Words of welcome for His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem

St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin
Sunday, July 21, 2024

Archbishop Farrell with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral

I warmly welcome His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, to St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral as the principal celebrant and homilist of our Mass today. I also welcome his Excellency Archbishop Luis Montemayor, Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, and the members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

Today’s Psalm (16th Sunday, Year B), one of the greatest psalms of the Psalter, does not seek to refine some teaching or other, but offers to the one who prays it the experience of the only shepherd who is truly good.

That Shepherd is with us; he journeys with us and he has prepared a banquet for us. But the psalmist is more than aware of the brokenness and darkness of life: “If I should walk in the valley of darkness no evil would I fear.” Our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land in both communities know first hand what it means to walk in the valley of darkness – hac lacrimarum valle, as the Salve Regina calls it.

Cardinal Pizzaballa, your presence here this morning calls us to embrace the work of the Shepherd and to trust in the banquet that the Lord himself has prepared for all peoples (Isa 25:6). On behalf of the Church in Dublin, I offer you our support in prayer and in deed.

Photos by John McElroy

Cardinal Pizzaballa greeting Alessandro Rossi de Gasperis and his father Gabriele Rossi de Gasperis after Mass in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral