September 12, 1897 was a day of celebration in Ireland as it marked the translation of the relics of the Blessed Thaddeus (Tadhg) McCarthy from their Italian resting-place at Ivrea to the city of Cork. I have previously reprinted a newspaper account of the festivities and a poem written for the occasion
here, but below is the text of a sermon given on the day by Father Michael Antoninus Keane O.P. (1851-1921), who had been Prior at Cork for a time in the 1890s. As
Thom's Irish Who's Who tells us, however, 'his principal work has been that of Friar Preacher of Missions and sermons of occasion'. Father Keane certainly demonstrates his preaching ability on this occasion and delivers a stirring sermon which draws out all the lessons of the life of Blessed Thaddeus for the congregation:
BLESSED THADDEUS MCCARTHY.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL, CORK, ON OCCASION OF
TRANSLATION OF HIS RELICS, 12th September, 1897.
"My enemies have spoken evils against me: when shall he die and
his name perish? . . . All my enemies whispered together against
me. . . . But Thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up
again. . . . By this I know that Thou hast a good will for me;
because my enemy shall not rejoice over me. But Thou hast upheld
me by reason of my innocence; and hast established me in Thy sight
for ever " (Psalm xl).
MY Lords, Very Reverend Brethren, dearest faithful in
Christ - This is a great day for Ireland. Despite her long,
dark thrall, oft has wave of sunshine passed over her, and
resounding Hosannas expressed the nation's feeling.
Stately processions have trod our streets; now for proud
escort of popular hero; now for picturesque display of
municipal splendour; at one time for impressive accompaniment of the demand for national right; at another for
outpouring of faith and religious feeling. But we, who
marched in this morning's sun, you who lined the way, all
that gazed from hill, and casement, and house-top at the
long stream of clergy that flowed between the living banks
of our parochial societies, enjoyed an experience not given
to Irishmen for nigh seven hundred years. In that long
flow of time grace has indeed come in plenteous bestowal
on many a soul of our race in this Christian land, and
fructified unto eminent sanctification. As we tread the land
that bore us, walk her vales, climb her hills, and wander
through her forests green, there lie beneath our feet the
mortal remains that once enshrined spirits of exalted saintliness. But not since the year 1226, when Pope Honorius
III. proclaimed the celestial glory of Laurence O Toole,
the great Archbishop of Dublin, has it been given to
Ireland to see borne through her streets with full circumstance of religious homage the bones of a beatified son of
her bosom. Verily "many kings and prophets have desired to see what we see and they have not seen." Our
fathers, their fathers, our faithful ancestors, yearned for
the gladsome pride that is ours to-day to see a son of our
old land crowned with the diadem of the Church's immortality; to be authorised to come into the House of God
and lift heavenward eye and heart and voice, and in
public worship supplicate one of the heroes of the ethereal
kingdom, and call him by an Irish name. A great day,
truly, for our motherland: praised be the Lord Who has
given us to share its festive joy!
What shall I speak, brethren, of him in whose honour
we are assembled? I hold in my hand a picture of
the blessed one. As I gaze upon it, noting it in full
detail, mind and heart discern more than eye of body
can see. The holy man stands dressed in pilgrim garb.
He grasps in his hand, and leans upon, a pilgrim's
staff. He is at the doorstep of a plain, massive building.
That building is a hospice, where simple meal and night's
rest were" given to the houseless poor. His pose is as of
one who has knocked at its portals and now entreats
admission within its walls. He seems to say: "See my
wearied condition, pity me, shelter me." Behind the saint,
not seen by him, there is an angel an angel bright and
fair indeed; a being of everlasting youth. The heavenly
spirit holds in his right hand a mitre, in his left
hand a pastoral staff, the episcopal crozier. He seems to
follow after the servant of God, on whom he looks with
graceful admiration. Above the angel there comes streaming down from the sky a flood of golden rays, which direct
themselves towards the holy pilgrim. That picture speaks;
it tells a tale and points a moral. The blessed one's person,
lowly and poor; the pilgrim's rough tunic, his robe; the
pilgrim's staff and wallet, his whole possession; the view
presented to his gaze, the humble shelter for poor wanderers. Thus he himself; his actual experience; his immediate prospect; all lowliness and poverty. On the other
hand, behind him, hidden from his eyes, held in angel hands, are the jewelled mitre and gilded crozier, emblems
of honour and power; while from the sky above comes the
resplendent intimation of his acceptability before God, and
the promise of unending glory to come. Humiliation and
hardship, his actual present; ennoblement and bliss, the
eternal future; a sowing in tears by one who is to reap in
joy.
