Homily: Golden Jubilee
Sunday 11A Readings
This is the 50th anniversary, the exact date on which I was ordained, 17th June 1973, though it was a Sunday that year and the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. There were five of us ordained together that day and three others elsewhere for the Diocese of Limerick. Our ordination took place in my native parish of Dromcollogher, which was an extra privilege for me. The other four were, Frs. Willie Fitzmaurice, now parish priest of Croom, Jack Fitzgerald, now in Limerick, Willie Walsh, who unfortunately is not well, and Antóin Ó Tuathaigh, who died in 2018. What changes the years bring! And the case is no different for many family members and friends who attended my ordination that day and now are no longer with us: they are very much in my thoughts and prayers today. But we thank God for those family members and friends who are here.
Today’s Gospel passage features Jesus’ call of the 12 apostles. From what we know of them they were a very varied group of people, with their own individual personalities. During the week our class members met in Maynooth. On Monday evening an invitation had been issued to all 81 members of the class who had begun together in September 1966, also a wide variety of characters. Of those, 55 were ordained. Of the 81, 15 have died, and many others are in bad health, but 40 of us attended the celebration. It was a beautiful experience. The man who had been seated next to me for that first year and then left, I was overjoyed to meet for the first time in 56 years –and two of us didn’t go to bed until 3.45am as we caught up on each other’s lives. On Tuesday we had a gathering in the college for those who have been ordained. We were assembled with those who were celebrating other significant anniversaries and that too was beautiful, as we observed our past and our possible future in the faces of other groups of priests.
Some months ago one of my nieces, Áine Óg, who happens to be working in Uganda today, asked me out of the blue, ‘Have you any regrets in life?’ My spontaneous reply was, ‘About a thousand’. She expressed surprise. On reflection, I should have said, ‘About 10,000’. I know that Covid-19 affected all of us differently. For me, one of its effects was to call to mind many mistakes I had made throughout my life, with the consequent regret for not having responded always to the grace of God as I should have. No more than a month after being asked that first question a woman happened to ask me, ‘Have you ever regretted becoming a priest?’ Again my reaction was spontaneous, ‘Never, even for a day’.
I am aware of several different ways in which I have viewed priesthood in the course of my life. I attended Maynooth seminary for seven years where I had plenty of time to reflect on the Lord’s call to me, and, indeed, whether he was calling me to priesthood at all. When I finally discerned that call I was struck by the enormity of the vocation. I remember I had a quote copied out from one of the Psalms and pasted on my wardrobe, ‘Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord of Hosts’. On my ordination card I quoted the verse from the Prophet Jeremiah, ‘Ah Lord, I do not know how to speak; I am only a child’. The Lord responds in that passage by giving the prophet assurance of his support. But imagine my surprise during my first year when that expectation of difficulties contrasted hugely with my experience of great happiness.
Preparing for my Silver Jubilee my overwhelming sense was one of gratitude to God who had seen me through. Now, when preparing for my Golden Jubilee my reflection has been more on the line of what St. Paul says in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, ‘We hold this treasure in earthenware jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us’. While this does not rob me of the joy and gratitude that I have felt on those previous occasions my greatest sense now is of my own frailty and shortcomings and of the fact that, if I have ever done any good in my life, it could only have been because it came from the good Lord.
The task given by the Lord is always the same. In appointing the 12 apostles (today’s Gospel reading) he says, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few’. We know how true that is in our day and, while we might express it in somewhat different language, the mission he gives is not any different, ‘Proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils’.
My first appointment as a priest was as chaplain to St. Enda’s Community School in Limerick. It was then a completely new school with many facilities not to be had in other post-primary schools. It was a young staff and we had a very happy time together –and many good nights! But what strikes me most about that time is the students. I had gone to St. Enda’s with a certain sense of trepidation. Even though I wasn’t hugely removed from them in age I had expected them to be almost an alien race. What I found instead was a bond with young people, which I think I can say I have never lost. In St. Enda’s I got to know them, not only in class and on a one-to-one basis, but also on the sports field and in after-school gatherings.
And that is more or less how it has continued in the various assignments I have had over the years –even in Nigeria. In the last 10 years the most special group for me has been the Junior Pastoral Council. It is wonderful to see some of them, past and present, here this evening.
