Rite of Election 2026 led by Archbishop Farrell

St Mary’s Cathedral, Dublin
February 22, 2026

Homily of Archbishop Dermot Farrell

“You are within me, [my God], and I was in the world outside myself,” says Saint Augustine in one of his prayers. “I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the things in your creation.” (Confessions, Book X, 27).

The Journey of Conversion—Turning towards the World Within

Augustine’s is one of the great accounts of conversion. Augustine tells us how he comes to Christ and how he comes to himself. What happens to him surprises him, bowls him over, turns his life upside down. It makes him into a new person. This is not his doing, it is a gift, a gift of God, a grace. And this is what is going on for you also. It is the gift of God, this grace that we mark here this afternoon.

Augustine’s conversion mirrors that of Saint Paul: Paul too was called by God from where he was in his life. His call turned that life upside down. Through his encounter with the Church, paradoxically through his engagement with the Christians he was persecuting, Paul came to meet Christ and came to know him in the Spirit. As for Augustine, so for him. It was a total surprise. This zealous Pharisee would never have imagined his becoming a disciple of the one he considered to be a false prophet. This is why he can say: as grievous as one’s sin may be, “how much more certain that God’s grace, coming through … Christ Jesus, came to so many as an abundant free gift.” (Rom 5:15) Paul came to see what had happened to him as the gift of God, a grace.

Our own stories in coming to Christ may not be as dramatic, but they are no less real, no less wonderful, no less a grace. God has called us, God has called us all, and God has called you in Christ and today we mark a particular moment in your response, and in the Church’s welcome of you.

For this I give thanks today. I give thanks for you, for your sponsors and for their support of you, for the catechists who have guided you, and for all have been with you on your journey to this important and joyful day.

The Rite of Election—The Journey through the Desert with Jesus

Today’s Gospel tells of the “testing” or temptation of Christ in the desert. Saint Matthew in his account is not only telling us what happened to Jesus, he is also putting before us, what is happening in Jesus. Not only does Jesus find himself in a geographical wilderness, he finds himself in a wilderness within. He has to face how he will address his hunger: will he turn stones into bread? Will he just address the pain, without looking at the source of the pain? Will he just address his hunger, without looking at the source of that hunger?

This temptation of Jesus is ours as well! Do we just address our hungers, without looking at their source? Do we just feed our desires, without looking at their source, at what—or who—we desire in our heart of hearts?

His second temptation is about addressing the spectacular—the dramatic. “Throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple!” The temptation to dramatically end a friendship or a relationship, even a marriage; the temptation to throw the keys at your boss, and walk off the job. The “they-need-me-more-than-I-need-them” approach. Even to, ‘who needs God anyway?’

Or the third temptation, the most pernicious of all, not a dramatic quitting, but silent quitting. The subtle, quiet, eroding temptation to just give up. Just to do the minimum, of going with the flow, of “bowing down” to the way of the world.

When the Word of became flesh to dwell among us (see John 1:14), God’s Son did not only become like us on the surface of things. No, the Son of God became our brother in the depth of who and what we are. Today’s Gospel bears witness to this Jesus who entered, and who enters, the depth of our life, who enters our darkness and fills it with his light (see John 1:4–5).

In baptism, we enter anew the depths of life with Christ. “We have been buried with him by baptism into death,” St Paul tells the Romans, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom 6:4) To be baptised is to be with Jesus ‘in the depths’—in the depths of our own selves, in our need, but also in the depths of God’s faithfulness. In Christ we discover not only God’s faithful presence—“behold I will be with you until the end of time,” (Matt 28:20), but also God’s mercy, God’s saving acceptance. In Christ we are “given again the joy of God’s help,” as in today’s psalm prayer. He is the Bread of Life; he is the “Spirit of fervour that sustains us,” (ibid.).

The Rite of Election—The Journey Towards the World Outside

Today, you who are catechumens, whom the Lord has called and chosen, you whose hearts the Spirit has touched, sign the Book of the Elect. This is a public sign of commitment and discipleship. Your signature is not just some formality, or just a sign of your commitment to be faithful to the God who chose you, it is a sign that you will follow Jesus in his journey through the depth of humanity, that you will follow him who laid down his life for those who had nothing (see Matt 25), and then took it up again to “walk in newness of life.” To be baptised is to follow Christ into the heart of the world. The inscribing of your names then is your response and commitment to work for and witness to the Kingdom in the world until Christ comes again.

“Baptism is not a rite of passage into a privileged club. It is the sacrament by which believers, bathed in living water, enter the Spirit-filled community that seeks to manifest the reign of God the Father as Jesus did” (Baptised and Sent, #61). Today’s Liturgy challenges not only the catechumens, but all of us who are baptised to reflect on our own baptism as the gift of the Spirit and a commission to live the good news in a world where divergent values and discordant opinions exist.

Sometimes we think of baptism as an arrival point. This is understandable in view of the journey towards baptism. But baptism is ultimately, not an end, but a beginning. Just as a wedding, after all the preparation, is not an end, but the beginning of a life together. Baptism too is a beginning: it “is a gateway to mission, and the root and foundation on which to build a Christian life.” (Baptised and Sent, #10). In baptism we are commissioned and sent to carry the forward the work of Christ in compassion, commission to put flesh on Christ for all our sisters and brothers, by the way we live.

Towards Our Future Together

We can learn from your presence here today, about the freshness of faith and about how faith can grow when we walk together and support each other. I ask you not only to keep the faith to yourself, but also to share generously what the Lord has done for you and what hope his call holds for you.

May the Lord who has begun the good work in you bring it to completion!