Our sacred hero's lot was cast in rough and evil times.
Evil times are almost all times, for the primal disarrangement of the Divine plan by human sin made the world an
evil place. But evil time and rough was that in which the
brief life of Blessed Thaddeus was passed. The passion
which in all the ages has led men to offend God for sake of
gain, in those days prompted to almost incessant conflict of
man with man. The ploughshare was exchanged for the
sword. Yearning to wrest from one another much-prized
worldly possessions, men thought of war, spoke of war,
dreamed of war, lived in war. New elements of division,
interests and feelings, introduced into our island by the
partial occupation of the English invader, served, along
with ancient tribal differences, to establish strong lines of
demarcation, and set up a multitude of contending parties.
Warmth of hostile feeling, maintaining contentions among
families and septs, could scarce fail to exercise influence on
ecclesiastical concerns. Princes and chieftains, eager for
domination, sought to have members of their clans appointed to episcopal sees within their respective domains.
Noble and wealthy looked with jealous eye at the elevation
to episcopal dignity of the scion of rival Celtic houses,
while Celtic tribes beheld with indignation the rilling of a
vacant see by one of Norman name and blood. Nor were
those feelings kept in the heart. Strong and loud protestation was uttered, angry retort made, and in an age when
eloquent tongue, as means of urging a claim or assailing an
enemy, was held in small esteem, the inflamed heart quickly
prompted men to unsheath the sword and rush to fiery
combat. Over much of the district extending west and
northward of Cork city the historic sept of the McCarthys
had long held royal sway, and against that ancient princely
house were Norman hatred and jealousy mainly exercised. A McCarthy stood forth in place of signal honour amongst
all the nobility of the land. High in Church and State
from the earliest times, it is the proud boast of a McCarthy
that the nobles of this great empire whose heraldic glory is
most impressive are but of yesterday when compared with
his ancient kingly stock.
It was, therefore, with eyes of wrathful jealousy the fierce
clans of Munster beheld the appointment to the bishopric
of Ross, in the year 1482, of young Thaddeus, in whose
veins the blood of the royal McCarthys flowed. Only
twenty-seven summer suns had shone upon the noble
ecclesiastic, but signal virtue and eminent philosophical
and theological science had won the approval of the Church
authority, and prompted the unusual action of consigning
to one so young the grave pastoral charge. He was consecrated in the Eternal City on the 3rd day of May. It was
the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross. Providence
mayhap ordained that the day should intimate to the
thoughtful young prelate promise of tribulation in the
career which then opened before him. Straightway he
found himself involved in a sea of trouble. On his return
to Ireland there stood before him a rival claimant to the see
of Ross. His predecessor had an assistant bishop. The
assistant, desirous of cloister life, resigned his position,
but, judging at a later date that religious life was not his
destined lot, he resumed his place as auxiliary administrator of the diocese. The factious spirit in the breasts of the
tribal chiefs eagerly seized on the occasion for harassing,
and, if possible, getting rid of, a prelate belonging to the
hated McCarthy sept. It is recorded that the then Earl of
Desmond had on his solemn oath declared that a McCarthy
should never grasp the crozier of a Munster diocese. The
machinery of intrigue was put in motion. Falsehood ever
familiar instrument in the hands of unscrupulous envy
was planned, formulated, and dispatched to Rome. Slanderous accusations against the holy prelate were spoken in
the ears of the supreme head of the Church. The difficulty
of communication between Rome and distant countries in
that age rendered it no easy task for the rulers of the
Church to discriminate between truth and error, or for a man traduced by evil tongues to correct the malevolent
misrepresentations. Envious lying triumphed for a space
over the just man; he was censured by the sovereign
pontiff. Immediately he went to Rome to plead for right
in his own person before the chief pastor. After lengthened inquiry had been made, authoritative announcement
came to the ears of Thaddeus that the sovereign ecclesiastical power had appointed him to the more important
indeed, the most important position, in a sense, in the
Irish Church at that period the diocese of united Cork and
Cloyne. Rome's definite pronouncement terminated the
dispute.
Oh, dearest brethren, what precious blessing to live under
supreme sacred authority! How good for us that we are
not as "sheep without a shepherd," but have set over us
by Power Divine, a ruler unto whom all must render
submission. Be the multitude of the Church's members
never so vast, one there is at whose binding God the
Almighty binds; at whose loosing, the Almighty looses.