What I can say is this, while the circumstances in which young people live have changed vastly over the years, human nature has not changed. Across the generations they have the same needs, the same openness and the same search for meaning in life, along with the same temptations to be led up blind alleys. Working with young people brings its own particular challenges but above all it is a joy: to witness at some level their enthusiasm for life, despite the challenges they face in today’s world, is an honour and, while my own age continues to race along, they have helped to keep me young at heart
Having said all that, it has been important for me to minister in the full spectrum of parish life. I must acknowledge the privilege it has been to work with the people of God in this and in former parishes, and especially with the members of the Pastoral Council here in Askeaton-Ballysteen and other committed groups. In day-to-day life the goodness of so many people has always stood out. When visiting the sick or housebound I have been greatly impacted and strengthened by their faith.
Over the years I have had the support of so many people. In the first place there has been my family, those here present this evening and those who are now deceased. Somehow even they seem nearby this evening and I thank them and you for the great memories. Then there are the friends that I have been so privileged to make along the way, also priest friends and the people of the parish who have been so kind to me over my years here, and I must mention the people of Croom also and relatives and friends in my native Dromcollogher.
Last Thursday I was walking across the bridge in Askeaton and the peregrine falcons nesting there were kicking up a huge racket. There was a man taking photographs of the pair of peregrines alternately perched on the castle or flying around it. He explained to me that their two fledglings were just beginning to learn to fly. It reminded me of an image I had used at the recent Graduation Mass of the Coláiste Mhuire Leaving Cert class.
It concerns a poem I once read about a falconer. I thought it might be Gerard Manley Hopkins’s The Windhover, but when I checked it out it wasn’t. The poem I refer to presented the picture of a falconer going out with his falcon into the middle of a field. When he released the bird the falcon flew off and soared high into the sky, swooped down in spectacular dives and flew in wide circles –but he always kept his eye on the falconer and eventually returned to him. For the falcon the falconer was his centre.
It begs the question for all of us, who or what is my centre? In our age of technology, with instant communication, and the artificial desire to have, to own or to possess every glittering, shiny, attractive object we see, it’s easy for us to become lost or confused as to what is really important; to be led down false paths or paths that satisfy only for a while. We may be slow to admit it, or not even be aware of it, until some crisis hits us and then where do we turn? Where is our centre?
The life of a priest is that of one who is alone, and that can be obvious when other people hold family occasions. But I don’t say, ‘lonely’, nor do I want to exaggerate the aloneness. There is a certain amount of aloneness in the life of every individual; in fact it is a necessary part of the human condition. And there must be far more isolation for those in an unhappy or abusive relationship. But my point is this: if a priest, in particular, loses sight of the Falconer where can he turn? For myself I can say that any time I have made mistakes it is because I have not kept my eye sufficiently on the Falconer.
But the Lord has been tolerant. In a somewhat similar image to that of the peregrines at the castle looking after their fledglings he tells us in the First Reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, ‘You yourselves have seen what I did…, how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself’. Indeed the Lord has been compassionate and understanding.
After all these years one other passage of Scripture that impresses itself on me is when Jesus speaks of workmen carrying out their labours faithfully and he finishes with the words, ‘When you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants; we have done no more than our duty”.’ That is my sense this evening. Of course, I say this both in the knowledge of the privilege it has been to be allowed do the work of the Lord at some level and in the awareness of the goodness of God who loves us regardless of anything we may do or not do, and far beyond anything we could ever deserve.
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(Thanks to the Pastoral Council, and especially Pauline Scanlon, for all their input. When I was approached some months ago about having a celebration I couldn’t even entertain the idea and told them that if something was happening I didn’t want to know anything about it. It is only now, at the end of Mass, I see all of the lengths they have gone to, beyond anything I might have expected to happen.
Thanks to Éilis Cassidy Jones and the choir and Úna Feehan, the organist, who have contributed so much to our celebration.
Thanks to all who have been involved in this evening’s Mass and in organising whatever is happening afterwards.
A special thanks to Bishop Leahy and the priests, Fr. Ollie Plunkett and Fr. Muiris O Connor for attending –I am aware of another friend of mine who was invited and has contacted me to say he couldn’t attend because he has shingles. Again, I had nothing to do with any invitations issued but I know that the celebration was meant to be essentially with the people of the parish. And thank you for being here and for all your gifts –it never dawned on me at any stage that anyone might be considering giving me presents but your generosity has been almost overwhelming.)