–    Even in the seemingly insurmountable challenges that confronted her, Mother Teresa always met those challenges head on, with great hope and a great smile
–    I ask all families to have a Bible in their home, to display it in a prominent and respectful place, to read it together and to reverence the presence of Christ in their home
–    In the Word of God, Christ speaks to us.  In the Eucharist, Christ nourishes us.  In Confession, Christ forgives us.  These are all sacred and treasured rites … the inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the Sacrament that any proposal that undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the right of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience
–    Those nations that destroy life through abortion and euthanasia are, in fact, the poorest.  The child in the womb is the most vulnerable of all … that is why the innocent child in the womb deserves our special protection and care

My dear Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, co-workers, members of the Order of Malta and fellow pilgrims,

This Mass today concludes the year of prayer commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. To the world she was perhaps better known as ‘Mother Teresa’, the smiling nun who gave her life to helping the poorest of the poor. To her fellow sisters and many co-workers of the Missionaries of Charity she was known simply and with great devotion as ‘Mother’. Today we give thanks for her heroic witness to Jesus in what she referred to as the distressing disguise of the poor. We give thanks for her tireless example of joyful service to others.

On the occasions that I met Mother Teresa, what always stood out for me was her awareness of the presence of God and her tireless joy in serving the Lord.  She would say, ‘Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.’ A huge challenge I am sure you will agree, especially when faced with so much that could tempt us to lose heart and despair. Yet, even in the seemingly insurmountable challenges that confronted her, Mother Teresa always met those challenges head on, with great hope and a great smile.

Today we give thanks for those 4500 religious sisters, the Missionaries of Charity around the world who, inspired by the charism of Mother Teresa, continue to give cheerfully of their hearts and of their care. They do so to make the love of Jesus present to the poor and to those in need.

We give thanks for the contemplative brothers and sisters of her Order who support the Church’s mission of charity by their life of constant sacrifice and prayer. We thank God for the many lay co-workers and Missionary of Charity Fathers who continue to serve Christ in those people whom the world would rather have us ignore or simply forget.

I am sure that when she came to Rathfarnham in Dublin to join the Loreto Order in 1928, Mother Teresa could never have imagined she would become the founder of such a great work of service to the Gospel and love of Christ.  Even when she experienced her famous ‘call within a call’ on the train journey to Darjeeling in 1946, her request to leave her Order for a life of service to the poor was not met with immediate universal approval. She had to wait two years before she would receive permission to test her ‘inspiration’ against the reality of life on the streets of Calcutta.

Of course, even then, the path ahead was not always clear or without pain. Mother Teresa wrote in her diaries that her first year of this new mission was fraught with difficulties. She had no income. She had to resort to begging for food and supplies. She experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the relative security of convent life. She wrote in her diary: ‘Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross … Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard.’

The fact is, anyone who earnestly desires to follow Christ will, sooner or later, come to this same decisive moment in their life. For most of us, it confronts us many times, even many times in the same day! It is that moment when, with the full weight of our own free will, we are invited to first choose and then to trust in God’s will and logic when our own will and ‘logic’ is drawing us in a more comfortable, even a more reasonable direction.

This tension is played out in the Gospel passage we have just heard. Peter rejects the idea of a Christ who will suffer greatly and be put to death.  For him, the cross represents failure and who wants to be part of a failure? It is worth remembering that Peter is also a strong man.  Trusting others, even a good man like Jesus, was never going to be easy. Yet that is what Jesus asks him to do. He asks him to set aside his human instinct for strength, for security, for certainty and logic and to accept the utter poverty of the cross.  By rejecting suffering and death, Christ tells Peter that he is thinking, not as God thinks, he is thinking as human beings do.  St Paul tells us all that we must put on the mind of the Lord.

‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mt 16:24). It is interesting to note that Jesus does not say here that you must take up ‘my’ cross.  Instead he says to each disciple that he must take up ‘his’ cross. There is always a temptation to imagine that we already know beforehand what our cross and time of testing will be. It is often much more difficult to recognise the cross Jesus intends for us personally and to accept it once we have recognised it. It is one thing to know about carrying our cross in the abstract; it is another to live it in the daily anguish of our deeply personal hopes and fears. Each of you I know will have your own personal cross that you carry with you here today.

