I was in the Intensive Care Unit of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda yesterday afternoon.  I went there to visit Father Jackie Finn – who is critically ill.  I stood there for a few minutes in prayer.  Then the nurse said:  “Well, he is one patient that is certainly well prayed over at this stage”.  She was referring to the constant stream of visitors who had come to pray for their Parish Priest.  I said to myself:  ‘What a blessing that is!  I hope that when my time comes – when that day comes – there will be people to come and pray over me in the same way.

It is a very useful exercise in life – to count your blessings at the end of every day – the little blessings and the big blessings.  Indeed it is a very healthy thing to count on blessings in life.

For the Jews the great blessing was the Word of God – the fact that God had revealed his Word to their ancestors.  It was the way of indicating to them what God wanted them to do.  For the Jews, blessing meant a sharing of life from God.  With life came strength and success.  

In the First Reading today, Moses calls down a solemn blessing upon the people of Israel.  But he also calls down a curse as well.  These Orientals are, and were, mighty men to curse.  The Israelites are told to keep God’s word constantly in mind ‘Let these word of mine remain in your heart and soul; fasten them on your hand as a sign and on your forehead as a circlet.
Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder and to this day some Jews wear them on their foreheads – in small little boxes. Some wear them on their left arms.  Inside the boxes they have words from the Bible – on pieces of parchment.  Precious words – God’s words – words like:  ‘Listen Israel Yahweh, our God is the one, the only Yahweh.  You must love Yahweh with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

They did it because of what Moses had to say in the First Reading.  He told them to be keepers of the Word.  Their whole life was to be built on the Word.  He told them loud and clear – they had a choice – between a blessing and a curse.  If they obeyed the commandments, they would be blessed.  If they chose to disobey then they would be cursed.

It was as plain and as stark as that.  Did you ever tie a bit of string around your finger go remind you of something important?  Did you ever wear a locket around your neck to keep you closer to someone you love?  Jesus was doing the same thing.  

The beautiful words remind the people of God’s past scary deeds but they also comfort them, and us, to deepen our own personal friendship with God.  It is today – here and now – that we have, with reach, the power to choose friendship with God or alienation from God.  

Today and everyday, each one of us makes choices.  In the concrete decisions we make in relation to God, we choose a blessing, if we obey;  a curse if we choose to disobey.

Jesus in the Gospel wants to impress upon his listeners the importance of solid foundations, Jesus came on earth to carry out the plans of the greatest architect of all- God our Father. God our Father desires all men and women to be saved.  God wants us all to come to the Knowledge of the Truth.  God’s commandment is that we should love one another.  We are to love one another as Jesus loved us.  

This commandment sums up all the others.  It expresses God’s will for us.  That is why Jesus told his disciples:  
“It is not those who say
“Lord, Lord”, and do nothing – who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven
But the person who does the Will of the Father in Heaven”.

Sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what God wants us to do.  

I once knew a man called Andy Devane.  He was one of Ireland’s outstanding architects but he gave it all up and went off to India.  There he helped Mother Teresa look after the poor in Calcutta.  Then Andy came to Rome to study theology and to pray.  There I got to know him well.  He was a man whom I admired greatly.  Talking about his own work he said that the people he most admired were the builders.  The architect draws the plans – puts them on paper – but there comes a stage where he had to explain them to the builders.  Then it is over to them to move in and prepare the site and lay down the foundations and proceed to put the building in place – brick by brick, slate by slate.  Those are the people – Andy used to say – ‘that I take my off to’.  

I suspect Jesus must have watched houses being built – working alongside Joseph – the carpenter.  Maybe he took part in building houses.  He would have seen that some builders put down solid foundations – built on rock.  Others may have taken short cuts with disastrous consequences of course.  

Rock is the most solid of all.  If you ever go down to Dundalk or Dublin you pass through Father O’Dwyer’s and Father Burn’s County Louth.  But before you get there you pass Newry and the new road built at Cloghogue – not only built on rock but cut through rock.  That road will not collapse – no matter what floods or tremors or earthquakes may come.

Sometimes we may know exactly what God wants us to do and still find it very difficult to do.  That is why I am glad to be here today – to bless your new Community Centre.  I am sure that it will be used for many good purposes.  I hope it will be used for small groups to sit down together to study the Word of God.  If they do so they will get to know more clearly what God wants them to do in any given situation.

