Download Homily for 40th anniversary of Ordination

FORTY YEARS…
Sirach 38:34b-39:7
Philippians 3:10-15
Matthew 28:16-20
Exordium
Mathematically, forty is not twenty-five or fifty, more significant anniversaries in the secular
calendar. For the biblically inclined, such as yourselves and myself, it conjures up the many
forties in the Bible, of which the most significant was the forty years of wandering in the
desert. According to the narrative, the Israelites nearly entered the Promised Land after only
two years in the desert at a spot named Kadesh Barnea, today on the border between Egypt
and Israel. In spite of that “might have been,” according to the story, the skirted around for
another 38 years before finally crossing the Jordan and entering the Promised Land. There are
many cartoons showing the men refusing to ask directions, as their wives insist.
The metaphor of the forty, the two plus thirty-eight has potential. When the four of us were
ordained, it seemed the church was as high point. It was just three years before the visit of
John Paul II. We were not to know that that visit, rather than the beginning of something
new, was really the end of something old. Two or three years after ordination, we were, so to
speak, near the Promised Land and, with the rest of the church in Ireland, spent the next
couple of decades kind of lost—for a whole variety of reasons—no need to rehearse the
details here.
Propositio
You could ask what kept us going or keeps us going. For the ancient Israelites, it was
concrete: the Promised Land. Not so easy in the case of the metaphorical wandering! Let me
make a sketch of some of the things that would keep you going!
Probatio 1
One key is to keep open the sense of wonder, delight and enquiry. Without becoming dryly
philosophical, there is the surprise of sheer existence and the mystery of life. At the same
time, there’s this astonishing world, not to speak of the universe, breath-taking in size,
complexity, unknownness and, still, it fascinates. People too are maddeningly fascinating—
but where would you be without them? I want to keep in view also the darkness and tragedy
of existence, a darkness which eventually touches and overtakes us all. Wonder can lead to
delight and delight to enquiry: we are all trying to make sense of it in the short time we have.
The same realities, from a faith point of view, could be seen under a different heading: the
God of surprises.
Probatio 2
I’m reading at the moment a short popular book with an intriguing title: God is No Thing.
Not God is “nothing.” Rather the writer, a journalist, is making the classical point that
whatever God is God is not another “thing” in the universe either to discovered or
discounted. God just isn’t that kind of reality, but rather the ground of all that is. When we
reflect on the possibility of God and our own attitude to that profound mystery, we are also
doing something intuitive and natural. We do all wonder whether our darting experiences of
love and goodness, the practice of virtues and loving service are just flecks of light in an
otherwise dark and futile existence or whether they might be intimations of something
grander, footprints of God in the sand of life. The God-question, celebrated in the Hound of
Heaven in poetry and by St Augustine in biography, is always there and you do eventually
wonder who is chasing whom? Is it me projecting God on to the world? Is it God, coming to
search for me, even more than I search for God. I’m reminded of a remarkable Finnish movie
called Letters to Father Jacob. An elderly priest reflects on his life and he comes to a late
insight: “All along, I thought I was helping him, while in reality, he was holding me.”
Probatio 3
A third element for me must always be total fascination with God’s disclosure in Jesus. It is
not only the teaching of Jesus—penetrating, arresting even to the non-believer—but the very
person of Jesus—God’s outreach, God’s compassion for our fractured reality, God’s love
which must always fascinate and surprise. For myself, I don’t really know where that came
from: its just there almost as a fact rather than a fruit of faith and, with all the stresses and
strains, actually unshakeable. At St Paul puts it in our second reading:
Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I
strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. (Philippians
3:12 NET)
All this remains for me forever fascinating with immense potential to generate meaning for
human existence. If the Christian proclamation is true—if!—then everything a wholly
different light is cast on our existence. No life is ever lost; no love is ever wasted; the
intuition of the heart that faith hope and love are what “it” is all about is confirmed and
strengthened. In the enticing words of Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit palaeontologist, there is
something wonderful afoot in universe.
Peroratio
You may notice that I haven’t said anything yet about priesthood (at least I hope you
noticed!)—in a way, I don’t want to. I don’t really believe that the whatever would draw you
into ministry is different to whatever would draw you into faith in the first place. There is no
special knowledge, no exclusive grace. As the letter to the Hebrews puts it a few times:
Christ our high priest can help us because he is like us in every respect. Our common
humanity, our common hunger for God, our common pilgrimage of faith: that is all.