by Vincent | Apr 22, 2018 | Reflections, homily
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. We reflect on Vocation within the church. Vocation at its widest, includes every man, woman and child of us, who tries daily to respond to God’s Call to be a better person and a sign of His presence. We focus too on vocations to priesthood, permanent diaconate and religious life. It is from here, these few lines come. I wondered yesterday what I had to say that might not have been said before and realised that I’ve nothing new to bring to the people, other than a belief that priesthood is still a call worth hearing, considering and responding to. Deeply aware of my own limitations but also still happy that I made the decision to travel this road, I wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. The idea of writing a letter came to my mind – a letter to the people but then, I thought maybe a letter to myself might be worth looking at ….. this is how it worked out!
Dear Vincent,
Thought I’d drop you a line. It’s Vocations Sunday and I know you’re wondering how to rise to it again, to encourage and pray for vocations when, for more than thirty years, you’ve done the same and nobody seems to have responded. I know that at times, you find yourself going through phases of self-doubt about the effectiveness of your own vocation. I’m sure you’re wondering who I am!
I’m that boy in you who knew priests to be decent people who seemed to bring happiness to your family home and who showed themselves to be friends. I’m that teenager in you who, in St Nathy’s College, came to admire the priests on the staff – for the bits and pieces they did “beyond the call of duty” to encourage students to do their best, not just in the classroom but on the sports field too. I’m the son in you who heard your mother’s prayers to Fr Casey a priest who died back in 1939, when your mother was scarcely a teenager herself, but remembered forever his kindness to her family, after her father’s death when she was just seven years old. I’m the Spirit in you that made you think there was a place for you in priesthood and encouraged you to go ahead – to give it a try.
I am the family and neighbours around you who wished you well that September and who cared more about where you were going than your leaving cert results. I am a grandmother of a school friend who lit candles for you every time she passed the church throughout your years in Maynooth. I am the friends you met – men and women – who made you feel special and loved. I am the dream within you that accompanied you through the years and assured you that the road chosen, like the one to Emmaus, was an open road but a safe one too where you’d not walk alone.
I am the twenty-four year old in you who knelt before Bishop Flynn in June 1987, put your hands in his and promised to do your best and who lay mouth-under, on the floor of Gurteen Church, as the saints were called down on top of you in a litany of prayer – “Bless this chosen man”, “Bless this chosen man, make him holy”. “Bless this chosen man, make him holy and consecrate him for his sacred duties” …. I am that young priest who was welcomed to his first parish by decent people who helped him believe he’d done the right thing with his life, though he had much to learn.
I am the fifty-five year old in you. Standing this weekend in a parish, surrounded by a community at prayer. People looking to the priest in you to offer a word, to be a friend and above all to break open the Scriptures and to nourish through Eucharist. I am the priest in you who wants you to push yourself and to have courage and self-conviction. I am the ongoing dreamer in you who believes the Church can find her voice a-fresh and that the world can be a better place and will be a better place when it opens itself to see again the presence of God and the real difference a lived faith can make.
I am your vocation Vincent, encouraging you to take all that’s good from your past, to accept your mistakes and to reach out again and again, to hope and believe again and again, that the story, the dream of the boy may find words in the mouth of the man and say, even if you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said it …. “this is a good life”.
They’re listening Vincent, speak to them!
by Vincent | Apr 16, 2016 | General Interest, Reflections
In June 1981, Fr Stephen O’Mahony was ordained a priest for the diocese of Achonry. Five years earlier, his brother Dan, was also ordained. A year before that, in the Summer of 1975, Padraig Costello was ordained for our diocese and five years before that, Dominic Towey was ordained for the Diocese of Motherwell. Four men from the parish ordained priests in eleven years.
Thirty five years have passed since Stephen’s Ordination. Is “times have changed” the only response we have? Did God decide he needed no more priests from our parish? Did we? The answer, I believe, is found in neither question. The truth is God needs priests. Our parishes and diocese needs priests and religious.
What was different back then? Did people talk more about vocations? Pray more? Think more? Respond more? The same goodness is there today as at any time in our past. The same generosity is there too.
Thirty five years is a life time ….. Is there anyone out there willing to be “out there” in ministry?
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The lines above are on the front of this week’s Kilmovee Parish Bulletin. Wanted to share them here too and maybe stir a thought in our hearts around Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life.
Recently a mother in the parish told me she saw her son walking down the hallway in their home. I’d say he’s about five or six years old. He had good clothes on him and when she asked what he was doing, he turned to her and said “Shh, I’m going to Mass”!! Intrigued, she followed a few minutes later and found him in another room, alongside his sister and they were “playing Mass”. She said he was making his own of one of the hymns I sing at Mass:) I was pleased to hear this because in some way it meant the children had taken the Mass home with them. To think it formed part of their play time was, in its own way, very consoling. It’s good to imagine that it has a place in their imagination, alongside Cowboys and Indians, Doctors and Nurses, Cops and Robbers, Hide and Seek and a myriad of other games. Perhaps the memory of that “mass” will linger and sow a seed, whose crop we might treasure.
