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.
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