Preaching and Prayer

Homily Closing Mass Holy Trinity Harare May 2024...

Fr Aidan McGrath ofm, the Minister Provincial of the Franciscans of Ireland and Zimbabwe preached the final homily at the Final Mass of Thansgiving for our Theology College, Holy Trinity.

Read in full - Click here

HOMILY AT BISHOP ETON DIAMOND JUBILEE MASS

THIS celebration is not just about priesthood, but about Redemptorist Priesthood. And the gospel just read says clearly what that is. Quoting Isiah, Jesus says, "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for He has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the Good News to the poor." All of us here, filled or fuelled, by God's Holy Spirit are surely called to be heralds of the Gspel, but we Redemptorists feel so privileged and thankful to have been led by the Lord to follow Him and dedicate our lives more specifically to the task of bringing his Good News to the poor. This is what we want to celebrate.

Entire homily of Superior General,November 2...

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HOMILY OF THE P. ROGERIO GOMES CSsR

FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE DEPARTED FAITHFUL

Dear Brothers, dear Brothers and Sisters present at this celebration,

Yesterday we celebrated the solemnity of all the saints—that is, the men and women who, like all of us, throughout their personal history, have guided their lives by the ways of God and love of others. They are lights that guide us on our personal and community path to holiness, never forgetting our humanity. The saints were men and women who allowed the fragments of their fragility and their virtues to be assembled with the divine cement to form a beautiful work of art, the mosaic of holiness. The beauty and splendor of God show that the first path to holiness is consciousness of our fragments, without considering us useless on this earth. Our fragments can always be works of art of profound beauty.

In continuation of yesterday's celebration, today we celebrate the faithful departed.. The experience of finality is part of everything that exists, except God. We humanly define this experience as death. The threshold between life and death is very thin. We live with death every day and forget that it makes us live: we feed on beings, animals and plants, that are "dead". We live every day with death: from natural death to that caused by man himself to his brothers and sisters: death caused by disease, war, famine, migration, abortion, euthanasia, injustice he. In the face of death, our experience may be of pain, of abandonment, or of profound indifference. Death is the shadow that accompanies us every day, which we fear because we don’t know it and because it is, humanly speaking, our experience of nothingness. This takes on new meaning through faith, the light that shows us something beyond the darkness of the grave.

As we listen to today's Gospel (Mt 25,31-46), we can ask ourselves: What does this have to do with celebrating the faithful who are dead? Should we not talk of the resurrection more than those who practiced righteousness and those who did not? Leaving aside the beauty and depth of the texts that tell us about the resurrection, life, and eternity, Matthew's text touches on something fundamental. Experiencing the Kingdom of God goes through history and the personal relationships we have with our neighbor and our love for Him. "All that they did for one of these younger brothers of mine, they did for me" (Mt 25,40). Therefore, resurrection is when we present ourselves naked before the Lord of Time and History and bring Him only our hands full of the good we have done in this world. It is when we totally agree with God and live in Him alone. He is our eternal life! As Job reminds us: “I know that my redeemer lives and that, at the end, he will rise from the dust!” After this skin of mine is plucked off without my flesh I will see God. I myself will see him, my eyes will behold him, and no one else” (Job 19, 25-27).

Homily Fr Brian Russell CSsR RIP...

bp ralph preaching mar 2021

Homily at the Funeral Mass of

Fr Brian Russell CSsR RIP

23rd March 2021

Preacher - Bishop Ralph Heskett CSsR

The short reading from the prophet Isaiah that we heard a few moments ago is one of the readings that hear most frequently at gatherings such as this. I guess it is not difficult to know why. It is full of promise. In particular, it speaks of two promises that the Lord makes through the prophet that we put our hope in today as we gather around Brian in prayer for the last time. The first is the promise of a new world order where we will be recipients of the generous and gracious hospitality of our God and sit at table with him.

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food.

Secondly it speaks of a future where the long curse of death has been defeated. Death will be no more.

He will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples .... he will destroy death forever.

Funeral Homily for Fr John Mulligan, October 2nd 2018...

