Scottish Catholic Observer

Around 2000 pilgrims from parishes across the country joined together with bishops, clergy and religious at Carfin on Sunday for the national pilgrimage in honour of St Margaret of Scotland.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien and members of the Scottish hierarchy, including Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, who had been installed as Archbishop of Glasgow the previous day, attended the annual pilgrimage to Carfin, which is home to Scotland’s national shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes.

The cardinal and Archbishop Tartaglia were joined in celebrating Mass by Archbishops Emeriti Mario Conti and John Mone, Bishops Joseph Devine, John Cunningham, Joseph Toal, Auxiliary Bishop Stephen Robson and clergy from across the country.

Time to reflect

Speaking to the gathered pilgrims in his homily, Auxiliary Bishop Robson reminded the Faithful to ‘reflect for a moment on the living out of the theological virtues: faith, hope and love.’

“Following Christ is a big task,” he said. “We tend to think holiness is simply a question of doing things better and better. But to live the commandment of love in faith and hope—as Christ has loved us—is a huge task and it takes us not less than a lifetime of friendship with Christ to become a reality for us.”

The auxiliary bishop said that the upcoming Year of Faith invites Catholics to ‘an encounter with the culture in which we live—to immerse ourselves in the culture in which we live and move, and learn from it, get to know it: that culture which the Bible usually calls the ‘world.”

“But we are not to allow ourselves to be changed by that culture; rather we are called to know enough about it to be able to change it, to challenge it, to evangelise it,” he said. “Definitely not to be duped, cajoled or conned by it.

“At the moment, this culture, ‘the world,’ our society, is very hostile to our Faith, to the values of Christ, the very values, ironically, that formed it in the first place. And so then, having encountered our culture and coming to know what we are faced with, we are called in this Year of Faith to present again to people’s memories, the Word of the Gospel that formed us, and which is so often discarded or forgotten. In short, our present post-modern culture relativises everything and has cut loose from any lasting values and absolute truths which stood us in such good stead in the past.”

Seek inspiration

Auxiliary Bishop Robson encouraged pilgrims to seek inspiration from saints, such as St Margaret, in ‘our vocation to become a saint.’ He added that to become a saint is ‘to live the perfection of charity.’

“If we love then we shall be loyal, we shall be faithful we shall be transformed ourselves; and so we shall be great witnesses, we shall be great evangelisers, we shall aim ourselves for what really matters; we shall enter through the door of faith and we shall encourage others to do the same,” he said.

A Rosary Procession at Carfin Grotto followed the celebration of the national pilgrimage Mass.

After the celebrations, the members of the Scottish hierarchy posed for photographs with some of the pilgrims that had travelled to Carfin with banners representing their parishes.

—[email protected]

Pic: Tom Eadie