Anniversary Mass
St John the Evangelist Barrhead
 
 
Today we are gathered to celebrate the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the parish of Saint John, Evangelist, founded in 1841.  This Sunday is the closest to its actual founding on 17 October 1841 with the building of the first parish church in Prior Park.
 
We are grateful to George Dorrian who has bequeathed us a short history of the parish from its founding.  It is a good service to the Church and our parish since just knowing the faith of our fathers can encourage us to renew our faith in our own days and times. 
 
The parish predates the migration brought about by the Great Famine in Ireland.  It was set up, nonetheless, largely to cater for the spiritual needs of economic migrants who came, mostly from Ireland, some from the north of Scotland, from Lochaber and Argyll, to seek work in Paisley’s textile industry which was growing rapidly on the back of the Industrial Revolution. Already by 1780, forty years before the parish was founded, Barrhead boasted the first water powered mill in Scotland.  In these times of a new global phenomenon of economic migrants we should not forget our own history or deprive them of a salvation once depended upon by us.
 
Those Catholics migrants who built the parish arrived to find a Church somewhat oppressed by State anti-Catholic penal laws which prevailed into the 19th century and which, despite the Emancipation Act of 1829, continued to inhibit many aspects of Catholic life and practice. Still, mines continued to push down while mills and factories pushed upwards into the sky, all acting like magnets to pull in tens of thousands of workers from far and wide.  Catholics continued to come, strong in frame, family and faith and soon St. John’s was setting up daughter foundations in Neilston and Eaglesham. 
 
Under pioneer parish priests like Frs. Bremner, Purcell and Sheehy the parish pushed out, embraced refugees from the Famine, built a school, cemetery and presbytery and comforted the faithful through the ups and downs of life, like the Victoria Pitt disaster in nearby Nitshill.
 
We also have to be grateful for other heroic priests who followed like Thomas Keane, Bernard Tracy and Peter Hilgers, who brought the parish through the nineteenth century and beyond, even shepherding the flock when, in the very centenary year of the parish, the fine Gothic church was burned down though an electrical fire.  I hope no one here is getting any strange ideas for this anniversary! Some parishioners still remember that tragic day but neither will they forget the two decades of remarkable resilience of parishioners, making do with the parish hall as a makeshift church.  Many more will recall with fondness and gratitude Fr. Michael Teehan, the first parish priest of the new post 1960 era, who built our present Saint John the Evangelist Church.  Such are the brief facts of the history of the parish. 
 
George Dorrian ends his summary with a perceptive conclusion.   He notes that although, ‘the lives of the pastors of Saint John the Evangelist are recorded in the archives (the) lives of their people are not’ and so he is forced to conclude that ‘(t)heir piety, devotion and heroism are much more difficult to assess’.   It is hard for us to know whether, or to what extent, in our forebears’ lives the Lord found faith on earth.  But we imagine he did find it, and it hefty measure.  
 
George Dorrian calls upon us to reflect on changes going on in wider society throughout the one hundred and seventy-five years our Catholics have been worshipping in St. John’s as much, if not more, than we think about the bricks and mortar of our parish church and school.  He is conscious of how ‘these changes affected ordinary people in extraordinary ways; not least in Barrhead’ and he mentions:  Catholic Emancipation that allowed Catholics the vote and participation in political life; educational changes that afforded us schools and for social and economic advancement and leadership roles; industrialisation of working life that gave us a voice in unions and political parties; improvements in housing and public health that gave us more comfortable lives; recurring cycles of unemployment and decline of industries that brought unexpected anguish, conflict and despair;  two world wars and a subsequent social revolution that destabilised family life – the media revolution with all its consequences –
 
Today’s Gospel, in a similar way, provokes the most practical of reflections in this anniversary years and it is this:  if Jesus were to come today would he find faith on earth, or would he find as much faith in our parish today as He found in 1841 and in subsequent generations, those of our grandparents and parents? They have set us a high bar indeed!
 
Maybe that is an impossible and even unfair question to answer.  Perhaps it is better to ask what we need to do to ensure Our Lord Jesus finds faith that He can be proud of, as much, it were, in our generation as in any other.  That is what we desire more than anything. The Scriptures suggest that, to have this dream realised, all we have to concentrate on is three things.
 
This first is never to give up on our faith and our parish, no matter what.  It is an amazing achievement of God’s grace and our people’s faith that our parish, begun, in 1841, persists even to this day and still persists in you as tenaciously even as it did in the widow of today’s Gospel who pleaded for justice.  That poor soul demanded grace and mercy from her lord and judge and found it in the end.  Surely, our times are different from the past.  In many ways they are easier but in others they are harder ones for us in holding onto the faith of our fathers.  The Lord encourages us not to give up even if these times seem lean but to cry out for help to Him in prayer day and night and He will see justice done to us even if, for a while He seems to forget and delay? Jesus says, ‘I promise you will see justice done and done speedily’.  
 
The second thing we have to do is to remain proud of our Catholic faith and never water it down or feel ashamed of it.  If we feel ourselves wavering somewhat we are to remember the defiant faith of our fathers who were our teachers, and we should found our lives solidly on the Word of God which we listen to every time we come to Mass.  St. Paul reminds us how useful the Scripture is in teaching and guiding us, correcting all our faults and wrong ideas through time, and leading us along the path of holiness to Heaven through faith in Jesus.  It will not always be a popular message in the world or even seem attractive to us but it is the truth, the only truth that can free and save our world, and so we commit ourselves patiently to living it, popular or otherwise, and passing it on to our children.  
 
The final thing we need to do is to stick together and support each other.  In the first reading, when the people of God were under attack, they won the day because they stuck together as a team and supported each other. So while Joshua and the soldiers were fighting in the plane, Moses was lifting up his hands in prayer to God for their success in battle. And when the battle raged on and he got weary Aaron and Hur were there by his side to lift him up and encourage him to keep going. They all stuck together and each kept faithfully to his or her task and, in the end, they won the victory. 
 
So congratulations St. John’s, Barrhead and God bless you in this special anniversary year and in the years to come.  With fresh resilience, proud Catholic faith and maintaining a strong parish identity you will ensure, by God’s grace and the intercession of Our Blessed Mother, the Lord Jesus finds faith in Barrhead in 2016 that He can build upon so that the generations still to come will look back in gratitude for your fine service in building up the Kingdom of God.