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Archbishop Peter, bishops, fellow clergy and religious, dear family and friends of Fr John, dear parishioners of St Teresa’s, dear all:

Throughout our lives we do thousands of things unthinkingly, ordinary routine stuff that we do every day with no great sense of drama or fuss. But we know that there will be a time in all our lives when it will be the last time, the very last time we do things. Tomorrow is guaranteed to nobody. There will surely be:

the last time we open the curtains and greet a new day
the last time we speak to those we love
the last time we hear someone call our name
the last time we wonder if all that effort was worth it.

Perhaps it is a mercy that few of us are given to know when that last time will be. Certainly Father John Mulligan did not: God called this energetic priest to enjoy a well-deserved eternal rest. Only God could make Father John rest.

Sometimes in life we get lucky, and whether we are priest or lay, no matter, we get to meet someone who offers us a glimpse of the living Gospel, however cloudy. In this person, no matter how fragile, we can catch a glimpse of the enduring commitment of our dear Lord Jesus Christ.

For me that person was Fr John – a dear friend of 15 years. Strange to admit, he was a friend who scared me some because of the unyielding demands he made on himself and his towering expectations of priestly ministry. Why would you hold onto a friend who scares you? But as the Duke of Wellington said on the eve of the battle of Waterloo when observing his own troops: "I don’t know what our men do to the enemy, but they scare the hell out of me."

He was a loyal critic of some Church practices. I remember saying to him one day: "John, if I were your bishop I think I would make my own the words that King Henry II spoke of Thomas Becket: "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" He laughed easily. His commitment to the Church as dean and parish priest and his devotion to his beloved parishioners were breath-taking.

I liked what Canon Alan McLean said to me about Father John: "Sometimes I wanted to take a few batteries out of John so he would slow down." But slowing down was never on his agenda.

Father John was an authentic driven disciple, of independent mind, like the apostle Thomas in the Gospel.

The great Irish writer Oscar Wilde has a wonderful short prose piece, called The Master. After the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is walking past the tombs in the Kidron Valley when he comes across a disciple who is weeping. The disciple is alone, separated from the others. He has wounded his body with thorns and covered his head in ashes.

Joseph of Arimathea says: "I do not wonder that your sorrow is so great, for surely Jesus was a just man."

And the disciple answers, "I weep for Jesus, yes, but not only for him but for myself. I too have healed the leper; from the dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the hungry in the desert, and at my bidding, a barren fig-tree withered away. All things that the master has done I have done as his disciple. So tell me this: Why have they not arrested me? Why have they not crucified me?"

In the Gospel the other disciples are gathered in a locked room. The brutal violence against their master has made them security-conscious. They have become runaways from a society they fear is hostile, so they lock themselves into what they hope is a safe house. But, but, dear friends: no one is after them; no Temple police are hunting them down; no Roman soldiers are stomping the Jerusalem alleyways seeking their hideout. They all lock themselves in, except one: the independent disciple Thomas. He leaves the locked room behind him and walks the streets. I think Thomas is the most intelligent of the disciples: he knows something the others do not: without Jesus, the disciples are a threat to nobody.

Even though the other disciples are locked in, they cannot keep out the pressing love of the risen Jesus. Jesus breathes on them: the disciples breathe in and the Spirit enlivens them to become missionary disciples. But one of their number is missing – Thomas. When he arrives back, he refuses to believe the story of the others.

Thomas is part of the apostolic group, but he is also a distinct, independent self. He is, I think, stunningly modern: he cannot be loyal to the group while being disloyal to his own inner self. That would make his loyalty worthless. For Thomas honesty is more important than loyalty. So he refuses to become part of this company of believers: he cannot shelter in a faith he does not believe.

Unlike Judas, Thomas did not betray Jesus; unlike Peter, he did not deny him. There is a stubborn authenticity about Thomas: he refuses to say that he can understand or believe when he can manage neither understanding nor belief. Thomas is brave enough to have the conviction of his doubts which he shares honestly with his community.

Later, the risen Jesus invites Thomas to inspect his wounds. But seeing Jesus is enough for Thomas, and he is the one who proclaims the basic Christian credo: "My Lord and my God." As Thomas is fearless in voicing his doubts, he is quick to proclaim his faith, and it is he who makes the most important affirmation in all the Gospels about who Jesus is – that he is Lord and God. It is Thomas who invites us to Adoremus: let us adore the one who is our Lord and our God.

