- 15
- Jan
- 2023
St. Ita’s Feast Day
Raheenagh Church, 15 January 2023
It is wonderful to be with so many here in this church but also with many others linked with us in various ways through the internet and yet others united spiritually with us in their thoughts even if they can’t be here personally. I know people travel from far to be here for this Feast Day that has been celebrated over the centuries in this hallowed place. People from this area feel a special closeness on this Feast Day.
St. Ita’s Feast Day is, of course, a Feast Day of the whole Diocese of Limerick and we can be rightly proud we have such a patron saint who next to St. Brigid is the most famous of Ireland’s female saints. In fact, she was called the Brigid of Munster.
We know that in her day St Ita generated a whole current of renewal in the Irish Church and was called, “the foster mother of the Irish saints”, including St. Brendan. It’s no surprise the story is told of how, when she was trying to persuade her parents to let her consecrate her life to God, she started fasting and praying, and during this time the Devil tried to tempt her away from her calling, but eventually gave up saying: “Alas! Ita, not only will you join the convent, but you will take many more with you”. She did indeed take many more and made them saints! We know that after her long life as she was approaching death many of the VIPs of church and society came to pay their respects to this woman who was called, “the white sun of the women of Munster”.
Taking up the themes in our Readings at Mass today we can say St. Ita was a light of our nation and through her salvation reached this end of the earth. She took her place among the saints as a woman of prayer. She was an apostle who witnessed to Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Through her witness and through her community she was a builder of peace and brought healing. Above all, we can say she was a woman of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came down upon her and her heart was open to letting the Holy Spirit work through her.
And this is a point I’d like to underline on this Feast Day. We know that the Catholic Church in Ireland is going through a difficult time. It is a time of crisis with many challenges. When I think of the Church in twenty years’ time, I imagine it’ll be very different. I re-read recently what Pope Benedict, then a young theologian in Germany said in a 1969 radio interview. He was asked how did he see the future of the Church? His reply is, I think, relevant for us today in Ireland. He said the Church “will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so the Church will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, the Church will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members…”. But then he added, “the future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by people, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality.
On this St. Ita’s Feast Day, we remember with gratitude how she and the community she founded helped the Church mission in another era by being open to the Holy Spirit. They saw more than others saw. Their lives went further. And for us there’s a lesson here. It’s not that we have to repeat just what she did way back then such. For instance, she set up a school for young boys where they were taught, “faith in God with purity of heart; simplicity of life with religion; generosity with love”. We can’t all set up schools or do the kind of miracles she did. But we can draw inspiration from the fact that St. Ita and her community let themselves be shaped by the Holy Spirit.
So I want suggest we pray today too that we will open to the renewal of the Church for the future that the Holy Spirit wants to bring about today, especially through the Synodal pathway that the Church in Ireland is following. The Church of the future may be smaller. But what matters is that we do our part. Let’s remember how St. Ita was just one person in one moment of time in a community that was limited primarily to West Limerick. Yet, her example, light and good deeds live on fourteen hundred years later. She has left a trail of light.
As we remember Pope Benedict’s prophetic words and St. Ita’s example, let’s be convinced that what matters now is that we prepare for the future of the Church by being open to the Holy Spirit and asking him to pour down upon us personally and as a Diocese. Only the Holy Spirit, working with Mary, can shape the Church the way God wants.
Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will raise up among us young people who really know Jesus Christ, who become his friends and want to share with others friendship with him. That they may know in the line of St. Ita’s poem that “trappings of wealth and status are worthless compared” to providing a spiritual home in their lives for Jesus.
Yes, we are moving into new times. We too want to leave a trail of light behind us for the future. So let’s be open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit. Speaking about Pope Benedict recently, Pope Francis said Pope Benedict was really convinced that God is always new. Pope Francis continued, “yes, God is always new. God is never repetitive, God surprises us. God brings newness”.
St. Ita knew that. She would want us to know and experience it. St. Ita, pray for us. Amen.
Please click the link below to watch the Mass: