Limerick Diocesan Pilgrimage to Knock, 13 July 2024

Homily Notes of Bishop Brendan Leahy

At the end of his life, in his last Pastoral Letter of 16 February 1860, Saint Eugene de Mazenod, founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (and I greet the Oblate Family here on pilgrimage today along with us from the Diocese of Limerick), sang a hymn of love for Christ and the Church, which he saw as completely linked with one other. As a man with a passionate heart that loved, he asked: “How is it possible to separate our love for Jesus Christ from that for his Church? These two loves are intertwined: to love the Church is to love Jesus Christ and vice versa. One loves Jesus Christ in the Church because she is his immaculate bride who came out of his open side on the cross, as Eve came out of the first Adam”.

To love Jesus is to love the Church. To love the Church is to love Jesus by living out our baptism. And here at Knock we are reminded that we have no greater model of how to do this than to look at Mary. She was there at the foot of the Cross where the Church was born. She represents the Church. When John took her into his home, we can image that Mary wanted nothing more than to continue Jesus’ mission, to be the Church’s mission, to help inspire and guide the Church in our daily desire to see and love Jesus now present in the cries of humanity and in the hearts of each neighbour.

In recent times, there is a greater appreciation of just how much it is lay people who continue the Church’s mission in the world. Indeed, as we move into the future, it is clear the Church is going to have a much greater lay profile. The Synodal pathway that Pope Francis has promoted is also about helping that lay profile emerge.

So today, as we are here on pilgrimage in Knock, it is good for us to recognise three ways lay people can look to Mary in living out their vocation given to them in baptism.

In Mary we see the priestly mission of the laity. The whole life of a lay person can and must be one of glorifying God and being a person of prayer for the coming of his kingdom in the world. In this lay people are called to live out what is often called the baptismal priesthood. And that means knowing how to face the anxieties of every day and respond to the conflicts of all kinds within us and in our world so full of social problems, as a participation in the sacrifice of Christ. Looking to Mary, as in today’s Gospel, lay people see her standing at the Cross as her Son suffered and died, so, they learn from her how to stand at the Cross of those around them who suffer. Their works, prayers and apostolic endeavours, their married and family life, their daily occupations, when carried out in the Spirit, bearing patiently the hardships of life and illness, all become “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. The prayer of lay people raises up to heaven on behalf of humanity – that is a priestly act. A good suggestion I was given years ago is to say “for you, Jesus” before each action we undertake. It’s a way of sanctifying our tasks.

In Mary we see the prophetic mission of the laity. The First Reading from the prophet Isaiah speaks of the Spirit coming upon the Messiah. It is the text Jesus used when speaking in the Synagogue. It is a mission statement also for all of us, especially lay people. We are all sent out in the power of the Spirit to bring Good News. Our vocation is to evangelise and communicate the faith. This a high calling of lay people. Here again Mary inspires us in the mission of evangelisation. In her we see the radicalness of accepting the Word of God, contemplating the Gospel, putting it into practice and then sharing the fruits of our experience of the Gospel. The Word of God is to be creatively relived in their own environment and in circumstances typical of the laity – family life, the workplace, neighbourhood relations as well as social and cultural activities. Pope Francis, in his encyclical on the Joy of the Gospel writes (n. 288): “The interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the Church community look to Mary as a model of evangelisation”. We need to be prophetic in our care of the planet. Many parishes now have initiatives to do with ecology. We need to give witness in promoting respect for life at all stages from conception to our natural end. We exercise prophetic mission when we reach out to migrants, the homeless and those in need. Through our word and our example, we carry out our prophetic role as Jesus wants us to. At Cana Mary was not afraid to speak out. We too need to speak out in defence of life, in care of those who are terminally ill faced now with the threat of the pressure of assisted suicide, in promoting the welcome and integration of migrants in our land, in advocating peace and reconciliation. A simple but important question to ask ourselves every day would be: am I evangelising through my words and actions? Is my life bringing Good News to others?

While we might think evangelisation is mostly about speaking, it’s important to remember a deep prophetic attitude that we learn from Mary is that of great patience in bearing difficulties, setbacks and failures. Some situations don’t resolve themselves overnight. Sometimes we can be discouraged when we consider our limits, personally or as a Church, and our inability to communicate the faith to younger generations. And yet, life is like that. Some things take time and evolve gradually over time. Mary knew how to wait, how to cope with difficulties, how to put up with uncertainties. Along with patience, another great lesson also given to us by Mary has to do with the value of silence, especially interior silence and prayer. In a world filled with so much noise and so often fearful of, and blocking out, the voice of conscience, it is important for us, in imitation of Mary, to know how to nurture inner silence and prayer in order to be able to offer the Gospel to the world around us, giving witness to it effectively, by drawing on the wellsprings of God within us.

In Mary we see the community-building mission of the laity. This function of the laity, perhaps the most important and sometimes called a sharing in Christ’s kingly office, is about uniting all things in Christ, accomplishing the liberation in justice and charity of all things in Christ. It is about humanising and inspiring with true community values the modern progress that is rapidly taking place in all areas of life. In short, it is about helping Christ reign in people’s hearts and in the relations between people. Christ is not just meant to be for the church building, locked in the Tabernacle. Jesus Christ wants to be present with his life-giving message, vision and values in family life and education but also in the worlds of science and business, media and the arts, technology, politics and work in general. Lay people live their Christian mission in those places. Let’s remember if Mary brought Christ physically into the world, lay people “generate” him spiritually in the world by their faith lived out and through their love for one another. The New Commandment of love is at the heart of their community-building mission.

I think of John Hume who won the Nobel Peace prize. He often said he never set out to be a leader but simply wanted to serve and help people. He did so, speaking out and boldly bringing together for dialogue people estranged from one another, even when people told him he was mad to do so. He kept going, together with his wife, Pat, and they accomplished a great contribution to the Good Friday Agreement and the Peace and Reconciliation process in the North. Each of us can do our part wherever we find ourselves to create a world that is more a family, more united, more just. In doing this in imitation of Mary we are exercising our vocation to be builders of the new humanity Jesus Christ wants to bring about.

Today at Knock, as we reflect on our love of Jesus Christ and of the Church which Saint Eugene de Mazenod understood to be so completely one, let us offer ourselves, make an oblation of our lives so that we can imitate Mary in our lives, carrying in our heart a passionate love for the Church, living out our lay vocation in its triple priestly, prophetic and royal (community-building) dimensions. May Mary, Our Lady of Knock, grant us this grace.