I hope that your pilgrimage to this Shrine of the Mother of our Lord, who stood at the foot of the Cross as her Son was dying, will give you some peace. I hope it gives strength to journey on with hope through the challenges that face you or your loved ones at this time.  Be certain that as you do so, Jesus journeys at your side to help you carry your cross.  The truth is that the cross comes to us all and turns our expectations about life and happiness upside down.

At the end of every solemn profession of a member of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa would bless a cross and then give it to each Sister as she told her the destination of her first assignment.  It was a poignant reminder to the new missionary that faith involves a surrender of our whole person to Jesus.  Echoing the words of today’s Gospel – that whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Mt 16:25) – she would often explain it like this: ‘A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty us of ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.’

Last week I had the joyful, uplifting experience of attending World Youth Day in Madrid. On the Friday, near two million young people gathered in the soaring heat along the Paseo de Recoleto for the Stations of the Cross. The prayers for the stations had been prepared by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Each station was dedicated to a different challenge faced by young people around the world. Young people from the Holy Land, Iraq, Spain, Albania, Rwanda and Burundi, Sudan, Haiti and Japan carried the WYD cross from station to station.

The cross was also carried by young unemployed; young people who have overcome drug addiction; and, those who care for people with HIV/AIDS. The whole experience was very moving. Many of the young people present had tears in their eyes as they reflected on the immensity of love shown by Jesus on the Cross for each one of us.  All of this reminds us that in this world there are people who suffer injustice, persecution, harsh treatment; marginalisation; poverty, slavery and vexations.  But they do not suffer on their own.  To all of them Jesus
says:  ‘You are not alone’ because Jesus takes on their pain and walks at their side.

In a short reflection after the stations Pope Benedict XVI told the young people gathered, “You are open to the idea of sharing your lives with others.  So be sure not to pass by on the other side of the road in the face of human suffering, for it is here that God expects you to give the best of yourself: your capacity for love and compassion.”  So many young people today are open to the idea of sharing their lives with others, of living the love spoken by the Cross.

Therefore, the challenge for the Church, for every parish and Diocese is to become a place where young people are supported in this desire to come to know Christ, and his love, personally.  It is important that they are given the opportunity to share that love with others in a meaningful and life-giving way.  Organisations such as the Order of Malta, which also has its pilgrimage here today, have a vital role to play in this regard, in light of Pope Benedict XVI’s call to young people to find new outlets for their love and compassion,

I commend all charitable Catholic organisations in Ireland such as the Order of Malta; the Society of St Vincent de Paul; The Legion of Mary; The Apostolic Workers; The Pioneer Association; the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, the Knights of Columbanus, which all make a particular effort to bring more and more young people into their ranks. It is also vital that Parish Priests and Parish Councils provide opportunities for young people to show leadership within their parish, to have opportunities to be heard and listened to, to express their ideas about how they can give expression to the love and compassion of Christ in the homes and streets and youth clubs and schools of their own parish.

At the end of the World Youth Day Mass, Pope Benedict stretched out his hands over the two million young people present. He had already told them that he was sending them out to the whole world to preach the Gospel. He then said to them, ‘Receive this cross as a sign of the love of Christ. Proclaim Christ, Christ crucified. He is the strength and the wisdom of God.’ Five young people from the five continents of the world then received a cross from the Holy Father, kissed it and put it around their neck. They were accepting, just as the young Agnes Bojaxhiu, or Mother Teresa, once had, the joy and the challenge of the cross of Christ.

The eighteen year old Agnes Bojaxhiu had left her homeland because she understood that in her faith, she possessed a gift so wonderful that she was simply driven to share it with others.  It is easy to imagine that the journey to become the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we celebrate today was somehow extraordinary or privileged. It was not. She had exactly what each and every one of us has available to us today. She had the Scriptures. She had a particular love for reading the Scriptures. It was here that she came to know Christ intimately. That is why I ask all families to have a Bible in their home, to display it in a prominent and respectful place, to read it together and to reverence the presence of Christ in their home through His Word.

