Ard Scoil Mhuire

Friday 23 September 2005
Jer 1:4-10; Eph 1:3-6, 11,12; Mt 4:18-22

On the day of his inauguration in St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict spoke about the fact that each human being is special: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution”, he said. “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”.

God chose each of us before we ever existed; we were chosen as God’s own from the beginning. Each of us is special.

But, to be honest, we can be a bit uncomfortable about people who think they are special. Sometimes we hear the question, “Who does she think she is?” Sometimes we may not just hear it, but ask it ourselves! Sometimes people who tell us that they are special seem to be trying to claim that they are better than we are! We can be a bit uneasy too about whether a person who thinks, ‘I’m special’ may often just have unrealistic ideas. After all not everybody is going to be a multimillionaire or a superstar!

When we see people who really important to one another, we realise that there is more to it than that. Each of them recognises the other as special. A wise man once made a very perceptive comment. He pointed out that every Jack sees in his Jill charms and qualities to which the rest of us are stone cold. Maybe that is a little bit harsh! Still, Jack and Jill who really care about one another will never seem as special to us as they do to one another. But the really important thing he said was this: Jack is right and we are wrong. What Jack sees, and what we fail to see, is the truth: Jill is among the wonders of creation. It is only real love and understanding that makes it possible to appreciate that (JAMES, W., ‘What makes life significant’ in Essays on Faith and Morals, Meridian Books, 1962.

Everybody can’t win the race; everybody can’t be the best at everything. It is not that each of us is better than everybody else – that would make no sense. What the readings you have chosen for this Mass tell us that everyone is specially chosen by God. Each of us is loved; each of us is called by name. God understands us and loves us and knows better even than ourselves that we are among the wonders of creation.

Being special is not about being better than other people, and it is certainly not about looking down on anyone. It is about understanding that each of us is “claimed as God‘s own, chosen from the beginning”. In all the vast universe of stars and galaxies and unimaginable distances, in all the long stretch of human history, each person is entirely unique and irreplaceable.

No other being in all creation has the gifts and opportunities that each one of us has. No other person will have exactly the same experiences and contacts and opportunities to use those their gifts to make a difference that each of you has – among your family, friends, and neighbours. At the beginning of a new school year, we know for sure that, during this year, each of you will have chances to make a contribution to the life of the school, to be a real friend to a fellow pupil, to develop your own gifts in a way that nobody can do for you.

No other person will have the contacts and opportunities that you will have in your future lives among workmates and friends and neighbours and above all, for most of you, in your families – where you will have an influence on your children that no one else can ever have. Who knows where your lives will take you and how you may be able to serve society, how you may be able to help people to appreciate the Good News of Christ’s unique love for each human being, showing us a love greater than anyone has, laying down his life for us.

The person who thinks she is better than everyone else has got it wrong for another reason. When we think of the responsibility we have as a person with unique gifts, with unique opportunities, with an irreplaceable contribution to make, with the possibility of enriching other people’s lives as no one else can do, we would be very foolish not to feel inadequate.

But the truth is that whatever strength and resources and opportunities we have are God’s gifts, starting with the most basic gift of the fact that we exist at all! What makes us special is that God has given us those gifts, and they were not given to us because we are so wonderful! “I chose you before I gave you life”, before I formed you in the womb. God loved us before we could have done anything to deserve it. Another name for love which is not deserved is ‘mercy’. Tomorrow is Mercy Day – a reminder that we totally depend on the generous merciful of God.

That mercy does not just call us into existence, give us unique gifts and then leave us to ourselves; that love accompanies us through our lives. Each of us has received and continues to receive that love in a unique way. And therefore, each of us can share that love, can give other people an insight into that love in a way that nobody else can do.

Like Jeremiah, we feel inadequate: “I am too young.” (Being young is not the only thing that may give rise to feelings of inadequacy. I can tell you that the sense of being called, of having personal responsibilities that seem overwhelming, of feeling challenged to use well the opportunities that we are given not get any less as life goes on!) But we are not on our own: Do not be afraid of difficulties and challenges, even rejection and opposition, the Lord tells Jeremiah: “I will be with you to protect you”. The last words Jesus spoke to his disciples in St Matthew’s Gospel were: Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” ( Mt 28:20 ).

That is why we bring these thoughts to the celebration of the Eucharist. We offer our gifts, we offer our efforts to use them well; we offer what has happened in the past with its joy and sorrow, its highs and lows; we offer our hopes and our future opportunities to Jesus who walks with us every step of the way. We give thanks for the unique blessings and gifts that God has given to each of us. We ask for the wisdom and courage to use them, to appreciate them, to share them and to help other people to recognise their unique gifts.

After Pope Benedict spoke about each of us being special, he went on to put the challenge of living like people who have been chosen by God:

There is nothing more beautiful than to know Christ and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.

I hope that for each of you and through each of you that joy will break into the world during the coming year.

+Donal Murray
Bishop of Limerick