60^th Anniversary of Holy Family Parish, Port Glasgow

1. Sixty years ago, just after the Second World War, a new parish was established to care for the spiritual needs of the Catholics of Port Glasgow who were housed and re-housed in a new and much-needed residential area to the east of the town centre. Born of the mother parish of Port Glasgow, St. John the Baptist, the new parish was called Holy Family. The first parish priest was Father Sweeney and his curate was Father Rice. They first said Mass in a hut on the site of a disused naval accommodation facility, HMS Monk, at Carnegie on the Old Langbank Road. At the same time, Holy Family Primary School was opened and the children were taught in about a dozen Nissan huts. By the mid-1950’s, the Catholic population of the parish had grown further, by now approaching 5,000, and it was clear that a proper Church and parish house complex was required. The new Church and house for the priests was designed by Coia, the prestigious firm of architects, and was opened in 1959. By then too the Holy Family Primary School had a proper building. With church, house and school, Holy Family Parish was now fully operational and was able fully to pursue its mission to build up the Catholic Church in this area, a mission the priests and people and teachers have continued to carry out faithfully for the last 60 years to the present day, and for this we thank and praise God today.

2. To be able to celebrate the anniversary of the parish on the feast from which the parish was named is a providential occurrence. When that feast is the mystery of the Holy Family, then the coincidence is all the more blessed. For the feast of the Holy Family is a celebration of the Christmas mystery. The Holy Family is made up of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Jesus is the Incarnate Son of God, who even as a child, was aware that he had to be busy with his Father’s affairs. Mary is the virgin Mother who gave birth to Jesus and who stored up this mystery in her heart. Joseph, Mary’s loving husband and guardian of the child Jesus, was a man of the most exquisite faith who gladly put himself at the disposal of God’s design of salvation which was coming to fulfilment in the child born of Mary, Jesus, the Emmanuel, God-with-us. The Holy Family of Nazareth composed of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is presented to us once again on this feast of the Holy Family as an inspiration for family life today and tomorrow. Christian and Catholic family life at its best is family life centred on Jesus, where father, mother and children live together and flourish in a happy communion of life, love and mutual self-giving, where their common life is nourished by the gospel and by the sacraments. How much we still need such a vision of family life today!

3. For the last 60 years, the Parish of Holy Family has been in the main composed of families and households. The mission of the parish has been to sustain the Christian life of these families and households in the ways we are used to: by Mass, by the sacraments, by guiding the Catholic formation of the children and young people, by looking after the sick and dying, by being some kind of focus for their daily lives, by sharing their joys and sorrows, and by commending them to God’s love and mercy at the end of their lives. My fondest memories of parish life as a child, as young person, as an adult and as a priest are full of these images. The parish of Holy Family is still called to carry out that mission to the people of this area today and in the future.

4. Holy Family Parish is a post-war community and testifies in its 60 year history to the oscillating fortunes of both the Church and society in that period. In particular it testifies to the fortunes of the family as the basic unit of society. The future of Holy Family Parish is very much tied up with the future of the family in our society. I do not need to tell you how economic and social developments have changed the family, at first perhaps in the main for the better, but not always, especially more recently. But people still need family, even if they do not quite know what it is, and even if they now want to construct it in ways that seem strange and are not in conformity with the Gospel. People need the love and support of other human beings in a bond that is closer than friendship, and which makes them able to say that they are connected, that they are related, that they have a sure emotional and social foundation in an increasingly fragmented society.

5. For the that reason, no matter the cost, the Catholic Church must continue to give witness to the sacred nature of the human family composed of father, mother and children, with the mystery of God in Jesus Christ at its centre. Society, which is going through a phase of sheer confusion about human relationships, needs the Church to hold firm and be true to its vision of family life. I ask you to pray with me today that the Parish of Holy Family, Port Glasgow, by sharing in this essential ecclesial task, will continue to carry out its mission here in Port Glasgow for decades to come.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I breathe out my soul in peace with you. Amen.

Sunday 31^st December 2006