26.09.2016
’They Heard God’s Call in a Changing Ireland’ – Ordination to the Priesthood in Dublin and Glendalough
Kevin has been ordained for Curacy in St Patrick’s Parish, Dalkey, having served as Deacon Intern in Stillorgan and Blackrock. Nigel has been ordained for Curacy in Taney Parish where he also served as Deacon Intern.
Christ Church Cathedral was full for the service as family, friends and people from their parishes gathered to support Kevin and Nigel. Introducing the service, the Archbishop welcomed everyone on a day which he said was very special in the life of the dioceses. In particular he said it was a special day in the lives of Kevin and Nigel, who are “surrounded by friends and family and people who have prayed for them and supported them and encourage them”.
In her address, Professor McAleese took as her inspiration the hymn Here I am Lord and observed that while both men had taken very different pathways to ordination they had both answered God’s call with the words ‘Here I am Lord’.
“For all the differences of their personalities, gifts and experiences there are also very important similarities. Both began the journey that brought them to this altar today, when they were baptised as Christians, probably as babies as so many of us were. They grew up in homes and communities where faith was lived and loved. They raised their families in a changing Ireland, pushing towards peace and reconciliation through the vanities of denominational difference and wounds of a sectarian history. They heard God’s call to them in a changed Ireland grown more and more cold to the very idea of God, more and more estranged from the community we call Church,” she said.
She said that “hard–earned peace and relative prosperity” of Ireland in the 21st century made us one of the more civilized countries on this troubled earth. But where once communal life was characterized by a resilient faith, today many believers carry a grief and a loss of innocence in faith, dogma and religious institutions. “In the grinding teeth of those storms of doubt and cynicism these two men did not surrender to any counsel of despair. Instead they stepped out of the speeding mainstream and stepped up, ‘Here I am Lord’,” she continued.
The full text of Professor McAleese’s address is below.
Photo captions:
Top – The Revd Alan Breen, Archbishop Michael Jackson, the Revd Kevin Conroy, the Revd Nigel Pieropoint, Professor Mary McAleese and the Revd Eugene Griffin.
Middle – The Revd Kevin Conroy and the Revd Nigel Pierpoint are ordained to the priesthood in Christ Church Cathedral.
Below – Professor Mary McAleese delivering her address.
Service of Ordination to the Priesthood
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
25 September 2016
Address Given by Professor Mary McAleese
I am probably pushing my luck and inviting the floor to open up and swallow me by standing at this most famous of Anglican preaching podium’s and straight up mentioning a Jesuit– or at least a former Jesuit, the composer of contemporary Catholic liturgical music Dan Schutte. I mention him because the words one of his popular hymns, Here I am Lord, seems so apt for this occasion and because it has become a favourite of Catholics and Protestants alike. Don’t worry I am not going to subject you to my singing but I am going to rifle its lovely poetry for the sentiments that I think this occasion deserves and which I find beautifully articulated there.
In the song the Lord speaks–; “I the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry… Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?”
What brings us here today to this ordination ceremony is the response of two men to those questions. Kevin and Nigel have answered the Lord’s call, saying as in the words of the hymn:
“Here I am Lord– Is it I Lord I have heard you calling in the night– I will go Lord if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart”.
That is their promise before us today, to answer God’s call, to bring God’s light to people in darkness, his healing to people in pain, his love to heart’s that have stopped believing in love, his embrace to the overlooked and forgotten and above all his hope.
The journey to this day could not have been more different for our two ordinands and not just because one is a Dub who may or may not be praying for the miracle of tickets to the All–Ireland football final replay and the other is from Portlaoise . He definitely does not need tickets for a county which has not graced an All Ireland Final Sunday since 1936 but maybe hoping for an even bigger miracle next year! Kevin’s path to this day took him through baptism as a Catholic, membership of the Christian Brothers, a career in IT, marriage to Olive and the joy of becoming a dad to Shane, Cathal and Cian. Nigel’s journey began with baptism as a Methodist, a career in the motor industry, marriage to Anne and the joy of becoming a dad to Claire and Stephen. Today both will leave here as ordained priests of the Church of Ireland.
For all the differences of their personalities, gifts and experiences there are also very important similarities. Both began the journey that brought them to this altar today, when they were baptised as Christians, probably as babies as so many of us were. They grew up in homes and communities where faith was lived and loved. They raised their families in a changing Ireland, pushing towards peace and reconciliation through the vanities of denominational difference and wounds of a sectarian history. They heard God’s call to them in a changed Ireland grown more and more cold to the very idea of God, more and more estranged from the community we call Church.
“I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have born my peoples pain. I have wept for love of them, They turn away. I will break their hearts of stone, Give them hearts for love alone. I will speak My word to them, Whom shall I send?”
In that Ireland where so many have turned away, Kevin and Nigel answered: “Here I am Lord”.
Anyone who thinks that answer was easy need only look at the courage it must have taken to change the course of their lives so dramatically, leave behind careers, to explain to families and friends, to blur the old distinctions of difference, to commit to a testing internship, serious studies and most important of all to commit to a future as signs of contradiction, by volunteering to join this most endangered of species– ministers of the gospel, ordained priests, men of God, servants of the People of God.
Like Kevin and Nigel, we are all of this 21st century Ireland. Our hard–earned peace and relative prosperity have made us one of the more civilised countries on this troubled earth but where once communal life was characterised by a resilient faith, today many believers carry a grief and a loss of innocence in faith, in dogma, in religious institutions, that is captured almost prophetically in the final stanza of the Aisling poem Domhnall Og.
Bhain to thoir agus bhain to thiar diom/ Bhain to an ghealach gheal is an ghrian diom/ Bhain to an croi seo bhi i lar mo chliebhe diom/Is nac ri–mhor e m’fhaitios gur bhain to Dia diom.
You have taken the east from me and the west/ you have take the moon from me and the stars/you have taken the heart from within me/ and my greatest fear is that you have taken my very God from me.
In the grinding teeth of those storms of doubt and cynicism these two men did not surrender to any counsel of despair. Instead they stepped out of the speeding mainstream and stepped up, “Here I am Lord”.
Along with their families, friends, colleagues, parishioners from Dalkey and Taney, we thank them for the faith and hope they represent and for the good they will invest in the lives of others through their ordained ministries from today onwards. May the God who called them, be ever– present to them filling and refuelling them with the grace that is so evident here in Christchurch on this ordination day which we are privileged to share. May He hold them in his heart and may they in turn hold, all of us, His people, in their hearts.