Or in places like Enniscrone during the busy summer months, the length of Masses was extended when one priest had to spend between 20 to 30 minutes distributing Holy Communion.
A few years before lay ministers were introduced around 1975, Fr Mark Diamond, who was then curate in Enniscrone, asked Bishop McDonnell for permission to bring forward the change on the grounds that he (Fr Mark) found the distribution of Communion a particular ordeal as he had an ongoing problem with his sight.
The bishop agreed but on reflection – in case he was accused of jumping the gun in the liturgy stakes – changed his mind and suggested that the nuns in Enniscrone could help out instead.
The bishop’s reluctance to change anything, even his mind, was underlined by his repetition of a favourite riposte to retain the status quo – ‘From time immemorial’.
Now that change in the Catholic Church has less of a sense of panic attached to it and is more and more an obligatory imperative, almost everything in life is now driven by necessary and inevitable revision.
Even though the Catholic Church is tortuously slow in moving with the times, some get a strange pleasure out of impeding any reform by consigning it to a distant future on the basis that the Church only moves in centuries.
Some thought that, with the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council had been successfully deferred to a future century but to their horror Francis has given them a second wind, making their delayed implementation irresistible despite some clerical opposition.
Now we live not just in changing times but in historic times and even though the pace of change is inadequately and unnecessarily ponderous, suddenly reform is the order of the day – albeit on a slow boat to China.
At the moment, the dioceses of Tuam and Killala are in the process of merging into one union – an historic break from boundaries delineated over 900 years ago in the Synods of Rathbrazil (1111 a.d.) and Kells (1152).
It is a mammoth task organising the complex process of joining two distinct pastoral and legal entities with separate histories, traditions as well as conditions of employment and it has been entrusted to Archbishop Francis Duffy who, in less than a dozen years, moved from his native Kilmore diocese to Ardagh and Clonmacnoise to Tuam and has now landed in Killala.
But that’s not all. The recent synod, albeit not delivering the pace of change that creates momentum, has designated Parish Pastoral and other Councils as mandatory – no longer optional or at the whim of a clerical veto.
Synodality, what Francis has defined as ‘the (only) way of being Church in the new millennium’, carries with it in simple terms the promise of a People‘s Church (as Vatican Two had intended).
Now too we’re beginning to see the development of lay ministries not just because priest numbers are declining precipitously but primarily to facilitate the rights of all the baptised to use the gifts God has given them in the service of their church.
The focus now is on accepting, facilitating and respecting the rights of the baptised.
In Killala diocese, that change is particularly obvious and will within the next few weeks receive an historic impetus when 62 lay women and men will be commissioned as part of a drive to enhance the pastoral care of parishes.
The lay ministries include the Ministry of Reader, Minister of the Eucharist (distribution of Holy Communion) and Funeral Ministers (who will co-lead with priests) all of the standard funeral services with the exception of the Funeral Mass.
Funeral Ministers will accompany the priest to the wake house or funeral home; they will co-lead the prayers for the Rite of Reception at the church; they will co-lead the Final Commendation at the end of the funeral liturgy; and they will co-lead the Rite of Committal.
The 62 women and men have just completed a Certificate in Lay Leadership: Theology, Culture and Ministry, designed and delivered by the Newman Institute, Ballina.
For two years and three months, course participants have engaged with the main theological subjects of Sacred Scripture, Pastoral Theology, Liturgy, Moral Theology, Catholic Social Teaching, Faith and Culture, Encountering Jesus of Nazareth, Church History and Diocesan History, Canon Law and the administration of parishes.
Safeguarding training and Pastoral Reflection evenings were also key parts of the course.
Pastoral placements were undertaken in six host parishes over the two-year period. In the coming weeks, the lay leaders will commence their ministries in a voluntary capacity in their parishes.
Last Friday (March 28) in St Muredach’s Cathedral, the total group of 64 (62 lay people and two priests) celebrated their Graduation Ceremony and in Holy Week as part of the Mass of Chrism on Tuesday, April 15th at 6.30pm, our 62 lay leaders will be commissioned by Archbishop Francis Duffy.
At a time when the commitment of parishioners to their Church is declining, the response of the participants has been nothing short of extraordinary.
An additional reason for hope is that we are now, it would appear, at a seminal moment in church history.
From his bed on the tenth floor of the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, at a time when his doctor has indicated that he was close to death, Francis has personally approved and supported a surprise letter to the world’s bishops by Cardinal Grech with two key messages: (i) that no bishop or priest can opt out of the process of embedding synodality in the future life of the Church – in other words, that everyone has to grasp the fact that synodality, like Francis, haven’t gone away, you know, and (ii) that from 2025 to 2028, there will be a three-year period galvanising the Church at every level across the globe through a process ‘of accompaniment and implementation’.
After a long winter of discontent, we are now on the verge of a new spring and, in Killala diocese, with the added providential benefit of 62 women and men willing and able to commit to putting their hands to the plough.
That we have reached this point is a joy unconfined.