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I am really delighted to be here with you today. My name is John Coughlan. I am a priest of the diocese for five years now, I am glad to say! I completed my leaving certificate here in Summerhill in 1998, having begun as a student here in 1993. I want to say a word of thanks to the College Chaplain, Mr Keogh, for inviting me to give the homily for today’s Mass. Paul and I were classmates here in Summerhill, and we have been very good friends since our time here.
I have a very good friend who comes from Belfast. His name is Joe McDonald, and he was a Christian Brother for twenty-something years. During that time he was a teacher in a number of large grammar schools in Northern Ireland, both in Belfast and in Newry. Somewhere along the way, Joe realised that the Lord was calling him to become a priest. He applied to the archdiocese of Dublin and was accepted to study for the priesthood. He arrived in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth on the same day as me, August 26, 2001.
The reason that I am telling you about my friend, now Fr Joe McDonald, is that when he was just 29 years of age he was appointed as the headmaster of a large grammar school in Newry – the Abbey Christian Brothers Grammar School. When he was appointed, the school had just come through a few crises. Morale was low and there was a feeling that the school might close. Unlike Sligo, Newry had two boys grammar schools. There was the Abbey and also St Colman’s College, the diocesan college for the diocese of Dromore. Needless to say, there was a lot of competition between the two schools, for student numbers, on the football field, in the academic league tables, and so on.
When the then Brother Joe was appointed as headmaster in 1989, the Abbey faced an uphill struggle to success, or a downhill slide into failure. The second option seemed more likely. However, once he was appointed, Brother Joe set out to turn the big ship around. He faced severe problems. Students weren’t wearing uniform. Graffiti marked the walls and corridors. Staff were resigning to take up jobs in better schools. The name of the Abbey was dirt in the town.
One of the first things that Joe did as headmaster was to insist that every pupil would wear the complete, full school uniform to school every day, and that they would wear it throughout the day to each class, with no exceptions. He was met with fierce resistance. Parents were up in arms about the cost. Students didn’t want to abide by the rules. Teachers said it would be impossible to enforce. But, come hell or high water, Brother Joe would not be turned. The new rules were enforced one piece at a time. Brother Joe had a stock of old uniforms and shoes that he used when students arrived without their uniform. As more and more of the uniform became enforced in the school, eventually the tide began to turn. Gradually, through a process of encouragement, enforcement and downright doggedness, the Abbey got a new set of clothes. It would be the first step in a new era for the Abbey.
Today, the Abbey sits on a brand new school site, with a brand new building and other state of the art facilities. Students are keen to enroll in the school because of the high grades. Teachers want to be part of the Abbey, not just because it looks good on their CV, but also because the Abbey is a place where you want to remain the vocation of teaching.
Many years after finishing in his role as headmaster, the now Fr Joe ran into a former student of his in Dublin Airport. The student, now an accomplished businessman, recalled the heady days of the turnaround at the Abbey when Joe was headmaster. One story that he told about that time was that before Joe was headmaster, the Abbey students would be slagged off at the bus station by the other students in the town. Their unkempt uniform brought the mocking ire of students from the other Colleges. The Abbey boys could only return petty rebuttals to the hurtful snubs. However, that all changed when the Abbey boys arrived in their pristine, new school uniforms. An air of pride and accomplishment arrived with them at the bus-stop. They were no longer the butt of snide comments and petty jokes. The now successful businessman thanked Fr Joe for his hard work and doggedness in restoring pride and hope to the Abbey grammar.
This weekend the community of Summerhill College has something to celebrate and be proud of. An incredible new school building has been opened and blessed by Bishop Jones. Students and staff now enjoy facilities that generations before, including myself, might only have dreamed about.
A new building is great. It symbolises for us what our Church, what our State, and what our Society think of education. It is a significant investment in the present and future education of young Catholic men in Sligo and its surrounds in the 21st Century, and of course, those of other faiths and no faith. As a Catholic school, Summerhill is of course committed to the education of young Catholic men, but drawing on what it really means to be a Catholic, drawing on our Catholic ethos, we welcome all those who come here seeking an excellent education.
Which brings me to the core point of my homily today. What is it that makes this school a community of faith? Does coming here to Sunday Mass on the school campus make this community a community of faith? I don’t think that it does. Celebrating Mass here may well symbolize our desire that Summerhill would be a community of faith, but it may not mean that Summerhill is a community of faith.
For that reason, does Summerhill have to be a community of faith? I would argue that it does. We are human beings. As human beings we have some clear needs. We need love, we need security, we need shelter, we need oxygen and water. We need heat when it is cold.
And we ourselves need to be believed in. We need other people to believe in us. We need our parents to believe in us. We need our teachers to believe in us. And ultimately we need God to believe in us. And that, my friends, is what God did when, as St Paul told us in the second reading: “Here is a saying that you can rely on and nobody should doubt: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That Jesus was sent by God among us was and is a profound statement of God’s belief in us! God believed that if he sent his Son among us that we would be saved. And to be saved, salvation means to become the best that we can be. To be the holiest, the most integrated and wholesome that we possibly can be. To achieve the fullness of our potential as human beings. And it doesn’t take a brainwave to work out that that is a core reason why the Church is fundamentally committed to the education of our young men and young women.
The Church believes in your sons, the Church believes in you because Christ Jesus believes in you. And if we accept that, then we should be a community of faith. We are not simply here to churn out new plumbers, priests, lawyers, bricklayers, mechanics, teachers, did I say priests? We are here and we are involved in calling to greatness the young men of this generation. And, we believe in you. That is why there is a brand new building here. That is why there are teachers here. That is why there is a school chaplain here. A community of faith is a community that cares for the treasure at its heart – the young men who are being formed for a lifetime of following their hearts desires, of listening deeply to the plan the Lord has for their lives – lives that are full of promise and greatness and achievement, and perhaps some failure, but not letting that defeat us.
As the Lord Jesus sat down and ate with sinners, so also he comes to you and I today to share a sacred meal with us. In this moment, he calls us to remember and give thanks for the gift of life, for the gift of parents, family and friends. For the gift of the opportunity of an excellent education, to be the best that we can be. He calls us to eat his body and drink his blood, that by his grace, with his help, we may become a community of faith, faith in each other, and faith in the Lord Jesus who saves us.
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