4th Sunday of Easter
We are living in exciting times. I know that every day is exciting in that we don’t know what it may hold for us. But we are excited at the moment at the prospect regarding the choice of a new leader of our church. And as this reflection goes to print, we may already have a new Pope. Also, this week we are remembering all those who died in the two terrible world wars, while still, all around the world, wars are raging. Are human beings really that stupid? Seems we are. I’ve been to all our primary schools today concerning a request for the sixth-class pupils to write an essay on their hopes for the future. This is the Jubilee year of Hope. I included in the request for them to look at young Carlo Acutis, who was to be canonised on Divine Mercy Sunday, but the death of Our Holy Father Francis has delayed the ceremony. Giving our young a voice in our church can be a learning experience for a lot of us. During the week, I celebrated the funeral of a young twenty-four-year-old who died from drowning. Only a boy to his parents and a great person to his friends, who were emotionally moved at the mass.
Last week I said I was in a church on my own, just sitting and listening. I often think, especially at a funeral if just for a moment we sit with each other in silence. Those few minutes speak volumes because, like Mary following her son on the road to Calvary, words can distract rather than be a help. She just looked and he too, and for a moment that corner of the road was embellished with love. It’s the same for all of us. We don’t know what to say, but we know what to do, and that’s to be. Be in the moment of a person’s grief. Be in the place where others assemble and be that support through our prayers. That family, the other day, knew and they were aware in our church that they were experiencing in the silence of all those around them that they were not alone in their loss of their beautiful son. Listening to all the commentators covering the Conclave and remarking on Francis or different aspects of church life, I was warmed in the heart by the amount of positivity in the discussions. One or two spoke of the pope having already been chosen by the Holy Spirit, and we just had to wait for it to permeate the cardinals’ minds, guiding their decision. But some others seem to have left God out of the equation altogether, as if a leader of a religious group was being voted in. Over a thousand years of our church’s history were being played out before our eyes in the words of Jesus. “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”. to leave God out of the decision-making would be to compromise our understanding of what our church and our faith are about. We could eventually be reduced to a meeting of minds. 2We would succumb to a form of lukewarm Christianity that prioritises comfort and convenience over essential discipleship and sacrificial living. But it’s a daily struggle for the church. Most people would rather kick back and binge for hours on streaming media or endlessly scroll on their smartphones than snap open their Bibles or kneel for five minutes to pray. Or they would rather enrol their children in every sport and activity than take them to Church or train their children to follow Jesus. Isn’t that happening at this very moment? There is that tendency creeping in towards comfortable, lazy, and lukewarm Christianity in a lot of people’s lives today. A lot of us in church nowadays, instead of taking the initiative to speak with and mentor newer believers joining the community and build them up in the faith, to read the Bible together and pray for one another. Our Lectio Divina would be so helpful to this group of people. Many older believers are stranded in their own homes and are forced to watch church services on television. Others consume mass quantities of electronic media that rot their brains and corrupts their hearts, leading them further away from the Lord Jesus. And all of us need to take responsibility for our inactivity. Like the Cardinals in Conclave, our response to these challenges must be rooted in prayer, dependence on the Holy Spirit, and a commitment to the Bible, all in obedience to the law of God.
Message archive of Curate’s Reflections
3rd Sunday of Easter
I took advantage of the weather the other day and travelled up to Roscommon on a visit to a priest friend of mine. On the way, I stopped off at a church to stretch my legs and go inside a say a prayer or two. There is something about sitting in church and just listening to your thoughts. In the sanctuary area, there was a picture of our late Pope Francis, may he rest in peace. It was draped in black with a small lighted candle beside it, expressing that emptiness the whole church is feeling while we wait for our next good priest to be elevated to the great honour of leading us once more. At Mass, I have to leave a blank spot in the Canon where typically i would list the name of the pope alongside that of the local bishop. Everything for the moment is on hold. It was a prayerful moment of reflection until I headed out to continue my journey. As I continued on the road, I wondered who would come after Francis. Whoever he is, it will be a hard act to follow. Does our church need to follow the example of Francis in speaking out to the bully in the world, pointing out the moral and ethical flaws in his argument? Other popes who approached world problems decided it was better to speak in diplomatic whispers. It’s hard to know if we should ask the people who are dying in their thousands in Sudan or the Palestinians in Gaza which form of speech is more welcoming, as at the moment neither is helping them. What the church needs is a man, first and foremost, of God. That might sound strange, but too many of us today criticise the world and all the violence in it. The world is a beautiful place, and we talk about our young people being affected by it. Depression, emotional imbalances in students in our schools and colleges. That is all true, but not because of the world. It is because there is no grounding, both morally and spiritually. The biggest challenge for the Church and that is important when choosing the new Pope is to convince people to accept Christ and live according to his teaching and example. I hear you say, “Easy to say, difficult to do. But that is what the Church is for. The Church is to evangelise.” Too many of us in church, teaching in our schools and yes parents avoid the ugly challenge demanded of us by our faith, to teach these values to our children. At the heart of everything we do is kindness. We understand, we sympathise, and where necessary, we challenge the young. Always through kindness and acceptance of where they are in their development. We work with young people in a way that helps them to appreciate that looking after one another and mutual support for each other are the way to help everybody succeed and thrive in the world. We see young people and make a judgment without ever looking at their circumstances. If we see them in an empty church, we’re suspicious, and if they won’t come, we criticise them. Society should never give up on children because they are shaped by it. Pope Francis had a great rapport with the young, very visible by their appearance at his funeral. And even though we have no control over who the next Pope will be, we trust in Our lord who set up our church. So even if we get a pope who is not a good pope, or a bishop who is not a good bishop, or a priest who is not good, they can never pull down the Church, but they can do damage. They can hurt. They can injure. So, every one of us has to, in fear and trembling, ask himself: ‘What is God calling me to do in the Church. The church being the place where I live and work. I think it was in St. Peter’s Square that I heard an interview with Cardinal Arinze from Nigeria. When asked to share some wisdom with younger Catholics from his 92 years of life, the cardinal emphasised the importance of God’s providence for each one of us. “God is the director general of history,” he said. “He is also the providence for each individual … God knows best. We think that we are directing everything, but God is there, who looks into the details.” He quoted the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta: “May God help us not to spoil his work.” “If we were faithful to God … God will do great things for us,” he said. “He did for the Blessed Virgin Mary, who confessed: ‘The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.’ With many things God does, we think we are the clever ones who did them. We just beg God that we do that little part which he expects of us, so that his work will succeed.” “If every one of us will remain open to God’s action and know that God takes the initiative, his grace leads us to start, to continue, and to bring to a happy finish the action in his kingdom.”
“The Curate’s Reflection” is a weekly message from our curate, offering spiritual insight, encouragement, and thoughtful meditation on Scripture. Rooted in the rhythms of parish life and the liturgical calendar, each reflection invites our community to pause, pray, and draw nearer to Christ in the midst of daily life.”