“I want to pay tribute to the women of
This homily was preached at Mass at Our Lady’s Basilica,
Knock, which is taking place during the Annual Novena to Our Lady of Knock, Co
Mayo in the Archdiocese of Tuam. Following this Mass the Consecration of
Ireland to Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was led by Cardinal
Seán Brady, Primate of All Ireland and President of the Irish Episcopal
Conference. Archbishop Charles Brown, Papal Nuncio to Ireland was also present.
Homily
Out in
In the 12th century Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a
beautiful reflection on that moment. He imagines the whole world gathered
outside the room, looking in and awaiting Mary’s reply to the angel.
They’re urging her to say ‘yes’ to God’s invitation. ‘You have heard, O
Virgin, that you will conceive and bear a son… The angel is waiting for your
answer… it’s time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O
Lady, …. the whole earth waits, prostrate at your feet…Answer the angel
quickly, O Virgin’.
And then, Mary lifts up her head; perhaps she smiles as she
says her ‘Yes’! ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to
your word’. By saying ‘yes’, Mary gave God the greatest gift that
humanity could ever have given Him – the gift of motherly love.
Mary’s ‘yes’ invites us to reflect on our response to God’s
call. It’s not easy nowadays to do God’s will. There are so many
other attractions out there competing for our attention. Still, we are
invited, in complete freedom, to say ‘yes’ to God as Mary did, over and over
again. After the angel left her, Mary abandoned herself more and more to
God’s will: as she visited Elizabeth, when she gave birth in a stable, at the
Presentation of her child in the Temple, as she watched Him grow in knowledge
and wisdom, when she listened to His public teaching and marvelled at His
miracles and healing, as she watched Him gradually walking into danger.
It is all there in the mysteries of the Rosary – the beads mark out Mary’s
‘yes’ after ‘yes’ after ‘yes’ to God.
Luke tells us that Mary carefully kept all things in her
heart. So, as we pray the Rosary, we can unite ourselves with her
Immaculate Heart and enter with her into the great mysteries of our salvation.
Blessed John Paul II encouraged us to see Mary as a ‘model of
contemplation’ and to gaze on Jesus with Mary’s eyes, with the eyes of her
heart! I like to reflect at each mystery of the Rosary on what Mary might
have been pondering in her heart at that particular moment – for example at the
moment of the Annunciation, or the Visitation, at the Carrying of the Cross, or
the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection and Ascension, at his Baptism in the
Jordan, or at the wedding in Cana … during each decade I think of how Mary kept
renewing the ‘yes’ to God which she first gave as a young girl in Nazareth. Of course what sustained Mary’s continual ‘yes’ was her
Immaculate Heart, overflowing with profound love for Jesus. No wonder
Mary’s Immaculate Heart has been described as the ‘school of love’! Could there
ever be a better teacher than Mary, to show us how to love God and say ‘yes’ to
God in our lives? I wonder was it Mary who taught Saint John the
beautiful words which he wrote in his first letter – ‘God is love, and he who
lives in love, lives in God, and God lives in him’? Mary lived a vocation
of love; she lived in God, and God lived in her!
On this day, 25 years ago, Blessed John Paul II issued an
encyclical about the dignity and vocation of women. In it, he described
how women are living witnesses of the ‘vocation to love’. Women
especially, he said, can teach us how to say ‘yes’ to God who is love.
Today in Knock as we consecrate Ireland
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I want to pay tribute to the women of Ireland
who witness to love so strongly and so unselfishly. Let us give thanks
for the mothers and grandmothers, the sisters and wives, the consecrated women,
the married and single women who have built a ‘civilisation of love’ here in Ireland .
They have been outstanding in their commitment to family and to faith and in
the example they give of how to be understanding, forgiving, merciful, humble
and caring. The women of Ireland
have played the central role in handing on the faith in this country.
They have been our chief evangelists, the educators and stalwarts of the
faith. Thinking of my own mother, I venture to say that the women of Ireland
are the best ‘pray-ers’ too! In many ways their witness to selfless love
teaches us men how to be better fathers, brothers, grandfathers, husbands,
single men, priests and bishops. I thank God especially today for the
‘yes’ that women give to unborn children. Like Mary, they become partners
in God’s creation. They unselfishly say ‘yes’ to new life despite all the
tiredness and discomfort of pregnancy, the soreness and nausea, the worries and
disruption it can bring.
Mary’s last recorded words in the scriptures are ‘Do
whatever he tells you’. Do not be surprised, then, at the beginning of this
Novena in Knock, if you hear God calling you today to do something
significant and special for Him – something that will make a real difference to
your life and in the lives of others. You will know God’s call when you
hear it, because it will be definite and challenging. Do not be
afraid! If you can answer, as Mary did, ‘I am your servant Lord, let it
be done to me according to your will’, then God will give you all the grace you
need to transform the world from within.
‘To transform the world from within’: that’s what Blessed
Pope John Paul II asked of the Ireland ’s
lay faithful back in 1979. Today, Ireland
is perhaps more than ever in need of transformation. This dear country of
ours, which has proudly sent countless missionaries all around the world to
spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, is itself ready for ‘new
evangelisation’. Sadly, many of our people are losing touch with Jesus
who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and they are missing out on the joy and
the hope that believing in Jesus can bring. Our mission, as true
disciples of Christ, is to transform Ireland
from within. We do this by gently inviting our brothers and sisters to a
new friendship with Jesus, and by convincing them, as Pope Benedict put it,
that when you let Christ into your life, you ‘lose nothing, nothing, absolutely
nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great’!
Two weeks ago at Brazil ’s
National Shrine of Our Lady at Aparacida, Pope Francis said, ‘when the Church
looks for Jesus, she always knocks at his Mother’s door and asks: “Show us
Jesus”. It is from Mary that the Church learns true discipleship.
That is why the Church always goes out on mission in the footsteps of
Mary’. That is also why, to mark this Year of Faith, the Bishops of
Ireland decided together in June to consecrate Ireland
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Many of you had been encouraging us to
do so. Thank you for that encouragement! And what better place to
perform this solemn Act than here in Knock , Ireland Ireland
to Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.
To Jesus, through Mary! Those were the words which St
Louis Grignon de Montfort used when he promoted consecration to Mary’s
Immaculate Heart. Today, inspired by those words, we entrust ourselves
completely to Mary and implore her intercession to help us keep our baptismal
commitments and live as her children. Led by our cardinals, bishops and
priests, in consecrating ourselves, our families, homes, dioceses 
As we go out together in the footsteps of Mary, on this
mission to announce the Gospel of the Lord, I encourage you to nourish your
entrustment, your ‘yes’ to God, by praying the Rosary every day and regularly
spending time before the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. There,
bead by bead, mystery by mystery, contemplate Jesus with Mary. Gaze on
Him with the eyes of her heart!
To end, I’ll borrow Pope Francis’ prayer from Aparacida. ‘Dear
friends, we have come to knock at the door of Mary’s house. She has
opened it for us, she has let us in and she shows us her Son. Now she
asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). Yes, dear Mother, we are
committed to doing whatever Jesus tells us! And we will do it with hope,
trusting in God’s surprises and full of joy’.
A Mhuire na nGrás, a Mháthair Mhic Dé, go gcuiridh tú ar mo
leas mé.
Amen
Archbishop Eamon Martin is Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh .
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