One, the divinely established firmness of whose authority
is our safeguard against the weakness and inconstancy of
our wills, and the dissensions our contending passions
would entail. One superb master of all Christendom,
raised so high above all human judgment, human interest,
human authority, and placed so near the very God Whose
vicar he is, that unto him are given the very thunders of
Heaven to hurl upon the wayward one that shall dare
gainsay his supreme decision. Ah, what woe humiliating
woe is the condition of them that are without the fold, and
yet make the blind profession that they are of the Christian
Communion! Communion of belief they have not. Communion of subordination to one authority they have not. It
was said to them of old by the Divine Master: "There
shall be one fold and one shepherd": that design of the
Christian religion we Catholics alone realise.
Back to Ireland came Thaddeus to take possession of
his new charge. Ere long it was made clear to him
that he had also to bear the burden of new troubles. Considerable wealth was attached to his exalted position.
Generations of pious Catholics had created large endowments for the united diocese. For rapacious and combative Norman chiefs there was strong temptation to
political jealousy and avarice in the acquisition of ample
possessions by one of the old Irish septs. The famed Geraldines, yearning for lordly sway throughout Munster, abetted
by chiefs whose name and blood are to this day found
over the main portion of this extensive country, seized the
ecclesiastical lands. As the working of the law of spiritual
gravitation ordinarily provides, wrong begat wrong. Early
venture in sin led to a course of sin. The usurpers having
seized the Church lands brought so far their factious
impiety as to close the doors of his Cathedral Church
against the lawful pastor. It was might opposing right.
It meant sorrow for the young bishop. At the uplifting
of his ringer a thousand Muskerry swords would have
flashed through all Muskerry's plains in his defence; but
arm of flesh he would not employ against the wicked ones.
He bowed before the storm in meek endurance of the
personal irreverence. But as bishop he was the sworn
custodian of ecclesiastical rights: he had been set up as
sentinel to watch the safety of the Church's goods and the
assertion of pastoral authority. While therefore "fulfilling
justice" in the meekness that bore the personal affront he
would fulfil all justice by vindicating in an orderly manner
the Church's outraged claims. Down that river once again
he sailed; he went forth once more from the beautiful
harbour and travelled southward to speak his plaint and
demand vindication of the Church's supreme head. At
the feet of Pope Innocent VIII. he knelt. The aged pontiff
laid his trembling hands on the youthful bishop's head,
and imparted the benediction, which, like Jehova's mandate
to Moses in days of old, has emboldened many a harassed
one to encounter every threatening peril and stand for God
and right against ten thousand foes. Into his hands Pope
Innocent gave a brief on the 7th day of July, 1492, which
condemned the wicked usurpers and menaced the Church s
vigorous penalties if they surrendered not the sacred
property they had seized. To the then lord deputy of
Ireland the holy father wrote calling upon his aid on
behalf of the ill-treated prelate. At the same time the venerable pontiff did signal honour to the several chiefs of
the clan McCarthy by appointing them formally and by
name protectors of their holy kinsman. Thaddeus rose from
his place at the pontiff's feet. Into the venerable face he
looked, as did we all to whom it has been given to gaze upon
the vicar of Jesus Christ, with streaming tears of blended
love and awe; then bade dutiful farewell.
He donned pilgrim's garb; came forth from the gate of
the Eternal City, and turned his steps towards home. The
wide Campagna he traversed, and ere long found himself in
fair and favoured Umbria. Oh, how his saintly instinct
must have taught him to relish the balmy air of thrice
blessed Umbria! Thrice blessed, did I say? A thousand
times blessed for is it not Umbria on whose soft plains
and stately hills the Most High did so pour down His
blessing that more saints have sprung from her than from
any region in all the wide world? And, dearest brethren,
may I say to you may I at least think it, and speak my
thought? Methinks as the youthful prince, bishop, saint,
from this old land of ours walked those vales teeming with
memories of God's glorious servants, they, enthroned in
Heaven, kept watch upon him, and noted with loving
interest his way, and his cause, and his strange story.
