Irish society is “living off the fumes of the past” and can no longer assume a Christian worldview, Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan has warned, saying this generation of Catholics must take responsibility for bringing the faith to their contemporaries.
In his homily at the opening Mass for Ave Maria University’s new semester-abroad programme at Mount Melleray Abbey, the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore urged Catholics not to retreat into nostalgia in response to cultural change.
“We don’t choose the times we live in. We are born in this time for this time,” he said. “This generation of Catholics has the responsibility for the people of this time,” adding that Catholics must “fall in love with Jesus more and more each day” and bring the faith to those around them.
The bishop said contemporary society had moved away from a Christian view of the human person, leaving people “lost and confused”. Catholics, he said, should not simply stand by.
“We are beggars who go to other beggars and tell them where to find bread,” he said. “The Lord God did not make us to watch the vineyard being worked by someone else. He wants us to get stuck in.”
For Bishop Cullinan, the arrival of Ave Maria students at Mount Melleray offers a real opportunity for young Catholics to witness to one another.
He told The Irish Catholic that young people from across Ireland could come to the abbey and be “truly inspired” by seeing students “trying to love Jesus and trying to live their lives accordingly”.
“Young people know how to talk to each other,” he said. “You just put them together and the Lord will look after the rest.”
He also placed evangelisation at the heart of the new venture, telling students that “the purpose of a university primarily is to evangelise”, because a Catholic university shares in the mission of the Church.
Ave Maria students will live and study at Mount Melleray for approximately three months, following the departure of the Cistercian community last year.
Bishop Cullinan said the opening was the fruit of years of prayer. “Something has started today,” he told The Irish Catholic. “An awful lot of people [have been] praying for this.”