Graduation Mass – College Chapel, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth
11 October 2025
Thirteen graduate to work in Accord Centres across the island to deliver Marriage Preparation Programmes, while six graduated as counsellors specialising in couple therapy
Homily delivered by Bishop Denis Nulty, President of Accord:
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born on the 25th November in 1881. He was the son of Battista Roncalli and Marianna Mazzola, who lived in the picturesque Sotto il Monte, better known as Bergamo today. I speak of Pope John XXIII whose feast we celebrate this day. The smiling Pope who gifted us by calling the Second Vatican Council. When the late Pope Francis invited the universal church, all of us, to travel the synodal pathway, he was in effect asking us to complete the work begun by Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli then over sixty years ago.
Recently someone asked might the emphasis on synodality lessen under Pope Leo XIV? If the Second Vatican Council is the compass for the Church in the twenty-first century, synodality is the name of that compass. The recent publication of Dilexi Te, the eagerly awaited first Papal Exhortation of Pope Leo highlights strong Francis themes, which Pope Leo has made his own, namechecking various forms of poverty in our world – material poverty, loneliness, isolation, war, migration, indifference.
Dilexi Te translates as ‘I have Loved You’, following on from the last encyclical letter of Pope Francis Dilexit Nos, on the love that flows from the Sacred Heart. Pope Leo acknowledges that the hand of Pope Francis is right across this exhortation, as he was working on it in the months leading up to his death. For Pope Leo as for Pope Francis “in this call to recognise [Christ] in the poor and suffering, we are revealed the very heart of Jesus, his deepest feelings and choices”[1]. The heart is the symbol of what we are about in our ministry with Accord.
I am often asked at different liturgical celebrations such as todays, what scripture reading will we use? It’s a valid question. I tend to use the readings of the day and in doing so reflect on what the Spirit might be saying to us through those readings. Let’s take a brief glance at the last verses in the Old Testament Book of Joel. Its theme moves from darkness to light, a little like a Caravaggio painting! The Valley of Jehoshaphat could be anywhere, it translates as “the valley of the threshing device”[2], so the mention of sickle and harvest naturally follow. Wasn’t it Robert Louis Stevenson who said ‘judge each day not by the harvest but by the seeds you plant’. Joel very much focuses on salvation. I love that line “the Lord will be a shelter for his people”[3].
And then the very brief two verses from chapter 11 of St. Luke, these verses are unique to Luke, you’ll find them nowhere else. The theme is holiness and basically being the mother of God, doing the most motherly act of all, breastfeeding, is topped by “those who hear God’s word and keep it”[4]. In other words holiness is possible for all of us.
Let’s put the word of God central in our work with Accord. Let’s offer a shelter to those who come to us for sacramental marriage preparation, for couple counselling, for relationship therapy. Let’s reflect on poverty in our ministry.
The poverty of loneliness in the couple who have drifted apart after years of marriage. The poverty of language in the couple presenting for sacramental marriage who really have never been evangelised or catechised and we expect them to jump several hoops into a sacramental relationship. The poverty of abandonment, as I heard several testimonies at a recent Conference in Rome on the pastoral care of the Elderly, where older people can feel discarded on some rubbish heap, are we in Accord there to pick up the pieces? The poverty of homelessness where a young couple have no choice but to delay their marriage, because it’s impossible to provide a stable home to rear a family.
Poverty is multifaceted, including material, social, moral and cultural dimensions. Pope Leo in Dilexi Te draws from material collated by Pope Francis reminding us of their desire for a Church that is poor and for the poor. It was the Second Vatican Council, called by Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the year before he died, that clearly identified the Church with the poor.
Graduates, I wish all of you every blessing and I know you will be welcomed with open arms into our centres, north and south. St. John XXIII, pray for us.
[1] Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te, 2025, par. 3
[2] Jerome Biblical Commentary, pg. 443
[3] Jl.4:16
[4] Lk.11:28