Solemn Vespers on Vigil of Feast of St Laurence O’Toole
St Andrew’s Church, Westland Row
13 November 2026
Homily of Archbishop Dermot Farrell
Celebrating our patron, St Laurence O’Toole, is not only a matter of honouring his life and ministry: it prompts us to reflect on how the mission which was entrusted to St Laurence and is now entrusted to us may most fruitfully be fulfilled in Dublin today. To answer this with integrity requires us first to acknowledge our need for personal conversion, clearing away the accumulated mental habits which place ourselves, rather than the Lord, at the centre of our consciousness, and second, to undertake a realistic reading of the signs of the times, to discern where the Spirit may be leading us, perhaps in challenging directions.
The whole Church in Ireland has reached a significant milestone in discerning what God wants of His Church today. Together, we have been pursuing a journey of renewal initiated by the Irish bishops in 2021. This renewal has been shaped by a deepening appreciation that the Church is by its nature synodal, that is the People of God journeying together on the pilgrimage of life towards unity with God, graced with the gifts of the Holy Spirit that enable us to support each other as we seek to discern God’s will. In the recent National Synodal Assembly, delegates from all over the country: ordained, lay and consecrated, male and female, young and old, discerned that we will more closely approach what God is asking of His Church at this time as we
- more faithfully proclaim the Gospel,
- offer a community of belonging to which all are invited,
- become a place of healing,
- accompany all the people of our time as they respond to personal and communal challenges, and
- empower all the People of God to recognise and exercise their co-responsibility for the mission which we have received in Baptism.
These five pathways to the missionary conversion of the Church in Ireland find a strong echo in the programme of pastoral renewal, Building Hope, which we have been developing over the past number of years. Our experience in Dublin, and the emphasis on synodality in the life of the Church initiated by Pope Francis and reaffirmed by Pope Leo, remind us that pastoral action without prayerful reflection and careful discernment risks being mere activity, while consultation and analysis without action risks becoming self-referential delusion.
So it is that as we celebrate our diocesan Patron it is with a strong conviction that fruitful continuity with the ministry and witness of St Laurence and all the holy women and men who have gone before us requires the radical change which missionary conversion always entails. Ireland – and Dublin in particular – have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. What has not changed is the hunger of women and men of goodwill to hear Good News, to become people of hope sustained by the conviction that we are indeed made in the image of a loving God who desires our happiness, and that His Church is eager to journey alongside them, inviting them to encounter the Lord in His Word and Sacraments. In pursuing this missionary pathway, we should not be discouraged by the limits of our capacities or the pace of secularisation. As Pope Leo said during his pastoral visit to Uruguay: “to shed much light, we do not need to be many, but rather to reflect the Lord’s light.” (Montevideo, 7 November 2026)
The need for pastoral conversion of heart, mind, relationships and processes to address the needs of today applies to the whole diocese and to every parish community. (see Study Group 4, ‘revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis from a Synodal and Missionary Perspective, Introduction) However, the heart of our city has a special part to play in this journey of missionary outreach. It is in the centre of the city that the civic, cultural and commercial life of our nation is focused. It is a place of movement and encounter, marked by physical reminders of history and heritage but also a barometer of technological and social change. A Church which seeks to be active at the heart of our society must be active in the heart of our city. That is why I have placed particular emphasis on the linked service and witness of this historic church of St Andrew and of our Cathedral Church, whose physical renewal will make it a more fitting place for our diocesan family to gather. The combination of the Cathedral, where the faithful gather around the chair of their bishop, and this sacred place dedicated to St Andrew, the fisherman, who cast out his net into the deep, are fitting symbols of the missionary renewal to which we are all called: going out and gathering in. While this ministry of outreach will rightly call for imaginative programmes of events and presentations, like every church these twin churches were built “for the purpose of prayer and the worship of God renewing in the Eucharist the redemptive sacrifice of Christ … (since) … every church lives by the sacred mystery celebrated within it.” (Pope Leo, Vespers, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris 25 September 2026).
As Pope Leo said of Notre Dame during his visit to Paris: “at the heart of the city, the open cathedral is a sign of a community that praises the Lord and lives hospitality not as an occasional gesture, but as the very form of its existence, so that all may feel at home, no longer dominated or marginalised in a changing world”. (25 September 2026)
The open doors of this place invite all who pass by to enter, while they remind all who worship here that they are entrusted with a mission that sends them out, with hope and confidence, “to be present at the crossroads of everyday life”. (Henri Lefebvre)
St Laurence O’Toole, pray for us.
St Kevin, pray for us.
St Andrew, pray for us.
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
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