Mass for the 25th Anniversary of the New Redemptoristine Monastery
and the 300th Anniversary of the Revelation of the Order to Maria Celeste Croostorosa
4th May 2025
Homily of Archbishop Dermot Farrell
I am delighted to celebrate this mass to mark the Silver Jubilee of the opening of this beautiful Redemptoristine monastery. Today, we “remember the past with gratitude; live the present with enthusiasm; look to the future with confidence;” (Pope St John Paul II, Nuovo Millennio Innuente, 1)
There are a few things I wish to note about today’s celebration.
First, you are still living the monastic life in Drumcondra after 166 years. For your presence we give thanks. Despite the many changes in the world, including the tsunami of information that now comes through social media channels, you have continued your contemplative way of life as envisaged by your foundress, the Venerable Maria Celeste Crostarosa (1696-1755) for whom mysticism was not the ecstasy of a sustained psycho-spiritual experience or extraordinary graces such as visions, or levitations, but rather a living experience of the Lord until she can say: “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20) Maria Celeste and those who follow the Redemptoristine way of life embody the two great ‘laws’ of contemplation, “pray” and “pray regularly.” In her words, “and that is all there is to it.”
Of course some things have not changed. Nations are still at war, refugees and immigration are still big issues. Loneliness and the fragmentary nature of life today is still a challenge. We have gone from the Valley of the squinting windows to a situation where nobody might look at you. As contemplatives you focus on what does not change. The contemplative focuses on the eternal. Your community of contemplation is a still point in a turning world. One contemplative order enshrines this in their motto: stat crux dum volvitur orbit — the cross stands while the world turns.
Secondly, you have moved forwards embracing change without creating a rupture in your contemplative way of life whose rule demands detachment from the outside world. When the Monastery was founded it was outside the City. Respecting your rule, with unmistakeable courage and vision you have found ways to keep the community alive and vibrant in the heart of a busy City. You did not give up in the face of challenges. Rather than being focused short-sightedly on the glory of the past, and retaining an infrastructure from another age that was not fit for purpose — old wineskins, to use the Lord’s phrase — you accepted the responsibility of mission as you experience it now, and built this new monastery in furtherance of your mission.
Thirdly, you invested in hope. Contemplative life is a journey into hope. You are women of expectation and hope. Every day in prayer and work you are embodying hope. I have no doubt that you have had to grapple with the deepest human emotions—fear and desire, sorrow and joy—but you did not lose hope because you had an unshakeable belief and trust in a God who is always faithful to his promises although He sometimes surprises us in the way he fulfils them. You have attracted new sisters and are now an international community.
Our lives will only be renewed if we place our trust in One greater than ourselves, in One who has passed through the valley of death, with hope in the One who “is the way, the truth and the life,” the One who discloses God’s mind to us. “If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him.” (John 14:7) Paul refers to Jesus as the “icon of the invisible God.” What both Jesus and Paul are saying is to hear the words of Jesus is to hear the Word of God. To see Jesus is to see the human face of God.
Christian hope is the confident expectation that God will give us all we need to lead a risen life, the life of Christ, life in and with the risen Lord. And that is not a gift you can buy at Aldi or Lidl; it comes only from God’s Spirit welling up within you, the Spirit who alone can help you to hope against hope, to live passionately in the face of death.
All of us know this, at least instinctively; and that is why we are here. We know and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Our presence here today testifies to what we believe and confess. The fact that we receive the Eucharist week after week affirms our faith that Christ is the way to the Father.
In today’s Gospel for the Feast of Saints Philip and James, Philip still doesn’t get this. He says, “Master, show us the Father.” What he missed was the humility of Christ Jesus: “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.” (John 14:10) Neither the words nor the deeds of Jesus are “his own.” They are received from the Father.
Fourthly, your contemplative life testifies to the hidden work of prayer. Your lives witness to the value of a life of prayer, intercession and the ‘not yet’ dimension of hope. Prayer and hope are deeply intertwined. Those who have hope live and pray differently. (See Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, 3) An important part of prayer is waiting: waiting for God to speak, waiting for God to show his hand, waiting for God to reveal his presence. To wait in hope is key expression of faith. Life-giving faith is much more about waiting in hope for God to reveal himself than it is about singing up to a set of beliefs we feel we have to accept. You are a community of faith who wait together “in joyful hope for the coming of our Lord and Saviour”, as we pray in the Mass.
The contemplative focuses on God and on the fact that He has never abandoned the world. God has not left his creation. Contemplatives witness to the fact that God has not abandoned us. When we go to God in prayer, we discover not only a new vision of God, but also a new vision of ourselves and of our neighbours. The love of Christ the Redeemer which constitutes the spirit of your community implies that you will gradually be transformed in Him” (See constitution, 9). Today, we thank God for years of sustained prayer and commitment to God. We give thanks for leaving ourselves open to God. We give thanks for the graces the contemplative’s life brings to the world which are known only to God.
Today, we thank the sisters for their constant intercession for those whose names are known to them and for those who have no name.
Contemplatives rest on what God is doing in the world and in our hearts. Outwardly they are busy; inwardly the life they have “is hidden with Christ in God” (Eph 3,3). When the Spirit prays in the human spirit we move from sin to sanctity, from law to love, from self to others, from death to life. One can see or feel oneself being loved and loving in return.
Every Eucharist is an act of thanksgiving. We thank God for 166 years of Redemptoristine life in Dublin and the 300th anniversary of the revelation of the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (25th April 1725). We thank God for the generous and unselfish way ‘Red Nuns’ lived out their vocation and for the many ways in which God has blessed your lives. For 166 years you have witnessed to Christ here in Drumcondra through your daily commitment to the Lord in prayer and the celebration of the Eucharist.
Archbishop Farrell with the sisters of the Monastery of St Alphonsus at Mass to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of the new convent on St Alphonsus’ Road, Drumcondra
