This week 48 of our parishioners travelled to Knock in Ireland for our latest Jubilee Year pilgrimage. It was a really blessed time, in which we were able to understand better something of Ireland’s history and to experience the power and peace of the Knock apparition.

Knock was a small rural community in the North-West of Ireland which for much of the 19th century lived under the shadow of poverty, even famine. Then on the evening of 21 August 1879, something extraordinary happened. At about 8pm, word spread throughout the village that all should rush to the parish church. Here on the side wall of the church, the villagers experienced a heavenly vision surrounded by brilliant light. These witnesses saw the Blessed Virgin Mary dressed in white robes, her hands and eyes turned towards heaven in prayer. On her head was a golden crown with a golden rose. On her right, bowing respectfully was St Joseph, and to her left stood St John the Evangelist, vested as a bishop, wearing a mitre with a book of the Gospels in his left hand. He appeared to be preaching but no voice was heard. At the centre of the apparition was a lamb, stood upon a plain altar with a Cross behind. In heavy rain, a group of 22 men, women and children knelt in prayer, reciting the Rosary together for the next 2 hours, transfixed by this extraordinary vision. None of the heavenly figures spoke a single word.

The Knock apparition can help us to enter deeper into today’s feast of All Saints’ Day, when we celebrate the reality of heaven, and the fact that many countless saints, not only those officially canonised by the Church, are already there in God’s presence. At Knock, as in Lourdes, Fatima, this heavenly reality breaks through into the ordinariness of our human lives so as to encourage us and give us hope in difficult times. God wants us all to be saints and so to join with Our Lady and all the saints in God’s glory and peace. This a life-long journey, but one in which we are helped so much by the intercession and example of the saints

With blessings & prayers, Fr Richard, Fr Ephrem & the parish team.
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