Welcome, Fáilte - Diocese of Cloyne

Light a Candle at St Colman's from 1 Dec 2024

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Welcome

Fáilte, Welcome

to the website for the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland

Bishop William Crean

09 March 2026

Evangelium is hosting a one-day Catholic apologetics conference for young adults (18–40)

Saturday 21st March 2026 (10am–6:30pm) at the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs, Cork

The day will include talks and a panel Q&A on topics such as the Resurrection, St Augustine, evangelising youth and the beauty of the Catholic faith

Tickets are €15 (incl. refreshments). Tickets can be found on Eventbrite or www.evangelium.ie

Evangelium Conference 2026 - Cork

03 March 2026

Carrigtwohill Parish Pilgrimage to Fatima 7th - 14th September 2026

Spiritual Director: Fr. Patrick Winkle

Direct return flights from Cork to Faro, with Bus to and from Fatima included
Full Board - breakfast, lunch and dinner each day
7 nights Hotel Steyler
Limited number of places
€1045 (single supplement extra) - limited single rooms, insurance is also extra
20kg baggage included with Aer Lingus flight.
Guided tours and full spiritual programme

Please make enquires to Fr. Patrick Winkle 021-4882439 or Joe Walsh Tours 021-2427190 or 01-2410800
Or book direct online with Joe Walsh Tours

2026 CARRIGTWOHILL PATRICK WINKLE 07 SEP CORK FARO Fatima Pilgrimage 2026

02 March 2026

Walking in the Bible for Lent - Carrigtwohill Parish

Gentle reflections with questions welcome
8pm – 9.15pm

As a Parish we wish to explore the Bible during Lent, looking at the readings for the Easter Vigil as a way of guiding the exploration. Interested in walking through the Bible with others: Bible for curious and faithful. Discovery the wonder of the Scripture. Tues 3rd March, Tues 10th March, Wednesday 18th March and Tuesday 24th March

All are Welcome

Venue - Parish Sacristy

TAIZE PRAYER
Friday evenings at 7pm in St. Mary's Church, Carrigtwohill

Walking in the Bible for Lent - Carrigtwohill Parish

16 February 2026

Baptised and Sent - Lenten programme in Macroom

This Lent, parishes, schools and groups across Ireland are invited to journey together through a set of reflective resources inspired by Baptised and Sent which is the preparatory document for the 2025 National Pre-Synodal Assembly in Kilkenny

Grounded in the conviction that baptism is the foundation of our identity, dignity and mission, these resources help us return to the heart of Christian life: being reborn in Christ and sent out by the Spirit in service of the Gospel

You are warmly invited to join with us each Monday evening during lent in St. Colman’s Church Parish Centre, Macroom from 7pm to 8pm

Each weeks’ Lectio Divina, offers us an opportunity to reflect on the upcoming Sunday Gospel, which is prayerfully linked to key insights from Baptised and Sent.

Facilitated by Bill Kelly

St Colman's Macroom

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Latest Homily

15 Mar 2026 - The Lord looks at the heart

Latest Articles

March 2026
February 2026
October 2025
- Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo
September 2025
- "Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)
February 2025
- Recent picture of St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh. Co. Cork
October 2024
- Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

Coram Fratribus

On Cracks

A conversation with Ewa Skrabacz published in W drodze. You can find it here in PDF. Below is an English version.
What is the sound of loneliness and what is its colour?
Good question. I would say the colour of loneliness is grey Read More

Coram Fratribus

Facing Fear

Speech given to open the spring plenary assembly of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference in Stykkishólmur.
To prepare myself for our meeting here at Stykkishólmur, I have been dipping into a travel book — not one of the recent ones that seem Read More

Coram Fratribus

4 Sunday of Lent

Homily given to conclude this year’s Rhein-Meting. You can find an English version by scrolling down a little.
1 Sam 16.6-13: Gott sieht nicht auf das, worauf der Mensch sieht.
Ef 5.8-14: Alles Erleuchtete ist Licht.
Joh 9.1-41: Ich bin das Licht der Read More

Coram Fratribus

Finger of God

Luke 11.14-23: Every kingdom divided against itself will fall.
As people of faith, we take it for granted that God acts in the world; that, at Mass, real transformation of bread and wine happens through divine agency; that, in Confession, God’s Read More

Coram Fratribus

Come to Complete

Matthew 5:17-19: I have not come to abolish but to complete.
‘I have not come’, says Christ, ‘to abolish, but to complete’.
That motivation sounds strange in our ears, accustomed as they are to polarised agendas. In culture as in politics nowadays Read More

