WHERE ARE WE NOW??

By Sean O'Leary

In the gentle dawning of 2026, the ancient Diocese of Ferns stands like an old oak at the edge of a wide meadow - its roots sunk deep through sixteen centuries of prayer, song and story, yet its branches as always reaching into unfamiliar winds.

Across the green hills and quiet valleys of Wexford and Wicklow, our forty-nine parishes breathe as one living body. We are being gathered by the quiet call of the Spirit, into twelve pastoral areas - twelve fresh pastures where priests and people walk side by side, sharing the labour of love, the tending of souls, and the simple keeping of the home fires burning.

We have journeyed together along Ireland’s synodal path, listening in village halls and quiet churches, and four gentle currents have risen to the surface of our hearts: the longing to belong, the fresh dreams of our young, the grace of carrying responsibility together, and the awakening of gifts long held in the hands of the lay faithful bearing new fruit as lay leaders and ministers.

The years have brought their own quiet changes. Many of our elder shepherds, having faithfully watched through long nights, have laid down their staffs. Bishop Ger Nash speaks with steady trust: the Church of tomorrow will not stand on clergy alone, but on the multiplied hearts of all the baptized, each one called now to be guardian and nurturer of the common life.

Among our young people, the flame still flickers. Through school retreats, pilgrimages, and the companionship of the John Paul II programme, 'The Way Forward' continues to whisper: “Come and see - there is a friendship with God that is worth every step.”

And so, in these first tender days of the year, we turn our gaze to the deepest note of all - belonging.

We no longer pretend the chasm does not exist - the wide space that sometimes stretches between the rhythm of daily life and the pulse of our Sunday gatherings, especially among those who are young. Yet we refuse to name it defeat. Rather, we receive it as a sacred pilgrimage ground, a place where the Good Shepherd Himself walks ahead of us, asking us only to follow, to listen, and to stretch out our hands with patient love.

In this new landscape we are learning a different posture: not waiting to be served but rising as partners in Christ’s own mission. The pastoral areas are far more than lines on a map - they are the Lord’s quiet invitation to co-responsibility. Every baptised soul is now a worker in the fields of God, called to turn the soil, sow the seed, and trust the harvest to the One who makes all things grow.

When the outward numbers grow smaller, we are summoned to a deeper seeing - to trust more in the hidden working of grace than in our own visible strength. We are drawn inward, there to discover the green shoots already breaking through: lay-led gatherings, renewed bonds between neighbours, small circles of care that spring up where none were expected.

Above all we hear the call to welcome. To belong is to be seen, to be known, to be cherished as one’s own self. Our mission in this season is to see our ninety-six faith communities not

simply as places of stone and stained glass, but as true homes - safe harbours for every restless heart, regardless of age, story or culture. In such a place, the weary may rest, the searching may ask their questions, and every soul may hear again the ancient, ever-new word: “You are welcome here. You are home.”

May the Lord of the meadows and the quiet streams walk with us through this tender year, turning our crossroads into meeting places of grace.