Homily at Knock Shrine

“Always have your answer ready for people who ask the reason for the hope that you all have” (1. Pet. 3:15)

 

These words, my fellow-pilgrims to the Shrine of Our Lady in Knock, were written by Saint Peter to the early Christians and are proclaimed here today with the same force as when they were originally proclaimed.  They were written by Peter who had gone through the crucible of Calvary to the joy of the empty tomb.  The reason for the hope which he proclaimed was in the Victory of Christ over sin and death.  For that reason also each one of us today, here at the Shrine of Mary, is a person embued with the spirit of hope, is an Easter Person.  Despite the failures, despite the weaknesses, despite the betrayals, we are all a people of hope, we belong to the Risen Christ.  For that reason we come together to witness to our faith, to express our solidarity in hope, to be one in the Communion of love.  We are a pilgrim people not just because we go in Pilgrimage to any particular shrine, but because we are driven on by an inner force, the Spirit of God who binds us together as the People of God, the Church.

 

As such, then we have come in pilgrimage to Knock.  We have come as a Diocese, as a parish, as a family.  We have come as the people of God.  Many of us may have particular reasons for coming.  We may have particular intentions to place before the Mother of God, we may seek the spiritual comfort of being together or perhaps to escape even for a moment, from a world which continues more and more to alienate itself from the Christ who came to it because of the love of the Father.  Whatever the reasons which has brought you today to this Shrine or at any time to a Shrine throughout the world, they would have no justifiable meaning were they not understood in the context of our being a pilgrim people.

 

Mary is the Pilgrim par excellence.  It is she who welcomes us all here today, it is she who points the way to Her Son, it is she who is at the heart of the Church.  We must not just come to her Shrine to seek favours of her or to obtain solace from her maternal love and protection.  We must come to learn from her, to become pupils at her feet.  We must come to understand fully the role she plays in the Redemption wrought by her Son, Jesus.  In a word we must become more and more evangelised by her.  The renowned and recently deceased theologian, Han Urs von Balthasar, in his writings indicated that as well as the classical features of the Church being one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic, it is also Marian and he developed this thought into what he termed the Marian principle of the Church.  He indicated that the Spirituality of the Church must be that of the Mother in her virginal openness, her bridal response and her maternal fruitfulness.  Christ Jesus wishes to be “incarnated” anew in each member of the Church and in the Church as a whole. For that reason each one of us must learn from Mary to be truly open to the mystery of God’s love and to be available for whatever He wants, as she was, no matter what the cost.  In the terms of the bridal response, each disciple of Christ must learn from the Mother how to respond, to say “yes” as she did and thus to enter into a communion of love with Word made flesh.  In the terms of the Maternal fruitfulness of the Mother, each disciple must become a Christ bearer to others totally docile to the influence of the Holy Spirit.  So you see, my dear pilgrims, the challenge we must accept as we come in pilgrimage to the Shrine of Mary.  We must be open to the mysterious plan of God for our lives; we must respond with a “yes” of total giving of self and we must then bear to others the incarnated Christ.  The people of our times, my dear pilgrims, need to meet the living Christ today.  They wish to see him with their eyes, touch him with their hands, listen to His Word and feel loved by His Heart.  Can you make that happen?  Mary did some two thousand years ago.  She’ll teach you and me to do it today.  For that to happen we must grow in Marian spirituality, we must become pupils in the school of Mary.  Let us beseech her today to open our hearts to the promptings of the Spirit.

 

As the whole Church prepares to celebrate the Great Jubilee of the Third Millennium, let us listen carefully to the words of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul.  Concluding his Apostolic Letter on the subject of the Jubilee he wrote: “I entrust this responsibility of the whole Church to the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer. She, the Mother of Fairest love, will be for Christians on the way to the Great Jubilee of the Third Millennium the Star which safely guides their steps to the Lord.  May the unassuming young woman of Nazareth, who two thousand years ago offered to the world the Incarnate Word, lead the men and women of the new Millennium towards the One who is “the true light that enlightens everyone”. (Jn. 1:9)