When he had issued from the Roman Campagna and drew
nigh to Viterbo, it were meet to think that Rose, the
glorious saint of the old city, looking down from high
Heaven upon her natal place she who in her brief mortal
life loved to pray Heaven's interposition for the Church's
tranquillity it were meet to think that she looked upon the
persecuted prelate and wished him thenceforth victorious
peace. I wonder did he move somewhat eastward from
the direct route? Surely yes, for scarce could such as he
resist the magnetic power which draws all fervid Christians
who traverse Italy to gaze upon and mount the fair hill from
whose side Assisi smiles upon the plain beneath. I behold
with mind's eye Francis, the seraph, looking with admiring
interest on the Irish pilgrim prelate, and bespeaking gifts
from on high upon the man to whom his sons here in Cork
were to pay dutiful homage. Farther north he came upon
an Umbrian city, dear to me beyond all spots the sun and moon shine upon the city that gave to earth, gave to the
Church, gave to Heaven one of the fairest adornments of
God's mystic kingdom, and gave to the Dominican Order
one of its proudest glories, Siena - Siena, admirable to the
aesthetic appreciation of the lovers of art, delightful to
the Christian soul. Something leads me to think that
Catherine, already more than a hundred years enthroned
in Heaven, but fond of hovering in thought above her
beautiful town, may have seen the servant of God pass by,
and noted that he came from Rome from the Pope with
the sign upon him of Peter's approval, to sustain him in
conflict for the Church's weal. And, oh, how did not
she in whose heart love of the Church's rights was as
red-hot passion - how did she not beam ethereal smile on
the young ecclesiastic from our motherland who bore upon
his person the document that was to tell each loyal man and
woman in this city of Cork that he was to be recognised as
the ruler of the Church of God in these parts?
Onward he came beneath the shadow of the Appenine
Range. Long was the way; difficult was journeying then;
weary he was and footsore. At length he beheld before him
the mighty Alps. It will be arduous toil and painful he
must have thought to climb their vast sides and pass their
lofty peaks. His limbs are heavy with fatigue; his frame
enfeebled; he drags his weary way. Pitiless rains have
beat upon him; the sun's burning rays have played upon
him; blinding dust has swept past him. We may conjecture that hunger came with other experiences to make up
the cross he bore in holy patience; and this in a strange
land, yet not strange, for to the servant of God all the
earth is home our Father's house. "The earth is the
Lord's and the fulness thereof." This pious assurance was
in Thaddeus mind, as weary and pained he pursued his
toilsome way. The grass plains he trod the Great Creator
had spread out; in the long-reaching vineyards each
savoury fruit was His gracious formation; the mighty Alps
that frowned upon him, rearing high in air their giant peaks
their deep foundations God had laid, their massive sides
built up, and to the saintly eye of the pilgrim they must
not have seemed mere senseless things, but lordly sentinels keeping watch over the Great Master's wide domain. And
when at noon the resplendent sun shed from his fiery bosom
wealth of gladdening light and heat, or in soundless mid
night he looked upon the gentle moon as she traced her
silver path across the sky, did he not remember that each
recurring day in the Divine office he was wont to call upon
these heavenly luminaries to magnify the Most High,
whose handiwork and obedient servants they were?
So did all external things enter into his holy thought,
and preach to him God's gracious power and love as
he drew nigh to a city invested with historic interest,
even before the Christian era, but now destined to be, till
trumpet of doom shall sound, associated with the story of
the servant of God.
Not Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy has created the interest
for Catholics in that Piedmontese town Ivrea; greater than
he had long before trod its streets. In 431 a man who had
been on Irish soil, not indeed walking the noble halls of
the proud castles of McCarthy's princely house, but feeding swine on Antrim's hills, Patrick, the man of gladsome
destiny for the Irish race, while wending his way to Rome
to receive authorisation to preach Christianity in Ireland,
made Ivrea his resting-place. It is told by some historians
that it was there he received episcopal consecration. Did
Thaddeus, entering its streets, become sensible of some
mysterious suggestion that it was the place for an Irish
bishop to rest his weary limbs? In Ivrea he did take his
rest. He sought the asylum for needy travellers; he begged
and received admission, and when he cast himself exhausted
on the simple couch in that place of Christian shelter, his
journeying came to an end. The sun went down upon him
calmly sleeping after his lengthened pilgrimage. The
lights went out; the solemn peace of night came and
brooded over the place. God sent His herald angel to bring
His faithful one's trials to an end, and bear him to his
heavenly home. Alone was he when the visitation of
death came. No physician to prescribe relief; no gentle
nurse to soften hard experience and minister relieving
draught; no faithful friend to sustain him. There may
have been things no human historian has recorded. Golden-winged nurses perhaps were round about him, sent
down from Heaven to minister to his enfeebled body, and
then escort his soul to the eternal rest. Patrick, Fachnan,
Colman, Finbarr, the Great Lord may have allowed them
to come down from the sky that night to cheer and bless
their faithful successor. Morning came; the prescribed
round of inspection was made by those whose part it was;
they found the lowly stranger in the calm sleep of death.
But wherefore the cry of wonder which escaped them?
Dead they perceived him; lowly of state as when he had
begged charitable shelter the previous night; but brilliant
light encompassed him, and a glory not of earth was round
about him; the bed whereon he lay seemed enveloped in
flames! The cry brought the curator of the hospice and all
the attendants. Message was sent in haste to the bishop of
Ivrea, announcing the startling fact. He who bore the
strange tale found the bishop filled already with sensational
interest produced by a dream of the night that had passed.
