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.