The reasonings of mortals are unsure (Wis 9)
23rd Sunday C
Mass with Konkan Community, Carrigtwohill
7 September 2025
My friends,
In anticipation of this celebration with the Konkan Community, I again found myself resorting to a Google search to renew my sense of your homeland, your roots and your place in the context of the Indian nation. Apart from the beauty and diversity of your homeland, your experience as Catholic Christians is that of a minority among a great variety of faith traditions. This experience has, I imagine, equipped you well as an immigrant community in Ireland. Your strong focus on family and faith is a very conscious choice on your part as a way of nurturing all that is best in your culture in your new home.
A detail I noticed in my search is that the first such gathering of Konkan families took place in 2000 – almost 25 years ago now. It is clear that gathering for times of celebration are customary and that you do so also ‘round important religious festivals – like that of the Birth of the Virgin Mary which we celebrate tomorrow September 8th. Today we anticipate that festival of God’s mysterious working in the world through his chosen servant Mary.
Your tradition and indeed our own long Irish tradition of faith and life has been to see and understand life as a single fabric, graced continually by our Creator God. In practice we do not seek to create separate domains of that which is sacred from the practical and ordinary, that in the eyes of so many is secular, separate and different. That single fabric of life under Gods providence is a seamless garment with a great diversity in its design.
Today the church invites us to reflect on some Old Testament verses from the Book of Wisdom, Psalm 89 along with the Gospel from St. Luke. The wisdom and insight of these verses are the reason we gather in faith.
“Make us know the shortness of our life
That we may gain wisdom of heart.” Psalm 89.14
My friends, if retain an awareness that each day of life given to us is precious, we will want to live it well and with purpose.
“The reason of mortals are unsure
And our intentions unstable
For a perishable body presses down the soul
And this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind.” Wis 9:15
These insights come not from modern psychology but from the Old Testament, Wisdom tradition hewh from of the rock of long experience of living.
Our contemporary Western model of living has abandoned such truths – pride and the lure of riches has hardened our hearts with a rugged rationalism that increasingly seeks to smother the reality of our spiritual core as people. We in Ireland, are part of that process of incremental secular perspective on life.
I thank you for the opportunity to celebrate Holy Mass with you today. I commend your commitment to your faith heritage in this new life context. Additionally, might I suggest that you not underestimate your witness to faith in a in a rapidly changing Irish culture. Because of our recent history of the exposure of our past failures, many among us have become too embarrassed to admit to religious faith and practice. Be aware that your confidence in faith is a great gift to those who have been inclined to put the light under the bed instead of on the stand where all can see and enjoy its radiance.
