Pilgrimage to Portugal

Homily for Our Lady of Sorrows 15 September 2007 delivered in Oporto Cathedral Today’s Liturgy shows us how close to her beloved Son Our Lady was, and how that closeness, that total identification, meant that his pain became her pain. That is a terrible phrase, a piece of psychobabble we hear all the time, but the parents among you, especially perhaps the mothers here, will know the truth of it- how you go through all the turmoils of your children’s lives with them. Closeness to people eventually means that we become like them, we take on some of our friends’ ways, their speech and turns of phrase, even perhaps their opinions. And when we look at that special form of friendship that is marriage, we all know married people who have grown so together that they always know what each other is thinking, what they’re going to say before they say it, and so on. That is why it is very important for us to choose our friends well, because they will influence us. Parents know this very well, that is why they are always so anxious about their children’s friends, especially in the teenage years, when children can become such copycats! As you know, I worked in the East End of London for many years with delinquent teenagers and their families, and one of the first questions I would always ask when I first met a youngster in trouble was “Who are your friends?” In German there is a saying, “Mitgegangen, mitgehangen”, which means, the people you hang around with will get you hanged. So who are our friends then? Well on our pilgrimage this week we have made a deliberate effort to come close to some really major saints, those closest in life to Our Lord. We went to Compostela to get to know St James, to acquire some kind of intimacy with one of the disciples- Peter, James and John- who was always in Our Lord’s inner circle, one of his special friends, one to whom he gave special insights. Then yesterday we journeyed to Fatima, to Our Lady, to draw close to Our Blessed Mother, the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of us all, the person who was and is closest of all to Jesus, who always has his listening ear. Can we let them influence us? I think we should. Let us be a bit rash in our love for Our Lord, like St James- when Jesus said to him “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”, even though he didn’t really know what that meant, nevertheless, he said straightaway “Yes, we can!” We want to have some of that enthusiasm of St James too, that is why we hugged him at Compostela, we want to be one with him and make the same kind of enthusiastic offering of ourselves to Our Lord. And as for Our Lady- do you remember the Gospel reading we had the other day, when the angel appears to Joseph and says “Do not be afraid to take Mary to your home”? Well, that is a message for us- we must not be afraid to take Mary with us to our homes as we return to them this evening. May each one of us have no fear, and be willing and happy to take Mary to our home. Let us make the saints our friends and let our intimacy with them influence us, change our lives and bring us ever closer to our Blessed Lord. Amen.