This evening we’ve come together in the Cathedral Church of our
diocese to celebrate a significant moment in the life of the man who has
been our bishop for the past 16 years.
This congregation includes
representatives of the parishes stretching from the hills of Beara to
the cliffs of Ballybunion, and from the plains of Dromagh to the coast
at Dún Chaoin, and it is good for us to be here.
In joining Bishop Bill
for this occasion, we are not alone giving thanks for the 50 years of
priesthood with which he has been blessed; we are also giving thanks for
the people who have touched his life and who have helped him to be the
priest and to be the bishop that he is.
I’m thinking of the people, some
of whom are imithe ar slí na fírinne, who nurtured faith in his young
life and who infused him with a sense of idealism and a sense of service
and a sense of holiness – his family, his neighbours, his teachers, his
school pals and all of the people he has encountered in whatever
circumstances and in whatever capacity, since he first thought about
becoming a priest.
I’m remembering them because the priesthood is not a
gift bestowed or an honour conferred for one’s own glorification. The
priesthood only makes sense in the context of a living faith community.
It is not a life-style choice as one would choose a career; rather it is
a calling which is first mediated through the community and then
nurtured by the community, for the community.
But in the life of a priest, the task of the community is not just to
nurture; its task is also to keep us grounded. Sometimes the people who
ground us come in the most unexpected guises, at the most unexpected
moments and in the most unexpected places. I am lead to believe, that
fadó fadó, when I was still in the mind of God, one such moment in the
life of the young William Murphy is said to have happened when he was
going to Maynooth. Enroute he decided to visit his sister, now deceased
God rest her, who was a member of the Carmelite community at Hampton on
Gracepark Road in Dublin. He was dressed in the required attire of the
time for clerical students: black hat, black trench coat and probably
armed with a black umbrella – an ideal outfit for an 18 year old in the
sunshine of late August or early September!
The story goes that his stroll on Gracepark Road came to an abrupt
halt when he was confronted by a mulier fortis of a profound
anti-clerical disposition; she went into an hysterical rant at the mere
sight of young William. Her outburst was such that he would have been
forgiven for thinking that she was the remnant of an anti royalist
faction from the French revolution! Rattled he may have been, but the
fashion of his dash to the safety of the Carmelite monastery is said to
have been such that many an aspiring Olympian athlete would have been
green with envy! It would probably have been a marvellous scene for
Gregory Peck in another version of the Scarlet and the Black, under the
apt caption of “William’s Flight for Freedom”!
In addition to the importance of intellectual as well as spiritual
formation in the life of a priest, the value of experiencing ministry in
diverse settings and in cultures other than one’s own, shouldn’t be
underestimated either. And certainly in the Bishop’s life there was a
great deal of diversity; starting with teaching in St. Coleman’s Newry,
studying in Brussells, Fordham and Rome - as well as Maynooth; Assistant
priest in Rathmore, being co-author of the Children of God series for
primary schools; teaching at Mount Oliver Catechetical Institute,
Diocesan Director of Adult & Post Primary Religious Education,
Curate and ADM here in Killarney. But from conversations over the years
with Bishop Bill, I think that his time at the Lumen Vitae Catechetical
Institute in Brussells influenced his thinking more than any other
experience, providing him with invaluable insights into the Church on
continental Europe and in the wider world.
When we reflect on changes to faith and culture in Ireland in recent
decades, perhaps insufficient account is taken of two factors, both of
them beyond our control: firstly there is geography; we are a small
island nation on the periphery of Europe and because of that we were
relatively insulated and isolated from cultural trends on the continent
prior to the profound communications revolution of recent times. A 2nd
factor that insulated and isolated Ireland from trends in post war
Europe was the fact that the country was neutral during the 2nd world
war. For that reason, Ireland was saved some of the worst ravages of the
war, especially in its impact on family life and faith life in many
European countries. But as a consequence then, the necessity for the
reforms envisaged by Vatican II may not have been fully appreciated
here; and this in turn is what determined how the Church in Ireland
responded, or failed to do so, to those reforms. And, as would become
clear within a generation, the supposed security for the faith provided by “the rock
of splendid isolation”, would turn out in fact, not to be a rock, but a
quagmire.
Today, there are many challenges to faith and family in our complex
world, not least those presented by modern communication technologies.
Multiple T.V. channels, the cyber world, etc is part and parcel of so
many facets of life. And whether we like it or not, this is the market
place in which the Gospel must be preached and this is now the
environment in which the ministry of priests must be exercised; and it
is the world in which people have to struggle day after day to be
faithful to their baptismal calling.