Mother Teresa also had the Sacraments of the Church, especially the regular grace of confession and the Eucharist. These were the means by which she, an ordinary person in the eyes of the world, became such an extraordinary witness to Christian love across the world. They are the same means that are available to you and to me.

Important discussions are taking place about renewal in the Church in Ireland today. In the Second Reading, St Paul tells us not to conform ourselves to the standards of this world but to let God transform us inwardly by a complete change of mind.  The renewal that is needed is God’s work.  It is, first and foremost, renewal of mind and heart.  We are back, once again, to the question:  Is the way we think, going to be God’s way or man’s way?  Have we put on the mind of Jesus?  I would imagine that if Blessed Teresa were asked she might suggest that we should all pray attentively and listen first to the Word of God and also to each other.  For, if we first let God transform us inwardly – as St Paul recommends – by a complete change of mind – then we will be able to know the Will of God – what is good and pleasing and is perfect.

Listening to the Word of God – praying in response to that way – celebrating the Sacraments, all of these answer the call to become personally close to Jesus Christ.  These are the fundamental building blocks for authentic renewal.  The Scripture – prayer and the sacraments – are the privileged means for purification and renewal.
The Gift of the Spirit at Pentecost ushered in a new era – an era in which Christ now acts in a new way.  He lives and acts through the Sacraments in His Church.  He shares with us the fruits of His victory won for us on Calvary.  That is why he rebuked Peter for suggesting that suffering and death were not for Him.

In the Word of God, Christ speaks to us.  In the Eucharist, Christ nourishes us.  In Confession, Christ forgives us.  These are all sacred and treasured rites.  Freedom to participate in worship and to enjoy the long established rites of the Church is so fundamental that any intrusion upon it is a challenge to very basis of a free society.
For example, the inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the Sacrament that any proposal that undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the right of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.

Last Sunday Pope Benedict reminded us in Madrid that “The Church then is not a simple human institution like any other.  Rather she is closely joined go God.  Christ speaks of her as His Church – Christ cannot be separated from the Church any more than the head can be separated from the body”.  Today Jesus said to us in the Gospel:  ‘If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross and follow me.  Last Sunday, before two million young people gathered from the ends of the earth, the Vicar of Christ went on to
say:  “Following Jesus in faith means walking at his side in the communion of the Church.  We cannot follow Jesus on our own”.  He went on to say: “Anyone who would be tempted to do so ‘on his own; or to approach the life of faith with that kind of individualism so prevalent today will risk never truly encountering Jesus”.

Mother Teresa knew well that Jesus builds the Church on the rock of the faith of Peter – who confesses that Christ is God.  That is why she did not hesitate to visit Pope John Paul II and ask his advice, share her plans with him and ask his blessing.  When she presented Sister Nirmala to Pope John Paul as the Superior General of the Order and her successor, Mother Teresa said:  “I am completely free now” to which the Pope replied:  “You still remain the Foundress”.

Mother Teresa was born at the beginning of the bloodiest century in human history. It was a century notorious for its growing disregard to the sanctity of human life. It was the century of two World Wars, the Holocaust and other genocides as well as the mass killing of the innocent through abortion and euthanasia on an unprecedented scale.
In all of this Mother Teresa stood out as a fearless beacon of life and hope in the midst of the growing culture of death and despair. In an age which is giving up on the search for objective truth, the highest aspiration of the human spirit, how refreshing it was to hear her voice raised up to say that life is the most beautiful gift of God to humankind and that those nations that destroy life through abortion and euthanasia are, in fact, the poorest.  The child in the womb is the most vulnerable of all, she would say. That is why the innocent child in the womb deserves our special protection and care.

