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synod address2010
Synod Address
Address at the Clogher Diocesan Synod held in St Macartin’s
Cathedral Hall, Enniskillen by the Right Reverend Dr Michael Jackson.
… looking in the mirror …
INTRODUCTION
Sometimes it is a series of events and a particular succession of people
which bring you to your senses – and you can, in fact, do nothing
more than accept it and thank God for all of it. Otherwise, any of us might
just carry our own sorrows and anxieties, our inner emptinesses, on into
the next day and the next. And emptiness becomes bitterness. We might never
have any sense of that vital connecting and belonging to others whose identity
we must respect, whose lives we must treasure and whose inner thoughts
we will never penetrate or appropriate. Religion at its worst and most
predictable seeks to control others on our own terms. Religion at its best
gives abundant life to us and to our neighbours in God’s name. Christianity,
with its strong double emphasis on the individual and the group, needs
always to embrace such abundant life. As the Anglican Communion to which
we belong in perfect freedom, keeps reminding us: The truth shall set you
free.
Let me just give you one example. It was the end of a long day, the culmination
of four services in succession, bringing with them that inevitable combination
of exhilaration and exhaustion. Three human tableaux, with glorious humility
and humble glory, emerge and re-invigorate you, even more because you simply
did not expect them, and, coming from the hand of God, they come seemingly
from nowhere. The first is a young girl with a disability who is more than
capable, with the combination of self-respect and determination, to see
through all aspects of her Confirmation with dignity and rejoicing; and
when you talk with her afterwards there is that glow of pride which knows
nothing of personal vanity. The second is a family who know what they want:
a family photograph, whatever effort it takes on the part of everyone involved.
The situation is such that one parent is terminally ill and, as we all
stand together, both the young person confirmed and I each gently take
a hand of this parent. I think to myself in admiration that this girl is
instantly asked by God to dig deep into the Gifts of the Spirit which God
has given her no more than forty minutes earlier in the Service of Confirmation.
Once again, there is deep pain but intense happiness. The third is a family
who carry the pain of searing loss, and for whom a complicated situation
and combination of circumstances makes the occasion of confirmation an
accumulated sadness, because one of their children, now deceased, will
never be confirmed in this life; he simply cannot be, because he is dead
and buried – but the other members of the family are bravely present
at the confirmation of others. One of the parents in particular needs to
talk, not about this particular issue, but, as so often is the case, around
it again and again. Something in the flow of conversation and the reassurance
to continue, gives him the courage to voice his conviction that heaven,
if not necessarily a place or a location, is a relationship in Christ Jesus
which, although fractured for him, is not shattered.
All of this happened in the one place. What struck me then, and what strikes
me now as I share it with you here today at the Synod of Enniskillen, is
that in a real sense many of you, not least the clergy here, will see this
as not in fact my business because I was not the rector of the parish to
the people of which I have referred. I, however, might disagree. All of
this happened after what might be considered or seen to be the main event,
in this case, the Service of Confirmation itself. These, I would argue,
are the human situations, the range of realities with which people here
and elsewhere grapple daily and which are the points at which God meets
them and they meet God. Each of them separately, and all of them together,
reinforce for me, if I needed such reinforcement, the wisdom embedded in
two popular sayings, the one of which I heard on the radio:
‘
Don’t tell me what you believe. Show me what you do and I will tell
you what you believe’
and the other which appears on a church notice board:
‘
The meek shall inherit the earth – if it’s alright with you.’
We do not broker religion. It is from God for other people, not for ourselves
alone.
LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
Christianity on earth is always, in a very real sense, lived in the mirror.
Instantly, we recall the words of St Paul about seeing darkly and looking
expectantly towards the time when we shall see face to face. (1 Corinthians
13) But there is also the other strain of thinking which ties together
Old Testament and New Testament with Jesus Christ in a very powerful way,
as the chief cornerstone and pivot of interpretation. The theological instinct – surely
a good one – to see everyone made in God’s image and likeness
feeds through and finds fresh voice in the other Corinthian suggestion,
namely that we see reflected and radiated in the faces of other people
the face of Jesus Christ. In this way, the revelation of God continues;
the revelation of God in Christ Jesus takes us behind and beyond the superficial.
