An Irish reader has drawn my attention to an excellent sermon by Archbishop Seán Brady, given recently at Knock as part of the 2007 National Novena. Brady is Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. In his sermon, he made the following points:
- Those who confidently tell us that the Catholic Church in Ireland is an anachronism, a superstition of bygone days which has been rejected by intelligent Irish people, have greatly over stated their case. God is still active in people’s hearts.
- The land of saints and scholars has become better known as the land of stocks and shares, of financial success and security. Tragically it has also become a land of increasing stress and substance abuse.
- People are seeking to control their future rather than entrust their future to God’s promise and plan. The result is an increasing culture of insecurity and fear.
- Underlying this trend of ‘future telling’, is a fear of the future … It is evidence of the failure of a life without God to address the deepest needs of the human spirit.
- The challenge is to keep our lives focused on Christ amidst the distractions of increasing prosperity … in an increasingly secular, sometimes hostile culture.
- The big questions of people’s lives still remain: Why am I here? What will bring me happiness? What will happen to me when I die? For all its human imperfections, it is the Church which still holds the answer to these questions
The Irish Catholic Communications Office makes available the
full text of the sermon.
8 comments:
A thoughtful sermon certainly. But the Bishops have failed (to my knowledge) to issue any sort of a welcome for Summorum Pontificum.
Although your readers may be interested to hear about this:
http://www.latinmassireland.org/newshappenings/edgeworth_bishop_oreilly.html
Bishop Colm O'Reilly of Ardagh & Clonmacnoise is to become the 4th Irish Bishop in recent years to celebrate Mass in the extraodinary form on 23rd September.
8.IX.2007
God Bless Archbishop Brady. My mother is from Dublin, and I am so grateful that she passed on the rich traditions of the Catholic Church to me as I was growing up in suburban California because it protected me from the temptations of the secular mass media and consumer culture.
Very well timed- just as the economic Celtic Tier economy of "stocks & Shares" and ludicrously inflated house prices is showing the first signs of collapse.
People will look for comfort and solace and the church will be there - as it always is ready to welcome back the prodigal ones.
More and more senior clergy seem to be acknowledging the fact that all is not well in our modern society.
Of course not !
It is a society built without God.
The Archbishop speaks here of the failure of a life without God.
Without God, what remains ?
The illusory comforts of this world : money , power, fame, success, etc., etc.
Are they sufficient ?
No.
Because they are based on an illusion.
And on the erroneous belief that man is self sufficient, and can control his own destiny.
Which, of course, he can't.
He can bring about his own ruin, more like.
If you don't put your trust in God, then the alternative is to put your trust in men.
In human nature, in other words.
(And we all know about human nature.)
I cannot see how pride, arrogance, lust, greed, selfishness, etc. can possibly lead to happiness.
I can see how these things will lead to failure, betrayal, hopelessness and despair.
What's the answer ?
Well, I would say, put your trust in God.
Not easy amid the distractions of this world.
Well then, pray.
Pray the Rosary.
And you will never be abandoned.
And need have no fear.
Sancta Maria, Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis.
Fr. Tim,
At least half of my ancestors are Irish and, more than anything else, I (like millions of people in Canada) owe my Catholic faith to them. I have watched with great sadness over the past 20 years as the “perfect storm” has wrought havoc to Catholicism in Ireland – a huge surge in economic prosperity accompanied by unprecedented clerical scandal which has undermined respect for the Church as a moral authority.
It may have been an accident waiting to happen. When I was a child, my parents took me on vacation to Ireland – still very poor in those days – to visit some of our long lost relatives. I remember going to Mass on Sunday and literally the entire village turned up to church. It was standing room only. But, interestingly, when the priest started his sermon, nearly all those standing in the church suddenly walked out – for a cigarette and a chat! So maybe Irish Catholicism was less deeply rooted than it appeared.
The Irish are an anti-authoritarian people at heart and it may have suited many of them to adhere to Catholicism when being Catholic meant defying the British. But after the Irish Republic was founded, the next external authority left to defy was Rome. As soon as the Bishop of Galway was outed as the father of an illegitimate child, followed by the spate of abuse scandals, the peripheral Catholics lapsed in good conscience and the young had an excellent pretext to defy their parents and leave the Church.
I agree with what Paul says. Irish prosperity is fragile. Billions have been pumped in by Brussels. Foreign multinationals have moved factories and headquarters to Ireland to take advantage of the tax breaks and subsidies. But a lot of this prosperity is down to the Irish being excellent hosts! The multinational guests could just as easily up sticks and leave – for whatever alternative location has even lower taxes and even better labour. Modern Ireland is living through the parable of the prodigal son. We are about to get to the part when the prodigal son runs out of the money he has been spending on harlots and the famine begins. How ironic.
Francis - yes, I think that's about the measure of it. If you are interested, I found D Vincent Twomey's "The End of Irish Catholicism?" very good.
and no one here notes the irony of criticizing superstition from a place that supposed had visions???
Leaving aside the comment from the last visitor (easily done) whom I suspect may be hirsute and of Norwegian extraction, the comments from Francis are spot-on as regards the current situation in Ireland. Sadly, the Bishops and many clergy were/are like frightened rabbits in recent years in the face of the whipped-up commercially-driven hostility of all the usual suspects. Yup.. the media (or as it's pronounced in Ireland, the "meejah"). Abp. Brady is a basically shy man but has shot straight from the hip on this one. Strangely, he didn't get all that much negative comment, or sneering. Either things are changing for the better or anything a Bishop says is not even deemed worthy of a good sneer any more.
What makes it all the sadder is that the Irish commentariat is, by and large and with some honourable exceptions (even if I don't agree with their viewpoints), pathetic and provincial, latching onto fashionable trends elsewhere. It was Yeats, after all, who commented on "The clever man who calls the catch-call of the clown...". That was 80 years ago and things ain't changed much.
The irony would be that in 10 years time or so our 30 and 40 something glib/lib darlings could be observant catholics because it's suddenly become fashionable again...! Stranger things have happened. jaykay
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