- The following homily was delivered by Father Eamonn Conway at the opening Mass for the Lough Derg three-day pilgrimage
Homily
Lough Derg will not be the hungriest place on earth this weekend. That will be Gaza.
By now we are familiar with the images of children saturating our social media and TV screens, their tiny, shrivelled bodies wasting away because of starvation, their parents, helpless and hopeless, cradling them as their bodies slowly turn into corpses. We are now becoming so familiar with these images that we run the risk of becoming desensitised to them. Yet is it possible to imagine any pain greater than cradling one’s dying child?
Meanwhile, life-saving food supplies lie stockpiled a few kilometres away, in some cases beginning to rot and perish. What we are speaking about is evil; nothing less than horrific, incalculable evil.
The ominous background to our pilgrimage season on Lough Derg this year, 2025, is war, conflict and wanton disregard for the dignity of human life on a scale our planet hasn’t seen for many decades. The list of war zones across our planet continues to grow: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Kashmir, Kursk. And there is a new element. A line has been crossed, one that our world may never be able to retreat from: the direct and deliberate targeting and executing of the innocent on an unprecedented scale, in some instances state-sponsored, while other states look on.
Faced with this people will respond in different ways.
Some may see such violence as acceptable. I really do not know what to say to that.
Some will simply disengage. The poet TS Eliot once said that “humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Perhaps understandably given the horror of what is unfolding, some will block their ears and avert their eyes from the horror of what is happening, finding it all too much. In so doing, however, they run the risk of also blocking their head, hearts and hands, in other words, the risk of disengaging from their duty as Christians to demonstrate love of neighbour to those suffering in meaningful and practical ways.
Others will acknowledge the horror of the realities unfolding before their eyes but, feeling helpless, decide just to get on with their lives, taking the view that making a difference is above their paygrade. Pope Francis repeatedly warned, however, against indifference, which he called a very ugly disease that comes from the hardening of our hearts. And we all know the expression that “evil thrives when good men do nothing.”
None of these three responses, viewing the violence and conflict that is unfolding as justified, disengaging from what is happening, or succumbing to indifference, are acceptable for us as Christians.
We are obliged to condemn what is happening, but also to engage. And I am sure many of you have already done so, whether through supporting and donating to the charities that are doing their best to alleviate suffering or by participating in peaceful protest to draw attention to the horror of what is happening. Both of these actions are practical expressions of our love. A uniquely powerful expression of solidarity and love, however, can be our pilgrimage this year to Lough Derg.
Our hunger pains as pilgrims over these three days will be trivial by comparison with those dying of hunger over these same days. Our fasting will be voluntary, theirs enforced. Ours, good for the body as well as the soul, theirs… it will kill them. Nonetheless, our fasting can be offered to them, our brothers and sisters, as a small gesture of solidarity, of recognition of their inalienable human dignity, beauty and worth before God.
Our being barefoot, sleepless and temporarily deprived of home comforts over these three days, all temporary discomforts in our case, can be a small sharing in the sufferings of our fellow human beings who have been forcefully and permanently dispossessed of even the most basic of human comforts, the fate of an increasing number of people in different parts of the planet.
Our standing, kneeling, walking, as we undertake the pilgrimage exercises, our seemingly aimless barefoot tramping around the penitential beds and, during the night, around this basilica, can also be entered into by us as a solidarity march of sorts. A march in solidarity with those, who, as we pilgrim on this island, will be carrying with them, literally in many cases, upon their shoulders, their children and their elderly, and wheeling carts with what few possessions they still have, on a forced march from one unsafe village to the next with no prospect of their ‘pilgrimage’ ending soon.
For these few days, Lough Derg, this small island in Donegal, can be our war-zone, our battle-field. Here we can do our bit to pray and work for peace.
First of all, we can pray and work to defeat the evil that dwells in us ourselves, the seeds of power abuse, greed and selfishness that may have taken root in our own hearts from which spring the same horrors, different only in degree, we see unfolding on the world-stage. We can work to soften our hearts, overcome any indifference to the plight of others that may lie there, reboot our empathy, sympathy and solidarity with suffering humanity. Working to overcome the evil in our own hearts we can offer a sincere prayer for the conversion of perpetrators of evil everywhere.
Second, and perhaps most important of all, we can unite in prayer with them and for them. You know that Pope Francis, for as long as he was able to, used to call telephone the Catholic parish in Gaza each night to let them know he was praying for them. Our prayers on this holy island during our pilgrimage can also rise up and out beyond the confines of this island and let those suffering know that in our own small way we acknowledge them as our brothers and sisters in Christ and that we offer the exercises of our pilgrimage for them, and not just for them but for all suffering violence and famine at this time.
Above all, we can be united with those who suffer as we celebrate the Eucharist. Writing in his encyclical on Care for our Common Home, Laudato Sí, Pope Francis said, that
the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: “Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world”. The Eucharist joins heaven and earth…
The Body and Blood of our Lord, freely given, is the antidote to the selfishness and greed which gives rise to the conflicts and wars that begin in human hearts and lead to the horrors unfolding before our eyes. The Body of Christ, freely given, is the unleashing of incalculable love in the face of incalculable evil. And so, as we celebrate the Eucharist at this Opening Mass for the Lough Derg Pilgrimage 2025, we too engage in an act of solidarity with suffering humanity that is of cosmic significance. May our prayers, offered sincerely and with humility, convert the hearts of evil perpetrators and bring comfort and relief to those who suffer.
Amen
ENDS
- Father Eamonn Conway is a priest of the Tuam archdiocese and Professor of Integral Human Development at University of Notre Dame Australia. He presided at the Opening Mass for the 2025 Three-Day Pilgrimage Season on May 30th
- To find out more information about Lough Derg’s three-day pilgrimages please visit HERE
