History, however, continues to repeat itself. Hundreds of years ago Erasmus could also have used these same words when he complained about the dramatic change which had taken place during his lifetime, especially in devotion to Our Lady. He put words into the mouth of Our Lady which I feel could be used by her of us today. He had her say “Before this I was acclaimed as Queen of Heaven and Mistress of the World but nowadays there are hardly any from whom I hear a Hail Mary. In the old days I was beautified with precious stones and priceless dresses but now I go about in a moth-eaten hand-me-down.” Gilded images of Mary continue to instil in us an awareness of her presence among us and we still invoke her powerful protection through the saying of the Rosary. But I often wonder if Erasmus did not have something very important to say to all of us in the change which he noticed concerning devotion to Our Lady during the time of transition in the Church through which he lived. His account showed the change from a very concentrated and ornate devotion to Our Lady to almost the complete opposite and it has been summed up as a devotion which went from ‘riches to rags’ rather than ‘rags to riches’. And I also wonder if ‘riches to rags’ is not much nearer to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than the ‘rags to riches’ which we grew accustomed to in the Catholic Church in Ireland during the heady years from Catholic Emancipation until now and more recently in the State during the equally heady years of the Celtic Tiger. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing regal about the kingdom of heaven, powerful in political terms about the message of the Gospel or of social privilege in priesthood. And, perhaps, a Church in our country which is closer to the rags, closer to a spirituality which encourages all of us to recognise our complete dependence on God and a priesthood which is at heart a priesthood shared with all the baptised may also be much closer to the spirit of the Gospel.
I listened to ‘A thought for the Day’ recently on morning radio. Aidan Matthews gentle voice struck a real chord in me and made me think about what he said all that day. He said “The truth is, we had been hailing the wrong Mary all along, and the practice of her cult in this country, as we have seen from the present reports of the recent past, had even authorised cruelty. Those plaster-casts on pedestals hid us from the sight of ourselves and from the actual, factual, flesh-and-blood females whom the mother of Jesus authentically images in all her fragility and faithfulness. The icon had become an idol. The idol in turn had hardened into a stone doll which was hollow at the heart where it ought to have been heavy – and prophetically pierced”.
It is the same old story, repeated over and over again throughout history, the icon is always in danger of becoming an idol and the idol in danger of hardening into a shell which is hollow at the heart, where it ought to be heavy.
Fifty or sixty years from now, when the seminarians which we now have and those who, with God’s help, will follow them, will celebrate their Golden or Diamond Jubilees, the words of Louis Mc Niece will probably also have the same ring for them as it has for us today; “It is all so unimaginable different and all so long ago.” But the difference will not be, I feel, a return to ornate ritual rather, I hope, to a refinement of priesthood as it returns to the world of the early Church, where the workload of administration was shed so that the apostles could focus their ministry on prayer and preaching, on breaking God’s Word for his people and on allowing them to glimpse something of God’s holiness in them. In that brave new world of the coming half century, the ministry of priests will, I hope, become that of accompanying, nurturing and supporting others in their ministry and that of the laity as exercising most of the power and authority attributed nowadays to priests and bishops.
In all of this I am reminded of the historical fact that in the days of Communist Czechoslovakia authorities found that the best way to undermine the faith of Christians was to give them endless forms to fill in. Administration has become such a consuming part of our lives nowadays that the servant-priest of Christ runs the risk of becoming the priest-administrator of the twenty-first century. Administration will never leave our doors but we have a duty to ensure that it becomes an instrument of mission and not a source of disillusionment or destruction, not only for us priests and bishops, but for the entire Christian community.
Many things have changed in the priestly lifetime of our jubilarians but the age-old desire of priests to be living symbols of Christ’s selfless love in a way that encourages others to do the same remains as strong as ever. This is the heart of our priesthood; a life taken, blessed, broken and poured out for others; a priesthood which looks on the world with the eyes of Christ, loves it with the love of his heart and enters into its depths with his unlimited compassion. On this evening, we thank God for his love incarnate in Mark and Paddy and we pray that this incarnation of his love will continue to be a source of hope for us all.
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