A visit to Ireland: Faith, Family, and Vocations

BISHOP KEVIN J. SWEENEY

“TIf you read last week’s Beacon (or follow the Diocese of Paterson’s Facebook page or my Instagram), you would know that I recently had the opportunity to travel to Ireland. On the eighth day of a nine-day trip, I visited St. Teresa’s Church on Clarendon Street in Dublin. After returning home, I wanted to learn more about the church, so I visited the parish website. There, I found a very informative “introduction video” and learned how historic the church is. Some of the most notable people in Irish history worshiped there. Watch the video here.

Providentially, I visited the church just as 11:30 a.m. Mass was beginning. I stayed for the Mass and was reminded by the priest that it was the feast day of two (relatively) “new saints,” Ss. Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, whom Pope Francis canonized on Oct. 18, 2015. Click here for more information. 

The priest spoke of the importance of these two saints and the exemplary lives of faith that they had lived. He also said that their canonization was unique in two ways: it was the first time that a husband and wife were canonized together and that Louis is one of the few saints who was canonized with the awareness that he suffered from mental illness (depression). Louis and Zelie were blessed with nine children, but four (two boys and two girls) died in infancy. The youngest of the five surviving daughters, Therese, was only 4 when Zelie died in 1877. Louis allowed all five of his daughters to enter religious life (four in the Carmelite order and one a Visitation Sister).

It was particularly meaningful for me to reflect on the lives and examples of Ss. Louis and Zelie after having spent the previous seven days reconnecting with family (aunts, uncles, and cousins) in Ireland, visiting the homes and parishes where my parents had been born and raised and formed in the life of faith.

This is the sixth or seventh time I have been able to visit Ireland in the past 24 years. I traveled with my Mom and Dad in the summer of 1998, the year after I had been ordained. While each trip has been different, one common experience of each visit has been a tremendous sense of gratitude. It is inspiring to reflect on all my parents received from their parents, grandparents, teachers, communities, and parishes as the “seeds of faith” were planted and nourished in them from their earliest days.

Something different on this trip, compared to my earlier visits, was the experience I have had in the past two years here in Paterson. One of the many surprises when I first arrived and began to get to know the Diocese was the significant number of priests in our presbyterate who were born in Ireland. Just as we are each called to holiness through our baptismal vocation, and we can see how that call is lived out in the vocation to the single life and in the vocation to married life (see: Ss. Louis and Zelie), a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated religious life can surely be described as a “Gift and Mystery.” I have seen that “Gift and Mystery” in a new way as I have come to know the priests of our diocese, both those who were born and raised in our Diocese and those who have come to us from other nations.

I will always remember that two of my earliest priest funerals (or memorial Masses) were for two brothers, Msgr. Gene Boland and Msgr. Jack Boland. Our diocese and countless individuals and families were blessed by the lives and ministry of these two priests. We should also be aware of and grateful to the parents who raised them (in Ireland) and allowed them to leave home, family, and country to respond to the Lord’s call.

I was especially happy and grateful that I had the opportunity to meet the family of Msgr. Kieran McHugh in their home county of Galway (next door to County Mayo, where my parents are from). As I visited with seven of Msgr. McHugh’s brothers and sisters (see photo) it was another reminder of how the seeds of faith and vocation are planted and nourished by parents, grandparents, and extended family in faith-filled homes.

The beauty of the “Gift and Mystery” of our baptismal call to holiness and our Catholic faith is that the experience of the “domestic church” and faith-filled families can be and is experienced in almost every country and culture throughout the world. Similar to my previous visits to Ireland, as I return home (now to Paterson), the feeling of gratitude for my “roots” motivates me to live my own faith and vocation more fully each day.

It has been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” If you saw the pictures in last week’s Beacon, the ones available online, and a few more that I share this week, I think you can see that I had a wonderful trip. I returned home on the evening of July 14 and write these words on Saturday, July 16, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I don’t believe it was simply coincidence that I wandered into St. Teresa’s Church in Dublin on the Feast of Ss. Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin, who would give four daughters to the Carmelite Order. As we know, one of those daughters would become the “Little Flower,” perhaps the greatest saint of the 19th century, proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope St. John Paul II in 1997, and one of a long line of “Carmelite saints” who still have such a great impact on our Church today.

As we reflect on “Faith, Family, and Vocations,” we are reminded that we should never take these gifts for granted. While Ireland and the Irish people have a long and rich history of nourishing vocations to the priesthood and religious life and sending “missionary vocations” throughout the world, sadly, that is not the case today. As the Church faces challenges here in the United States, it has also faced challenges in Ireland and many other “Catholic countries,” particularly in Europe. Both here in the United States and in Ireland, as in countries throughout the world, there is hope that there will be a revival and renewed enthusiasm in the Church, especially as we participate in the Synod on Synodality.

If we are aware of the gifts of “Faith, Family, and Vocations” in our lives, then we know that we have much to be grateful to God for every day. Let us pray, as we give thanks for these gifts, that we would, each day, ask for the help and intercession of our Blessed Mother and all the saints to respond to God’s call and say “Yes” to his plan. Let us pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life, and let us also pray for a greater respect for the vocation of marriage and family life.