A recording of the Parish Celebration Mass on 6th October is now available on the Webcam Page and will remain there for a few weeks.
Here is the text of the Bishop’s Homily:
I welcome the opportunity to be with you today to mark the 60th anniversary of the foundation of this parish, the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Limerick. I do so representing Bishop Brendan Leahy, who is in Rome at the Synod representing the Bishops of Ireland, from where he sends his congratulations and best wishes.
Sixty years ago, the Second Vatican Council was coming towards its conclusion. A new spirit of hope entered the life of the Church, as Pope St John XX111 pulled back the curtains and allowed the light to enter. Two years into the Council and with a year to go, in October 1964, Bishop Henry Murphy decided that, with the increase in the population of the Parish of St Munchin, the pastoral needs of the people of the entire parish would be better served with the establishment of a new parish, this parish, giving it the name of the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary.
Since that time this parish has been served by five Parish Priests; William O’Grady, Michael Tynan, Seamus Power, William Walsh and your present parish priest, Fr McAuliffe, together with thirteen curates and a group of committed lay people, many known to you but far too many to name. All of whom are acknowledged and thanked today.
The only church in this parish, this church has been at the centre of parish life for all those years. It has seen new members added to your parish community in baptism, new families formed here in marriage, new members added to the Eucharistic community with First Communions, faith strengthened in Confirmation and parish members commended to God’s mercy at the end of life.
Today, we celebrate the past, all the blessings received and all the service given. But we also look towards the future. And the question on many minds is; what does the future hold? Fortunately for us, Pope Francis has given us some guidance; ever the realist, his feet are firmly on the ground and his heart open to the Holy Spirit. The basic question is, what will a parish like this look like in the future and what will a parish community look like.? For a number of reasons, many of them administrative, the parish boundaries that we know are likely to remain, at least for the foreseeable future. However, in all honesty, in the Ireland of tomorrow, parish and its clearly defined boundaries, in the minds of very many of our people, is far more likely to be associated with sporting groups such as the GAA rather than with the Church, on which it was founded over a thousand years ago.
The reality nowadays, as you well now, is that for many Catholics traditional parish boundaries are no longer what they were. They have been crossed and replaced in many ways by modern means of communication and by the car in particular. The traditional parish structure has to face the reality of our world today, namely, that increased mobility and the digital culture have expanded the confines of our lives and allow us to pick and choose. This is also true of when and where we worship. Add to this the fact that people generally, especially the young, are less associated today with any defined geographical context, living instead in what is often called “a global and pluralist village”. The Christian community of the future may be located in a traditional parish structure, but it will not be confined to or indeed defined by one.
We must ask, therefore, what will a Christian community of the future look like? First of all, it will be made up of people with a deeply personal commitment to centre their lives on Jesus Christ and on the gathering of a community of likeminded people around the Table of the Word and of the Eucharist; moving from there to live life by Christian principles in a world which functions, for much of the time, without belief. Pope Francis recently described what it will mean to call oneself a Christian in the future. He said: “It is faith that makes the Christian, because to be Christians is not first and foremost about accepting a culture, but about a relationship with God”.
A personal, conscious, committed faith in Jesus Christ, knowledge of him as he lived out his life while among us and as he now lives within the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit; that will be the driving force which will bring a community together around the Table of Word and Eucharist. In this our Christian communities will be more like the early Church, who came together for the Eucharist, for Mass, and then went out to spread their faith.
In this regard, Pope Francis recently put this challenge to us, members of parish communities. He said: “If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life”. In other words, parish communities in the future must be places where people are welcomed, given hope and shown a way to making Jesus the centre of their lives.
He also said: “The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility. It can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community. While certainly not the only institution which evangelises, if the parish proves capable of self-renewal and constant adaptability, it continues to be “the Church living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters”.
As we gather, therefore, for this celebration we do so with real hope for the future.