Coram Fratribus

On Cracks A conversation with Ewa Skrabacz published in W drodze. You can find it here in PDF. Below is an English version.
What is the sound of loneliness and what is its colour?
Good question. I would say the colour of loneliness is grey and its sound is indefinable — just a resonance, an echo coming from another place.
I was thinking about shades, semitones – there can be different tones of loneliness, different intensities.
A useful feature of the English language is its varied vocabulary, which brings out different shades. You can speak about solitude, which does not have a negative meaning. Solitude is a choice; it can be uplifting. You can speak also about aloneness, which is more neutral, neither good nor bad, and carries no difficult emotional charge. Then there is loneliness, which has a distinctly negative connotation and is associated with isolation, abandonment. While one can long for solitude, one cannot truly yearn for loneliness. Much can probably be said about the English based on their subtle differences in the vocabulary to do with loneliness!
Using the above-mentioned richness of the English language, I would like to clarify that we are going to talk about that difficult variety – loneliness. We do not choose it, we do not wish for it. It is an unwanted guest in our lives. Can it still be useful and constructive?
Good can come from everything. Such an attitude is, of course, related to a specific Christian view of reality. Scripture shows that even from death, sin, or betrayal, good things can come. I think about people who have spent time in forced isolation. When someone is in such isolation, they experience forced loneliness. This is the case of Brian Keenan, who in his book An Evil Cradling tells the story of his kidnapping and forced isolation in the 90s. He talks about the suffering of loneliness. At the same time he finds that it carves out new depths within him. In retrospect, he sees that the experience turned out to be enriching. This enrichment, however, comes not from loneliness itself, but from the proper way — that is, the wise and skilful way — of coping with it. Loneliness can be destructive and can even lead to madness. This is why totalitarian regimes always eagerly reach for it and like to use it.
So suffering caused by loneliness does not in itself make us better or ennoble us, but we can derive meaning from it?
Yes, we can derive meaning from such experience.
Can we do it ourselves? I am wondering how it is possible. The title of your book Shattering of Loneliness, may suggest a more forceful approach?
Several friends had long discussions about which word would be best in the Polish translation. The image that accompanied me while creating the English title was of a glass dome, the kind you use to cover cheese. I imagined a man standing under such a dome. At some point, for some reason – whether due to some kind of tension within the glass structure itself, or due to an accurate blow with a stone – cracks appear on the dome. And later, these cracks, these glass wounds, spread, extending across the entire surface. At first, the shape of the dome is still maintained, but the necessary internal strength is no longer there. As a result, suddenly the whole thing falls apart. One can breathe at last. This is the image of shattering of loneliness.
Does it mean that a person trapped in loneliness should actively work to escape it? It is said that in a crisis, it is better not to make any decisions, that it is not a good time for action.
I think the most important thing in this context is to acknowledge loneliness. Very often we are reluctant to admit – both to ourselves and even more so to others – that we are lonely. This resistance is related to the fact that we perceive loneliness as a failure. It is particularly difficult in times when success in life is perversely measured by the number of virtual friendships. People spend time taking photos of everything – what they eat, all the beautiful things they buy or want to buy – and in this way they put a lot of effort into creating an image of themselves as constantly active and always connected to others. Thus, the pain of loneliness is suppressed and hidden under images of apparent closeness. I think it is important to develop and hone skills — emotional, intellectual, communicational skills — that let us sit comfortably in a chair and say, ‘I am lonely’. Then it becomes clear that what we perceived as a failure can actually be liberating! For when I acknowledge my loneliness, I can also ask myself, ‘Why am I lonely? What can I do to overcome this loneliness?’ In this way, I take the initiative again, I have a chance to regain agency.
So we take the initiative, throw something at the dome and break it? Could honesty with ourselves be such a stone?
Yes, the first and decisive step is to cast the stone of honesty, as we have already discussed. Then we can find stones of agency and take positive action.
To face the truth about one’s own loneliness requires courage and maturity. At the same time, loneliness forces us to be courageous, and this leads us to maturity.
The question is: Am I able to use the word ‘I’ within my glass dome? Can I say, ‘I am here. This is my loneliness. This is my suffering, and I can face it.’ Or do I still claim that others brought me to this state, that others are to blame, that ‘they’ did this to me. Until I say the word ‘I’, I will not be able to move forward. The glass dome will remain intact.
Self-awareness is therefore important. But is awareness of the other equally important? We have evoked a virtual reality in which the drama of loneliness unfolds in successive acts: we reach for ChatGPT, with which we enter into relationships (sic!). True liberation from loneliness involves an encounter, it must relate to a person. No substitute will suffice – we need a human being.