At the risk of seeming to contradict myself - and thereby confuse
you, which would make my day! – I want to digress momentarily to 7th
century England. There the Celtic Church evolved from the labours of St.
Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Cuthbert and other celtic monks; in parallel
with it was the Church with its roots on the continent, founded by St.
Augustine of Cantebury and his group of 30 monks who were sent to
evangelize the Anglo Saxons by Pope Gregory the Great.
Aside from the
issues in dispute at the Synod of Whitby in 664(3)? AD, it is a fact of
history that the seeds planted by the celtic monks were much more
fruitful than those of their counterparts from the continent; the celtic
monks were competent evangelisers; whereas those from the continent
might be described as efficient bureaucrats, as they seemed more
concerned with structures.
Every organization is obviously in need of
structures; but then as now, structures, no matter how efficient, did
not and will not, of themselves, sustain life in old shoots, nor will
they call forth life in new ones.
This evening then, let us not forget that we are gathered here on the
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, just a short few days after the Feasts
of Pentecost and Ascension. The final exchange between the risen Christ
and his disciples is recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, where He
said: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and then
you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). For a priest, for a bishop, being
a witness must mean: “feed my lambs”, “look after my sheep” (John
21:15, 16). Of its nature, much of our ministry is very public.
But
perhaps the dimension to ministry that is most effective and most
enduring is what is exercised far from the gaze of the public eye – in
the quiet of a kitchen, in the privacy of the confessional, at a
hospital bedside or in a prison cell. No PR exercises, no cultivation of
a public profile and no clamour for openness must ever be permitted to
compromise or violate the sacredness of that space in ministry.
In Pope Paul VI’s apostolic letter Evangelii Nuntiandi, one finds
words, frequently quoted, which are instructive for us at this time:
“modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if
he does listen to teachers it is because they are witnesses” (par. 67).
The world needs convinced witnesses; it needs witnesses to hope. In his
encyclical Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict wrote: “Day by day, man experiences
greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different
periods in his life… When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes
clear that they were not, in reality, the whole…. It becomes clear that
only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will
always be more than he can ever attain”.
These are indeed challenging
times for the ministry of priests, but we must be witnesses to that hope
of which Pope Benedict speaks, we must “feed the lambs” and “look after
the sheep”, while ever mindful that “we are only the earthenware jars
that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming
power comes from God and not from us”. (2 Cor. 4:7).
At the close the Diocesan Jubilee Pageant, The Dance of Life, there
was a wonderful moment when, in echoes of the Easter Vigil Liturgy, the
choir of one thousand voices sang: Christ yesterday, today and forever.
That song is a statement of our faith, it is a fervent prayer,
expressing the deepest longings of our hearts. Christ yesterday, today
and forever is our reason for being here; it is He who gives meaning and
purpose to all of our lives; He it is who is the reason for the
ministry of priests. During the past 50 years of priesthood, Bishop Bill
has probably seen the best of times and the worst of times. Certainly
during his years as bishop, he has lived through some of the saddest and
possibly roughest of times for ministry since the Great Famine and
beyond to the Penal Laws. From time to time, we become discouraged,
perhaps even disillusioned. But what the future shall be is known only
to God; the future is in his hands; it is His Church.
Those who are concerned for the wellbeing of the Church may find it
helpful sometimes to look for inspiration “outside the box”, eg. in the
world of sport. Our two counties (Kerry & Cork) have possibly the
two best senior football teams in the country. But, as we know from past
experience, and as we shall see again on July 3rd in the Fitzgerald
stadium here in Killarney, even the best of teams have their flaws and
their weaknesses. However, a team will always make progress when the
members work together and when they play to their strengths.
Those who have worked closely with Bishop Bill know that his
effectiveness as a teacher is because of his witness. Over the years he
has stretched our imaginations through various initiatives and he
continues to do so by nudging us forward - inspite of our stubbornness
and resistance! He is a man of intellect, culture and spirituality; a
scholar who wears his scholarship lightly; a man simple in his tastes,
who is hewn from the soil of Annaghmore and rooted in the most noble and
formative cultural influences of Sliabh Luchra.
So, Bishop Bill, this evening we give thanks for all that has been
and for all that you are, and for the health and happiness you enjoy,
and for the faith and family with which you are blessed.
A Liam, a
Easpaig, guím sláinte saoil chugat, ’s go gcumhdaí Dí tú, ’s go maire tú
i bhfad faoi ghrásta Chríost agus faoi choimirce na Maighdine Muire,
Máthair De.
Amen.