Opening of Saint Conval’s Church
Fiftieth Anniversary
 
Dear brothers and sisters, it is a great joy for me to be with you as your bishop as you celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of this parish church.
 
As we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of this church, of course, we give thanks to God for the long and noble history of our parish that first came to light nearly one hundred and thirty years ago, in 1898. 
 
Those were the days when the old cotton and flax mills were being joined by shale coal and iron works and the old paper mill, and workers - many of them Catholic - were flooding in to the old village to transform it into a thriving town. 
 
This new church building rose up in 1967 cheek by jowl with the Chrysler - later the Peugeot Talbot - car plant and the Pressed Steel Company, as many of your own folk were moving here with the work from nearby Glasgow and surrounds.  It was the heyday of the Hillman Imp, carried by Linwood’s direct rail link to every corner of Britain and a bright chapter in the life and parish of hope and growth. 
 
Of course the history of the car plant ended all too soon and abruptly and, with it, the darkest chapter in the history of the town and parish when it closed in 1981 and was demolished almost immediately.  The wounds, we know, continued long after and down through many homes and families in the anxiety and devastation of mass unemployment for a generation. The obituary of the town was sent all over the world in the refrain Linwood No More.   It very well might have proved the last word over the town.  
 
But this is a resilient community whose ability to laugh in the face of misfortune as it searches inside for long foreged moral fibre is its strength.  Linwood Sucks transformed into Linwood Active and the infamous ‘plook’ award soon gave way to major development so that, in the same year that the global economy crashed, Linwood began its regeneration and revival.  The results are here for all to see in the rebuilt and refurbished schools, the new houses, the sports and shopping centre, the Kintyre Park and so on. 
The visible signs of rebirth are all around us and they manifest an interior spirit in Linwood folk which is full of courage, faith and hope.  They tell of a belief that knows nothing can come to destroy the human spirit, no matter however so bad, so long as we are determined upon new life and resurrection. 
 
We Catholics, the leaven on the dough, the light of the world, put it another way.  Like Saint Paul we believe if God is for us, who can be against us.  We know that no-one condemns us when Christ Jesus has died and was raised to life for us, and we are convinced that no power in the sky above or in the earth below will ever separate us from the love of God revealed in our hearts by Christ Jesus our Lord.
 This was the spirit that brought Saint Conval from Ireland to Renfrew and to this very parish over one and a half thousand years ago.  This missionary companion of Saint Mungo and Columba, amid the topsy-turvy, unsettled state of Scottish society at the time, took the Gospel courageously to the Scots of Dalriada, before moving on and starting all over again on his mission among the Picts.   While Columba evangelised the north and Mungo laid the holy foundations of the city of Glasgow, Conval preached the faith around Inchinnan and Mirin established it in Paisley.
 
All of this dear brothers and sisters is the context in which we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of this church of St. Conval.  It is the context of the triumph of our local human spirit amid past and recent adversities.  But we know much more profoundly it is the story of the triumph of God’s grace poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was raised up out of death to a new and everlasting life, and who shares His resurrection strength generously and abundantly with all mankind. 
 
The disciples in today’s Gospel experienced it as a power able to cast out every demon with all God’s authority, an authority most effective in those with the trusting spirit of little children.  His strength, we know, is found in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  It is found in forgiving past hurts and clothing everything in love so as to move on in peace and unity, with gratitude in our hearts. 
 
Today brothers and sisters, after the most trying times, our town of Linwood and our parish and church of Saint Convals stand strong still.  Where factories came down ringing a death knell over the village, civic buildings and our new church hall have gone up to ring out hopeful fresh beginnings.  This is a day when we understand how the message of Christ still dwells richly among us and it is right for us to sing out gladly our psalms, hymns, and songs to God with gratitude in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father through Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
Let’s not conclude without remembering, with affection and prayers,   our priests and parishioners, parents and grandparents whose faith and love brought us, their families, safely through dark days to these more hopeful ones at hand.  They must have longed to see what we see and to hear what we hear today.  They did not see or hear these happier days in this world but they worked hard and bore much in faith so that we would.   As surely as our eyes are blessed in seeing this Jubilee this evening may they who took care of us with the gift and sacrifice of their lives, our priests and our parents now rejoice, sins forgiven, to see their names written in Heavenly glory.