I remember playing “priest” as a child. Indeed my brother felt the need to share this with those gathered for my ordination. He said that when he and my other brother would go home from school, they’d change into overalls and help in the garage but that more often than not I’d be seen in a black jacket with a shirt turned back to front!! I blushed at the memory but there’s a truth in it. Priests were an important part of my life and, maybe in the game, the thoughts of becoming one found some growth. Maybe that’s why the mother’s story sparked something of gratitude in me.
When I was ordained in 1987, another man from home was ordained a few months before me. He had been a solicitor, married and widowed – a grandfather and a Maynooth Classmate called Gerry Horan. Oliver McDonagh, a neighbour too, was ordained the Sunday before me for the diocese of Elphin (sadly Gerry and Oliver have both died, may they rest in peace). The year after a third neighbour, John Geelan, was ordained and just a few years before that, John Finn from Gurteen. Five men from the area in about seven years. Like Kilmovee, none since.
A lifetime has passed you could say and nobody has seen a neighbour enter the seminary, study for a number of years and come home to be ordained. I think this is part of the reality of our present situation. People go to college, train to be teachers, doctors or nurses, others join the guards or take courses in farm management. Still others further their skills as carpenters, builders, plumbers and so much more. They talk to their friends about their courses, the life in college, the hopes they have and, in that talk, they spark the thoughts in others “maybe I could do that too” ….
Not so priesthood or religious life. There are so few, and the few there are are so far scattered throughout the country, that the potential for their vocations impacting on others is lessened or eroded. People don’t hear of or know people who are exploring God’s Call.
What can we do? I firmly believe we should pray and encourage. I believe if in a Leaving Cert Class a student expressed thoughts around priesthood or religious life that his or her classmates should support the student and say “yes, why not give it a go”. I think likewise parents and parishioners should encourage thoughts around vocation and not, through negativity or fear, quench the sparks of a flame that might be there.
I believe we need to be positive and when we hear negative comment around church, priesthood etc, if that comment does not reflect our own experience we should say so. “That may be your experience but it’s not mine”. Silence in the face of negative comment suggests support for it. I think that’s a pity. A young man told me in recent years that he was at the dentist and that the dentist told him how much he disliked the church, priests etc. I consider this young man a friend. I knew him as a boy and know him as a man. I said to him “I hope you told him you have a good friend who is a priest”. He looked and me and said, “I did not! He had a drill in my mouth at the time!” Drills aside, it seems to me that much harm is done through negative comment and much harm too, through not at least offering an alternative view.
Priesthood is a good life. We have the privilege of being with people on good and difficult days. Last week I celebrated a wedding and just before Mass this evening received a text from the bride saying how much they had enjoyed the day. I was so happy to hear from her. During the week, I was called to the sudden death of a young man in our parish and allowed share in the grief of his family and community. I do not take this lightly. It matters that we matter and have a place to play in the day to day living of people’s lives.
I believe there is a place for priests in our world. I don’t know what the future will bring to priesthood. Undoubtedly it will bring its own changes and shape but, for now, we can only try to live the priesthood that is in our midst. For now, that is the only priesthood we can seek to encourage.
I think it’s worth doing ……
by Vincent | Apr 28, 2012 | General Interest, Reflections, Parish and Diocese, Religion
This weekend we celebrate Vocations Sunday and, in word and prayer, seek to encourage people to consider the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. On Holy Thursday, at our Chrism Mass, I was asked to prepare a Post Communion Reflection so thought I might share here the words I used that day.
Lord, from the earliest days of your public ministry, you involved yourself in the needs of all you met.
You were with your people from the turning of poured water into wine to the pouring of your own blood mixed with Cana’s water on the cross. Some people were spoken for “they have no wine” and others found their own voice; “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. For some the request for healing was instant and others, like the prodigal son, had to be given time to “come to their senses”. Always though, you were there for people and with people.
Likewise, you remain with us; standing together as Diocese today. We praise your presence in our midst. As people and priests, young and old, strong and infirm, healthy and weak, enthusiastic and tired, faith-filled and searching, we take the message of this day to our hearts. Oils blessed and consecrated. Lives consecrated and renewed – people, united in prayer – we take it all in Lord and offer what we have to you, that you may take it, shape it, renew and rebuild it, so that our diocese and its people live the Gospel message.
The priest in us says “yes” again to your call. Yes to its uncertainties and tensions and yes to its glorious opportunities to be something of your presence to those who seek a voice and have a voice. Yes to its call to bring these oils from their silver containers to the parishes and people of our diocese with the enduring promise of hope and companionship in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders and of life Eternal in the Sacrament of the Sick. To the brokenness of bread and the bitter-sweetness of chalice blood we commit ourselves as well. We offer our voices and our hearing, our good days and our bad that they may be rooted in Holy Thursday, remain loyal through Good Friday and proclaim the good news that “he is risen” on Easter Sunday and beyond.
As Church; lay, religious and ordained, we dedicate our “yes” to you this day: the “yes” of parents towards the shaping and loving of a new generation, the “yes” of a whispered rosary, a lighted candle in an early morning chapel; the “yes” of tending to the sick and infirm; the “yes” of Amen to Eucharist. We dedicate as well the “yes” of the many reluctant but necessary yeses that see Simons and Veronicas step forward from the crowd. We have the “yes” in us, Lord and we offer it to you for it is only in you and through you its potential can be reached.
Remain with us Lord. You know that we know that we need you.
Amen!