This is very important. This is what my book Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses is about. I very consciously structured the narrative so that the last chapter would be about seeing. It is crucial to look, to see clearly. The opposite of chastity may be loneliness, separation from others. Although loneliness can be painful, it can also be somewhat calming and provide a sense of security. I may complain about my loneliness, but at least I am undisturbed, no one is a threat to me. But when I meet another person, when I go out to meet the other, I also meet his gaze – I see someone and that person sees me! Then there is risk: I am visible, uncovered, I can be exposed. Loneliness protects me from such exposure. In that sense, it can seem comfortable, even desirable.
This is the paradox of our times: we desperately want to be seen – vide the aforementioned photos, the relationships in virtual reality – and yet we hide behind a version of ourselves we have created.
And we want to see others; we want to peek into their lives through their windows.
We look inquisitively, fragmentarily, not wanting to really see the other person’s face.
I think you are right, we have created a culture of voyeurism.
At the same time, there is a cruel type of loneliness — we create the illusion of closeness and familiarity, but in reality, we isolate ourselves even further.
I would say it is the saddest kind of loneliness. And yet, we hold the key that allows us to escape it. The stones that can shatter the glass dome are in our hands.
We observe various struggles with loneliness; we share many experiences. What is your personal experience? What sort of loneliness has there been in the life of Erik Varden, a Trappist, then a bishop.
Like many others, I went through a difficult period during my adolescence when I felt very lonely. People sometimes speak with irony or even a certain contempt about Weltschmerz, the pain of existence experienced during adolescence. It always makes me a little angry. For this is a very real dimension of the teenage experience: the feeling that the pain of the world, the pain of existence, is somehow rooted, accumulated within me, within my body. Of course, it is not strictly speaking true. Nevertheless, this adolescent experience is very real and demands recognition and respect.
The pain of existence, which is a developmental experience.
Yes, but there is always a risk of getting stuck in such a state. It can become a trap.
Adolescent Erik didn’t get stuck?
Well, I was very lucky because I had friends, I read books, listened to music. I could find echoes of what I was experiencing. Thanks to that, I was no longer alone.
At what stage of this experience did faith appear?
I was about fifteen or seventeen years old. Until that moment, I assumed that the Christian faith was just a collection of superficial, stupid answers to questions that were not real. And then I began to discover that, in fact, this is not the case at all, that the Christian tradition provides deep, insightful, beautiful answers to fundamental questions. It occurred to me that within these answers, the Church gives us the courage to ask questions which, without the experience of roots, tradition, continuity, and community, might seem too difficult or too painful.
And these questions, these answers led you to the Trappist Order?
Yes, I found extraordinary authenticity in monastic life. Every moment of the day, whether you are singing in church or milking cows on the farm, can be a search for truth. It attracted me with great force. In the monastery, I discovered an extraordinary intellectual and spiritual heritage and I loved it. I was glad I could create a community with good, faithful, and kind brethren.
A community of faith. Faith itself is a relationship. One might provocatively ask, can a believer be lonely?
I think such a question is justified, and the answer is ‘no’. However, a person of faith can still feel lonely. Loneliness is a subjective feeling. But when viewed from a faith perspective, it is worth noting that feelings of loneliness can be a useful warning sign. When this conviction appears, this familiar feeling that I am lonely, it tells me that I am withdrawing into myself, entering again into the glass dome, hiding under it as if I were cheese.
This image of cheese under the glass dome will stay with me.
To complete the image, imagine the smell!
A strong and evocative addition! Isolation protects against contact, but not against corruption or decay. Loneliness, therefore, is a warning sign. Properly interpreted, it leads to conversion.
The experience of helplessness can work this way. I can throw stones at a glass dome and cry, ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’
Humility, humiliation that leads to God.
Absolutely. And I expand on the theme when writing about loneliness. Humility is related to humus. Humus is the soil, the ground, the ground level. So, it is about being at ground level. I must face the collapse of my pride, the collapse of my illusion that I can rise on my own. There is a chance I will discover what grace and mercy mean. I have a chance to discover what salvation is.
When we talk about a believer who cannot be alone, I recall a story of a certain man. Being in a difficult situation, he said he felt like a stray dog. And then he heard the words that stayed with him forever and saved him in many situations: ‘No, you are created and redeemed by the Lord.’ Man is always the Lord’s.
This is true. What is important is that the man decided to admit it, to see it, and was able to accept it. And we must remember that God is a dangerous reality.
‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God…’
Yes, this God whom I call upon as Comforter and Helper may turn out to be a God who makes as well demands. Maybe I do not want these demands! That is why I prefer to keep Him at a distance. Just as we spoke about relationships with real people, not with virtual reality, we speak now about an encounter with the living, true God.