It draws us into a continuing stream of revelation of who God is. It does
so not only through who we are, but through who other people are, whoever
they are, already in Christ. The lens is widened and at the same time the
resolution is sharpened. And so we discern people and things previously
hid from our eyes.
I suggest that we do not do enough of this. I suggest that all of us could
do better. We have in many worrying ways become conformed rather than transformed,
to use another useful pair of words from St Paul: conformed too much not
only to the world in which we live, but also to the church as we have made
it and to the Bible as we have limited it; transformed too little into
the people whom Jesus wants us to be. These are misunderstandings of the
truth itself as something dis-closed to us, un-covered - often obliquely,
through a glass darkly even - but never in fact purchased, owned or controlled
by us as what one hymn-writer calls private treasure. One of the Post-Communion
Collects early in the Season of Trinity expresses this need for a working
understanding of image and mirror well: Give us a glimpse of your glory
on earth, but shield us from knowing more than we can bear until we may
look upon you without fear.
Again, I think here, right here, is something we have lost. We are too sure
of being entitled to our own anger in dealing with other people. At the same
time, we are too convinced that Jesus sits beside us on the sofa, that God
is in our pocket and that, by doing the leg-work, we are the brokers of salvation.
This is a big mistake. Too much of our parochial life is built on it. God
is God in all God’s majesty and munificence.
Too much of our effort is driven by a quest for conversion and too little
by a thirst for transformation. Both are vital in the dynamic of salvation,
but playing them off against one another does not help us, going forward,
as they say. Throughout world-wide Anglicanism there is emerging, and in
fact it is happening both within and across the fault-lines, a clear recognition
that there is a new urgency for kingdom values and for holiness of life.
Matters of such magnitude are, perforce, going to bring to the fore high
stakes and deep emotions. There are many ways of describing unity and union.
Static and organic are two such ways. Let me explain. With the one, everything
is standing in a row, in a line and we know where we stand with it all:
that is static. With the other, there is movement, unpredictability and
change but, most important, growth: that is organic. That’s why for
different types of people these work in different ways. The static gives
stability; the organic gives adventure. Stability provides a settled environment
in which we can grow. Adventure gives us scope for movement in many directions
and for the versatility to what is happening around us. Since coming to
live and work in this diocese, I, like you, have lived with the uneasy
truce and fractured polity which is today’s Anglican world and Anglican
Communion. I was once conditioned to think that the problem was: human
sexuality. Then I was conditioned to think that the problem was: the interpretation
of Holy Scripture. It is not that I do not know what to think. Rather,
I now think that the problem is a need to recognize that, as people of
God, we are called to live in and out of the church all the time. The world
will not go away and we as followers of Jesus Christ are called not to
turn our backs on it. The influences which come to bear on us, young and
old alike, are such that wise discernment is needed at all times, and yet
real events happening in our time dictate the pace and the shape of events
themselves – as they always have done and always will do. No longer
will any one solution suit any given range of people.
Let me take a couple of examples which may seem to have nothing specific
to do with religion. The first is the BP oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico,
an event which remained out of control for months. For a very long period
there seemed to be no definitive solution. The quest for truth and justice
is rarely neutral; in this case it was driven, as much as by anything else,
by one American president’s political need not to get it so spectacularly
wrong as did his immediate predecessor in responding to a natural catastrophe
in the one geographical area. Most of us will have been outraged by the
ecological damage. Fewer of us will have foreseen immediately the spin-off
which has brought us to the point of impact on pension funds world-wide,
of the freezing of dividends and the pursuit of compensation by restauranteurs
across the length and breadth of the United States of America for loss
of revenue derived from the virtual collapse of shell-fish supplies. Another
example is The Saville Report. For thirty-eight years there has been a
cry and a plea for truth. The immediate response to that was one rapidly
compiled Report, deemed almost universally now as then to be grossly inadequate.
