. I didn't become a priest because other priests asked me to consider being a priest. I didn't become a priest for either bishop or Pope.

I did become a priest, and I remain a priest, because deep in my own heart and soul I have encountered God's love. And, I have heard the call of God to share that encounter with other people. In short, I became a priest to share the Good News with others.

For me, that is the treasure hidden in the field, it is the one thing that is worth giving everything up for – status, power and wealth – even wife and family for the sake of the Kingdom of God, as the Gospel says.

I am a priest to share the Good News with others. In spite of all the brokenness and abuse, the sinfulness and the hopelessness of these moments, still the Good News is worth it. It is the Pearl of Great Price.

And the Church is, today and always, the broken vessel in which that Pearl is stored. The Church is the field in which the Treasure is hidden. Here, where never more in our lifetime has there been more dirt and mess and chaos covering it up. Here is where we find our resting place, here we encounter the One who searches for us until He finds us. Here we encounter Him who gave up all He had for us; for you and for me.

That is why I am a priest of Jesus Christ, and that is why I remain so.

16 Sunday Ordinary Time, 17 July 2011, Matthew 13:24-43

Darnel

During Easter week, as some of you know, I was in Lourdes with the IHCPT – the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, which brings children and young people with special needs to Lourdes each year for a "Pilgrimage – Holiday". Many of you here will know Mary Clancy who is very involved with the IHCPT, and is now a trustee in the organisation as well as being leader of group 164.

This year I travelled as the chaplain with group 306. Our group leader was a lady called Patricia Galvin, who comes from nearby Carraroe, and the deputy leader was a man called Ruairi McAteer who hails from Castlederg in Co. Tyrone. Ruairi is a young man of 24 years of age, and he entertained us for hours with his tomfoolery. While there, he told me all about his sister Maura, who recently joined the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in New York. He invited me to come to Castlederg to meet his sister during the summer when she was home for a family wedding.

About a month ago, we journeyed to Castlederg to meet Ruairi, his parents, and his sister, Sr Bernadette.
What happened around the dinner table that evening was nothing short of incredible. Sr Bernadette told me all about her life, and why she had become a Nun. She exuded joy into the room with her radiant smile, and we connected over a mutual acquaintance, an Austrian sister called Sr Christina whom I had met in the Holy Land in 1998, and who has been working in Letterkenny for many years. Then Sr Bernadette really astounded me when she talked about a core experience in her vocation journey at a Festival of Prayer for young people that happened in St Angela's College here in Sligo almost ten years ago. She shared about a particular priest who had helped her, through his preaching, to offer her life to God willingly. For her, this festival of prayer, and her encounter with God there, had helped her to answer the call of religious consecration.

The amazing thing for me was that I had been involved with the organisation and execution of that festival of prayer. I had spoken in Churches and encouraged young people to come along and try it out. The St Michael's Youth Prayer Group, of which I was an active member, had been instrumental in organising the event. Sr Bernadette went on to amaze me by producing an album of photographs from the festival itself!

I couldn't believe it! I think what I couldn't believe most of all was that something so good could have happened through that festival of prayer. That it could have been the catalyst moment in Sr Bernadette's vocation story really amazed me. In short, I was amazed that something so good could have happened.

Like most people, I am culturally conditioned by the negative. We cope with negativity, with bad news almost every day of the week. This week has been exceptionally negative for us who are attempting to answer God's call to ministry. It has been a shameful week, a week when the Church is forced to accept it's corporate wrongdoing in the face of immensely evil acts.

In short, we find it very difficult to see the good amidst what can seem like a sea of bad. The gospel today calls us to give time to the process of discovering the good and the bad, the saints and the sinners. We have to try to take time to give a correct perspective to all that has happened, not ignoring the bad and the sinful, but not allowing it to define all that the Church is.

Perhaps it is time that we could be amazed by a good news story – a story of the good in the midst of all the bad.

The Most Holy Trinity, Year A, John 3:16-18

Where to start?

"I don't know where to begin." When we are faced with something new; a relationship, a problem at work or at home, we find ourselves right back at square one. We must go back to the drawing board and think about how we are going to move on.

Our life as a Christian begins when we are baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The journey that we start when we are baptised is a journey alongside the Trinity and really the journey is about constantly deepening our relationship with this beginning, the Trinity.

For most of us, even 'professional religion people', the idea of the Trinity is difficult to understand. The Trinity is a frustrating mystery; nobody seems to be able to explain it. We are often tempted to overtake the problem and move on to things that are easier to solve, like fixing the roof, putting down tarmac on the car park, or fund-raising for the school. All of these are noble and necessary for the good of our community, but they can take away from the very necessary task of sitting still and thinking about something as fundamental to our faith as the Trinity. "I don't know where to begin."!

My Dad comes from Cork. There is something quite particular in the Cork psyche that must advertise itself, especially on All-Ireland Sunday. Cork people wear red and white football jerseys, wave red and white flags, paint their faces red and white, and I'm sure if Guinness brewed a red version of its famous stout, they would heartily drink it. I can see the various flags that the Cork fans use from the basic red and white, to the more elaborate Maple leaf of the Canadian flag, to the red sun on a white background of the Japanese flag. All in all, no one could walk down from Drumcondra train station to Croke Park on All-Ireland Sunday and mistake the Cork fans for any other county.

In a very similar way, like Cork people are from Cork, we as Christians are from the Trinity. We speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are baptised, confirmed, married, sent to preach the Gospel in the name of the Trinity, and we end our lives in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When we pray, we begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is the identifying mark of what it is to be a Christian. We pray and act in the name of the Trinity.

Each person of the Trinity has a specific role in the life of the Church. The Father calls us to himself, the Son redeems us in the name of the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to respond in love to the Father and to the Son. The Trinity then is not removed from our lives, we are called into the life of joy that is in the Trinity, living the covenant call of the Father, the salvation of the Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.