And we can create our own ‘Lord God,’ mould him from our imaginations. Life with such a god can be much easier, although ultimately tragic, because false.
And I will find no great comfort in a god I created for myself. The Israelites discovered this after they spent some time dancing around the golden calf. Sooner or later, the experience of worshipping our idols teaches us the same thing.
This risk is inevitable – escaping loneliness means entertaining an authentic encounter with the true God and reaching out to a true man. Can one prepare for this?
We mentioned earlier the challenge of admitting loneliness. We move forward towards the next stage: preparations for the encounter. I must ask myself: Am I ready for the encounter? Or do I perhaps prefer a chatbot I can programme to support me, encourage me and assure me everything is fine? Perhaps at some level it is more comfortable to stay with this thing than to risk a friendship with someone who might come and say, ‘You can’t go on like this!’ My preparation will begin with the question: Do I really want my loneliness to be shattered? This reminds us of the question Jesus asks in the Gospel, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ We could describe this stage as an internal, subjective preparation. There is also a preparation that realises ‘outwardly’, and in this sense is objective. It is about engaging, about entering the reality of other people. It can be performed in a very safe way, for example, by reading books, engaging with poetry, or watching films. These are the simplest exercises in compassion, developing empathy, or simply showing interest in another person. But it is necessary to meet the real people who are standing before us, to see them, talk to them. It does not mean we must immediately start to talk about deep issues. It can be just a look in the eye, a smile, a simple way of saying, ‘I am here and you are here. And that’s good.’
I am thinking of the poem Loneliness by Rainer Maria Rilke. I would like to quote in its entirety:
Die Einsamkeit ist wie ein Regen.
Sie steigt vom Meer den Abenden entgegen;
von Ebenen, die fern sind und entlegen,
geht sie zum Himmel, der sie immer hat.
Und erst vom Himmel fällt sie auf die Stadt.
Regnet hernieder in den Zwitterstunden,
wenn sich nach Morgen wenden alle Gassen
und wenn die Leiber, welche nichts gefunden,
enttäuscht und traurig von einander lassen;
und wenn die Menschen, die einander hassen,
in einem Bett zusammen schlafen müssen:
dann geht die Einsamkeit mit den Flüssen…
***
Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.
It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
dissapointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise each other
have to sleep together in one bed –
that is when loneliness receives the rivers…
There is a closeness that feels like an abyss of emptiness – a person is physically close and still very distant. Loneliness ‘drops upon the city’, ‘it rains down on us’, and ‘receives the rivers’… Is it an inevitable human experience?
When I was in high school, I had a good history teacher. When we were writing essays, he never allowed us to use the word ‘inevitable’. If you did, the word was crossed out or underlined in red. He instilled in all of us that nothing is inevitable. I think this is true in the context of history, but also regarding human experience. Therefore, I would hesitate to say that everyone ‘must’ go through the experience of loneliness. At the same time, based on several years of empirical observation, I’d say that most people do go through it. However, the experience of loneliness can become a place out of which community is born and closeness is built. Because even when two people — as in Rilke’s poem, ‘who despise each other, must sleep together’ — experience loneliness in the space of a shared bed, this doesn’t have to be the ultimate situation. We are created to build relationships; we are programmed for it.
We do not so much have relationships; we are relationships. How can we not be in relationship with others, with God?
We can be isolated from others. But it is impossible to flourish while we are cut off from the others. In my book on chastity, I recall the story of a monk who had a vision of hell: it is a place in which people are chained back-to-back and can never get rid of each other, but can never see one another. The Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland captured this in his monumental relief Hell, which is a vision of loneliness, not as physical separation, but as a state of being among others without any true connection.
But there is an escape from the hell of loneliness – Jesus Christ. The mystery of the incarnation is God’s radical response to human confusion, to our loneliness.
Logically, the story of what it is to be human begins at a different point: man was made to live in communion, in the fundamental complementary of ‘me’ and ‘you’. This communion is symbolised in the image of man and woman, who are incomplete without each other. Loneliness comes later. It is a consequence and wound of sin. The Biblical account indicates that the dissatisfaction Adam felt before Eve was created was not strictly speaking loneliness, for it was marked by anticipation. He asks, ‘Where is my companion?’ It is only sin enters the picture that he is separated from God, and from human beings, caused to hide, to isolate himself. Emmanuel, ‘God with us’, speaks through his entire being to this lost man as ‘God with me’, within my loneliness.
Wherever the wound of sin appears, God pours out the grace of his closeness. In my thoughts I return to the image of the dome, the broken glass. The blessed crack from which it all begins…
And as someone once said: ‘Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let the light in.’
Translated by Daria and Oskar Styczynscy.

