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Bicentenary
Celebration
Church
of the Mother of God
Saleen
“
Woman, this is your son….This is your Mother (Jn.19:26).
As we gather this evening, my dear friends, to celebrate a great event in
this Church of the Mother of God in Saleen, we are brought to the foot of the
Cross of Jesus Christ. We are in the company of the Mother of Jesus and the
other women. We stand by the “disciple He loved”(Jn.19: 26) and we hear that
penetrating voice of the dying Saviour addressing the Mother and disciple: “
Woman, this is your son….This is your Mother”(Jn.19: 26).
The first and greatest title Mary has is that of being the Mother of God.
It is a Title given to Mary by her cousin when, at the visitation, Elizabeth,
under the influence of the Holy Spirit, exclaimed: “Why should I be honoured
with a visit from the Mother of my Lord?”(Lk.1: 43). It is the Title given in
the Gospel proclaimed this evening: “Near the cross of Jesus stood His
Mother…”(Jn.19: 25). It is the Title by which she was known at the beginning
of the Church when she gathered with the Apostles in the upper room to await the
coming of the Holy Spirit on the nascent Church and which event is recalled for
us this evening in the first Reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “All these
joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary, the
Mother of Jesus…”(Acts.1: 14). This is the Title by which Mary is known by
the Church since earliest times and confirmed, as a tenet of our faith, by a
Council of the Church at Ephesus in the year 431 as the ‘Theotokos’,
the God-bearer. This truth of our faith is reaffirmed in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church when it states: “ The Church confesses that Mary is truly
‘Mother of God’ (Theotokos)(C.C.C.495). Indeed Mary won for herself this
Title when she was open to God the Father’s plan for the redemption of the
world and consented to become His Son’s Mother saying: “I am the handmaid of
the Lord, let what you have said be done to me”(Lk.1: 38). It is therefore
very much in keeping with this bimillennial tradition of the Universal Church
and the bicentennial tradition of this local Church which is in Saleen, that we
gather to give thanks this evening for the two hundred years life and history of
this Church of the Mother of God.
The history of this beautiful Church, dedicated to the Mother of God,
brings us back to earlier times and links us into a rich ecclesial heritage
which bears the names of great heralds of the Gospel such as Father John
Shinnick, Bishop John O’Brien, Father Walsh, Father Tim McCarthy and Bishop
Matthew McKenna as well as countless faithful lay people who cherished, in
difficult times, the new life they had in Jesus Christ. Indeed the early roots
of community worship in this area go right back to what a manuscript in Trinity
College, Dublin dated 1591 refers to as the “chapel of the Rath at
Gurrankennefick”. The ruins of that Chapel can, to this day, be found in
Gurrane Cemetery. In fact, I believe there is still to be found there an ancient
Baptismal Font, which highlights for every Christian, past and present, the
significance of that initial step taken in the Light of the Risen Christ as the
journey of faith begins. I would be very pleased if that Baptismal Font could
find its rightful place here in this Church during this bicentennial year of
celebration. It was indeed most appropriate that our ceremony this evening, our
ceremony of memory and thanksgiving, began with a prayer service in Gurrane
Cemetery where many of our forbearers in the faith await the great Day of
Resurrection. From there a lighted candle, representing the Light of the Risen
Christ, was borne to be blessed at the entrance of this Church this evening and
to be placed in the Sanctuary Lamp, reminding us of the abiding Presence of the
Risen Lord, not only in our Church but in the lives of each one of us. That
light of Faith in this area was not quenched during the storms of persecution
and poverty. May it not now be quenched in our time of relative calm and
prosperity.
While we look back, my dear friends, in gratitude to our forbearers who
were veritable ‘God-bearers’ as they witnessed, in their own time, to the
New Life they had in Christ, the Son of God, let us not forget that the greatest
debt of gratitude we can pay them this evening is to recommit ourselves to the
very faith which they, so courageously and faithfully, handed on to us. The
measure of any generation’s gratitude for the past is to be found in its
capacity to be faithful-bearers of the gift of Faith in the present and, in its
turn, to hand it on as a rich and eternal heritage to generations yet to come.
It is for this reason that the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, at the end of the
Great Jubilee Year 2000, wrote in his Apostolic Letter ‘Novo Millennio
Inuente’ these significant words inviting us “ to remember the past with
gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm, and to look to the future with
confidence: for (sic) Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and
forever”(N.M.I.1; Heb.13: 8).