In this year there has been a second extensive Report, now deemed to contain
with painstaking accuracy detailed evidence of what happened on Bloody
Sunday as it will ever be called. Our sympathy continues to go out to those
who suffer not only from the events but from the continuing dredging of
painful memories. My congratulations go to the church leaders whose compassion
and courage enabled them to be with the people of the city of Derry on
the day of the publication of the Report and to give them a gift of powerful
symbolism as an expression of love. Few of us will ever forget the speech
made by Mr Cameron in the Westminster Houses of Parliament on the day when
the Report was shared with the world. But this Report too has caused controversy
and outrage to abound.
Both of these, and you could doubtless maximize examples from your own experience
and insight, leave us with explanations of the truth which maybe satisfy
some but certainly do not satisfy everyone. It is bound to be so and it
is bound to spill over into church life. We need to ask ourselves the really
difficult question: If there is now room for me, why can I, in turn, not
make room for others? We hope that the truth will solve our problems – it
never has nor ever will it, on our terms. The truth, let us remember, and
as Holy Scripture tells us, shall set us free. This is a far cry from the
truth giving us the answers we feel we deserve or telling us the sort of
things we want to hear. We live in a world of open-ended information. Coping
with it demands a lifestyle-change and the replacing of a desire to control
the flow of information by a desire and willingness to commit to its consequences.
Truth offers scope for maturing of commitment.
Too often we are led to concentrate on what we stand for without also keeping
in our mirror and before our eyes those we stand by and stand alongside.
This is the shift of commitment which our society today greatly needs and,
as members of the Church of Ireland, we need to be pro-active in playing
our part and in initiating change. This is the shift of commitment which
takes us along the path of salvation from conversion to transformation.
The gift of God as God to the individual becomes invested in others. But
it takes us as people further than this. It also takes us behind a superficial
understanding and expectation of ourselves, as well as of others. In responding
to the hotly-contested Report of The Consultative Group on the Past, I
along with others called for the need of a new moral framework in Northern
Ireland. My cry still goes largely unheeded. Am I to conclude that Christian
people either have nothing to offer or simply do not want to offer it?
Are we contented by the level of The Peace? Are we once again settling
for the recognition that it suits us a great deal better because it does
not really affect us? And a further question: Does sectarianism itself,
somehow, rather suit us? Try and tell that to residents of Aughnacloy!
Try and tell that to three small children in Lurgan! Try and tell that
to certain serving and retired members of PSNI! Try and tell it to the
thousands of people who remain at the mercy of ever-younger gangland godfathers!
The picture may be sporadic but the cumulative evidence is cause for serious
alarm. Sectarianism still sells at a premium right across Ireland. But,
you see, this time we have no excuse. Many of us have lived through earlier
Troubles. Many of us lived through the searing consequences of suffering,
bullying, fragmentation and victimhood. Many of us carry a bitterness which
does not enhance our lives when we stand back and look at ourselves in
that mirror.
Churches need to become less sentimentalizing. Churches together need to
recognize that Christendom as a political and social reality is long dead.
Churches need to be pro-active in enabling a newly-configured society to
clear away the newly-encrusted sectarianism and to create space for those
who take risks and offer fresh capital and new value. Churches need to
come out from under the shadows and the cobwebs and do the sort of things
which we have already been considering: looking in the mirror, offering
the mirror to others so that we can both look in the mirror, looking beyond
the mirror together to show compassion and to give direction.
From time to time, there is discussion and indeed tension about whether the
parish or the diocese is at the heart of our understanding of who we are.