Coram Fratribus

Facing Fear Speech given to open the spring plenary assembly of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference in Stykkishólmur.
To prepare myself for our meeting here at Stykkishólmur, I have been dipping into a travel book — not one of the recent ones that seem to speak only of adventure trails and spas, as if Iceland were thought up by God Almighty as a leisure park, but a book written 90 years ago, in 1936, when the poets W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice spent three months here.
The trip was an adventure to them, too; but an adventure into a natural and human reality they regarded with reverence. Iceland came across as wild in 1936, a place where life was hard but people were hospitable.
No one had thought of a Chai latte back then. One cooked to survive, not to generate gastronomic ‘experience’. The food impressed Auden, who notes, for example, how to get on with the dried fish he found served everywhere. It should, he says, ‘be shredded with the fingers and eaten with butter. It varies in toughness. The tougher kind tastes like toe-nails, and the softer kind like the skin off the soles of one’s feet.’
Auden and MacNeice were both born in 1907. They were 29 years old, joyful and strong, full of sparkle and wit, enthralled by the grandiose nature of this country and by its society, so different from the England and Ireland they came from. Still thirty years later, Auden was pleased to register that ‘modernity does not seem to have changed the character of [Icelanders]. They are still the only really classless society I have ever encountered, and they have not — not yet — become vulgar.’
Yet there was fear in the air. ‘Though writing in a “holiday” spirit’, though they were having the holiday of their lives, the poets were conscious, writes Auden retrospectively, ‘of a threatening horizon to their picnic — worldwide unemployment, Hitler growing every day more powerful and a world-war more inevitable. Indeed the prologue to that war, the Spanish Civil War, broke out while we were there.’
I thought of those words while reading the paper on the plane yesterday.
Pundits disagree on whether the Third World War has already begun. Since 2022 we have, in the Nordic countries, followed with pain and anxiety the grinding continuity of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Russia is our neighbour, too. Our countries are rearming. We are watching our boundaries to the East and to the West.
Greenland was, not long ago, at the centre of the world’s attention as the president of the United States insisted, in less and less diplomatic terms, on his private notion that the territory should really be his.
Gaza is in ruins as a result of the war provoked by the gruesome Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023.
No one knows what the long-term effect of regime change in Venezuela will be, notably what effect it will have on Cuba.
The Israeli-US war on Iran was advertised as the swift cutting of a gordian knot that would produce stability. The US Department of War, which used to be called Department of Defence, announced the operation under the name ‘Epic Fury’, presenting it as ‘laser focused’. That phrase summons up the reassuring image of sophisticated surgery by which a steady surgeon’s hand, assisted by wonderful gadgetry, removes a cancerous growth without damaging healthy tissue, enabling the patient to return home that same day. Furies, though, are now unleashed in the Strait of Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, in Lebanon, and elsewhere.
Who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind (Hosea 8.7). Fury calls fury forth.
Anyone who thought they were out on a picnic stands corrected. A threatening horizon surrounds us on all sides. Conflicts like those mentioned — and God knows they are not the only ones — coincide with environmental change, the unpredictable rise of AI, and weird virtual addictions. We are left feeling under threat not only on the human and political, but also on the natural and digital level.
This state of affairs is found by many to be overwhelming. Mental health needs are growing exponentially, notably among the young. Many say they simply do not know, now, where existence is pointed. That confusion can seem too much to bear.
Meanwhile, voices of more or less self-proclaimed prophetic authority loudly profess that they know exactly where the world is going, and that there is no getting away from it. A couple of weeks ago, Alexander Dugin, whose influence on the president of Russia has often been remarked on, publicly envisaged the onset of an end-time battle, the war of all wars that will, he thinks, probably bring an end to history. Dugin’s discourse is a mixture of political analysis and apocalyptic symbolism drawn from Scripture. Dugin speaks of a ‘sacred mission’ to ‘stop the civilisation of Baal’. The victory he looks towards has little to do with the prospect of an evangelical reign of justice and peace in love, however; in fact, it is itself marked by the Baalist characteristics of a god who devours his children.
What a setting in which to be a bishop these days!
The task entrusted to us is grave. At the same time it is beautiful. The world is caught up in a maelstrom of violence, fear, duplicity, and sheer madness. Yet over this chaos the Spirit hovers, not menacingly, but benignly. The Spirit, of course, is the Spirit of justice and truth. The Spirit will have no truck with injustice and untruth. Where worldly tendencies marked by sin pull what is whole apart, the Spirit unites. The Spirit unites by setting right boundaries, not by compromise.
Our political and cultural climate is marked by fierce polarisation and by an increasingly aggressive, belligerent tone, even among those who call themselves believers. But the Church must follow a different path; she must show that such a path is humanly possible, for it is her task to let God’s peace become flesh. We cannot be content just to stand around and tell people to be nice to one another. We must show what a renewed humanity looks like. Only such renewal can save us from the constant acceleration of confrontations.
I know it can seem bombastic to begin our conference, a modest gathering, on such a note. I am no political analyst. I am no theoretician of culture. I simply want to share with you a deep conviction: this is a decisive and fearful time for Europe and for the world. Into this time we must speak Christ’s peace, a peace not like that which the world gives piecemeal.
Christ’s peace is no transaction, no pragmatic ‘deal’. It is the fruit of an all-encompassing sacrifice brought in love, accomplished once for all on Calvary, and renewed every day on our altars. What we must do above all, now, is to let that sacrifice work, to teach the faithful by word and example what it means to live in the spirit of that sacrifice, in the confidence that God, through his holy Church, is still working out the salvation of mankind. God saves us from evil. He also saves us from ourselves.
This is a time in which to draw a line between what matters and what does not; this is no time for vanity, trifles, or silly little squabbles.
Today the Church celebrates St Patrick, a Romano-British soldier abducted by Irish pirates in the early fifth century. Time in slavery made him reflect on the sense of existence. Released, returned to Britain, he became a Christian. He did not, though, turn his back on the land in which he had been unfree. No, that land occupied his thoughts. It attracted his love. He went back to Ireland and worked, first as a priest, then as a bishop, in unspectacular ways, the way any priestly or episcopal life is made up chiefly of ordinary things.
This one man’s givenness, though, left its mark on a nation. So deep is that mark that even secular, repaganised Ireland sees itself reflected in the glory of St Patrick and that, wherever the Irish have worked or settled, from New York to Lagos, Patrick is held in highest honour. Not all of us are called to be a St Patrick; but his example speaks to us all. Like him we can carry light into darkness. We can refuse to be crippled by the threats of those who would frighten us. We can put our whole trust in Christ’s power to save. If the shepherd is fearless, the chances are, the flock will be, too. St Patrick sang, in the prayer known as his Breastplate:
I bind to myself to-day,
The Power of God to guide me,
The Might of God to uphold me,
The Wisdom of God to teach me,
The Eye of God to watch over me,
The Ear of God to hear me,
The Word of God to give me speech,
The Hand of God to protect me,
The Way of God to prevent me,
The Shield of God to shelter me,
The Host of God to defend me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the temptations of vices,
Against the [lusts] of nature,
Against every man who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
With few or with many.
It is possible to live in this way. If a sufficient number of people do, they can actually transform society. The Church, a little flock, can reveal itself, then, the seed of a new humanity. A threatening horizon can turn into a sunrise full of sweet hope.
That’s what we’re about, surely.
Everything else must be seen in this light.
+fr Erik Varden OCSO
President of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference
View from Stykkishólmur.