This evening we remember the past with gratitude. This evening we
endeavour to rekindle more fervently the light of faith in each one of us and in
our community so as to live it with enthusiasm. Only in this way can we, as a
Christian people, look forward to the future with confidence. We must, my dear
friends, preserve the light of faith given to us at the Baptismal Font, nourish
it by our practice of it as individuals and as a community and frequently
approach the Table of the Lord to receive the fullness of His Life and Grace in
the Eucharist. In the past the Eucharist was celebrated on the Mass Rocks, on
the hills and in the dales, on the riverbanks and on the seashores and the
priests and people kept the faith alive and vibrant. Today, in the comfort of
our Churches, may we never fail to celebrate the Eucharist and draw from It the
food for our eternal souls.
Our
young people of today are the heralds of the Gospel of tomorrow. It is to them
that the present generation of adult Christians must hand on the gift of faith,
hand on that lighted candle given them at the Baptismal Font so as to “keep
the flame of faith alive in our hearts until the Lord’s coming”(Rite of
Baptism). We must enable them to become enthused by the Person of Jesus Christ,
we must make it easy for them to encounter Him, for one can only become a
credible herald of the Good News of the Gospel if one has had personal
experience of the One who has brought It to us, namely Jesus Christ. Last year,
at the end of the Jubilee Celebration of the Youth of the World in Rome, where I
was privileged to lead so many of our young people on pilgrimage, the Holy
Father challenged them to be Eucharistic centred. “ Dear friends”, he said,
“when you go back home, set the Eucharist at the centre of your personal life
and community life: love the Eucharist, adore the Eucharist and celebrate it,
especially on Sundays, the Lord’s Day. Live the Eucharist by testifying to
God’s love for every person”. Then He spoke words which, I think, can be
easily applied to this community: “ I entrust to you, dear friends, this
greatest of God’s gifts to us who are pilgrims on the paths of time, but who
bear in our hearts a thirst for eternity. May every community always have a
priest to celebrate the Eucharist! I ask the Lord therefore to raise up from
among you many holy vocations to the priesthood. Today as always the Church
needs those who celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice with a pure heart”. The
measure of the quality of faith in a given community can be monitored by the
number of generous souls who are inspired to respond to the Call of Christ to
follow Him into the Priesthood and the Religious life. I still await a candidate
for priesthood from this Parish. May the occasion of this bicentenary
celebration inspire the young people of this community to give serious thought
to responding to Jesus.
As the Holy Father bade farewell to the youth of the world in Rome last
year He said: “ At the end of this World Youth Day, as I look at you now, at
your young faces, at your genuine enthusiasm, from the depths of my heart I want
to give thanks to God for the gift of youth, which continues to be in the Church
and in the world because of you”. Waving them goodbye and recalling the many
other youths he had met over the years at the previous World Youth Days, His
Holiness concluded: “ I am sure, dear friends, that you too will be as good as
those who preceded you. You will carry the proclamation of Christ into the new
millennium. When you return home, do not grow lax. Reinforce and deepen your
bond with the Christian communities to which you belong. From Rome, from the
City of Peter and Paul, the Pope follows you with affection and, paraphrasing
Saint Catherine of Siena’s words, reminds you: ‘If you are what you should
be, you will set the whole world ablaze!’(cf. Letter 368; Homily for the
closing of World Youth Day 2000).
My dear friends, there is our challenge of the present. Live the faith
with enthusiasm within our own Christian communities, within our own families.
We owe it to those who, through great hardships, kept the Faith and handed it on
to us. We owe it to ourselves if we are to give to the broken humanity of
today’s world a sense of hope and to be credible heralds of the Gospel to the
generations to come. We owe it to Jesus Christ who loves us, loves each one of
us in a unique and personal way and who wishes to walk with us every day on our
journey in life. He walked with those who have gone before us, those whom we
honour this evening. He confides each one of us to His Mother as He says: “
This is your Mother”(Jn.19: 26). To Her He gives the care of the entire Church
as He confides His disciple to her: “ Woman, this is your son”(Jn.19: 26).
May the people of this Parish of Aghada and Saleen never forget that they are
eternally loved by Christ and maternally protected by His Mother and may they
respond with enthusiasm today and always in faith so that they may look to the
future with hope and confidence and thus be a People who will be remembered,
with gratitude, by generations as yet to be born into the New Life of the Risen
Lord.