Next June it will be Ireland’s privilege to host the 50th Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.  The theme of the Congress is, “The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with one another.”  If she were alive and here today, I can well imagine how Mother Teresa would beg us all to do our utmost to prepare our hearts and minds for this great event. You see, early in life she discovered a profound truth: that the greatest evils in the world is loneliness.  She used to say, ‘There is so much suffering in the world but I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely – feeling unloved – just having no-one.  Of course there is a cure for this disease – it is called love.  But sometimes there is a scarcity of love.  Supplies run out.  But fortunately, those supplies can be replenished in various ways.

Mother Teresa discovered one way that never failed.  Her union with Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament, gave her frail little body not only the courage to proclaim Jesus crucified to the ends of the earth but that same union gave her the energy to reveal the face of Christ to the abandoned baby and to the dying leper and to millions of others as well.  It was her communion with Christ that drove her out and drove her on to be in communion with so many others.

Today the spirit of Mother Teresa lives on in her beloved Missionaries of Charity and in their co-workers.  That same Spirit lives on in each one of us also for it is the Spirit of the Risen Christ – for each one of us is called to be a missionary of charity – in our own way – in our own place – in our own time.  And what a difference that would make.  That is the CALL and that is the CROSS – to love our enemies – to pray for those who persecute us.  To forgive those who are killing us – to go the extra mile to offer the other cheek.  What a difference that would make.

AMEN.

The funeral liturgy which we are celebrating has been carefully chosen and prepared in advance.  Sister Eileen has left nothing to chance.  The lovely hymns and the Scripture readings would have been selected, by her, for their beauty and their message.  One of the tasks of every funeral liturgy is to identify and celebrate how God has been at work in the life of the deceased.

• So, thank you, Sister Eileen, for your thoughtfulness and usual concern for the rest of us today.
• Thank you for these past few months which you spent preparing for this week.  
• Thank you for the History of Pastoral Care and for the letters from Father Hugh Kelly, your Spiritual Director for some 47 years. 
• Thank you for the instructions to the Sisters and to your family so that this celebration would be a real celebration of your life and love.  

The lovely Entrance Hymn – I Watch the Sunrise expresses so well her love of beauty – especially the beauty of nature.  
I watch the sunrise lighting the sky
Casting its shadows near.
And in the morning, bright though it be,
I feel those shadows near me.

But that hymn does much more than that.  I think it expresses Sister Eileen’s keen awareness of the beauty of nature – which is, of course, an expression, a reflection, a reminder of God, the source of all beauty.  But that hymn also expresses her awareness of the shadows which are cast through all of our lives.  For Sister Eileen that shadow would have come early on with the sudden death of her beloved mother at an early age and the death of her brother, Father Paddy, in 1957.  

But the real message comes, I suggest, in the refrain and Eileen would have seen this as the treasure of her life which she glimpsed early on in life- and for which she gave all and set out to acquire the field in which it is to be found.  That treasure is the Presence and Closeness of God.  
But you are always close to me
Following al my ways,
May I be close to you,
Following all your way.

Sister Eileen would have felt that closeness of God through her parents and through her four brothers and four sisters and her education, first in Kilmainhamwood National School and later in Loreto College, Cavan.  She would have felt that closeness of God as she discerned, in the early 40s, where God was calling her and what she has been called to do.  
Mother Mary Martin had just then founded the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1937 and shortly afterwards set up the Mother House here at Our Lady of Lourdes.  The young Eileen Keoghan would have been well aware of the great need of the missions for trained medical missionaries.  She would also have known that the Church was just then encouraging religious congregations to devote themselves to all branches of medicine and so bring the compassionate love of Christ to the poorest of the poor at the ends of the earth.

So she joined the MMMs in 1944 and played her part in the phenomenal growth of the community.  In less than 25 years it grew from three members to more than 400 doctors, nurses, medical personnel, teachers, and secretaries.  By 963 the MMMs were maintaining 19 houses in Afraica, 7 in Ireland and one each in Italy and in the USA.  By then it was operating four Nursing Training Schools in Africa and two in Ireland.  It was staffing 14 General Hospitals, 18 Maternity Hospitals, 8 leprosaria and 159 Out Stations.  It is a glorious chapter in the history of Irish Missionary activity.  