That is something really important for all of us.  For in Christ, and through him, the will of the Father has been perfectly carried out once and for all.  Jesus said on coming into the world:  “Behold, I come to do your will, O God”.  Only Jesus can say:  “I always do what is pleasing to Him”.  In the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane – Jesus foresaw the terrible suffering and death they lay ahead.  His natural reaction was to shudder and to back off and to pray “Father, if it is possible – let this chalice of suffering pass me by”.  But then he remembered the rock on which his whole life on earth was built – ‘Not my will but thine will be done’.

Some of you may have heard a wonderful programme on BBC four this morning called Something Understood.  It was about Abraham – the Father in Faith of Jews, Muslims and Christians.  

Called by God to leave his homeland, he did so.  Called by God to sacrifice his son Isaac – he was ready to do so but eventually did not have to do so.  Abraham is a model of trust – trust in a wisdom and power greater than our own.  

Today’s Gospel gives us the end of the Sermon on the Mount – we have been listening to it over the last few Sundays.  It is the heart of the Good News, brought by Jesus Christ.  It began with the recipe for true happiness – a series of eight beatitudes beginning with – Happy are those who know – they are spiritually poor’.  St Matthew ends his account of that great sermon with a challenge and a warning:

Anyone who hears these words of mind and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock but anyone who does not obey is like a foolish man who built his house on sand – and it fell, and what a terrible fall that was!

I hope that the new Community Centre will prove to be a great blessing to this parish.  I hope that it will help to build up and further enhance the great community spirit that already exists here.  

Next year Dublin will be the venue for the World International Eucharistic Congress.  It has as its theme In Communion with Christ and with each other.  You see there are many forms of communion which are important in life but they all find their source in Holy Communion.

We are called to listen to the words of Jesus and act upon them.
•    Words alone are not enough
•    Good intentions are not enough
•    It is said that the roads to hell are paved with good intentions.  

There was once an old cobbler in our part of the country.  When he put new soles and heels on shoes – he sometimes got paid in different ways and sometimes he did not get paid at all.  To those who gave him only words of thanks – he used to say “Throw it there in there with the rest of them”.  Yes, words of thanks are always important but oft times they are not enough.  The wise hear the words of Jesus and act upon them.  Those who DO the will of Our Father in heaven will actually enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our Father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom com
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

AMEN

“You are the salt of the earth” Jesus said to his disciples through the voice of His Church. He says the same to you and to me in today’s Gospel.  

I recently realised that blood, sweat and tears all contain salt.  Jesus shed all three in the course of his life on earth.  
1.    He shed sweat as he tramped up and down the roads of Palestine – teaching and healing and bringing the compassionate love of his Father to all who were willing to receive it.  
2.    He shed tears over Jerusalem – the capital city of his beloved homeland – because its citizens, through their hardness of heart, refused to believe in him.  They closed their minds and their hearts to the love that he was offering to them.  So they lost a glorious opportunity to share in his victory over Satan and over sin.  They missed the boat!
3.    Finally Jesus shed his blood on Calvary as he hung dying on the cross – for love of us.  There is no greater love than this – he had said – than that someone should give his life for his friends.

I think that this Gospel is particularly appropriate today.  You gather here this morning as the ruling body of an Association that is dedicated to the promotion of Gaelic games and culture and language and pastimes.  That promotion is motivated by love – love of the Association; love of sport but, above all, by love of people.  
You gather at a critical moment in the history of this country, both north and south.  An uair roimh noin is minic sin an uair is dorcaí.  The darkest hour is just before the dawn and, in many ways, this could be the summation of your past year as your Secretary, Danny Murphy, tells us of in his Annual Report.  We have lived through difficult times and the apparent loss in confidence of our people is a serious cause for concern.

The causes of those difficulties have been well and truly analysed over recent times and there is no need to me to revisit them.  It is enough to say that the present represents critically important moments and provides opportunities – opportunities to determine how the grave economic and social problems are to be confronted and resolved.  A key question has to be:  What is the vision for the Irish society of the future?  What are the values?

I believe that the Gaelic Athletic Association has a vital part to play.  Underlying the unsustainable boom that led to the economic crisis was a set of value that represents the direct opposite of what this Association is built upon.  
The boom was built on individualism – your Association is built on teamwork.  The boom was founded mainly on self-interest.  The GAA depends, to a great extent, on self-sacrifice.  The boom emphasised what one acquired and had and owned. Your tradition chooses to emphasise what you are and what you do.  