As Anglicans we don’t have the luxury of an either/or. We are both
and we need both. I imagine, to the surprise of many, the fact is that
the earliest churches in the Greek tradition, in immediately post-Biblical
times, clearly had more rather than fewer bishops. They also envisaged
a diocesan area which the bishop could readily cover on a Sunday for baptisms
and the celebration of Holy Communion. The bishop was, and remains, both
an administrative and liturgical focus living pastorally and teaching theologically
- and that has nothing to do with the personality of the individual, whether
you like the bishop or not. Again, this tangible link is maintained to
this day as a living thing, particularly in the Act of Institution of an
incumbent and in the fact that a bishop depends on the pro-active good
will of priests and deacons in the setting forth of the work of God on
earth in parishes. One of the glories of the parochial system is that,
on a smaller geographical scale but with the same spiritual intention,
it leaves nobody out in the cold. Most of the people I meet are proud of
their parish and rejoice to be members of Clogher Diocese. Parochialism
may well be something that causes frustration to many but it does model
a belonging in mutual affection and trust without which we would simply
be a gathered congregation scattered and dotted in unstructured sequence
across the countryside.
It was with the recognition that parish and diocese belong together in an
organic way, and that both are people and places of witness and mission,
of worship and action, that the Sustentation and Finance Committee of the
diocese set about its work through a highly committed and pragmatic Working
Group to review and revise the provision of diocesan finances for the future.
This is not recession-driven. It has come out of a pro-active desire to
safeguard local life and witness across the diocese within the parishes.
From this flow a number of considerations about which we need to be clear.
Significant differentials between and among incumbencies largely become
a thing of the past. Incumbencies are treated equally: an incumbency is
an incumbency. Those which fall into problems in meeting their Assessment
will be able to receive a subsidy over a period of ten years to re-establish
spiritual life in such a way as to get to the point where the Sustentation
annually can be met in full from within the parochial giving at local level.
This introduces a radical, creative new component. This affords the opportunity
for fresh missional activity in a parish as the lifeblood of its very existence.
This provides scope for growth – spiritual, numerical, financial – all
of which when taken together are exciting. The Financial Scheme 2011, which
I welcome and endorse wholeheartedly, is not only about money. It is about
spiritual life. And I encourage you all to welcome, endorse and enact it.
From this Scheme, as I am sure you have already discerned, will flow a
number of exciting ministerial possibilities which will deepen and widen
the life and the witness of parish and diocese together.
It is important that Members of Synod be aware of the dedication shown and
expended on your behalf by those who serve on Committees of the Diocese.
This holds across a broad and significant range of activity – indeed
many members of Diocesan Committees are here today and know exactly what
I mean. I am always impressed by the ways in which members of such Committees
do their work, dependent as they are on the support and energy of members
of our parishes. The Working Group on the Financial Scheme 2011 met seven
times in the year past and reported regularly to the Sustentation and Finance
Committee and they, in turn, to the Diocesan Council. The Working Group
was not operating in a vacuum but was working on comments made at a variety
of levels within the diocese of recent years about the existing Scheme.
A number of points is worth making again. The first is that the new Financial
Scheme is uniform across the diocese and simplified. Secondly, the principle
of pooling is maintained and two further outcomes are achieved: Assessment
is not increased on the majority of incumbencies and, furthermore, not
linking Assessment to parish population removes any incentive for creative
census figures; it opens up the opportunity for active numerical growth
in parishes. Thirdly, the diocese will continue its support of the financially
weaker parishes, setting in place arrangements whereby such parishes receive
financial support from the diocese. Fourthly, the capital funds are invested
for both current and future benefit in the long term. All of these considerations,
as I have already said, offer us a uniform and simplified Financial Scheme
in the diocese as we enter the decades ahead. Again, I encourage you to
welcome, endorse and enact this Scheme.