Today we thank God for all of those valiant and generous women.  We give praise to all those who responded to Mother Mary’s appeal personally but also those who supported them financially and spiritually.  

Sister Eileen played her part in all of that:
•    As a midwife here in the maternity hospital from 1947 to 1953.
•    As a Medical Missionary in Tanzania from 1953 to1967,
•    It fell to her lot to open up very different but new initiatives for the MMMs on three continents.

• A new hospital in Makiungu, Tanzania
• A new MMM House in Chicago for promotion work, and finally,
• The new initiative of Pastoral Care for the sick and dying and the bereaved.

•    She discovered and studied Pastoral Care in the United States
•    She pioneered it here in Drogheda and throughout Ireland.
•    She expanded it to Nigeria
•    Explained it to the Universal Church at a European Bishops’ Conference in Rome in 1989.
•    Discussed Pastoral Care on the Late, Late Show in 1978 where Gay Byrne called her the ‘Dying Nun’, and most importantly,

She practiced what she preached – in her care of the sick, the dying in this hospital and far beyond, up until her retirement in 2002 and well beyond.  In fact, until the day of her death.  Sister Eileen was caring like the Good Shepherd for people in sickness and distress.  She was attentive to her family and her friends with her prayers and sacrifices, her telephone calls and letters and communications.  Just this Easter I got this gift from her.  It is an Ode to Friendship – one of life’s special gifts.  It says:  

Thank goodness for friends who care so much about us.
They want us to be all we are
They see the good qualities other may miss and
Inspire us to keep our aims high and
They are behind us in all that we try
They give the encouragement all of us need and
You realise that friendship is life’s Most Special Gift.

Of course, Sister Eileen would be the first to admit that all of her long, varied and gracefilled life was built on a solid foundation – a solid spiritual foundation.  The building blocks were laid in the Keoghan home in Kilmainhamwood, in the National School and in the Parish Church.  The Loreto Order and the Venerable Mary Ward would have played their part.  Then there was Mother Mary Martin and her new vast family of the MMMs.  Today we salute the Medical Missionaries in Angola, Brazil, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.  

The love of her family members was special and precious to her – a love which she returned a hundred fold.  The spiritual direction offered by Father Hugh Kelly, S.J. provided her with a compass for life.  Her devotion to St Therese – the Little Flower and to Our Lady of Guadalupe all contributed to lead her ever more dearly and ever more nearly to Jesus.  Of course, Jesus responded to all of that by granting her the request she so often repeated in recent weeks:  “I want to be with Jesus”.  I think it is hugely significant that one hour before she had her massive stroke last Tuesday afternoon, she had passed over responsibility of her small chore to Sister Bernadette, saying that she would not be able to do it anymore.  What truly prophetic words!  The reminded me of the words of Simeon when he took the child Jesus in his arms in the temple and blessed God saying:

“Now Master, you are letting your servant go in peace as you promised;
For my eyes have seen the salvation which you have made ready in the sight of the nations,
a light of revelation for the Gentiles and glory for your people, Israel”

Yes, the Master has now let his servant Sister Eileen go in peace as he promised.  Her life has indeed been a light of revelation for so many.  A revelation of God’s abiding and compassionate love for us all and glory for God’s people – the Church – the new Israel.

For me the final revelation from Sister Eileen comes in the final words of the Gospel she chose. There the Risen Lord says to Mary Magdalene:

Go and find the brothers and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.  So Mary of Magdala told the disciples: ‘I have seen the Lord’ and that he had said these things to her.

Sister Eileen is challenging each one of us to see the Lord in our own life and to really listen to what he is saying to us.

May she rest in peace.

The Lord Jesus welcomes us, and I welcome you, as we gather around His table.  We come to be nourished with the Word of Life and the Bread of Life.  We come to give praise and glory to God – praise and glory and thanks, in this instance for the life of Sister Eileen Carmel Keoghan.  

Sister Eileen departed this life at 10.15 pm on Wednesday night last – the eve of the Ascension of Our Lord to Heaven – after a long and fruitful and love-filled life of service to her Creator and to others – especially the sick, and the dying and bereaved.  