Deep down I think the Association has always believed that it is more important to be faithful to core values and beliefs such as integrity and respect, social concern and responsibility rather than be successful.

These, and related values, including respect for the worth of every individual, the right of every person to a share of the world’s resources, and the priority of the needs of those in greatest want above the demands of the more powerful, must form the basis of the way forward to a more secure and fair future.  I believe that such values are shared by all true GAA people.

However, stating those values is, in itself, of little consequence if there is not a determination to take decisions to give effect to such values.  The common good does not just happen – as Pope John Paul once wrote – ‘What is needed is a firm persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all’.  While this wont, hopefully, require a shedding of blood, it probably will require a shedding of sweat and sometimes of tears – and consequently, a lost of salt.

A rather quick glance through the magnificent Report to this Convention will show the many and varied ways in which the Association is already showing its social concern and exercising social responsibility.  

I applaud your decision to adopt a policy of being anti-sectarian and anti-racist.  This is most important at the present time in the context of job losses – where racists could easily exploit fears and foment hatred and distrust of people from other countries.
Did I see mention of a campaign against drink, drugs and sausage rolls?  It emphasises the importance of healthy life-styles.  It shows a keen realization that health is something good which each of us has a responsibility to protect and promote.  That is, first and foremost, the personal responsibility of each one of us.  What an amount of the public purse would be saved if this were to happen.  
I was delighted to read in one of the education reports the reminder that what happens on the sidelines and in the dressing room is really a extension of the class hall.  There should be a consistency and the core values of integrity and respect should apply right across the board.

As I reflected, in preparation for this Mass, I thanked God for all that the GAA has meant in my life – for the enjoyment – the friendship – the camaraderie – the self-discipline involved in playing and training, in selecting and administration.  

You are bearers and custodians of a proud and glorious and great tradition – not only essentially of victories won but of volunteering and generosity and of service which you inspire to the benefit of the club and community.  This was typified for me recently at the opening of the magnificent newly refurbished Athletic Grounds here in Armagh – where so many stewards gave of their time for hours, to do jobs like parking, far away from the limelight and the glory.

More austere times are on the way for many people.  The fact that we are all really responsible for all should inspire us to do our best to ensure that austerity comes to those best able to cope and avoids those least able to cope.  Austere times do not necessarily mean sad times – they can be fun and sport times.  They can also be times when volunteers and voluntary organisations really come into their own.  I would appeal to you to find ways of ensuring that access to the Association and its facilities remains open to all classes of society.  This will take courage and imagination of which the GAA has plenty.  It always prided itself on catering for all strata of society – rich and poor.  I hope that this situation will continue and that the needs of those suffering most will be taken into consideration.

I ask you to cast your attention to the poorest areas of our parishes and try and devise schemes to ensure that children, who want to play Gaelic games, will be given the opportunity to do so.  In a fragile situation, such an initiative could prove vital to the future peace and well-being of our society.  

The International Eucharistic Congress will take place in Dublin in June of next year – 2012.  It is hoped that the Final Mass will be celebrated in Croke Park.  Meanwhile the preparations are going ahead.  On 17 March this year, a Eucharistic Congress bell will be blessed in Dublin and brought that evening – to begin a tour of this country and indeed every parish in Ireland.  The idea is to heighten awareness of the Congress.  I hope that you will play your part in your local parishes in welcoming that bell and help it to achieve its purpose.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom today so that you make good decisions.  I believe that in the designs of the God who plans all our lives that the links between the Catholic Church and the Gaelic Athletic Association did not come about by chance.  Those links for example bring us the excellent tradition of offering Mass for the happy repose of deceased members of the Association.  

Finally, I draw your attention to this magnificent Cathedral of St. Patrick.  That land was acquired from the Earl of Dartry – the Dawson family, shortly before the Great Famine.  The work and plans had to be suspended for obvious reasons during the famine.  Archbishop Crolly himself – the originator of the idea fell victim.  But it was resumed in the 1850s and went on through the 1860s and was completed in the 1870s approximately ten years before the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association.  It was all done in an era when the mighty cranes and JCBs and modern means simply did not exist.  It represents the triumph of the human spirit, inspired by great religious faith.
Let this Cathedral be an inspiration to all of us.  It was built in the aftermath of Ireland’s darkest hour – the Great Famine.  It was built because it appeals to the deeper and noblest desires of the human heart – to give praise where praise is due – to the Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth.  It was built by our ancestors – because they had faith and confidence that the Spirit, who inspired such marvellous plans, would bring them to completion – faith and confidence in themselves and in each other and in their God.

