Good morning everybody and welcome to this Assembly of the diocese of Kilmore. This is the third Assembly of the diocese, where priests, religious and lay people from all our parishes have come together to reflect on and discuss important issues concerning the life and mission of the Church in our diocese.
The first Assembly in 2000 gave a major impetus to the programme of parish renewal and development that was already in place at that time. The wide-ranging Pastoral Plan which emerged from that gathering has served the diocese well in the years since then. The establishment of parish pastoral councils in every parish as a normal part of parish organisation and the greater involvement of lay people in every aspect of the day-to-day life of the parish were the more important outcomes of that first Assembly. The Assembly in 2007 concentrated attention on vocations and the growing shortage of priests and produced a menu of proposals for parishes focussing on vocation spirituality, youth ministry and greater lay involvement in the mission of the parish.
The theme of this Assembly is inspired by words spoken by Pope Francis in his inaugural homily: “Walking Together, Building The Kingdom, Professing Our Faith.” The Assembly will aim to reach a consensus on how to address three key pastoral challenges of the present time: engaging with young people in the Church , celebration of sacraments in a secular culture and engaging with people on the margins of the Church. It will try to offer broad directions which the Diocesan Pastoral Council will then develop into a more detailed pastoral strategy. The discernment process will also seek to take into account the challenges to our mission arising from the decreasing number of priests.
Every Assembly takes place in a different context. The context of this gathering is shaped by many things both within the Church and outside. The ministry of Pope Francis and in particular his Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, will certainly shape the context for our deliberations. This Exhortation offers us great encouragement and hope as well as many very practical steps to take in walking this journey together. Pope Francis’ vision that everything begins with faith in the unconditional love and mercy of God and the joy of experiencing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ shapes the context of everything we do. Anyone who experiences joy will want to share it, and those who experience the Joy of the Gospel will want to share it too. This is the source of the missionary impulse and that brings us to the heart of Pope Francis’ message, which is that everything in the Church must be missionary. He says: “I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.”(EG 27)
In the planning for this Assembly the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Steering Committee were conscious of the importance of hearing the views of people in the parishes, and particularly those on the margins of the Church. There was a serious effort made to reach out to those who would not normally come to Church. The feedback from those listening sessions in the parishes gives us the context in which many people live out their lives in our society today and the context in which we must try to preach and live out the message of Jesus. The next session will provide a summary of the findings of that consultation process and will be followed by an opportunity to discuss those in small groups.
The goal of our discussions and reflection will be to discern what are the pressing issues for the Church in Kilmore diocese at present and how we will go about engaging with those issues in the years ahead. As I mentioned this is our third Assembly in the last fifteen years. We are aware by now that one assembly is not going to change everything. Nevertheless, our earlier assemblies have changed some things. They have produced proposals and plans that have had a real impact on our parishes. We now take for granted a level of lay involvement in parish that would not have been imagined in the past. We have a range of initiatives ranging from adult faith formation courses to pre-sacramental programmes, from pastoral area planning to youth programmes and so on, that all had their seeds in the Assemblies of those years.
We saw recently that the Synod of Bishops in Rome discussed and disagreed about some important issues, like the attitude of the Church to married people living in second relationships, to people of homosexual orientation and people living together before marriage. If the Synod of Bishops with Pope Francis were not able to settle these issues in one sitting it’s not likely that we will either. However, an important lesson from the Synod is that listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying means being free to express our views, listening to each other respectfully, and at times agreeing to disagree.
There are many areas where we can’t make changes but it is within our power to bring about important changes in many areas which affect the life and worship of our parishes. We will be reflecting on sacraments and modern culture and I believe we need to look again at our celebration of the most important sacrament of all – the Sunday Eucharist. If the Eucharist is, as the Vatican Council told us, the source and summit of the Christian life, we have a duty to ensure that, as far as possible, people experience it as that. But that is just one issue among many that will be discussed and about which we have to discern what the Spirit is saying to us at this time.
I have used the words ‘discern’ and discernment a few times. I have used them to highlight the fact that we believe that the Holy Spirit is very much present in our process of discussion and decision making. We have to listen to the Holy Spirit living in each of us, and to Christ who is present where even two or three are gathered in his name. We gather in the spirit of the first disciples as they awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We are told that ‘all these joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the Mother of Jesus’. We too pray with Mary the Mother of Jesus that the Holy Spirit will inspire our speaking and listening. We ask the Lord to be with us this week-end and we invoke his blessing on this Assembly and on all who take part in it.
I am delighted to inform you that we have received a message from Pope Francis, sending his cordial greetings and blessing on the occasion of the Assembly. I will now read the Holy Father’s message:
His Holiness Pope Francis sends his cordial greetings and blessing on the occasion of the Kilmore Diocesan Assembly which will take place at St Patrick’s College, Cavan.
The Holy Father prays that, by walking together in this Diocesan Assembly, the participants will encounter the truth and source of hope for their lives, Jesus Christ, and, filled with joy and gratitude, will share this gift by collaborating in building the kingdom, illuminating even the fringes of our world by their profession of faith and leading to “fruitfulness in the work of evangelization”(Evangelii Gaudium, 11).
Commending all who gather at the Kilmore Diocesan Assembly to the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Holy Father willingly imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace and joy in the Lord Jesus.