I spoke earlier about the relationship between the parishes and the diocese
and between mirror and mirage. If such words sound rather speculative late
on a Thursday afternoon in September to people who have travelled from
far to be the Diocesan Synod of 2010, let me give them hands and feet in
the form of an illustration. Three Groups of people from the parishes of
Clogher Diocese and beyond have, in a period of eighteen months, gone on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I have had the delight and privilege of organizing
and leading these groups along with the Reverend David Skuce and the Reverend
Glenn West. Not only have these journeys in faith enabled everyone who
participated in them to hold up a mirror to their own faith and, in that
mirror, see with greater clarity and vision the face of Jesus Christ in
their own lives; but they have seen also the face of their neighbour in
their own faith. I am not referring only to the experience of walking the
walk, if you think I am only talking the talk, in the idiom of a former
British Prime Minister; but to the instinct for structured and selfless
generosity on the part of countless people in the parishes of the diocese
and the wider community flowing out from these Pilgrimages. St Luke’s
Hospital, Nablus was founded as a missionary hospital on 24th May 1900.
It is in the Biblical city Sychar, traditionally where Jacob’s Well
is, where Jesus met the Samaritan woman as recorded in St John chapter
4. To this day, St Luke’s Hospital, very much in the spirit of the
Evangelist, seeks out the stranger in the name of Jesus Christ and offers
healing. It remains very much a missionary hospital. Along with offering
modern medical facilities through the health system, it offers free of
charge to all and any comers medical services one afternoon a week.
In a spirit of generosity and appreciation both of the plight and of the
witness of the Christian people of the Holy Land, a Committee was established
for The Holy Land Medical Relief Fund in Clogher Diocese comprising: The
Reverend David Skuce, Mrs Una Bourke, Mrs Ethne McCord, Mrs Olive Elliott,
Dr Jenny Scott and Miss Isobel Stewart. Within a year, this Committee has
raised sufficient funds for us to provide and supply two open system incubators
and two neonatal monitors to St Luke’s Hospital, Nablus and a stress
test system, an ECG recorder, a defibrillator, an emergency trolley and
a vital signs monitor to a new Cardiac Clinic in Ramallah, an outreach
of St Luke’s, as the first phase of giving. None of this would have
been possible without the enterprise and flair of the Members of the Committee
and their generous commitment to this cause. But it would not have been
possible without the ways in which a number of parishes and individuals
and members of the total community rowed in behind us – whether it
was Christingle in Maguiresbridge, bag-packing in Tesco, sitting out in
Belleek, coffee-morning in Belle Isle and Rossorry, Strawberry Tea in the
Manor Garden Centre, Lisnaskea, proceeds from book launches and a whole
range of creative and ingenious ways of bringing this message to those
who wanted to give to this cause. None of what we have given in terms of
medical equipment may seem spectacular to you, but when you have seen,
as have I, twenty-five year old incubators held together by sellotape,
you get a clear sense of the commitment of the people on the ground and
the urgency of their need. To all concerned – in parish, diocese
and community – I wish to say: Thank you for looking into the mirror
and seeing the face of Jesus Christ and of your neighbour.
In the immediate aftermath of last year’s Diocesan Synod, I went to
the Diocese of Kaduna in the Province of Nigeria where I was welcomed with
great warmth and affection. Here again there is a good news story for the
people of Clogher Diocese. We had already helped with irrigation and the
development of farming and now there was a brand-new building which can accommodate
sixty people, with a courtyard and large room for meeting and worship, ready
for dedicating on Jacaranda Farm. My time there was set in the heart of mission:
a three-day workshop involving Mothers’ Union, medical personnel and
clergy on HIV/AIDS; time in villages where doctors and evangelists work hand
in hand; frequent preaching and a large three-day Advent Rally for the diocese
of the Kaduna Province attended by more than five thousand people. The dedication
of Clogher House was a very special moment. I know the sense of gratitude,
but even more than that the joy, at being remembered and honoured by fellow-members
of the Anglican Communion in this way, and following from Archbishop Josiah’s
times with us here in Clogher. Again my thanks go to all who have made this
possible and especially to the Committee comprising: The Reverend Noel Regan,
the Reverend Henry Blair, Mrs Una Bourke and Mrs Adele Moore. Continuing
generosity on the part of Miss Valerie Irwin through the proceeds of her
own publication: Four West Clogher Churches – a History to Kaduna in
the field of education shows us that a Project never dies, its spirit continues.
