Rite of Election and Presentation of Candidates
2016

Dear brothers and sisters,
You stand before us at the end of your long period of catechetical instruction and ready to be received into full communion with the Church. It is a big moment for you and a nice time to take stock of the spiritual journey you have made thus far. Maybe your minds have been going back to that first moment when you began to feel the Holy Spirit touching your heart and awakening inside of you some interest in the Catholic faith and how, after a while and some promptings, the same Spirit gave you the courage to inquire about it.

You began to meet with your priest or deacon or parish sister or you joined your catechist and group and began to hear the story of Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and the Salvation He brings. Hearing this Good News you soon felt some sense of being chosen especially by God and began to experience what is was like to be evangelised. Bit by bit it brought about in you a change, a conversion of heart to Jesus and His Gospel we would say, and you began to make your first steps of commitment in the faith, assisted by God’s gentle grace. And now you long for Him, His grace, mercy and peace, as the meaning of your life.

At the same time as this has been going on you have been getting acquainted with what Catholics believe. You learned the basic teachings of our Church. Through talking about the Creed you now know what Catholics believe. From thinking about Mass and the Sacraments you see how Catholics worship God and receive His grace and strength for their lives. By reflecting upon the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes you have learned about the struggle to live a good and blessed life. And by learning off by heart the daily prayers and devotions of the Church you are discovering the joy and consolation of having your own personal relationship with God, with Jesus, Our Lady and the Saints.
You have not learned these things as an academic may learn dry truths from dusty books. No, as the wisdom of the Lord’s way has opened up before you, you have been getting immersed in a great mystery. It is the mystery of our salvation and it has called you to participate within it. As Saint Paul says, you have found ‘the word very near to you, on your lips and in your heart’. You now stand before me believing that ‘Jesus is Lord and ….that God raised him from the dead’ and believing this, you know with great joy and assurance that ‘you will be saved’. You stand together ‘all belonging to the same Lord who is rich enough for everyone who calls on His name to be saved.

So you can see how this has also been a time of prayer and spiritual growth. The focal point of this prayer and growth in spirit has been your coming to your parish Sunday Mass and beginning to feel you belong in our community and our liturgies. There, at Sunday Mass as part of our community you have heard the Word of God although you have not yet shared with us in Holy Communion and the Great Banquet of Christ’s Sacrifice which you will soon enough taste. Even so, hearing the Word and belonging to our worshipping community has helped you to live your lives more devoutly and with increasing conviction of faith.

Your teachers, who have been examining you in this regard, will testify to that today. Indeed, throughout your journey your sponsors and parish community have been faithful companions along the way, helping you by their example and support and I offer them my blessings and gratitude for their wonderful service to the Lord and your salvation.

Soon you are to become full members of the Church and receive the Sacraments, of Baptism if you are a catechumen as well as Confirmation and Holy Eucharist along with our Candidates. These six weeks of Lent are now a time of intense preparation for you as the whole Church joins you in expectation of the Feast of Easter.
This Rite of Election and presentation today closes your Period of Catechumenate and Candidacy. Following the testimony of your sponsors and catechists before me and your affirmation that you intend to join the Church, we will elect you who are Catechumens as illuminandi, or ones to be enlightened and you will begin a period of purification to receive the Sacraments of Initiation. On the next five Sundays of Lent you will receive three scrutinies or rites of self-searching and repentance. In all of this - your struggles with Satan and his temptations to follow paths other than the one true Way set out for you -the Lord Jesus will be there at hand to enlighten and strengthen you not to put God to the test, to live on the word of God and to worship Him alone. You will be presented with the Creed to strengthen you and with the Lord's Prayer to console you. Those of you who are Candidates already baptised are today enlisted as confirmandi shall we say, or ones to have your Christian faith confirmed in the full communion of the Church.

In my presence as bishop, whether your names are written in the Book of the Elect or you are presented before me and pledge your obedience to me as your Bishop, all of you now embark upon your final, intense preparation for reception into the Church.

This period, you know, will conclude with your reception into the full communion of the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil and the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation. The joyful Eastertide that follows will be a blessed season of the joy of new birth for you as you feel your way into the life and unity of the Church.

In that same Easter season you will be thrown into your diocesan Church at the a time of Our Paisley Synod where, gathered together with Mary, the Mother of God, the Risen Lord in the Holy Spirit will be showing us how to be ‘all together sharing the Good News’. I want you to be fully involved and right at the heart of Our Paisley Synod. You who have just received the Good News will know best how we should share it with others and you who have taken such a big step in commitment to the Church can help the rest of us to see how to make our own renewed steps.

After that we will all joyfully meet again here in the Cathedral at Pentecost when you will be presented to me as the first-fruits of the Resurrection. Just as Moses instructed the people to present their first fruits to the Lord who had brought them into the Promised Land and gave them milk and honey overflowing, so I will present you to the Holy Spirit with joy and gratitude, after your long time of preparation, as the first-fruits of the soil of our Church in the Year of Mercy that the Lord has given us. I will lay you before the Lord our God and bow down in the sight of the Lord our God in thanksgiving.

For now we entrust you in this Season of Lent to Our Lady, Mother of Mercy. At the foot of the Cross She heard, first hand, Her Son say, 'Father forgive them', on behalf of the very ones who were putting Him to death. Hearing this, Mary understood how no-one can ever be excluded from the Father's forgiveness which you are soon to enjoy to the full. Assumed into Heaven She now sits in the Tribunal of God's mercy, praying to Her Son to grant our world a fresh outpouring of forgiveness. May you see in Her sweet face the desire of Her Son to take away all your sins and wrap you in His love, so that this time of grace may open up to you the wonderful new beginning in Christ that awaits each of you and, with you, our whole Church and our world.