Climbing up the mountain

Croagh Patrick: for Irish Catholics that means pilgrimage. The mountain, situated in County Mayo in western Ireland, is 762 m. high. It is also known as the Reek (Gaelic term meaning “high hill”). The Reek has always been a sacred mountain, the goal of pilgrimages that have continued without interruption for over 1500 years. Its history is linked to St. Patrick, patron of Ireland, who spent 40 days in prayer and fasting on the summit of Reek in 441; he built a church that still exists. On Reek Sunday, which coincides with the last Sunday in July, thousands of faithful undertake a pilgrimage to the top of the mountain. Some 30,000 pilgrims joined this year’s pilgrimage on Reek Sunday. A Mass presided over by Archbishop Seán Brady of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, was celebrated at Westport, in the church dedicated to the Virgin, on Saturday, 29 July. He then took part in the pilgrimage up the mountain. The homily at the same Mass was given by Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam. Here are some significant passages from it. THE CHALLENGE OF THE FAITH . “Every mountain presents a challenge. For centuries men and women have tried to conquer the world’s greatest height. […]. Here Croagh Patrick represents a different challenge, for, as we trudge our way up to the summit, we come face to face with ourselves as followers of Christ in this new century. The longer and more difficult pilgrimage is the one to our own heart. We climb for a variety of reasons. We climb so that loved ones can climb out of sick beds. We climb to clear our heads and remember the dead who guided our first steps. We climb because of the sins of today and our sin of yesterday. We climb to catch a glimpse of God in strength and faith. We do so in memory of those who walk the pilgrim path of life with us. We climb the Reek to be support to others and to be supported by them as our strength wanes and our limbs tire. Today we remember that we are pilgrims through the years of life as we journey toward death and eternity. […] The end of any pilgrimage implies a new beginning. We come on this pilgrimage not as an end in itself but in the hope of gaining clarity for the continuation of the journey of faith”. WELCOMING OTHERS . “There would come a time in our history when famine and poverty condemned many sons and daughters of Patrick to cross many seas in search of work, dignity and peace. […] Our literature and song is filled with the emigrant experience. […] In these years of our land’s prosperity men, women and children, like the Irish many years ago, had to leave their own native lands to come here in search of work, peace and dignity. They have found it hard to leave behind the hills of Kenya, the Niger Delta, the sacred soil of Poland and the Carpathian Mountains of Romania or even the war-torn, famine-ravaged plains of their country caught up in endless wars. They too know moments of homesickness, just as the Irish did in the Bronx or in the boarding houses of Camden Town. As a Christian people we must cry out welcome again and again in parish and new community projects. It is lamentable to read and to see the abuse hurled at the strangers [in our midst] because they are different in language, culture and religion. We are a sad people if we think that the limits of human behaviour have been reached within our own borders or that the only songs are our songs and that the only culture is our culture. That line of thought would have put Patrick back to Britain again and left us to our Celtic pagan ways. […] On this national pilgrimage we pray: ‘God of the nomad and of the pilgrim, may we find our security in you and not in our possessions. May our homes be open to our guests and our hearts to one another so that our travelling is lighter as together we reach the goal”. FACT FILE In Ireland today there are 26 dioceses with a population of Catholics estimated at 4,171,064 out of 5,477,420 inhabitants. There are 3129 diocesan priests in the island; 3036 consecrated male and 9248 female religious. There are 67 seminarians preparing to become priests. Though participation in Sunday mass remains rather high, a slight and continuous decline in the number of practising Catholics is registered in Ireland, as elsewhere in Europe. Only the arrival of large numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe offsets this trend.