In sleep there had flashed into his sight a saintly form
clad in episcopal robes. Having shone before him for a
brief space the mysterious form uprose from the earth and
sailed through shining clouds to Heaven's gate. While
exercised in mind over this prodigy the prelate was summoned to the hospice to see the wonder that was there. He
saw the dead man illuminated by the supernatural light.
They told the bishop of his coming the previous eve poorly
clad, and carrying naught save his simple staff and
pilgrim's wallet. The pilgrim s wallet they opened, when,
lo! they found a pectoral cross, an episcopal ring, the
Papal Bull which told of his appointment to the bishopric
of Cork and Cloyne, and the sentence of condemnation
issued against those who had usurped the temporalities of
his see. A sense of awe came upon those assembled.
Down upon their knees they fell, while the bishop approached and looked upon the face of the dead. It was the
face that had gleamed resplendent upon him in the vision
of the night, and then he knew he looked upon one of the
saints of God. With reverent care they robed the body in
episcopal dress. The chapter of the diocese was summoned. It was resolved to call the citizens that they might see the wondrous sight; but no need to do it. With no
man's hand to swing them, out pealed the Cathedral bells.
In thousands flocked the people, and a long procession
escorted the remains of the illustrious dead to the stately
Temple. From all the surrounding country and from the
sloping sides of the Alps came in vast multitudes the faithful people, and with loud acclaim they praised the Lord in
His hidden saint.
The Cross gloom and pain while he lived; triumph on
earth and in Heaven after death. Triumph on earth.
Brethren, who that saw in Ivrea on that October evening
in the year of 1492 a poor, wearied, footsore man knock at
the hospitable door and beg a night's housing, would have
dreamed that after more than four hundred years had rolled
by those antique streets spanned by floral arches should fill
with countless throng; that festal adornment should grace
all public buildings; that immense waves of music should
swell towards Heaven to give expression to the jubilant
piety of prelates from many lands and vast multitudes of
the people; that its Cathedral Church, draped in every
beauteous colour, and aflame with a thousand lights,
should be the scene of a grand, awe-inspiring celebration,
all to honour the humble pilgrim whom the Church's
authority had uplifted to the immortal glory of her beatified
heroes? He had sown in tears; he reaps in joy. His
enemies had spoken evil against him; but Thou, O Lord,
didst have mercy upon him, and Thou didst raise him up
again. Thou didst uphold him by reason of his innocence,
and Thou hast established him in Thy sight for ever!
Dearly beloved, it is well that, with sacred theory taught
us in the Divine Word, we should have impressive illustration of the same in the history of God s brave servants.
Momentary and light is our tribulation. Weighty and
eternal the glory that accrues. The clouds shall pass, and
soon; the wounds shall be healed; the burden be uplifted;
the prison door flung open; our temporal bondage shall
be changed into the liberty of the everlasting kingdom.
Joy that men taste apart from the service of God is
transient as the morning vapour; possessions of earth's
dross shall come to naught; triumphant power, material aggrandisement, shall cease. But the good of God's grace,
the glory of the Divine friendship, the peace of a sinless
heart no incident of human life avails to affect them; they
are enshrined in the soul; angels keep guard around
them, and they endure for ever. I think of the great
Flavian amphitheatre of pagan Rome. Gone are the piled-up thousands who thronged its mighty galleries; silent
the echoes of their thundering plaudits. Caesar, who in
imperial splendour sat high in state upon his burnished
throne, is dead; the gilding of his coronet faded; his power
and glory lost for ever. But the slave whom they set in
the arena for furious beasts to feed upon who, with sign
of the Cross upon him, went down before the onslaught of
the hungry monsters he lives. Lives aye, reigns, "and
of his kingdom there shall be no end." Reigns even on
earth; the scattered bones which the palpitating lion and
tiger crunched on the sands of the Colosseum are now in
fair caskets enshrined, and on festal days, that shall recur
to the day of doom, are borne through the vaulted aisles of
gorgeous fanes and the decorated streets of earth's proudest
cities. It was so with God's servants made victims of
Rome's anti-Christian hate; it was so with our new patron,
Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy; it is decreed to be so with us
if we endure for the Lord's sake the trials that are; bear
unflinching the burden of the law; adhere to right at all
cost, and, in life and death, be true to God.
Very Rev. Dr Keane, O.P., Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (London and Edinburgh, 1916), 70-80.
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