Congratulations to the Father William McQuillan, ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Archdibishop Leo Cushley at St Margaret’s parish in Dunfermline, 3 July, the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle.
“It’s fantastic to be here,” said the newly-ordained Father McQuillan, who first considered a vocation to the priesthood over 25 years ago, “It’s been a long journey, tonight’s not the end, though, it’s just he beginning, I’m so glad to be a priest today.”
52-year-old Father McQuillan hails originally from Stirling but lived and worked in Dunfermline in recent years before setting off for seminary at the The Pontifical Beda College in Rome back in 2015.
Last night saw family, friends and many other well-wishers fill St Margaret’s Church to pray for and with Father McQuillan as he was ordained by Archbishop Cushley. Holy Mass was con-celebrated by over 30 priests from across the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh and beyond, each wearing red vestments to denote the martyrdom of St Thomas the Apostle. Assisting were the seminarians of the Pontifical Scots College in Rome.
“It is providential that we have the opportunity to reflect upon the faith of Thomas, as we gather tonight to ordain William to the priesthood,” said Archbishop Cushley in his homily, “for William is to become an alter Christus, another Christ in our midst.”
“Priests are unworthy, mortal figures, but through Holy Orders they are conformed to Christ the High Priest. They are not of themselves holy, but they are nonetheless set aside to offer sacrifice on behalf of us all, to preach the Good News and to celebrate the Sacraments for the People of God.”
“The objective action of the conferral of Holy Orders assures us of the efficacy of the priest’s sacred actions; but the personal transformation of the man, the earthen vessel receiving such a gift, is something distinct. And yet it is obviously desirable too.”
The sacred liturgy concluded with a rousing congregational rendition of an anthem to St Margaret, patronal and national patroness. Father McQuillan then bestowed his first priestly blessing upon many of those present, beginning with Archbishop Cushley, before all made their way across the the adjacent Carnegie Hall for a celebratory reception.
Father McQuillan will now serve as Assistant Priest in St Francis Xavier’s parish in Falkirk. His first Mass will take place tonight, Thursday 4 July, in St Ninian’s Church, Cardenden, Fife. All are very welcome to attend.
Congratulations Father McQuillan. Ad multos annos! Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, Pray for Him!
The latest Sunday-by-Sunday guides for those who lead the Children's Liturgy in parishes are now available on the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh website. Available now is:
Click here to download or go to Pastoral Resources > Catechetics > Children's Liturgy Resources. Click: https://archedinburgh.org/pastoral-governance/.
The Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh is delighted to invite you to listen to renowned American theologian, Dr Janet Smith, speak on “The Courage to Proclaim the Gospel in Difficult Times” in Edinburgh on Thursday 20 June.
“On many matters of faith and morals, the Catholic Church finds herself in disagreement with our contemporary Western culture such that many Catholics who remain faithful to the teachings of the Church can face hostility and, even, discrimination in their daily lives,” explains the publicity material for the event.
“So how do we find the courage to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in these difficult times? And how do we do so with intellectual coherence, cultural credibility and moral compassion? Dr Janet E. Smith will attempt to answer these questions...and any questions you may have too.”
The event is being held at the Gillis Centre, 100 Strathearn Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1BB and will begin at 7.30pm. All are very welcome. To book go to EventBrite: drjanetsmithtalk.eventbrite.co.uk
About Janet Smith:
Professor Janet E. Smith holds the Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, in Detroit. She taught previously at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Dallas, and has served both as a consulter to the Pontifical Council on the Family and also as a member of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.
She is the author of many articles and books on moral and ethical issues, and she lectures widely in the United States and internationally. Most recently she published Self-Gift, a volume of her essays on Humanae Vitae and the thought of Pope Saint John Paul II.
She has received two honorary doctorates and several other awards for scholarship and service, and appears regularly on CNN International, Al Jazeera and EWTN.
