HOMILY FROM BISHOP GER AT THE GROTTO AT LOURDES

The following is a homily delivered by Bishop Ger Nash during the recent diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes.

This mornings Mass is a celebration of the Youth Group who have travelled with us to Lourdes, to think about the kind of Church that their presence here puts before us and the work that we all have to do together to make Christ present to those who don’t know him.

There are two things in Lourdes which strike a visitor for the first time, One are the magnificent buildings, some old and some modern but all very impressive. The second is the great crowds of people of every age and every race and language group in the world.

Indeed in our own normal language about faith, when we use the word CHURCH, the first thing that springs to mind for people is their local church building. In Ferns we have 96 of them, all very much treasured at the hearts of their community and containing the memories, prayers and celebrations of many generations. In the past in Ireland in particular, as a Church we have often directed more of our resources to buildings rather than people. There is a good human reason for that, but not one that always links with the Gospel. The human reason is that buildings outlast us, they are monuments to our work that future generations will look back on and praise us. They are a safe bet to invest our time, energy and resources.

I will return to this idea in a moment but first I want to talk about something I have read about our new Pope, Leo XIV, Robert Prevost who became Pope Leo was born in the southside of Chicago – he was baptised, made his First Holy Communion and was Confirmed in his local church and attended his local Catholic School. But due to changing employment and society, the parish he grew up in disappeared, the school was knocked down and the parish church that was part of his family story was closed and vandalised over the years. Pope Leo   probably the first Pope in over a thousand years where it would not be possible to visit their original church. It is possible to reflect on this fact in two ways, one of them negative and one positive. Negatively, we would think that it is a shame that a building that was part of the Popes story is no longer in use or available for a visit. Positively however we could say that it is sign that faith is greater than our buildings, and that the real bricks and mortar and roof tiles of the Church are the relationships between People and God and Between each other. Our church buildings are containers for our Faith, not Faith itself.

Pope Francis who has recently passed to his eternal reward often encouraged the world wide church to be a church of Mission, not Maintenance. He urged us all to consider how we can best reach out to those on the margins. And margins are not just poor places, they are any place where people feel that they do not belong.  People can be excluded from us in many ways – in economic inequality, in intellectual or physical ability or in sexual orientation. If we agree that every human being is loved equally by God, then the only God like thing for us to do is to love them equally strongly.

Many of you will know that Pope Francis began a process of discussion in the Church 4 years ago. He called it the Synodal process and he invited Church people from all over the world to begin a conversation on what God is calling the Church to be in this time. All over Ireland and the Western world, the conversations are bringing one word to the front and that word is BELONGING. People of all ages and perspectives and with varied links to Church said that there was a lack of connectedness, a loneliness at the heart of our modern society and that it could be filled with people who create Church through their relationships. And this brings us back to the contrast between buildings and people. We will never belong to a Building – we can only belong to people and through people we belong to God. This yearning to belong drives everything from social media, to the soccer teams or county teams we support. We are built to be part of a tribe and we are happy people  when we have found our tribe. Can I suggest to all our Youth Helpers but also for anyone who found this pilgrimage a meaningful or moving experience that you have found your tribe.

Finding your tribe is another word for vocation and in this gathering we are surrounded by people who have found their vocation, found their tribe. There are nurses and carers, doctors and parents, priests and religious sisters, neighbours and community builders. If you find someone who day after day, year after year faithfully fulfils their responsibility then you are looking with some who has a vocation. All of the members of the Hospitlalite who each year commit themselves to this great project are working out their vocation.

And that is one of the gifts of Pilgrimage. From the very beginning of Christianity, people went on Pilgrimage, to visit a  holy place. But the end of the Pilgrimage was only part of the story, the journey, the conversations, the leaving home, the small discomforts or hardships were crucial and irreplaceable parts of the experience.

Again, just to speak directly to the Youth Section – you are beginning the pilgrimage of life. Good to know where you are going, good to know what you hope the end will be, but also  important to choose those who will shorten the journey, those who will uplift you and encourage you and really important to recognise that they greatest and deepest experiences will rarely come as planned but in the wonderful mysterious way that life unfolds.

And a few words to those of us who are comfortable with the Church as it is.  We need to check that we are open to the changes that the Holy Spirit will ask of us if we are truly to become a welcoming church. We can hold fast to our way of doing things and the way things were always done around here. God invites us gently to be open to the Spirit, to value the past but only as a springboard for the future and above all to answer the question Jesus asked his disciples in today’s Gospel. “Why send them away, why don’t you do something for them yourselves”