Coram Fratribus

4 Sunday of Lent Homily given to conclude this year’s Rhein-Meting. You can find an English version by scrolling down a little.
1 Sam 16.6-13: Gott sieht nicht auf das, worauf der Mensch sieht.
Ef 5.8-14: Alles Erleuchtete ist Licht.
Joh 9.1-41: Ich bin das Licht der Welt.
Die Messliturgie für die Sonntage der Fastenzeit sind durch das Evangelium deutlich thematisiert. Am ersten Sonntag wird uns die Versuchung Jesu in der Wüste vor Augen gestellt. Wir verstehen: auch wir müssen gegen den Bösen, und die eigenen bösen Neigungen, friedlich kämpfen. Am zweiten Sonntag lesen wir das Evangelium über die Verklärung. Die Kirche, unsere Mutter, lässt uns sehen, dass das Leiden Jesu nur im Licht seiner Herrlichkeit verständlich ist. Am dritten Sonntag kommt die Geschichte der Samaritanerin am Brunnen: die Outsiderin wird zur Insiderin. Wir begreifen welche verwandelnde Kraft in lebendigem Wasser steckt.
Dann, heute, der Bericht über den Blindgeborenen, der plötzlich sieht.
Die thematische Progression ist pädagogisch. Die Fastenzeit war seit je die letzte Vorbereitungszeit der Taufskandidaten. Die heilige Liturgie erinnert die Katechumenen an die strukturellen Elemente des christlichen Glaubens. Nächsten Sonntag wird von der Auferweckung des Lazarus erzählt. Ein Christ ist ein Mensch, der weiss: der Tod hat nicht das letzte Wort. Der Tod, dieser uralte Feind, ist von der gnädigen Kraft Jesu Christi bezwungen worden. Danach kommt Palmsonntag und der Beginn der Karwoche mit ihrem jährlich fast unerträglichen Intensität. Durch sie dürfen wir erkennen und erleben wie unser Heiland siegt und die Welt erneut.
Für uns alle, ob wir auch als Kleinkinder die Taufe empfingen, ist es gut, diese grundsätzlichen Wahrheiten neu zu betrachten um vor ihnen zu staunen. Wie wunderbar Gottes Liebe ist — und wie konkret! Die Kirche, der lebendige Leib Christi, ist das Sakrament dieser ewigen Liebe in der Zeit. Gertrud von Le Fort sang einst, in einem herrlichem Gedicht, vom Wesen der Kirche mit diesen Worten: ‘Wie die blaue Liebe des Himmels über allen Wesen, so wölbst du dein Gezelt über den Zerstreuten! Wie das Goldmeer der Sonne von Fluren zu Fluren, so flutest du von Seele zu Seele! […] Du bist wie ein Umfangen in Tiefen der Seligkeit. Du bist wie ein Aufblühn unsrer Heimat. Du bist wie ein Lichtwerden unsrer dunklen Vernunft.’
Sagen wir ein paar Worte zu diesem Lichtwerden.
Der Kontext der Heilung des Blindgeborenen, wie Johannes sie beschreibt, ist eine akademische Diskussion. Der Blinde steht da, ein Mann, der Schweres zu tragen hat. Von der Jüngern wird er aber wenig beachtet. Sie sprechen über ihn als wäre er ein Gepäckstück, ein Objekt. Seine Blindheit sehen sie als Folge einer Schuld. Die Frage, die sie beschäftigt, ist nur: Wer ist schuld? An wen soll die Rechnung, an ihn selbst oder an die Eltern?
Jesus sagt ihnen: Nichts habt ihr verstanden. Wo die Zwölf annehmen, eine menschliche Realität liesse sich reduzieren zu einem durch Kalküle lösbaren Problem, sieht Jesus einen Ansatz von Genesung und Wachstum: ‘Die Werke Gottes sollen an ihm offenbar werden.’
So tut er etwas Wunderbares. Wie Gott am sechsten Tag der Schöpfung Staub vom Erdboden nahm, ihn mit Lebensatem füllte und daraus den Menschen, sein Ebenbild, schuf (Gen 2), spuckt Jesus auf die Erde, macht einen Teig, streicht ihn dem Blinden auf die Augen und sagt: ‘Geh und wasch dich in dem Teich Schiloach’. Das heißt übersetzt: ‘der Gesandte’. Den Teich hatte Hiskija, Israels König, ausgraben lassen als strategisches Reservoir während Jerusalem von Feinden belagert wurde (2 Chron 32). Jesus, Gottes gesandter Sohn, sendet sein Geschöpf, von seiner Hand neu geformt, zur Gesandten Wasserquell um dort Augenlicht und neuen Verstand zu holen. Eine millenare Heilsgeschichte erfüllt sich in dieser Geste.
Die Menschen rund umher werden mit der Erfüllung konfrontiert. Sie müssen dazu Stellung nehmen. Neutralität ist keine Option. Entweder hat Gott ein Wunder gewirkt und das Himmelreich ist tatsächlich nahe oder das Geschehene ist Täuschung. Die Nachbarn, die Eltern, die Pharisäer, die Jünger: alle müssen sich entscheiden: Ist dies wahr oder falsch, Wirklichkeit oder Illusion? War ich bis jetzt sehend oder blind?
Auch wir werden vor diesen Fragen gestellt.
‘Ich bin das Licht der Welt’, sagt Jesus. Glaube ich das, muss ich Folgerungen ziehen. Das Licht muss dann alles erleuchten: meinen Blick auf Zeit und Ewigkeit, auf die Welt, auf Politik und Kultur, auf mich selbst. Vielleicht macht mir das alles Angst. Wer weiss, was ich entdecken werde? Meine Angst ist grundlos. Alles Erleuchtete wird Licht. Was Gott berührt wird gesegnet, kann auch zum Träger des Segens werden.
Das Licht trägt. Es hat Substanz, die Dunkelheit hat keine. Christus ist das Licht der Welt, Lumen Gentium. Sein Licht strahlt in seiner Kirche, der geliebten. Sie ist nun das Aufblühn unsrer ewigen Heimat. Bleiben wir ihr verbunden, haben wir nichts zu fürchten. Sie zeigt uns den Menschensohn. An ihn glauben wir. Durch ihn, mit ihm und in ihm, sehend, können wir für alles dankbar sein. Amen.