Homily of Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews & Edinburgh
St Margaret’s Pilgrimage, 2 June 2019
Dunfermline
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
It is a very great joy to welcome you again to Dunfermline for our annual St Margaret’s Pilgrimage Mass. I’m grateful to the parish priest Fr Chris Heenan, to Mr Caldwell, Mr Pryde and to the people of St Margaret’s parish, the musicians and singers, the helpers and volunteers, and all the priests and people of Dunfermline for their warm welcome to the town. Thanks also to the Master of Ceremonies to all the civil and police authorities who have worked hard to make this a happy, memorable visit to Dunfermline. In particular, I’d like to thank the Reverend Mary Ann Rennie, Minister of Dunfermline Abbey, and her parishioners for their kind welcome this morning to their church, where we celebrated an ecumenical service in honour of St Margaret.
*
It was 950 years ago this year, that the young Princess Margaret, a royal visitor, but an inconvenient one, arrived at Leith. Daughter of a disinherited and exiled royal house, she found herself, by accident or design, homeless and a refugee in our country. As circumstances would have it, the king eventually took to her and married her, and she became our Queen.
Her biographer, Bishop Turgot, tells us many things about her, but he didn’t write about her centuries afterwards: no, he knew her personally; in fact he was her confessor, so he knew her mind and her soul well, maybe even better than her husband, for she was, as we now know, very devout and a woman of great faith.
Her confessor leaves us a picture of a faithful Christian woman who loved her man and loved her family, but he tells us that she also loved her adopted country and its people. She had the fire of someone newly converted to the faith and she put that faith into practice. Turgot leaves us many more of her deeds than her words in his biography of her, which suggests perhaps that she was a woman of action. She certainly did many things to set the country on the broad path towards a deeper, better, saner way of life, in harmony with the gentle tenets and counsels of Christianity, so that a City, fit for God to dwell in, might be built here. To this day, we still owe this extraordinary woman an enormous debt of gratitude.
And although 950 years have passed since Margaret arrived here, she is a much more modern woman, in our sense, than the distance in time between us might normally suggest. She made her mind known without fear, she took up clear positions, and in a time rougher than ours she achieved her goals with skill, energy and determination. But she did so, always informed by a strong faith in Christ and his power to save her, and her family, and her adopted nation.
Her story is full of many small episodes, and I’d like to concentrate on just one of them today, because it’s surprisingly relevant to us.
She herself had been an exile and a stranger, and so it happened that, once she found herself Queen, she started to realise that there were other exiles and strangers in Scotland, people who had been taken captive through the wars with the English, and who were being held for ransom here. These prisoners were often treated harshly, becoming little more than slaves, and unable to find a way to freedom, or to do enough, or to make enough money to be allowed to purchase their freedom. They were harsh times, and there were harsh punishments to go with them.
We know from Margaret’s biographer that when she learned of this kind of “slavery”, she set about personally raising money to pay for the release of these captives, so that they could be set free and allowed to go home. For another sovereign, this might have been something that was delegated to an inferior, a court official, soldiers or to the Church’s charity, but not Margaret: she acted, and she set the example. She took a personal interest in these cases and worked herself to raise the money to set these people, practically slaves in a Christian country, free again to go home. I wonder how many people were shamed into similar action when they saw their own queen taking an interest in such despised and downtrodden foreigners.
I’m telling you all this, because I recently attended a conference, just across the river, to launch a new initiative in Scotland. When we look around us here, today, right now, we don’t think that Scotland is a place where modern day slavery or trafficking exist. We flatter ourselves that it exists in murky, far-away places, or in Netflix box sets about the ancient world. But the reality is quite different. Today, in Scotland, there is a significant number of people in our country, from Africa and Asia, and even Europe, who are here, trapped in debt, and exploited by the unscrupulous. Just because they’re not chained up physically, or because we don’t see slavery or trafficking in the way the ancient world did, we may think it doesn’t exist here. But we should be in no illusion as to this reality that has quietly taken root in our country.