Finally, it was built by strong and courageous workers who climbed ladders, step by step, and pulled pulleys and built steeples – for the glory of God and the convenience of people.  Love of God – love of homeland – love of neighbours – are all closely interlinked.  May your meeting today give you the wisdom to see and the courage to continue to be salt of the earth and a light to the world.  

Cuiri Failte ó croí roinh gach ensre anseo innus.

I welcome you all to St. Patrick’s Cathedral this morning.  I commend you on the wonderful custom of beginning your Chom dhal Blianluil with a Mass for deceased members of the Association.  The Secretary, Danny Murphy, has kindly listed some of the greats who have gone during the last year.  

Jack Bratton; Ollie O’Rourke, Patsy O’Hagan, Seán Kennedy of Down, Peter and Paddy Harte and Michaela Harte-McAreavey of Tyrone.  We remember them all with affection, offer sympathy to al who mourn their passing and pray God to give them eternal rest.

I hope your discussions will be positive and fruitful.  I congratulate you and give thanks for your success and great work for the community.

I am pleased that you are here in a year when Aogán – my fellow County man is at the helm – here in Ulster.  We are very proud of him in Cavan.

With great joy, we welcome Archbishop Bashar Warda, from Erbil in Iraq, which is home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. But this is a community now under dire threat of extinction.  For the Christian population is now a mere 200,000 – a decrease from some 900,000 over the past ten years.  There are estimated to be 1.6 million Iraqi refugees living abroad of whom 640,000 are thought to be Christian.  Archbishop, we welcome you, we offer you our support, our sympathy and admiration.  The courage of you and your people inspires and humbles us.

The persecution and oppression of individual believers and the community of faith is a consistent theme in the Old and New Testament.  It is present all the time.  Of course in the New Testament Jesus is the model and inspiration for those who suffer persecution for their faith in the Gospel.

In the Old Testament to have faith in Yahweh, means one must have the courage to stand up for that faith and be loyal and faithful to the demands of the covenant in the face of tough opposition.

I am very grateful to Aid to the Church in Need for their 2011 edition of Persecuted and Forgotten.  It is a report on Christians oppressed for their faith in some thirty-two (32) countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.  It alerts us to the fact of so much persecution of Christians in the world today.

Archbishop Bashar comes to us on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day – Patrick had been persecuted in many different ways.  In the opening lines of his Declaration of Faith – Patrick says:  “I am greatly despised by many”.  

At age sixteen he was carried off into captivity in Ireland – a disaster which he eventually saw as well deserved and something that turned into an occasion of great grace.

Carrying the cross lies at the heart of Christian life.  All too often, and in many places, Christians suffer verbal abuse, discrimination at work, taunts in the media and threats.  The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem says:  “being a Christian in those lands is no accident of birth but is part of their vocation – a vocation that calls them to go deeper into their experience to see that pain and misery unites them to Christ.”    

Archbishop Bashar is a Redemptorist Father, who did part of his studies here in Ireland with his Redemptorist Confreres.  We are pleased that he has come to Dundalk and will celebrate the Vigil Mass in St Joseph’s this evening.

‘Why are you still here?’ – A reflection on the persecution of Christians in Iraq and the World

On the 3 June 2007, Fr Ragheed Ganni, a former student of the Irish College, Rome, who visited this diocese, and three sub-deacons were assassinated by militant Muslims as they left Sunday Mass in Mosul, Northern Iraq. Before killing Fr Ganni, one of his attackers was overheard to scream  “I told you to close the Church . Why didn’t you do it?  Why are you still here?”   The question:  “Why are you still here?” immediately calls to mind St Peter’s great injunction that Christians should be ever ready to give account for the Faith that is within them.

By simply professing their Faith in public, Iraqi Christians are being  persecuted physically, socially and economically, their lives and livelihoods are under continuous threat. The overt and aggressive private and public anti-Christian sentiment so evident in Iraq however is not limited to Iraq. It is to be found throughout the lesser and greater Middle East, throughout Asia. It is to be found also in Africa and increasingly it is being found within the once-Christian lands of Western Europe.

