Dear Brothers and Sisters
It is a joy to welcome you to Paisley Diocese for your conference on New Movements and the wider Christian community.   I am particularly pleased at how the Holy Spirit has inspired you to think about how to encourage and foster Christian family life.  I am sure this day will have been all you hoped it would be and more and that you leave inspired and encouraged to be witnesses to the action of the Holy Spirit in the life of our Church.   
It is a particular joy for me to welcome Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick your speaker and guide today, as you reflected on and prayed about Christian Family Life in our Changing Society, inspired by the teachings of Pope Francis - particularly Amoris Laetitia and the centrality of the family in the Church - and all ahead of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin 2018. 
We are indeed fortunate to have Bishop Brendan with us today.  Prior to his consecration in 2013 he was, as you know, professor of theology at St. Patrick’s, Maynooth and is a member of the Pontifical Theology Academy, having formerly been a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and he remains a visiting lecturer at the Sophia University Institute of the Focolare Movement.  I am sure you have benefitted greatly from his deep experience of theology, spirituality, ecclesial movements and ecumenism. 
It is always good for our Church to reflect upon the identity and mission of the family but it has never been more important for us to do so than today.  In giving to Adam and Even the gift of family life in the Beginning God was indeed dreaming big and, as we reflect upon the unfathomable good that has come out of families in the history of our world, we know His dream has not been disappointed.  We do not have to read far into the Bible, however, before we arrive at the story of Cain and Abel and see that the big dream has not been an easy reality to live.  The very institution that best carried God’s mercy to humanity - that is the family - is, at the same time, the institution most in need of that same mercy.  The family, both bearer and recipient of God’s mercy, is the true reality of families in the Church and world of today. The family, created as God’s most precious gift to humanity is, we know, a fallen reality too, all too fallen, and cries out for redemption and new life. 
Today’s Scriptures encourage us to think about Resurrection and to find in our Church the courage to overcome any obstacles in the way of our sharing in it as God’s family, or children of the Resurrection.  This is God’s biggest dream for us.  Yet all of the Scriptures warn us that there are obstacles in the way of our reaching or holding onto the new life of the Risen Lord, obstacles which we find also in family life today.
In the story of the Maccabees the obstacle is overt persecution from the world.  In the Gospel it is the more subtle ridicule of disbelief.  Saint Paul warns the new Church of Thessalonika that there are also obstacles within the Church itself, since not all have faith, and these will bring evil into the midst of the family of the Church which the Lord, nonetheless, will in time overcome. 
The answer, or antidote, to all these obstacles is confident faith in the Divine Mercy of God and persevering faithfulness to His plan for us to live in family life.  It is the defiant faith of the son of Maccabees who said to his persecutors: even though you dismiss us from this present life the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.  It is the thoughtful knowledge of the Faith of Jesus who, knowing the Scriptures, was able to counter the errors of the Sadducees who doubted both the enduring good of marriage and family life and the truth of the Resurrection.   Jesus had a good religious education that allowed Him to argue how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses was a God not of the dead, but of the living and so give fresh confidence to those who hoped to be worthy of a place themselves in the resurrection from the dead. 
 
Yet surely the obstacles that worry the Christian community most are the obstacles that arise from within the Church itself.   It is our constant prayer that we may be rescued from wicked and evil people; for not all have faith.  That is why we spontaneously turn to the Lord Whom we know is faithful and Who will strengthen us and guard us from the evil one.
 
Surely two ways in which the Lord seeks to guard us in our own times are through raising up new ecclesial movements and strengthening our families in the Church.
 
In ecclesial movements, groups and associations of evangelisation we see one of the mature fruits of the Second Vatican Council allowing our Church to breathe harmoniously on the two lungs of institution and charism, reverencing the blessed gift of our apostolic tradition but receiving it for what it is, a living tradition, meant to be passed on and enriched by new evangelisation.  Ecclesial movements and societies allow us to return to our source as a Church of the Upper Room, gathered with Mary,commissioned to go into the whole of Creation to preach the Good News and praying for the promised Holy Spirit to be our strength and guide.  
 
Our movements and associations themselves are like families and are called to be privileged witnesses of God’s plan for family and fraternal life in today’s world.  We are big in dreams but we know it takes confident faith and persevering faithfulness to live the reality day to day.   It is not easy for families to live together, nor for our movements and associations on the one hand and our parish and diocesan structures on the other, to look out for each other and make allowances for each other.  It is not easy for priests to negotiate their status in our movements and societies with their belonging to the whole Church.  It is an ongoing challenge for the Canon Law to cope with this new breath of the Holy Spirit Who blows where He wills.  Like all families there will be wrong words, and criticism will be sometimes fair, sometimes unjust, hurtful and needing to be forgiven.   
 
There is nothing new here.  All big dreams are woven through such lived realities.  As it is in our own times so Saint Paul found it in the new community at Thessalonika.  He offered the only solution that really works and endures.  It was to turn to our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, remembering how He loved us and, through grace, gave us eternal comfort and good hope.  In this way our hearts are comforted and strengthen to do ever new good works and words as we pray for each other. 
 
As  you have reflected upon and prayed about the identity and mission of family life in today’s changing world my prayer and confident hope is that a powerful part of the Holy Spirit’s response will be in your own excellent witness  as ecclesial movements and associations living your realities as happy families in our big family of the Church and I am confident that, in this way, the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere and the Lord will direct the heart of our Church afresh to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.