Dear brothers and sisters, You stand before us at the end of your long period of catechetical instruction and ready to be received into full communion with the Church. It is a big moment for you and a nice time to take stock of the spiritual journey you have made thus far. Maybe your minds have been going back to that first moment when you began to feel the Holy Spirit touching your heart and awakening inside of you some interest in the Catholic faith and how, after a while and some promptings, the same Spirit gave you the courage to inquire about it.

Dear brothers and sisters, at the Last Supper Jesus revealed to His disciples that He was not dying out of necessity, but that He had freely accepted death for them and for the world. And so, taking Bread He gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body, for you. And, after the Supper, taking the Chalice in the same way He said, ‘This is my blood poured out for you and for many’.

Dear brothers and sisters, this evening we gather in memory of that Sacred Supper which Our Lord Jesus entrusted to the Church as a Banquet of Love. We come, in the Holy Spirit, to carry out the sweetest of tasks for any Catholic and say thanks to God Our Father and His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the surpassing gift of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for the Sacred Food of Holy Communion and for His real, abiding Presence among us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. We come to celebrate the Liturgy which the Son of God, Our Friend and Saviour, instituted at the point when He showed how perfect His love was for the world, being about to hand Himself over to death for the salvation of all peoples.

Dear brothers and sisters, we gather in a year of two-fold grace. We gather in a Holy Year of God’s mercy. As a diocese we also gather in Our Paisley Synod year, called by the same Holy Spirit whose inspiration has moved the whole people - clergy, religious and lay faithful- to desire a renewal that will see us All Together Sharing the Good News and reaching out, especially through our laity, to every place of darkness in our territory, to bring in new faith and life.

Dear brothers and sisters we are gathered here, the fifth Sunday of the Liturgical Year on the cusp of Lent, looking forward with Catholics the whole world over to our Ashes on Wednesday and the joyful season of forty days of prayer and penance in anticipation of the Feast through which we are brought back to life in Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is a joy to be with you this evening and to feel our oneness in heart in the Lord. Our journey towards full union and communion brings us, year on year, ever closer and we pray that our poor world can soon see the wonderful sight of One Christian Communion united across the earth.

Carol Service and Jubilee of the Family 28 December 2015

We are gathering here to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the inauguration of Ad Gentes, The Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church.

As you will know, the Pope did not just call one synod but two but both were connected. The first, an extraordinary one in 2014, was called to think about the Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelisation and to define the status quaestionis, gathering together the bishops’ experiences of family life as it is actually lived by Catholics around the world and to think of proposals for proclaiming and living the Gospel of the Family in a credible manner. The second ordinary synod, just completed, thought about the Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and Modern World and set itself to identify working guidelines for the Church’s future pastoral care of the family.

Do not forget the Poor When Peter met Paul their key criterion of authenticity was not to forget the poor. This principle given by Peter to Paul, that Paul’s communities should not succumb to the self-centred lifestyle of the pagans- remains just as relevant today when a new self-centred paganism is growing. The Catholic Church may not always be able to live up to the beauty of the Gospel in every respect but there is one sign we should never lack: the option for those who are least, those whom society discards.

Dear Brothers and Sisters I am very happy to be with you today at the national shrine of Our Lady in Scotland. We have just celebrated the assumption of Our Blessed Mother into Heaven. There we look up to her with hope and consolation as the Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars, in battle against the infernal dragon who wants to devour the son about to be born from her womb. This figure of the Lady represents first of all the Church.

The title of this Catechesis is Believing in God in a Secular Age. We can take for granted that we are living in secular times. Secular times mean worldly times, with a worldview blinded by the times, living only for today and have stopped looking at life with their eyes on Eternity, even though Heaven is the home of every human heart and only in God is any soul truly at rest.