Father John died on the eve of Adoremus, and he devoted so much time and energy to promoting that Eucharistic pilgrimage – for Southwark and nationally – that it seems unfair he was deprived of seeing the fruits of his labour. But while we looked upon the sacred host, John had already moved on to witness so much more, as we pray in Eucharistic Prayer III in the Mass for the dead:

For seeing you, our God, as you are,
we shall be like you for all the ages

That is Father John’s true destiny:

For seeing you, our God, as you are,
he shall be like you for all the ages...

Finally, if I may share a consoling thought on death.

In 1910 while the body of King Edward VII lay in state at Westminster Abbey, Canon Henry Scott Holland, a priest at St. Paul’s Cathedral, preached a sermon on death. In the sermon, he offered this profound Christian meditation. When I hear this I hear Father John’s practical voice:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Eternal rest, grant unto him O Lord…

Fr Denis McBride CSsR

Golden Jubilee Homily -Fr Anthony Hunt and Fr Michael Henesy

by Fr. Andrew Burns C.Ss.R

Fr Andrew Burns C.Ss.R, Fr Tony Hunt C.Ss.R, Fr Michael Henesy C.Ss.R

and Fr. Tim Buckley C.Ss.R

On the 17th September 2017 Fr Tony Hunt and Fr Michael Henesy celebrated the Golden Jubilee of their ordination. Fr Andrew Burns C.Ss.R gave the homily which follows.

What's in a name?

Homily by Fr. Andrew Burns C.Ss.R on the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour 27th June 2017 at Bishop Eton Liverpool.

Last night talking to Fr Casey, I told him Fr. Tim has asked me to preach tonight and Fr Casey’s comment was “tell them that she is Our Lady of Perpetual Succour – not Our Mother of Perpetual Help”. Perhaps he would be more insistent here in the presence of Bishop Ralph, because in the diocese of Hallam and of Leeds the title of our Icon has changed again to “Our Mother of Unfailing Help”.

Should we refer to Mary as Our Lady or our Mother?

CSsR Professions Aug 2016 - Fr Provincial's Homily

The Homily preached by Fr Provincial CSsR, Fr Ronald McAinsh

For the last two weeks I have been working in Paris at a symposium with 68 Sisters who are working in Religious formation. The Congregation is in 66 countries rather like the Redemptorists who are present in 70 and are still attracting vocations, mainly in Africa, Asia and South America.

I think that what struck me most of all was that the challenges for those doing the training, Postulant Masters, Novice Masters and Junior Masters or as we call them Prefects of Students, were fairly common - although the manifestation of them in the West and in the East are quite different; and of course one has to take into the of consideration age differences. No longer do people join the legislation at 17, 18 or 19.

OMPS Jubilee Mass - highlights

Apologies that the video is low resolution

Video highlights from the Solemn Novena at Liverpool

Opening Mass of the Liverpool Novena at St. Mary's Woolton

- homily of Bishop Ralph Heskett C.Ss.R

Sunday 19th June - Fr. Andrew Burns C.Ss.R

Monday 20th June - Fr. Barrie O'Toole C.Ss.R

Wednesday 22nd June - Archbishop Emeritus Patrick Kelly noon Mass

Wednesday 22nd June - Blessing of Medals and congregation

- Fr. Timothy Buckley C.Ss.R

Wednesday 22nd June - Highlights of 7.30pm Mass with

Archbishop Emeritus Patrick Kelly 7.30pm Mass

Thursday 23th June - Fr. Kevin Callaghan C.Ss.R

Friday 24th June June - The Nativity of John the Baptist -

What's in a Name - Fr Andrew Burns C.Ss.R

Friday 24th June - The Novena Prayer

Saturday 25th June (Healing Mass) - Fr Andrew Burns C.Ss.R

Sunday 26th June - Fr. Timothy Buckley C.Ss.R

Monday 27th June Noon Mass - Fr. TImothy Buckley C.Ss.R

The noon Mass was attended by children from Our Lady's Bishop Eton Primary School. Fr. Tim illustrated what he wished to convey with one of his Freddie Freckles stories.