The evidence is clear and it is persuasive, Christianity is being aggressively uprooted from the Middle-East, the very lands from which its first sprang. The evidence may be less clear and the aggression may be less blood-stained but the reality remains that Christianity is under threat in Western Europe and throughout the Western World by aggressive Atheism. Not the old style heavy-handed militant Atheism and tyranny such as was evident in the former Soviet Union but by a more recently-fashioned nihilism which insistently denies the existence of any God-given Truth.

Notwithstanding the fact that the ‘roots’ of European culture are profoundly Christian, an element of the culture of contemporary secularised Europe not only denies this reality but seeks to have Christianity eliminated, or failing that, ‘ghettoised’. Christian culture, Christian values and the Christian faith are under sustained attack in many quarters.

Throughout Europe, and throughout the Western World, Christians are being asked “Why are you still here?”

This fundamental question which was screamed at the about-to-be murdered Fr Ganni four years ago in Northern Iraq has not gone away.  It is the same one which challenges each and every Christian at all times and in all places: Christians are required to “apologise” (in the true sense of the word) to give an account for what they believe.

Self-evidently professing one’s faith and giving an account of it is more “life-threatening”, at least from a physical perspective, in present-day Iraq as compared to present-day Ireland. But does the same hold true from a spiritual perspective? Could it possibly be the case that it is more difficult to be a Christian believer in Ireland than in Iraq?

I also suggest that we should recognise that there is a culture war being fought in the West just as much as there is one being fought in the Middle East. It may be largely bloodless and there may be different rules of engagement but the stakes are the same, namely, the rights of all Christians to gather in public and profess their faith in word and deed.

And here let us be clear, Christians have every right to be “here”,
•    to gather in the public square,
•    to hand on their faith to their children and
•    proclaim to the world the Christian truth about the dignity of every human being and the infinite love of our merciful God.   

Some time ago, there was a cultural moment which was commonplace and largely accepted that,
•    tomorrow’s world would be better than today,
•    technological and scientific advances would solve humanity’s most  intractable problems,
•    humankind’s reason would triumph and subdue its baser instincts and by dint of it
•    a city would be built on a hill where people would happily live in well-fed peace and harmony.
Genuine, well-intentioned efforts to create such “New Harmonies” in both the new and old world did not succeed.  Efforts to radically reshape, “improve” society seemed almost pre-destined to founder upon the flawed nature of the human condition.

One hundred years ago, Europe was the cultural, economic, social and scientific powerhouse of the world. Today, Europe has become eclipsed as a global ‘superpower’. Europe is, in the opinion of many, rapidly becoming a socio-economic ‘has-been’.

Any healthy sustainable vision for a New Europe must embrace, not deny its Christian roots and in this what applies to Europe applies to Ireland.
In a nutshell, my central proposition here is that
•    Europe is floundering because of its failure to warmly embrace its Christian heritage,
•    it is declining because of its failure to respect the God-given dignity of every person and the revealed truths of Christian faith.

I would suggest that when one takes the Christian leaven out of any society, that society’s development is greatly impaired. Indeed I would go so far as to argue that society’s development will regress. We should not forget that
•    It was a Christian ethic which strove for and succeeded in eliminating slavery.
•    Freedom of conscience was formulated from the Christian mindset.
•    Forgiveness for human failings is a supreme Christian imperative.

What type of world would we have when people are not free and where transgressions are never mercifully forgiven?

In all of this it should be clear that the Christian view of the world is founded on the understanding of both the greatness and brokenness of the human person; a greatness and brokenness which is reflected in every individual life and in every human community – from the smallest to the largest.

It is also founded upon the central belief that there is a God, a loving God of infinite mercy who wants what is best for every human being. For the Christian, every life is worth living from the moment of conception to natural death because every life is a gift from God.  

2,000 years ago, Christ’s healing mission on earth was to reconcile man to God. His Church’s enduring mandate is to continue this mission, this process of reconciliation and healing of broken spirits and broken societies. The earthly mission of Christ’s church is to heal the world, to bring people and peoples into the light of God’s kingdom.

That’s why the Church is still here in Ireland. That is why the Church is still in Iraq. That is why Father Ganni and countless others offer up their lives as martyrs, to bring the beauty of Truth, to shed the light of Faith into the dark recesses of the human heart.