I am very happy to be here in Ballinasloe this afternoon. For many people Ballinasloe is the gateway to the west. Its wide streets, market square, fair green, show grounds and town hall are deservedly famous through the length and breadth of Ireland.
I know that the roots of this town go back a long way as the ringforts and Crannogs in the vicinity attest. Your faith in God and respect for the Christian religion also go back a long way, to the days of St. Brendan and to the early Irish monasteries and the famous School of Clonfert. That faith has been nourished and sustained by the Augustinian monks in Clontuskert and their well preserved early medieval church – the Teampoilín, Pollboy.
We are here today to celebrate another church and I am delighted to take part in the celebrations to honour the 150th anniversary of this lovely Church, the Church of St Michael, Ballinasloe, which for many people, is the Gateway to Heaven.
I thank Bishop John Kirby, Father Garvey and all involved for the invitation to come here this afternoon and share the delight of this occasion. What is even more delightful is to see the enthusiasm with which this town has entered into the spirit of this celebration.
When Bishop Kirby invited me to come here he told me that Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman of Westminster was the Chief Celebrant of the original consecration in 1858 and that the ceremony took about six hours. Well you will be relieved to know that I am definitely not going to try and compete with that performance this afternoon. While this celebration may not last six hours, its dignity and enthusiasm and prayerfulness indicate that you, your parents, grandparents and great grandparents have definitely found St Michael's to be very precious, as a house of prayer. It has obviously proved to be a source of great blessings to you, to themselves and their families on their pilgrim way over the past 150 years. I congratulate all concerned in organising and celebrating today's events.
I gladly replied in the affirmative to Bishop Kirby's request for a number of reasons – out of respect for Bishop Kirby himself, whom I have known for the last 51 years, out of respect for Archbishop Michael Courtney, out of respect for the people of Ballinasloe, but, I suppose, I am also here to honour, in a sense, my many Clonfert classmates: Fr Christy O'Byrne, PP, Laurencetown, Fr Benny Flanagan, PP, Carrabane, Fr John Naughton, PP, Eyrecourt, and the late Fr Paschal Donohoe. We became good friends in Maynooth 51 years ago and have remained good friends to this day.
To appreciate fully the place and meaning and value of the Church in this parish, we need to go back to its beginnings. We are talking about 1858, but we know that the planning and the preparations began much earlier than that. After the introduction of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 a tremendous era of Church building took place all over Ireland. Similar celebrations are taking place all over the country. Obviously the pattern was no different here in Clonfert. People were very pleased to exercise their new-found religious freedom in order to replace the poor church structures of Penal times. When the parishioners of Ballinasloe, Creagh and Kilclooney decided to provide themselves with a new place of worship, obviously they were determined to spare neither expense nor effort. The choice of architect is a splendid proof of this. J. J. McCarthy was one of Ireland's leading architects. It was he who designed St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, after the original architect, Mr Duff, died during the famine times. Of course Augustus Welby Pugin was also involved, leader of the Gothic Revival in England, and one of the outstanding architects of his time – designer of St Chad's in Birmingham and the College Chapel in Maynooth.
We remember too that this Church was built within a decade of the horror of the Great Famine. It is only then that we recall the magnitude of the undertaking and realise the magnificence of the faith, courage and generosity of the people who have put this Church here.
To explain all of this we come to the conclusion that it must have been a time of great hope. The seeds of that hope had been sown in the dark and dreary days of Penal times. Typical of that hope, I suppose and one great sign of it was the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy in 1850 to this diocese. I understand the Sisters, after being invited here in 1850, by Bishop Derry, quickly spread to five towns in the diocese, operating Primary and Secondary Schools, Industrial Schools at Loughrea in Ballinasloe and a Domestic School at Portumna. Their arrival was a sign of the great hope and energy that filled the Irish Church after the Famine.
I hope that this wonderful celebration, which we have witnessed today, will achieve a number of things for this parish and sow the seeds of a renewal of faith.
I hope firstly, that it will renew, in the hearts and minds of all parishioners, the awareness of St. Michael's as a House of Prayer and as a place of blessing and a temple of praise.
The principal blessing is the Blessed Eucharist – "gift of God for the life of the world" as the recent Eucharistic Congress in Quebec put it. Of course God has no need of our praise. Our desire to praise and thank God is itself a gift. There is something special about people who praise. They have a bright light in their eyes that reflects something beyond themselves. Praise draws us into the presence of God. It is very healthy for body mind and spirit. Praise draws us into the fullness of life in which God created us to live. I hope today's celebration will lead us – especially young people – to discover the joy of praise: praise of God who is the source of all good and beauty, and praise of others. Praise is the best answer to the danger of self-absorption.
As you know, Ireland, and specifically Dublin, have been chosen as the venue for the next International Eucharistic Congress in 2012. There will be an effort required. But, as Cardinal Ouellette said to me. "It will take a huge amount of work but it will be worth every minute of it. I can tell you that from our experience in Quebec preparing for the 2008 Congress."
Secondly, I hope that all of us will become more alert to that presence of God, not only here in our Church but in our lives. The physical building is a house of blessings of course for this reason, so that God can give us grace upon grace to build a temple, not made of bricks and mortar.
God wants to build, in you and in me, the Temple of His Holy Spirit. The beauty of the Temple of the Holy Spirit will come not from the beauty of mosaics and frescos but from the holiness of our lives.
Every Church is the Promise of the Church in Heaven. Here the love of God is always at work consoling the afflicted in times of trouble and sorrow and tragedy. Here the love of God is preparing the people on earth for their glory in Heaven.
So, my final hope for this celebration is that it will remind us that we have not here a lasting kingdom – but we seek one that is to come. That it will turn us to the future with hope. We do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. But, in fact, we do need bread to live and drink to sustain us and houses to shelter us and clothes to clothe us. We need all of these things and so does everybody else.
Recently at the World Youth Day in Sydney, Pope Benedict XVI warned the young people present against shallowness. I think one of the great cures for shallowness is to praise God for His gifts. He also warned against self-absorption. An awareness of the presence of God prevents us from becoming obsessed exclusively with our needs and desires.
This year has been designated a Year of Vocations by the Irish Bishops. It is a year in which each one of us – lay and cleric – is invited to discern what our particular vocation is. In other words, to discern what is the particular good which God has called us to do on this earth on our journey of life.
I am very happy to come to Clonfert and Ballinasloe during this Year of Vocations to pay tribute to Bishop Kirby and the other priests whom I mentioned earlier for the part they played in helping me along the road to priesthood. My hope would be that some others will consider following the same road.