The last Sunday in July is always a special one for Irish Catholics, it sees the annual pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick.
The annual climb of Croagh Patrick is a reminder that Ireland is intrinsically inseparable from the faith.
Standing at 2,500 feet, the beautiful mountain has a long history as a place of reverence, stretching into prehistoric times.
When Saint Patrick arrived, Tirechan tells us that he went to the mountain to fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights. Going up to the summit in 441 AD, Saint Patrick fasted during Lent. For anyone who has been up the top of Croagh Patrick in bad weather, this was no easy feat.
Tirechan writes:
And Patrick proceeded to the summit of the mountain, climbing Cruachán Aigli, and stayed there forty days and forty nights, and birds were troublesome to him and he could not see the face of sky and land and sea because to all the holy men of Ireland, past, present, and future, God said: 'Climb, o holy men, to the top of the mountain which towers above, and is higher than all the mountains to the west of the sun in order to bless the people of Ireland', so that Patrick might see the fruit of his labours, because the choir of all the holy men of the Irish came to him to visit their father; and he established a church in Mag Humail.
On the last Sunday of each July, for over 1,000 years, people have climbed the mountain.
The pilgrimage has traditionally involved fasting the night before the climb, praying at the various stations at the foot of the mountain before beginning and attending Mass atop the summit, at the stunningly located church overlooking Clew Bay.
In a report in 1970, RTE’s Bill O’Herlihy stated that ‘it has been built into tradition, unaffected by change or sophistication’. So it is even in 2022, as Western Europe as a whole grapples with widespread indifference to religion, that what should be a bygone relic of a penitential past, in fact retains its attraction for ordinary Irish people.
This same phenomenon can be seen with the Camino in Spain, where secularists often flock to, despite otherwise having an aversion to anything connected to the faith.
It seems, however, that the solution to many of the church’s problems with attracting people is staring them in the face.
Croagh Patrick, like all pilgrimages that date back to the Medieval period, is an easy and fast way to teach people the faith. A person fasting the night before the pilgrimage can quickly learn the importance of fasting and purifying one’s self before receiving Communion. A person who commits to climbing the mountain can quickly be taught about the history and significance of the church in Ireland, not just in hagiographical terms, but also highlight other significant details such as the Penal Laws. The importance of penance, illustrated by those who chose to climb in their bare feet and by which the climb makes sense in a more purifying way than simply for the good of one’s physical health. There is also Lent itself, Saint Patrick’s sacrifice and its connection to Old and New Testament typologies. The church should try less to force people to fit the mould of late 20th Century cultural Sunday obligations and instead ‘meet people where they are at’ as they so often claim that they hope to do.
As Saint Patrick wrote of his fall into slavery, the unknown and the uncomfortable are reminders of our dependence on God:
At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others. We deserved this, because we had gone away from God, and id not keep his commandments. We would not listen to our priests, who advised us about how we could be saved.
The Lord brought his strong anger upon us, and scattered us among many nations even to the ends of the earth. It was among foreigners that it was seen how little I was.It was there that the Lord opened up my awareness of my lack of faith. Even though it came about late, I recognised my failings. So I turned with all my heart to the Lord my God, and he looked down on my lowliness and had mercy on my youthful ignorance. He guarded me before I knew him, and before I came to wisdom and could distinguish between good and evil. He protected me and consoled me as a father does for his son.
This year’s event saw rain and cloud, with those in attendance undeterred.
Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin gave the following homily today at the summit:
Six hundred years before Christ, the city of Jerusalem was completely destroyed and thousands of its inhabitants were forcibly deported far away to Babylon. During this time of Exile and captivity the Jewish people found themselves surrounded by the trappings and temptations of a powerful foreign culture. The prophet Isaiah urged them not to forget their heritage and the faith of their fathers. “Look to the rock from which you were hewn”, he wrote, “and to the quarry from which you were dug”.