I offer my sympathy to Phelim and Séamus, to her brother and sisters-in-law; to her nieces and nephews, extended family, and to her MMM family and very wide circle of friends.

As we give thanks, we also ask for mercy for her that God may give her a merciful judgement and admit her to the glory of Heaven.  

We also think of our own death and judgement.  We judge ourselves and we beg pardon for our sins

I am overjoyed to welcome you here to Armagh this morning – I cannot imagine any occasion more worthy of joyful welcome than at Spiritfest – a festival of the Spirit of God, the Spirit who calls out to the Spirit of each one of us.

As we say, “Lord, teach us to pray,” the response of the Holy Spirit is, “Remember what Jesus said and did.”

I welcome you to Patrick’s City and I gladly and gently recall his famous words, “I used to pray many times during the day – more and more the love of God and reverence for him came to me.  My faith increased and the Spirit was stirred up so that in the course of a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers and almost as many at night.”  Not bad progress for a lad admits that a few years previously, “I have neglected the true God…… For we cut ourselves off from God.”  The only Spiritfest the lad Patrick had was in the woods and on the mountains ….. roused up to pray in snow, frost and rain – the Spirit was burning with me.”

I welcome you on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sacred Heart which is the Symbol of the love of God that same love of God which more and more came to Patrick and inspired him to pray – the same love that inspired each one of you to come here to partake in the Feast of the Spirit.

We gather in St Catherine’s College, long associated with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in this City.  She is the same St Catherine of Siena who was given her own room in the family home for her prayer and meditation and she ranks high among Catholic mystics and writers of all time.

I once heard of the wife of an Irish Ambassador who used to begin her conversation with guests for dinner at the Embassy with the question:  “How is your prayer life?”

I am very glad to welcome all of you to Spiritfest.  The idea and the name comes from a visit by Fr Andrew McNally and Dr Tony Hanna to Australia and New Zealand, in recent years, for a similar event.  It caught their imagination.  It is meant to do likewise for us and be our particular contribution to the preparation for the International Eucharistic Congress of 2012 in Dublin.  

I recently made an appeal for people to return to Sunday Mass.  But I realise that a return to Sunday Mass alone, without a return to prayer, will not avail much.  I am guided in saying this by the words of the Acts of the Apostles about the life of the Infant Christian Community in Jerusalem after the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost.

They were faithful to the teaching of the Apostles, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.  As a result of this faithfulness the Infant Church grew sensationally, they held their possessions in common, they looked after each other’s needs, they lived in peace and security and joy, praising God.  Fundamental to all of that was the faithfulness to prayer.

Prayer is that vital and personal relationship with the living and true God by which we live our faith.

Among all peoples, prayers has always been seen as an essential act.  In some cultures, India, for example, prayer, in the estimation of the public is regarded as the important thing.  This was brought home to me very powerfully I recall when some people, natives of Kerala in South India now living in Ireland, came to Armagh recently to celebrate a Mass in the Ancient Syro-Malabar Rite.  This is a Rite that goes back in language and form to Syria in the second century.  They arrived about 10 am and left about 7 pm.  They had two meals and many talks and lectures and a long liturgy.  They dressed in their traditional costumes – from their own particular land – and began the ceremony with a dance, carried out barefoot around a lighted candle, celebrating the life and deeds and holiness of St Thomas the Apostle, their Apostle.  This was no quick Mass.  The values of us Westerners seem to be different – profit and share-portfolios seem to interest us more than prayer or meditation or contemplation, if a perusal of news bulletins and newspapers are to be any guide.  What is the reason for this?  Is it because we fail to see the links between prayer and actual life?  Too often our quick casual prayer has no real connection with our lives.  It is an empty formula.  It shows no sign that the teaching of Jesus about prayer has influenced or informed our practice of prayer.  It is not enough that we pray in any old way.  Surely it is important that, as Christians, we pray as Christ taught us to pray.