SOME PERSONALITIES
Today we remember with respect and affection our friend Mr Ivan Loane whom
we buried yesterday. Ivan served with utter faithfulness as a Member of
Diocesan Synod, Diocesan Council and the Finance and Sustentation Committee,
as well making the time to show his commitment to the parish of Cleenish.
Our thoughts today are very much with Martha his wife. Three of our well-known
clergy have retired since the Synod of Drumkeeran. They are the Reverend
Chancellor Eric McGirr, rector of Magheraculmoney; the Reverend Precentor
Dr William Johnston, rector of Trillick and Kilskeery and, most recently,
the Reverend Canon Dennis Robinson, rector of Aghavea. All three have decided
to live in retirement in the diocese after giving significant parochial
service and contributing in a broad range of ways to wider diocesan life.
Canon Robinson has for many years now been Diocesan Representative on The
Bishop’s Appeal Committee; the Reverend Noel Regan has kindly agreed
to succeed him in undertaking this role. The Very Reverend Kenneth Hall,
formerly rector of Brackaville Group of Parishes in the Diocese of Armagh,
has been instituted rector of Enniskillen and already I have much for which
to thank him, in that we meet today as the Diocesan Synod in the parish
which is his and mine. He will be installed dean of Clogher at a service
in Clogher Cathedral on Friday October 15th at which the Primus of Scotland
is to be the preacher. The Reverend Bryan Martin, formerly rector of Dromore,
has left to be incumbent of Donaghcloney and Waringstown in the diocese
of Dromore. Bryan worked to build up the Diocesan Board of Mission and
for this I thank him. I am delighted to say that the Very Reverend Kenneth
Hall will take the chair of this Board. The Reverend Kyle Hanlon has decided
to step down as Bishop’s Chaplain and I wish to thank him for all
his loyalty and imaginative thinking in this area. The Reverend Anita Kerr
succeeds him.
Among our ordinands, the Reverend Lorriane Capper has established herself
with confidence in Drumragh Parish (Omagh) in the diocese of Derry. Both
Stephanie Woods and Naomi Quin continue with considerable distinction in
the Master of Theology course for ministerial training. In the Church of
Ireland we have a training and formation programme which is increasingly
the envy of other parts of the Anglican Communion and it is most gratifying
that two members of our diocese are right in at the beginning, making their
contribution and giving every bit as much as they are receiving. Mr John
Woods, a third ordinand and member of Colaghty Parish, has already joined
them in his first year of residential training.
We offer our best wishes in retirement to Bishop Joseph Duffy, Roman Catholic
bishop of Clogher, who has a record of outstanding service, leadership
and commitment in his home diocese in education and pastoral care. He has
also shown dogged confidence and detailed attention to liturgy and aesthetics
in the re-ordering of Monaghan Cathedral in line with Vatican ii. As any
who have seen it will appreciate, it is a modern-and-traditional liturgical
space all in one within a building of massive and breath-taking proportions.
The best artists and craftspeople of the day have been used to tremendous
effect. But most of all I wish to thank Bishop Duffy for his friendship
to us and to me personally. We welcome Bishop Liam MacDaid, no stranger
to us either, as Bishop Duffy’s successor. He has many years of experience
in the pastoral, educational, legal and administrative aspects of Clogher
Diocese. All of us who attended his episcopal ordination in Monaghan Cathedral
are so appreciative of having been invited and we remember vividly an unforgettable
day in the life of a gentle man of great courage. Both Bishop MacDaid and
Bishop Duffy have always been a joy to work with. I look forward to many
years of fruitful collaboration with Bishop MacDaid and should like to
take, ladies and gentlemen Members of Synod, a message of good will and
blessing from here today to him.
