17 August 2008

Introduction

A warm welcome to everyone as we gather together from all over the diocese to celebrate our own very special diocesan pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady of Mount Grace. This is the 50th Anniversary of the modern pilgrimage, though we can be sure that our forefathers have been coming here for much much longer than that.
The idea of pilgrimage, journeying and growth in our relationship with God, has a long history – right back to the Israelites – Abram leaving Ur of the Chaldes to journey to the land that the Lord was to give him and his descendants; the journey of the Chosen People through the desert for 40 years led by Moses. To go on pilgrimage is to throw oneself on the providence of God. You don’t know what you are going to meet, what the conditions are going to be like, whether you will have somewhere to stay, what the weather will be like, if there will be enough food. It is a journey made in trust and faith in God’s promises. What the Lord has said he will do, what he has promised is true. Although we know this in theory, we have to learn it in practice and pilgrimage is a good way to do it.
As we travel along we have many companions. We never journey on our own. We are surrounded by the saints and the angels. We have been given the example and the company of Mary as our Mother. She walks with us in all the circumstances of our lives; when we are lost and wandering, when we sin, in our joys and sorrows; for we are all her children.
On this feast we turn to the Lord and ask for pardon for our sins, guidance on our way, strength in our weakness so that we can, with God’s grace, continue the real pilgrimage of life which leads to everlasting life for ever.

Lord Jesus, you are mighty God and Prince of Peace.
Lord, have mercy
Lord Jesus, you are son of God and son of Mary,
Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, you are Word made flesh and splendour of the Father.
Lord, have mercy

Homily

Do you ever find yourself wandering around aimlessly either at work, or in the house, or wherever, trying to remember what you had come upstairs for, or why you are in a particular room or office? It is a terrible feeling of confusion, embarrassment; a sense that you have wasted so much good time, energy and effort for nothing.
Of course there is the bigger picture – have you reached a certain stage in life and wonder has it all been worthwhile; when you ask yourself the question, ‘Where am I going?’, and there is nothing coming immediately back to reassure you that, indeed, you are on the right track? Not only is this vexing and annoying, such a situation is fundamentally perplexing and eats away at our self esteem, our confidence, and we can even find ourselves wanting to throw in the towel because it is all too much for us. In the “Hail Holy Queen” we describe our lot in terms of “this vale of tears” and for some of us this is not just a metaphor but a reality.
You don’t have to be an expert sociologist or psychologist to recognise that many of us feel lost, are lost; we are wandering around rudderless, aimless and we don’t know where to turn. It is at such times that we need an encouraging parent figure who can both reassure us of our value and redirect our path in a positive way; one who at some point in their lives has felt lost, but who has been able to re-focus and hold onto what they know to be fundamentally right. Throughout the ages, Mary, Star of the Sea, Guide of the wanderer, mother of the Church has been seen as this very figure. So often in art she has been depicted opening wide her cloak and gathering into her warm, motherly protection all those who are lost and hopeless
Your mother and your brothers are outside wanting to speak to you – who are my mother and my brothers. Those who listen to the Word of God are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.
Mary pondered all these things in her heart.
And we often pray in one of the most popular hymns to Our Lady, Hail Queen of Heaven, written by Father John Lingard:

Mother of Christ, Star of the sea, pray for the wanderer, pray for me.

I sin not because of what I do or don’t do, but because of what I am – a sinner, a deep down sinner. And left to myself there is nothing I can do about it. It sounds awful, doesn’t it, especially coming from the mouth of a bishop. But it is a fact – a sinner was I conceived in the womb and a sinner I will die. It is something we seem not to like to admit these days, that we are less than perfect, morally damaged. Or perhaps we have rather gone the other way and, admitting that we are all flawed, we have decided to accept sin as a way of life?
Yes, we are sinners by our very nature, born in sin and doomed to die in sin. However, that isn’t the complete story. We know that in Jesus, God intervened into our human situation and through his life, death and resurrection has given us the means to overcome sin and to be forgiven. Sinners we are, but we can also be forgiven sinners if we cooperate with the free gift of salvation given to us through Jesus.
I am talking about sin here very casually, as if it were just an intellectual concept. But it is also a reality in our lives, in our world. It affects us, it wears us down, it enslaves us. It can either weigh us down so much that we think we are beyond redemption, not worth bothering with; or it can so sap our strength and energy that we become enslaved to it and succumb to its powerful web unable to escape and we accept it as the only possible way to live out our lives.
Either way, we need help. Most of us do not need lecturing when we are in this position, we need rescuing and encouraging; we need someone to come and lift us up out of the mire, or someone to come and tell us that it is possible to be forgiven, to be saved. I can remember a painting in the College where I was trained for the priesthood. It showed Our Blessed Lady reaching down rescuing sinners from the fires of hell and scooping them out of Purgatory. Mary has always been seen as the Refuge of sinners, our refuge, our rescuer, the one who lifts us up and encourages us.
Standing by the cross was Mary, his mother, and John, the disciple who Jesus loved.
The thief turned to Jesus and said, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus said to him, I tell you today you will be with me in paradise.
Looking up to heaven Jesus said, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
Recognising our weakness, our sinfulness, our need to be encouraged and rescued, we turn to Mary and say:

Virgin most pure, star of the sea, pray for the sinner, pray for me.

Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to take a break and a holiday. It was an important moment for me because of what has happened in my life over the last six months – and I have not really had the time to reflect and ponder on everything. The strange thing, though, as I began to go through my thoughts and feelings right back at the time I was asked to be a bishop – the only way I could fully express them to myself was in terms of a dying, a grieving and a mourning for something which apparently was being suddenly taken from me, and I felt I had very little control over it. I suspect it was the fact that the position and life of a bishop are so public and, to a certain extent, it was the end of me as a private person – and there is a lot of the private person within in me. It was a genuine process of grieving and mourning; the waves of emotion would cut through me at the most unexpected moments and I could do nothing about it until it had literally taken its course. At times like that you need people around you who have experienced something similar and who cannot only sympathise but can empathise, that is, feel with you.
I have no doubt that there will be people among us today who are going through a period of grief or mourning. Perhaps someone close has died, a husband, wife, family member, a close friend. Perhaps it is another type of grieving, over a relationship, a change in your life where you have had to leave something of great value to you behind, personal sickness? The last thing you want to hear is, For goodness sake, pull yourself together, get on with life. Yes there is a time to hear that and to respond to it, but we have to mourn and grieve, it is a very basic human thing to do. At those times we need around us people who can sympathise and empathise with us, who can be with us and recognise the validity, the depth and authenticity of what is happening to us. We literally need a shoulder to cry on, someone to support us and stand by us; someone who has been there, who has passed through that door as well.
Mary followed Jesus on the way of the cross. For her it was not a devotional prayer, but the reality of her son’s final hours on this earth and his painful, shameful death. She knew then what grieving and mourning was all about. She had been through it before when her husband died while she was a young mother.
Standing by the cross was Mary, his mother, and John, the disciple who Jesus loved. And he said it is accomplished and bowed his head and died.
Then they took the body of Jesus and laid it in his mother’s arms.

Refuge in grief, star of the sea, pray for the mourner, pray for me.

I don’t know if you are like me, but when I am away from home, on holiday or whatever, things of home become more important, customs, local and national characteristics, language, of course, and most of all food. Things that we eat at home which might not be available elsewhere, even though we may not really like them very much or we may not have eaten them for ages, suddenly when they are not available because we are away from home they become important. I seek out people from the same part of the world as I come from, we talk in a way that we would never talk at home, we are almost related just because we come from the same country or area.
Being related to people, being able to connect is so important for us. We need to belong. It is part of being human. This has always been the case – family, clan, tribe, nationality, race are all important to us. Blood ties cannot be underestimated – blood is thicker than water, we say. But Jesus tells us that this order has disappeared. What is more important than blood and biological ties are the Word and the Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the message of Jesus comes alive for us, it is brought to our minds in a new, a vital way. And we live under the Word, directed by the Spirit.
The brothers and sisters of Jesus are no longer defined by flesh and blood, by biological descendancy; what matters now is their attentiveness to and living out the word of God. This is what makes us family, this is what makes us children, this is what now makes us belong.
And in all this we have a supreme model and icon, Mary, the true mother of Jesus. Yes, she is truly the Mother of God; the Son of God was conceived in her womb by the power of the Spirit and became incarnate. But she is our mother and model in that she lived her life so attentive to God’s Word, so open and sensitive to the Word of God, that she became pregnant with the Word and brought the Word forth into the World. By the power of the same Holy Spirit, and after the example of Mary, we too are called to be so attentive to the Word, so open and sensitive to the Word that we too might become filled with the Word, pregnant with the Word and bring forth that same Word through our lives into the world.
And at the foot of the Cross she was given to us in the person of John as our mother, too.
Standing by the cross was Mary, his mother, and John, the disciple who Jesus loved. To his mother he said, this is your son, to the disciple he said, this is your mother.
Mary, mother of the Church, mother of all Christians, Mary assumed into heaven, Mary queen of heaven – all these are titles which should give us hope and should make us proud knowing that Mary who is a creature, born of flesh in everyway that we are, is our sister and also our mother, where she has gone we too can, by the grace of Jesus, her son, aspire to be.
In joy, in hope, in pride we can join with Christians throughout the world and sing:

Do thou, bright Queen, star of the sea, pray for thy children, pray for me.

Final Words

As I said at the beginning of the Mass, this is the 50th Anniversary of the restoration of the modern Pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Mount Grace. We are privileged in our diocese to have this ancient shrine to our Blessed Lady. I would say that this is the diocesan shrine to Our Lady and after our Pilgrimage to Lourdes, this is our main Marian Pilgrimage. I am very grateful to all those who have put so much effort into organising today’s celebration. These things do not happen out of thin air. So a heartfelt thanks to Fr Damian and all the team.
I have been told that since the foot and mouth outbreak a few years ago numbers have fallen. This is a very special shrine with such a history – I would urge everyone who is here today to go back and begin to prepare for next year. Let people know about Our Lady of Mount Grace and encourage them to be here next year.
Quite a lot of work has been done on the shrine over the years but, of course, the work has to continue. In order to do this we need support, personal support, prayerful support and financial support. Again, I would ask all of you here to take up this cause wherever you go. We are here today because of the faithfulness and foresight of those who have gone before us. Now it is our turn to build up and consolidate. In her Magnificat Mary says that all generations will call her blessed. I hope and pray that future generation will at least bless us for what we have done to preserve and develop our Catholic Patrimony in this part of the world and in this particular place.