15 May 1989
Armagh, Northern Ireland

When I visit foreign countries and am asked my nationality by lay people, and I reply, Irish, another question invariably follows. Are you from the North or from the South? When I reply that I was born in the South, while receiving some of my education in the North, I notice that no further question is put to me. On these occasions I have asked myself: What is the unspoken question in the person's mind? I have often felt that, when I have been asked whether I am from the North or from the South, the questioner is thinking about some of those episodes of violence in northern Ireland, about which he has read in the newspaper or seen on TV. Fratricidal violence did not start in 1969, nor even three centuries ago, but in the episode recounted in the first reading of today's Mass, the violence done by Cain to his brother, Abel. It is recounted in chapter 4 of Genesis and follows immediately on the account of man's fall and his rebellion against God. That fact seems to underline the truth that the consequence of a revolt against God is a revolt against one's brother.

As you listen to that first reading, it must have seemed all too familiar to some of you, particularly those of you who are working in some of the troubled areas on this side of the border. "The Lord said: `What have you done! Listen, your brother's blood cries out to Me from the soil.'" (Gn 4:10). Abel's blood on the soil...and what an amount of blood the soil of the North has soaked up these last twenty years. The violence Cain did to his brother, Abel, revolts us, and often you have been revolted by the violence that has taken place, sometimes in your parish, before which you felt powerless.

Cain's motivation for murdering his brother, Abel, is somewhat obscure. It would seem to proceed from jealousy, rather than from a sense of injustice. As so often happens nowadays, after the foul deed is done, then there is an attempt on Cain's part to justify it. Asked by God what he has done to his brother, Abel, Cain makes the very feeble defensive reply: "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" (Ibid., v. 9).

Cain is sentenced by God to be a wanderer on the face of the earth. He is fearful, as he thinks of the murder of revenge to which he himself may now fall victim. The tit for tat killings in the land of our time are not a new phenomenon. It is in the face of Cain's fear that God guarantees him protection. "The Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone kill him on sight." (Ibid., v. 15).

In guaranteeing Cain his safety, God was in effect bringing about a reconciliation between Cain and Himself and also between Cain and the descendants of Abel. The priest in northern Ireland--or for that matter anywhere in the world--is an agent of reconciliation. You will recall the thought of St. Paul: "God," he writes, "was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself...and He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors of Christ, God making His appeal through us." (2 Cor 5:19, 21).

I recall the title of a book, written on the priesthood by an American Cardinal of the last century. It was, "The Ambassador of Christ." Some of you may remember how Tom Cleary in Maynooth years ago used to present that title as an ideal of the living of our priesthood. An ambassador finds himself in delicate situations, caught often between two fires. I imagine some of you here must have found yourselves on occasion between two fires, when some incident of violence has taken place and you must celebrate a Requiem Mass and preach a homily. You have to choose your words very carefully and, even when you do, you are not sure that they will not be taken out of context and twisted to give a meaning other than you intended. You may experience the pain of being misunderstood by one or both of our Communities. The pain of misunderstanding so often begets the pain of isolation. In such circumstances you can fall back on the thought that you are a minister of reconciliation, that you are an ambassador of Christ, that He has confidence in you, and that He is at work within you and through you by the grace of ordination which is in you, through the imposition of the hands of the Bishop who ordained you.