DEDICATION OF ALTAR ST BRIGID’S CHURCH KILLOUGHTER

9 AUGUST 20I5

I am sure St Brigid must be smiling down on us today as we come together to dedicate this beautiful new altar and celebrate the refurbishment of this church dedicated to her name. It happens that we are celebrating this event on the feast of St Felim, who as you know is the Patron Saint of our diocese, and I’m sure he’s smiling down too. Both St Brigid and St Felim lived in the very earliest period of Christian faith in Ireland. They were the first generation after St Patrick, the first link in that chain of faith that stretches down through the centuries. It is a chain that has remained unbroken through Viking and Norman invasions, through Cromwellian persecution, through Penal Laws and Famine to our own day. This congregation is the present link in that long chain of faith.

We don’t know exactly when the faith first came to the Redhills area or when the first church was built. But we know that Mass was celebrated at the Mass rock in the ‘Mass Glen’ in Shannow wood during the Penal times. In that same townland, at Killoughter cross, a thatched chapel was built in 1790 when the Penal Laws were being eased. That chapel served the people of this area for nearly fifty years until St Brigid’s Church was built on this site in 1839. The church was enlarged and completely renewed during the time that Fr Owen Traynor was here as curate, 1944-53. It was then said to be ‘one of the most beautiful rural chapels in Ireland.’ And now we have this latest refurbishment under the leadership of Fr Jason which makes this church once again worthy of that claim.

I have to say I am astonished at what has been achieved here in a very short time. I congratulate everybody who was involved in the planning and carrying out of this major project. I congratulate also all of you who have contributed generously to the renewal of your church. I am not supposed to mention any names, but I have to make an exception. As you know Fr Jason is a resident priest. He has a full-time, very demanding job in Breifne College, Cavan. But he has found time to assemble a team and with them to carry out this project using mainly local labour and expertise and get it paid for.

Having made one exception I have to make another. And that is Francie McCarron, who is a living link between this refurbishment and the one that took place in Fr Traynor’s time. Francie has been here day and night since the job began. His skill, his wisdom, his dedication and his constant presence overseeing the work could not be bought. And most of all his historical memory has helped to ensure that this renewal is faithful to the past as well as fit for the future.

You can see that many other talented people contributed to the work. The marble work in the sanctuary, the altar, ambo, chair and predella is  first class. It is wonderfully enhanced by the addition of this beautiful reredos which came from  St Peter’s Cathedral in Belfast. I’m not even going to ask how you managed to get hold of that! It is all crowned off by the lovely decoration of the arches and the coffered ceiling, and the framing of the stained glass window.  You can see the other beautiful work around the body of the church. You can admire pieces that were retrieved from the earlier furnishings – like the lovely sanctuary lamp and the marble plinths for the statues in the two niches along the side wall.  As I said at the beginning of Mass, you have a church to be proud of and a worthy place for Christian worship and prayer for generations to come.

We hope and pray that this will be a place of Christian worship for generations to come. But we cannot take that for granted in this or any other parish. You are the present link in the chain of Christian faith going back to St Brigid and St Felim. How strong is that link? Looking at this congregation today you would say it is very strong. Looking at it on a day of Confirmation or a funeral when there isn’t a spare seat, you’d say ‘no problem’. But is it strong on the ordinary Sundays and Holydays? Is it strong in our homes and families. Do we pray together in our families? Is it strong in vocations to the priesthood or religious life? Is it strong in the way we live our lives and love our neighbours?

The readings of the Mass today tell us what makes Christian communities strong. The first reading and the Gospel show us what nourishes Christian faith and Christian life in us. It is the Eucharist. Elijah was on a journey in the desert. He was exhausted, tired, discouraged. Life was too much for him. He wanted to lie down and die. But God told him to get up and continue his journey. And he gave him food for the journey. In the Gospel Jesus fed the people miraculously in the wilderness. That miracle points to the Eucharist – the gift of Jesus himself that he has left us for our journey: I am the bread of life…I am the living bread … Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.

The reason why this church building exists is to bring us together for the Eucharist. It is the place where we come to be nourished by Christ’s word and his body and blood. That is the food that nourishes our faith. That is the meal that brings us out of our isolation and loneliness and gathers us together and builds us into a Christian community filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the medicine that heals us of our negativity and enables us to be people who do not grieve the Holy Spirit, as St Paul puts it in the second reading: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit…Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness. Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ. …Try then to follow Christ by loving as he loved you…”

That is Christian living. It’s not easy. We need to be constantly nourished by prayer, by hearing God’s word, and by receiving Christ’s body to give us the strength to follow Christ and imitate his love. You have renewed your church building here and you have done a truly beautiful job. The real church is the people – the pobal Dé, the people of God. The task of renewing that Church is never done. I pray that the renewal of this building will be the inspiration for a great renewal of Christian faith in this community. I pray that the church will be full every Sunday. I pray that the link in the chain of faith represented by this generation will remain strong and firm and that you will hand on a flourishing faith as well as a beautiful church to the next generation.