The initiative working to make us aware of this is called Survivors of Human Trafficking in Scotland. I’ll put this homily on our Facebook page afterwards so you can find reference to this again later, and you can look up the name to see something about it. Unhappily, the phenomenon of human trafficking is not unknown here in our quiet corner of the world.
It is unclear how great the problem is, but that makes it no more acceptable or tolerable, and it does not exonerate us from making ourselves aware of what is happening in this regard in our country. That is why, in the coming months, Fr Basil Clark, my Vicar Episcopal for Caritas, Justice & Peace, will be touch with our parish J&P groups to raise awareness in the diocese of human trafficking and of what we, all of us, may be able to do to make others more aware of the problem, and to find means to assist those who find themselves trapped through trafficking. This is a phenomenon that St Margaret would have recognised; she would have condemned it and she would have worked to change it. She did so in her own lifetime. And, so, we would do well to imitate her by informing ourselves about this problem and exploring what needs to be done to address it.
We gather today to honour our great patron and Queen, St Margaret. We ask her to intercede for us, her children, before the face of almighty God, so that we may learn from her goodness and holiness, how to be good and wise and holy in our turn. In these days, we see we see the growing suspicion among countries that ought to be friends; we see the confusion in our own country’s life, politically, socially, economically, morally; and we see a country growing rudderless without the moral guidance. That is why we turn to Margaret, Queen and mother, and offer up our prayers for our land and its people. And as we do so, we spare a thought, as she did, for the strangers among us, even as we pledge ourselves to follow her example, from the family hearth to the public square.
Thank you again for being here today. For coming on pilgrimage to honour St Margaret, may God bless you and your loved ones abundantly!
The latest Sunday-by-Sunday guides for those who lead the Children's Liturgy in parishes are now available on the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh website. Available now is:
Click here to download or go to Pastoral Resources > Catechetics > Children's Liturgy Resources. Click: https://archedinburgh.org/pastoral-governance/.
Thank you to all who prayerfully participated in this year’s Archdiocesan Lourdes Day which took place at the Gillis Centre in Edinburgh, Sunday 26 May.
“We had about 90 pilgrims present, which was great,” said event organiser, Kris Thomas.
“There was a beautiful and prayerful atmosphere with one gentleman, whom I had never met before, telling me that the whole experience transported him back to his many pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France.”
The afternoon began with a Marian procession around the grounds of the Gillis Centre, the former St Margaret’s Convent. The many pilgrims then gathered at the centre’s replica Lourdes grotto. Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the blessing of the sick then followed led by Archbishop Leo Cushley. The afternoon was rounded off with a celebratory reception.
“The Archdiocesan Lourdes Day achieved exactly what it set out to achieve – to bring the spirit of Lourdes alive in the heart of our archdiocese,” said Kris.
Archbishop Leo Cushley has paid tribute to his former bishop, The Right Reverend Joseph Devine, Bishop Emeritus of Motherwell, who died on Thursday 23 May. He was at 82 years old.
“I will always remember Bishop Joseph Devine with affection and respect,” said Archbishop Cushley who was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Devine in 1985.
“He was a generous and wise pastor of souls and as a young priest I learned a great deal from him. He dedicated himself generously to celebrating Word and Sacrament, especially among the young people of Motherwell, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude. May he rest in peace.”
Joseph Devine was Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Glasgow from 1977 to 1983 whereupon he was translated to Motherwell. He served as bishop there for 30 years. Requiescat in pace.
Headteachers from across the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh gathered Monday 13 May for a day of reflection on the centrality of the Eucharist to the life of the Catholic school hosted at the Gillis Centre in Edinburgh.
“The day of reflection was a great opportunity for our headteachers to gather together, pray together, socialise together and learn together about the Eucharist as source and summit of our Catholic faith and, therefore, its centrality to the life of the Catholic school,” said Eileen Rafferty, Archdiocesan Religious Education Advisor, 17 May.