However, the fact is that for a growing number of people prayer is a deep spiritual experience.  It closely informs and gives meaning and hope to their lives at a time when meaning and hope in life are vital.  The son of man learned to pray in his human heart.  He learns to pray for his mother, Mary, – what does that mean?

Jesus was a Jew, one of the Chosen People.  The Chosen People would always study events – what happened, to find their meaning.  For them the event was the point where God intervened in their lives.

So for them, prayer became, above all, thanksgiving for what had happened.  They were constantly thanking God for treating them, His people, with generosity, mercy and faithfulness – especially faithfulness – They knew from experience God was always faithful, never failing, day after day, down through the course of history.

That does not mean that their prayer was always serene.  Every page of the psalms, the great prayer-book of the Jewish people, is littered with petitions and frantic requests.  A great confidence in God is to be found there.  Sometimes God is thanked even before the prayer is granted.  Even when the prayer is not answered in the way expected, the conversation is never interrupted.  They see that it is always possible that God is leading His own Chosen People by the unexpected route of trial and tribulation, even closer to himself with a deeper relationship.  That is what prayer is – a relationship.

From the point of view of the Jews God’s plan may be foiled, at least apparently foiled.  But people of prayer never quit.  They do not give in to despair, rather they try to understand the ways of God and put their trust in God.  

Basically Jewish prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving to a good and generous God who is ever faithful and merciful, who reveals His love in the events of history.

The Gospels show us the place of prayer in the life of Jesus.  They don’t often reveal what was said in that prayer.  It was generally short and usually it is a response to some event concerning the coming of the Kingdom, e.g., in Chapter 17 of St John’s Gospel, his prayer is concerned with His death on the Cross.  A couple of things follow from all of this.  Our prayer should reproduce the prayer of Christ.  St Paul says:  “Pray constantly, and for all things give thanks to God.  Because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.”

Remember we always pray as members of the Body of Christ – the Church.  For we are a chosen race, a priestly people, powerful with our intercession, linked to the constant chorus of praise that goes up, like incense, to the Heavenly Throne.  By Baptism we are assumed into the priestly assembly of adopted children.  Each one of us has our part to play in building and renewing the Kingdom.  Baptism enables us to see God’s power, in the most unlikely of places, in death for example, in every event that shows the tragic frailty of human life, Jesus’ death was the major event in the history of the saving of the world.  When He prays, Jesus gives thanks.  At the tomb of Lazarus he says: “I thank you for hearing my prayer.  I know indeed that you always hear me.”  Whatever He has, Jesus attributes it to the Father.  God’s generosity is totally free.  All is included in God’s plan, even death, all has meaning.

His thanksgiving moulds his life into a unity.  It is obedience, even unto death on the Cross to the will of the Father for love of all of us.  Yes, His death was a moment of sadness, as every death is, but His loving obedience made it the greatest moment which saved the world.

My hope is that as a result we will all grow in our confidence and willingness to become teachers of prayer.  I hope we will have the courage to challenge people to rediscover our thirst for God – the courage to ponder the words of Jeremiah, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”  But as the life of Patrick on Slemish shows, the journey of forsaking God can be addressed and reversed through prayer.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day – Professor Robert Enright from Wisconsin, USA was giving a talk in Knock on forgiveness.  He also teaches forgiveness in primary schools in Belfast.   He read out to us the card his 20 year old son, Kieran, gave him for Father’s Day.  The fact that we now celebrate birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, seems to me to show that we appreciate the gift of life more clearly nowadays and we remember the day we entered this life and those who brought us into this life.  

Today I invite you, for a moment, to remember all those who have gone to their eternal rest.  Remember how they looked and how they spoke, and remember the example they west, the wisdom they gave you and the love they poured out upon you.  