On Reek Sunday every year we follow in the footsteps of Saint Patrick, and of our ancestors who have climbed this holy mountain since the dawn of Christianity. Croagh Patrick, represents the rock from which we, the people of Ireland were hewn. Today’s pilgrimage links our past, present and future and it continues to nurture the spiritual memory and identity of this country. It is particularly special to celebrate the Eucharist here on top of Croagh Patrick, because the Mass is our greatest act of Christian remembering. It makes present, here and now, the Paschal Mysteries of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection. Jesus said: “Do this in memory of me”.
Tradition tells us that our patron Saint Patrick came to these parts to do penance, to be renewed and to find answers to his deepest struggles and questions. No doubt this mountain connected him with the time when he was a teenaged victim of human trafficking, a time when he prayed constantly – day and night, in the woods and on the mountain – even in the rain and snow and ice (see Confession 16).
Looking back, Patrick saw his exile and captivity as a bitter, but purifying time – a time when he first turned to God personally with all his heart, and when the spirit of God began to burn within him. Patrick admits that before his enslavement in Ireland he and his family had drifted away from God and from the practice of their faith. It seems they had largely forgotten “the rock from which they were hewn”. Patrick tells us they no longer kept God’s commandments and had stopped listening to the advice of their priests on how to be saved. They had lost the wisdom to distinguish good from evil.
In today’s first reading, when God told Solomon He would give him anything that he wanted, Solomon made a surprising choice. Rather than selecting riches or power or long life, he said:
“Lord, Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil”.
Young Solomon and young Patrick both knew that such wisdom could stand the test of time. It was like finding a pearl of great price. Today, on Ireland’s holy mountain, I pray for that gift from God, for each of us personally, and for our country at this time – the gift of a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil. Because good builds us up; evil destroys us.
Reek Sunday this year is sandwiched between last Sunday’s World Day of Prayer for grandparents and the elderly, and next Sunday’s World Youth Day. The gift of being able to distinguish between good and evil is needed by all our people – young and older. Because we are surrounded by the dangers of evil which is already prowling around our land – destroying life; stealing away happiness; stirring up violence and discord. Such evil seeks to snuff out the memory of ‘the rock from which we were hewn’; ‘the quarry from which we were dug’. Because if we lose our spiritual memory we lose our sense of identity, our sense of purpose and direction; we lose our way.
To be able to discern between good and evil is more important than ever, when there are just so many choices out there, and when the primacy of individual choice – including absolute choice over our bodies and over creation – is sometimes held up as the gold standard of a ‘modern’ society freed from the so-called ‘shackles of the past’. But to present choice as unlimited, unencumbered by talk of ‘good and bad’ choice, of ‘right and wrong’ choice, is a recipe for disappointment, for a sense of personal failure and even despair.
To worship unlimited choice is to worship a false god. Far from nourishing a happier life and a more free and rounded society, uninhibited choice is overwhelming, and can impact negatively on spiritual, physical and mental health and well-being, especially that of our young people. At its worst the concept of unlimited choice without consequence becomes a tyranny which threatens the dignity of the human person as a unity of body and soul; it can destroy life, create confusion and contribute to a culture of death where the destruction of innocent and vulnerable human life – at its very beginning or near its end – is presented as a matter of legitimate individual choice.
In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks instead of the importance of discerning what is the ‘pearl of great price’, of choosing what is good, and discarding what is of no use. This is the gift that both Saint Patrick and King Solomon prayed for – to be able to say ‘yes’ to what is of value and to say ‘no’ to what is wrong, to say with the psalmist, (Psalm 118):
“Lord, how I love your law! I love your commands
more than finest gold, I rule my life by your precepts,
and hate false ways.”Standing here at the top of Croagh Patrick I recall the dream that led our patron saint back to Ireland as a missionary of the Good News, a dream in which he heard the voice of the Irish people calling out to him: “We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.”
Today from this holy place, ‘near the western sea’, I call out once more to our patron saint to intercede for Ireland, to come and walk once more among us, to rekindle in us the memory of the rock from which we were hewn, and to help us rediscover that wisdom for which he himself prayed – to be able to discern good from evil – for ourselves personally, for our families, our communities, for Ireland!