We continue to appreciate the work of retired clergy and Readers who make
it possible for us all to be members of a Diocese which runs with efficiency
and where worship continues in a regular cycle, availing of the talents
of those who generously give of themselves Sunday by Sunday. In June of
this year in Clones Parish Church three new Diocesan Readers, Mr Keith
Browne, Mr Roy Crowe, Mr Karl Saunders, and three new Parochial Readers,
Ms Lindsay Coalter, Mrs Joan Nelson and Miss Isobel Stewart, were commissioned
and admitted to their work in diocese and parish respectively. We are also
very appreciative of the work of Diocesan Pastoral Assistants – a
form of ministry unique to the Diocese of Clogher in the Church of Ireland
- who, as lay people, bring a richness of human experience to pastoral
ministry in parishes across the diocese. To all of you: Thank you.
To our Synod today we have pleasure in welcoming The Reverend David Cupples
and Mr Noel Baxter of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland from Enniskillen
and Pettigo congregations respectively; The Reverend Peter O’Reilly
and Mr Gerry Burns of the Roman Catholic Church from Enniskillen; The Reverend
Samuel McGuffin and Mr Mark Kenyon of the Methodist Church from Enniskillen
as Official Guests. I trust that Members of Synod will join me in welcoming
you all. We look forward to the time which you share with us this evening
and the thoughts which you will share with us.
DIOCESAN OFFICE
Throughout this year, as last, we have been blessed by a very effective Diocesan
Office. Glenn Moore and Ruth McKane do sterling work on behalf of the diocese
and its parishes always with helpfulness, good humour and kindness. In all
areas they have worked tirelessly. I want to single out the ways in which
they have maximized our diocesan communications. News of what is happening
in Clogher across diocese and parish regularly appears across the range of
print media and website. Both deserve our thanks for everything they have
given, so often beyond the call of duty.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Parish and diocese together: as I make my way from parish to parish across
the diocese, I meet people in a broad range of situations and my impression
is of groups of people and individuals committed to the present and future
life of the church. The pioneering work which we undertook under the title:
Whatever you say, say nothing …in the spirit of The Hard Gospel is
all the more urgent as the initiative soon to be launched in this very
town of Enniskillen on the reality of rural sectarianism by a member of
this Diocesan Synod shows. Bishop MacDaid and I shall both be participating
in that launch. It is always important to hold before us the question at
the heart of The Hard Gospel: Who, then, is my neighbour? The question
is not: Who do I like? or: Of whom do I approve? The response to the question
is embedded in the instinct to show kindness as shown by the Samarian traveller
in a dangerous situation. We continue to explore The Hard Gospel under
the guiding hand of The Reverend Earl Storey through the generosity of
the Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs. This initiative
is well under way. It involves meetings of clergy across the denominations
and through other encounters of people who are committed to making our
society work locally to the enrichment and fruition of all. I ask you to
remember that question: Who, then, is my neighbour? and to answer it with
an open heart: Whomever I meet can be for me a mirror of the person of
Jesus Christ today.
The spirit of Clogher is well summed up in the hopes given voice in Collect
for St Macartan’s Day: building and strengthening of the church,
Gospel proclamation and leadership, reconciliation and peace in society
today. These three are at the core of our being and form the mirror before
us when we enter church and when we leave church, when we leave home and
when we return home. Of us God asks only that we do not go after a mirage
when before us is the mirror consisting of the face of Christ. I ask you
to pause in silence, seated as you are, as I say and pray with you the
Collect of St Macartan:
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Macartan, faithful companion of St Patrick,
and builder of your church in Clogher: Build up your church through those
whom you call to leadership in this generation and strengthen your church
to proclaim the gospel of reconciliation and peace; through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
+Michael Clogher: 30.ix.2010