Remember too that before he died, Jesus, told his followers that he knew they did not have clear and accurate memories of all their lives but that he would send someone else to remind them of all that he said and did.  The someone was, none other than the one and only Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost Sunday to do exactly what Jesus promised.  When the disciples remembered all that Jesus said and did – not just all the nice bits but the though challenging bits as well, they were changed – utterly changed people.
For example, they remembered the day he fed five thousand men, not counting women and children, with five loaves and two fish.  There were twelve baskets left over.  That certainly caught the imagination of the people.  They knew they could do with a miracle worker like that, especially in a time of recession – and so they came, looking for Jesus.  But Jesus told them – “You look for me because you ate the bread – not because you understood my miracle”.  He told them to work for the food that lasts for eternal life.  

He is saying here:  There is life here on this earth but there is another life as well – eternal, everlasting life and that is the only kind of life that will satisfy the deep desires of the human heart.  He went on to say:  “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, i.e., of himself, and drink His blood, you will not have life in yourselves.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life and I will raise them to life on the last day.  They live in me and I live in them”  

That was the promise – what a fantastic promise it is.  Jesus keeps his promises.  He delivered on that fantastic promise at the Last Supper on the night before he died.  On that night he took bread and wine and changed them into His Body and Blood.  He gave power to his disciples to do the same – “Do this in memory of me”.  

Jesus is not unreasonable – he does not order us to do something without giving us the power to do that something.  So, there and then, he ordered them to preach.  Not alone that, he did another remarkable ting.  He got up from the table and knelt down and washed their feet to show that he was really their servant as well as their Master.  

He delivered that service to them for a reason.  To show them how to carry on, in their own lives the great and New Commandment – Love One Another as I have Loved You.  

Those four wonderful gifts really blew the minds of the disciples, especially in their distressed state – a distress caused by his betrayal by one of their own, and by the forthcoming Passion and Death.

But the Holy Spirit came to help them clear their heads and see what was really important.  One of the things they saw to be vitally important was the Breaking of Bread – in other words – the Mass.  Whatever else they list, they must not lose their love and devotion to Jesus, present in the Mass.  The Church has learnt that lesson well and does its best to pass it on.  

The Book of Armagh is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin.  It has been described, by an eminent scholar, as the most important historical manuscript of Ireland prior to the twelfth century.  It was written about 800 AD and has this to say:  “Patrick took with him across the Shannon, fifty bells, fifty patens; fifty chalices; altar stones, books of Law; books of the Gospels and left htem in the new places”.  What was all of that about you may ask.  It was about the preparations to saying Mass.  

I crossed the Shannon yesterday on my way to Knock.  I did not bring fifty chalices but there were bus-loads of people there – young and old – to celebrate the National Eucharistic Congress – in preparation for the Congress next year in Dublin.

I am thinking of this wonderful Church of St. Patrick here in Dundalk.  It took immense love and sacrifice too but your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did it because they knew that, as we eat His Body, which he gave for us, we gain in strength.  As we drink His blood, which he poured out for us, they knew that we come to this wonderful sacrament to be fed at the Lord’s table where we grow into the likeness of the Risen Christ.  

Yet we cannot deny that there has been, in recent years, a remarkable decline in the attendances at Sunday Mass, especially among young people.  I suppose it can be traced to a variety of reasons:  laziness, carelessness, lack of faith.  But during his life, Jesus was amazed to find strong faith where he least expected to find it.  For example, in the Roman Army Office who was not a Jew but believed in Jesus and begged for his servant to be cured.

Equally, Jesus was amazed to find a lack of faith in those who might be expected to have faith. On that occasion Jesus gave a stark warning – people would come from outside the Chosen People and sit down at the feast of Heaven while the children of the kingdom would be thrown out.  Where does that leave us who regard ourselves as the New Chosen People and who enjoy the privilege of sitting at the Eucharistic banquet.  

It reminds us that fiath is a free gift – a gift that can be rejected or lost.  God alone knows who are faithful and who ar not.  We must not take things for granted.  Those who receive the Good News and welcomed it at first, can because of failure to be faithful, find themselves rejecting it later on.

The Children of the kingdom are loved by the King to such an extent that He did for us and remains with us but we need to remain with Him.

My hope is that the Eucharistic Congress will remind all to remain faithful to the teachings of God and  spur us on to renew our faith in the sacraments and to remain faithful to God.