Diocesan Pilgrimage to Knock 2023

Meath Diocesan Pilgrimage to Knock
13th August 2023
Homily given by Fr. Declan Hurley


It is wonderful for us to be here!
It is wonderful that so many of us have come from the Diocese of Meath on this annual pilgrimage to this great shrine. The buses in the carpark from familiar places across the Diocese symbolise a people on the move, a pilgrim people making this prayerful faith-journey so that we can gather here.

It is wonderful to be joined by our dedicated diocesan choir. Its members come from all across the diocese, and they come together to enrich their experience of liturgical singing, and to be a powerful resource for our large diocesan gatherings and celebrations. It is their third pilgrimage to Knock this year as a choir, so we thank them for their dedication and generosity.

It is wonderful to be joined by so many from other parts of the country and from abroad. Whether you are here just for the day, or for the annual Novena that begins tomorrow, please join with all of us from the Diocese of Meath in saying that it is indeed wonderful for us to be here.

And of course, there are also the people we carry in our hearts … those who normally make the pilgrimage with us but are unable to do so today … and those whose intentions we carry in our hearts today, entrusting them to Our Lady of Knock, trusting that she whose hands are raised here in intercession will intercede with her Son on our behalf.

To those of you joining us via the livestream, I ask you to join your prayers to ours here. Please pray for the diocesan community of Meath. Please pray that we will grow in faith, hope, and love; that like Mary, we will be a local church that is joyful in saying “yes” to God; that we will be nourished by the Word of God that the Apostle John holds out to us here; and that our love of the Eucharist, the Lamb of God who shed his blood for us, will be at the heart of our communities when we gather for Sunday Mass, and when there is prayerful, silent adoration sustaining our parishes, our priests, and those discerning a vocation to priesthood and religious life.

And I’m delighted to be joined by some of my brother priests from the Diocese of Meath. Dear brother priests, I ask you to join me in carrying in your hearts today the intentions of our bishop, Bishop Deenihan, our retired bishop, Bishop Smith, and all our brother priests. Let us pray that we might all be committed and joyful messengers of the message from Heaven that was given in this place: the promise of heavenly glory, the victory of the Cross, the Gospel that offers life in fullness, and the faith that conquers fear.

There is a person in every parish – we all know him or her! – and you probably met this person during the past week, and you said to them: “I’m heading to Knock on Sunday! Are you going yourself?” And with that wonderful, devastating wisdom that some people have – the wisdom that justifies whatever they want and silences all contradiction – they said back to you, “Ah no, sur’ I can say my own prayers at home!” You probably felt a bit put down by the comment, and perhaps their words were ringing in your ears as you made the journey here today. In one sense, they are of course right! It’s true, after all! You don’t have to travel anywhere to pray. And a prayer offered at home is as good as a prayer offered here! But of course, what they forget is that prayer is not just about what we say to God. It’s also about what God says to us! And when we go on pilgrimage, we go in the hope – in fact, we go in the expectation, the conviction! – that God will speak to us in a particular way in a particular place.

And here in Knock we encounter the God who spoke here in silence. On that August day in 1879 the heavenly message that radiated from here in brilliant light was uttered in silence. As we love to sing when we are here: “though your message was unspoken, but the truth in silence lies”. And that should not surprise us! Look at Elijah in the first reading – he encounters God in silence! And in the Gospel, when Christ enters the boat that carries his terrified disciples, there is calm, there is peace.

Surely here today, the God whom we encounter here is calling us to listen to his voice in silence. Our world is noisy! We can’t escape from the din and cacophony of noise, so much so that we are addicted to it. It’s as if we can’t live without it. But perhaps even more serious from the spiritual point of view is the noise of our thoughts and emotions.

When Elijah arrived at Horeb, his mind and heart were filled with the noises of anger and hatred and violence. The violence manifested in the wind, earthquake, and fire are surely external emotions of the violent emotions raging within Elijah himself. But God is not in the anger; God is not to be found in the violent, destructive emotions that threaten to destroy Elijah and his relationship with God. Instead, God is in the gentle. God speaks to Elijah in a whisper, and when Elijah hears the whisper of God’s voice, he is able to emerge from the darkness of the cave where he has been hiding.

We know this ourselves! We know that when we are consumed by anger and hatred, when we are gripped by fear, we retreat into a dark place, and we are prey to the violent destructiveness of those thoughts and feelings.

And if it’s true of us, it’s also true of the Church! There are so many noises in the Church today. There is anger because of what has happened in the Church ; there is fear – fear for the future of our parishes, fear for the faith of our children and grandchildren. People who love God and who love the Church are shouting at one another, calling for each other to be punished or expelled from the Church.

That is not the Church of Christ! That’s not the community of disciples that Jesus established! The boat of the Church is called to carry everyone across the turbulent waters of life, and in that boat we are all called to listen to the voice of God. This is the synodal Church that Pope Francis is calling us to be – a Church where we can discern together the voice of God who speaks in the gentle breeze.

In Lisbon last week, Pope Francis asked the 1.5 million young people gathered there to rediscover what it means to be in silent adoration – to spend time in the presence of the Lord in silence and adoration so that we can discern the gentle voice of God in our lives. Many of the young people who returned from Lisbon have spoken about the powerful experience of adoration there, when that huge crowd fell in silence in the presence of the Lamb of God.

That call of Pope Francis is echoed here in Knock. The witnesses to the apparition portrayed in the mosaic here are adorers – they contemplate the heavenly message that is uttered in silence. Let us carry home to our parishes the beautiful message of the God who speaks to us in silence, and whose presence is gentleness and peace. Let us create in our homes and parishes the opportunities for silence so that we can discern the voice of God calling us to be a people of faith, hope, and love.