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Homily for the First Promise as a Regular Oblate of Brother John Connolly
15 August 2025
When St John was exiled at Patmos, he had a series of visions which he recorded in the last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse or Revelation. This is a great book of hope. The life of the Church and the Christians is described as a great fight. But everywhere, love is victorious, faithfulness is victorious, hope is victorious.
The vision of the woman in heaven, “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”, is a great sign of hope. Who is she? She is at the same time the Church, mother of all the faithful, and Mary, the mother of the Messiah. She is under threat of attack, but she finds shelter in the desert where she gives birth to the Saviour. When Mary appears, the “ancient serpent” knows that he will soon be defeated. When Mary appears, a sign of victory and hope is given to us. Our life journey may be difficult at times. We may sometimes meet with trial, individually or as a family, a community, or the Church. But Mary is the “mother of hope”. She does not say much – Our Lady of Knock is silent – but her presence is enough to show us the way to salvation.
The woman in heaven is the Virgin Mary in her Immaculate Conception and in her Assumption: humble and triumphant; servant and queen; little and so close to God. She rises as a great sign of hope in our lives. Dear Brother John, Mary has been with you since the days of your childhood. She seems to have been like a member of the family. You have learnt, especially from your dear Father, to turn to her, to entrust to her your troubles and difficulties, to come back to her whenever you go astray, and always to let her lead you to Jesus.
In a sense, it is not quite a surprise that she led you to monastic life in this monastery, which is dedicated to her: Our Lady of Quarr. Your journey has been unusual, though, and not only because it took a bit longer than the average candidate. You have written a beautiful life story. All your dear ones surround you today with their love – including dear Ruben very much united with us from the other side of the world. They witness with gratitude and joy the point you have reached and the commitment you are making today.
I think that when your people speak of you in future generations, they will tell all sorts of interesting and funny stories about you – all of them true! – and they will add words like, “after all this, he retired to a monastery” or “he ended his life as a monk”. And they will be wrong, of course, because you are not at all retiring, today. You are not ending anything either. You are beginning. You are making a new start. And Mary is with you.
When she is taken up to heaven, Mary does not retire. She does not finish her life. On the contrary, she begins a new and broader service of God. She is hidden in God, with Christ, but at the same time, she intercedes for us, she cares for us, she works for us, she comes to us and is with us. Dear Members of Br John’s family, let me assure you that Br John is not taking retirement but entering a new way of serving, a new and, in a sense, deeper way of loving. You are in his heart for, the closer his heart is to Jesus and Mary, the closer it is also to you. What he did for you visibly, he will continue to do invisibly. His life, his work, his prayer will be totally given to Jesus and the Church, and thus they will be yours.
Dear Br John, by offering yourself as a regular oblate to Christ for our monastery, you give your life to the service of Jesus and the Church according to the Rule of St Benedict which has shaped this place over nearly 900 years. You are entering a wider mission and developing a greater love. You equip yourself with the prayer of the psalms and the rosary to give the first place in your daily timetable to the prayer of the Church for the living and the dead. You take “the strong arms of obedience”, silence, and humility as a humble and faithful soldier in the army of Christ the King.
In the name of the Church, we welcome you with joy and we entrust you to Our Lady. May the Virgin Mary, humble and powerful in her Assumption, guide your life. May she keep an eye on all and each of your Dear Ones. And may you become, by her maternal intercession, a genuine disciple of St Benedict and, yes, I dare say so, a saint whose life wishes to proclaim silently tothe world the Love and the Mercy of our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.