***
1 Sam 16.6-13: God does not see as man sees.
Eph 5.8-14: Whatever the light shines on becomes light.
John 9.1-41: I am the light of the world.
The liturgy for Mass on Sundays in Lent are marked by themes provided by set Gospels. On the first Sunday we read about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. We get the point: we, too, must confront the evil one – and our own evil inclinations. The second Sunday gives us the Gospel of the Transfiguration. The Church, our Mother, tells us that Jesus’s Passion can only be understood in the light of his glory. On the third Sunday comes the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, the outsider who becomes an insider. There is transformative power, we see, in living water.
Today, then, we hear the Gospel of the man born blind, who is suddenly gifted with sight.
The thematic progression is pedagogical. From earliest times Lent has been the last period of preparation for baptismal candidates. The holy liturgy reminds catechumens of the structural elements of Christian faith. Next Sunday we shall read about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. A Christian is a man or woman who knows that death does not have the last word. Death, man’s age-old foe, has been vanquished by the gracious power of Christ Jesus. Then comes Palm Sunday. It introduces Holy Week, whose intensity is every year almost unbearable, allowing us to recognise and experience how our Saviour redeems and renews the world.
For all us, even though baptised as infants, it is good to consider these fundamental truths afresh in order to stand before them amazed. How wonderful God’s love is, and how concrete! The Church, the living Body of Christ, is the sacrament of his eternal love in time. Gertrud von Le Fort once sang about the essence of the Church in a glorious poem: ‘Like the blue love of heaven over all living things, you raise your tent like an arch over dispersed mankind. Like the golden sea of the sun from field to field you flow from soul to soul. […] You resemble an embrace in the depths of beatitude. You resemble a blossoming of our true home. You resemble the enlightening of our darkened reason.’
Let us say a word or two about this enlightening.
The context for the healing of the man born blind is, the way John describes it, an academic discussion. The blind man stands before us as a man carrying a heavy burden. The disciples do not pay him much attention. They talk about him as if were a left piece of luggage, a mere object. They regard his blindness as the consequence of guilt. The question that concerns them is: Who is guilty? To whom should the bill be sent, to the man himself or to his parents?
Jesus says to them: You have understood nothing. Where the Twelve think that a human reality can be reduced to a problem resolvable through calculation, Jesus sees an occasion for healing and growth: ‘The works of God will be displayed in him.’
He goes on to do a wonderful thing. The way God, on the sixth day, took dust from the earth, breathed into it, and formed man, his image (Genesis 2), Jesus spits on the ground, makes a dough, and applies it to the eyes of the blind man. He tells him: ‘Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam’, a name that means ‘Sent’. Hezekiah, king of Israel, once had that pool dug as a reservoir, while Jerusalem was under enemy siege (2 Chronicles 32). Jesus, the Son God has sent, sends his creature, reformed by his hand, to the Sent-Source in order, there, to find sight and sense. A millenarian story of salvation is fulfilled in this gesture.
The people who feature in the story are all confronted with this fulfilment. They must make up their minds about it. Neutrality is not an option. Either God has worked a wondrous sign and the kingdom of heaven is truly at hand or the thing that has happened is fake. The neighbours, the man’s parents, the Pharisees, the disciples: all must decide – is this true or false, reality or illusion? Have I till now been seeing or blind?
We, too, are confronted with these questions.
‘I am the light of the world’, says Jesus. If I truly believe this, I must draw inferences from it. This light must then enlighten everything: my outlook on eternity and time, on the world, on politics and culture, on myself. The prospect may frighten me. Who knows what I’ll discover? My fear, however, is misplaced. Whatever the light shines on becomes light. That which is touched by God is blessed, and can become a carrier of blessing.
The light carries us. The light has substance, darkness has none. Christ is the light of the world, Lumen gentium. His light shines in his Church, his beloved. She is the blossoming of our true, everlasting home. If we remain united with her, we have nothing to fear. She shows us the Son of Man. In him we believe. Through him, with him, and in him, enabled to see, we can be grateful for all things. Amen.
Wie das Goldmeer der Sonne von Fluren zu Fluren, so flutest du von Seele zu Seele!