The day of reflection as led by the Head of the Diocese of Lancaster Education Service, Canon Luiz Ruscillo. Following from a morning session of presentations and discussions, the afternoon included lunch and the day concluded with Holy Mass in St Margaret’s Chapel with Archbishop Cushley as main celebrant and Canon Ruscillo concelebrating.
“Thank you to all who attended and, in particularly, thank you to Canon Ruscillo for being so inspiring,” said Eileen, “not surprisingly, the feedback to the day has been very, very positive.”
Or go to: Pastoral Resources > Catechetics > Children's Liturgy Resources. Click: https://archedinburgh.org/pastoral-governance/.
Over 180 married couples attended the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh’s first ever Celebration of Marriage in St Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral in Edinburgh, 1 May, Feast of St Joseph the Worker.
“Tonight is a chance to thank Almighty God for the many blessings received over many years of marriage and to approach the Lord in gratitude and humility for all that we have become through the sacred bonds of this most essential institution for a civil society and a Christian society,” said Archbishop Leo Cushley in his homily.
The evening began with Holy Mass offered upon the high altar of the cathedral. Concelebrating with the Archbishop was Father Daniel Doherty VE and Father Jeremy Milne VE. During the liturgy, those couples present received a blessing upon their marriage and family. Each couple wore a badge denoting their number of years married.
“Nobody said that in getting married it was all going to be fun and games, that it was going to be easy, not that the adventure isn’t a beautiful one, though, and a good one and one that leads to us being more complete as human beings,” suggested the Archbishop.
Following Holy Mass, there was a celebratory reception in the cathedral hall. Appropriately, there was a cutting of wedding cake with the honours undertaken by Billy and Margaret Mawdsley of St John’s Church in Corstorphine in Edinburgh who are 64 years married this year.
“Tonight has been wonderful, very touching, very spiritual,” said Margaret, “We’re very privileged to reach this age and still be married,” said Billy, “we are very happy and very grateful to God.”
The very successful event was organised by the Archdiocesan Marriage & Families Commission which is chaired by Father Jeremy Milne VE. “Thank you to the members of the commission for all their hard work,” said Father Milne, “it’s been a team effort, clergy and laity together, that has created this wonderful evening, I’m delighted to see so many turn out," said Father Milne.
The many couples present seemed to echo that enthusiastic sentiment including Gemma and David Brown from St Gabriel’s in Prestonpans, East Lothian, who are celebrating 50 years of marriage this year. “That made tonight all the more special for us, it was really lovely, really meaningful,” said Gemma. “It was all very well done,” said David, “very simple, very nice.”
“It was excellent, a very good idea,” said Bruce Royan of St Peter’s in Morningside, Edinburgh, who also marks 50 years of marriage this year along with his Annie, “It’s a very nice start to our anniversary year, a year of continued celebrations we hope.”
Many present seemed very keen to reflect upon the gift of a Catholic marriage and the sustenance it receives from the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
“It was a lovely night and the prayers were particularly lovely,” said Eddie McLay of St Barbara’s in Whitburn, West Lothian. “We thank God for 56 years of Catholic marriage and for that fact that our five children are all married in the Catholic Church too,” said Eddie’s wife, Margaret. “A Catholic marriage is very prayerful – in any difficulties we have always prayed to God, Our Lady and St Joseph to see us through those times.”
For Mick and Dot Daly from St John Vianney’s in Edinburgh, the evening marked a return to the church where they were married four decades ago. “It is very nice. Really lovely, a bit more special for us given we were married here too,” said Dot. “Yes, it was like re-doing our wedding service all over again, which was lovely,” said Mick.
For more information on the Office of Marriage & Families in the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh, to go: https://archedinburgh.org/pastoral-governance/
Pictured above: Bruce & Annie Royan.
Pictured above: Dot & Mick Daly.
Pictured above: Margaret & Eddie McLay.
Pictured above: Father Jeremy Milne VE.
Pictured above: Margaret & Billy Mawdsley.
Pictured: Gemma & David Brown.