"Happy are those who hunger and thirst for what is right" Matt 5:6
Feast of St. Brigid
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time,
Cobh
1 February 2026
My friends,
Isaiah 43:19 says,
“See I am doing a new deed
Even now it comes to light: can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness,
Paths in the wild.”
It is this verse from Isaiah that we in the Diocese of Cloyne have chosen to serve as the theme of our pastoral renewal program. For the past year or more we have been engaged in conversation, reflection and prayer across the parishes to discern and put in place new ways for people and priests to work together to consolidate our sense of shared mission and pastoral care in our new context.
This past week the priests of the diocese dedicated three days to reflection and prayer on the challenges and opportunities this task entails for both priest and people.
This reflection that the diocese is engaged in is similar to that which has taken place in most diocese across the country and indeed will continue to go on.
In our reflection and conversation, we were guided by several speakers, lay and clerical, who have walked this path already. Some insights of theirs naturally commanded our attention. One such observation was ‘decline and or loss is not failure,’ it is change. Indeed, some losses are necessary for a new thing to emerge.
“Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains but a single grain.”
Jn 12:24
We were reminded that whatever changes we put in place – their success is to be measured not by their practical efficiency, rather by their strengthening our sense of mission, our desire to share the riches of our faith in Christ with one another in family and our Church community.
In terms of our faith experience, we are witnessing something of the desert, harsh and dry. We thirst for inspiration and goodness, for virtue and beauty, for nobility and wholeness. We are rightly shocked and disenchanted by the naked ambitions of much political leadership. The world yearns for those with big hearts and minds who aspire to serve all humanity unfettered by race, origin or creed. Many are frightened – especially the young, who fear being gobbled up by man eating technology. They are rightly fearful – we should be also.
This reality makes it yet more urgent to build up our communities of faith – to guide and support our families in their most difficult task to protect and guide our young people.
The Word of God today is so rich in offering us the God given instruments for wholesome living.
“Seek the Lord, all you,
The humble of the earth,
Who obey his commands.
Seek integrity, seek humility.”
Zeph 2:3
The Beatitudes, in the Gospel are so consoling for any one of us at some time or other in life. They span the gamut of our experience. “Happy/Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right.” That calls for integrity of heart and spirit – it calls for courage and humility.
So often in our Reading of St. Paul that we find a pearl of our faith captured so beautifully in a few short words. He points to the foolishness of human reckoning.
“The human race has nothing to boast about to God, but you, God has made members of Christ Jesus and by God’s doing he has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness and our freedom.”
It is this wondrous grace that excites us to trust again in the promise of Isaiah.
“See I am doing a new deed
Even now it comes to light.”