Coram Fratribus

Finger of God Luke 11.14-23: Every kingdom divided against itself will fall.
As people of faith, we take it for granted that God acts in the world; that, at Mass, real transformation of bread and wine happens through divine agency; that, in Confession, God’s grace really forgives our sins.
What happens to this certainty once we cross the threshold of the church to step back into the world? Do we continue to live in God’s presence, confident in his action?
If God is God, omnipresent and all-powerful, he will not only act in controlled environments, at the altar and in the confessional. Then he will be present, too, when we are in our kitchen, in our car, in the woods, out shopping in town.
Today’s Gospel speaks of a specific manifestation of divine power. A dumb man, a man possessed, has been healed. He can speak. He is no longer subject to malign powers.
There is no doubt that a supernatural intervention has happened. Jesus’s enemies say: ‘Oh, it is just a matter of one demon replacing another.’ Jesus shows them, and us, how unreasonable such an attitude is.
Most of the crowd are in no doubt: God has acted. Jesus asks them to reflect on this perception.
He says: ‘If it is through the finger of God that I cast out demons, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken you’: then the life of God flows not just within certain parameters, but everywhere; then it can give you joy and peace and strength, an make claims on you, everywhere.
In a few moments we shall say ‘Amen’ to the Body of Christ held up before us. May that ‘Amen’ resound through the rest of the day. It has power to transfigure our work, our encounters, our conversations, our silence.
Christ, present within us, makes everything bright. If we consciously live by his life, the kingdom of God is a reality here and now, a luminous blessing for us and for the world.
Detail of the ceiling in the cloisters of Stična.

Coram Fratribus

Come to Complete Matthew 5:17-19: I have not come to abolish but to complete.
‘I have not come’, says Christ, ‘to abolish, but to complete’.
That motivation sounds strange in our ears, accustomed as they are to polarised agendas. In culture as in politics nowadays we are surrounded by institutions and individuals that promise, if only they get the upper hand, to cancel what went before. The fact that ‘cancellation’ has become such an important term in public discourse says a lot.
Ours has become a culture of discontinuity. Everyone seeks to make their mark by establishing contrasts, quite as in our cityscapes, where any thought of harmonious design is considered hopelessly old-fashioned. Developers are concerned to leave their signatures. They will last for a couple of decades, maybe three; then they will fall, or be pulled down. Who, now, builds anything intended to last for centuries?
God works differently. For him a thousand years is like a single day.
His concern is to unite, to piece together, to enable coherent wholeness. He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. His love is everlasting; his mercy is sure; his plan of salvation is linear. Lent gives us a chance to review our bitty lives in the light of God’s constancy.
Why don’t we ask ourselves whether there are, in our personal story of salvation, gaps to be breached, damages to be repaired?
God, who restores innocence, can create perfect works of art out of fragments. His providence is sure, infallible. It is more than able to realise itself also through fallible means and changing circumstances.
A mosaic artist at work in the Fabbrica di San Pietro. Photo: Vatican News.

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