Homily of Bishop Kevin Doran delivered at Mass in Sligo Cathedral
I received a phone call one night, from my Godson. It was over thirty years ago. He was five and a half years old. The “half” year was very important. He wanted to say thank you for his Christmas present, but he also had a very important piece of information to share with me. He said: “You know I will be six in April.” It took a moment before I realised that there was a connection between the two parts of the conversation. Saying “thank you” is probably the best way of saying “please” … “Please don’t forget me.”
So at this turning point between one year and the other, we look back and say thank you to God for all his blessings. For some, it may not be easy this year to see the goodness of God in the circumstances of their lives, but Saint Paul encourages us to “be thankful, always and in every situation” (1 Thess. 5:18).
In this very same prayer of thanksgiving this evening, we look to God who is the source of every good gift. In our personal smallness and our global insecurity, we ask Him for His blessing in the year ahead, on ourselves and our families, on our Church and on our civil society.
In his message today for the 2026 World Day of Peace, Pope Leo XIV makes the connection between Mary the Mother of God and the gift of peace. “Goodness is disarming”, he says. “Perhaps this is why God became a child. The mystery of the Incarnation, which reaches its deepest descent even to the realm of the dead, begins in the womb of a young mother and is revealed in the manger in Bethlehem.”
Traditionally Mary is sometimes referred to as “meek and mild”. It is true that, as we meet her in the Gospels, she comes across as a woman of few words, who accepts humbly what God is doing in her life. But Mary is also a strong woman:
– strong in the early days of her pregnancy as she gets up on a donkey and heads over the hill country of Judea to support her cousin Elizabeth, who is “with child”;
– strong as a parent in those hidden years in Nazareth, as she helps prepare her Son to become what his Father wants him to be;
– strong during those heady days of the public ministry of Jesus, and again at
the foot of the Cross.
Goodness is not weak; it is disarming precisely because it is strong. It finds its strength in the inner peace and self-possession of people like Mary and her Son Jesus. I think we see that strength from time to time in those unique people who inspire us and bring out the best in us, and who make the world a better place.
I don’t need to tell you that our world urgently needs peace, not just an end to major conflicts, but an end to every kind of violence, physical, verbal and emotional, that destroys the lives of people. Pope Leo asks us not to think or act as if peace were a vague possibility, sometime in the future, but to work for it in the circumstances of our daily lives, and to hold our governments to account for decisions and policies that undermine peace. In his world peace message today, the Holy Father says, “When we treat peace as a distant ideal, we cease to be scandalized when it is denied, or even when war is waged in its name. We seem to lack those ‘right ideas,’ the well considered words and the ability to say that peace is near. When peace is not a reality that is lived, cultivated and protected, then aggression spreads into domestic and public life”.
We have all witnessed in recent years the proliferation of armaments and military hardware, not just in places like Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, but in countries like Yemen, Sudan and Congo, which cannot even find the
resources to feed their citizens. Yes, of course, we need to be able to defend ourselves against aggression but, as Pope Leo points out, “Far beyond the principle of legitimate defense, such confrontational logic now dominates global politics, deepening instability and unpredictability day by day. …. Moreover, it should be noted that global military expenditure increased by 9.4% in 2024 compared to the previous year, confirming the trend of the last ten years and reaching a total of $2718 billion (or 2.5% of global GDP).”
We need to resist this logic of confrontation and do all that we can to make sure that it does not become part of the mindset of our society.
As the Son of God, Jesus was always one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In his earthly life, we are told that the Holy Spirit came upon him powerfully at his Baptism. That is why we see all the fruits of the Holy Spirit in his life: “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self Control.” But Saint Paul tells us clearly that if we live by the flesh rather than by the Spirit, then the fruits will include “bitterness, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions and factions” (Gal 5:5).
Peace begins as a gift which comes from God, but it only takes root when it becomes a decision that we make in our own lives to live by the Holy Spirit. Here is a hope-filled thought from Pope Leo today: “Peace”, he says, “is a principle that guides and defines our choices. Even in places where only rubble remains, and despair seems inevitable, we still find people who have not forgotten peace. Just as on the evening of Easter Jesus entered the place where his disciples were gathered in fear and discouragement, so too the peace of the risen Christ continues to pass through doors and barriers in the voices and faces of his witnesses.” As I read those words, I was reminded of the Parishioners of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, and their Italian parish priest.
There is one other thing that may be worth saying this evening. As I already mentioned, Mary the Mother of God was a woman of relatively few words, but as Saint Luke tells us, after all the events of the Nativity, “she pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart.” Sometimes, we are too quick to speak. Perhaps we don’t ponder enough.
One of the challenges that Pope Leo presents in his 2026 peace message, as a practical service to peace, is that people of faith, in every religious tradition, would “guard against the growing temptation to weaponize even thoughts and words.” This would seem to be a timely reminder for any of us, young or old, who use social media and who may be tempted at times to say hurtful and destructive things in online comments, that we might never say in polite company. “It has become increasingly common” Pope Leo says, “to drag the language of faith into political battles, to bless nationalism, and to justify violence and armed struggle in the name of religion. Believers must actively refute, above all by the witness of their lives, these forms of blasphemy that profane the holy name of God”.
“Peace be with you. Síochán libh go léir”.
ENDS
- This Mass was celebrated by Bishop Kevin Doran, Bishop of Achonry and of Elphin, for World Day of Peace on 1 January 2026, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Saint Mary’s Parish, Sligo.