Cathal BarryCardinal Timothy Dolan said it was an “honour”, “a joy” and “a privilege” to open the novena Our Lady of Knock, at a shrine that was “so dear” to him.
“I can only hope you understand how much I love Ireland – love all of you – and thank you for this privilege of opening the novena at a shrine so dear to my heart,” the Archbishop of New York said.
Noting that he was “no stranger” to Knock or Ireland, the cardinal pointed out that his grandfather’s grandfather was from Co. Cavan.
In his homily, Cardinal Dolan paid tribute on the Feast of St Maximillian Kolbe to the Polish Franciscan’s sense of identity.
He died at just 47 years of age in Auschwitz concentration camp.
“Who we are, identity, is far more important than what we have and or what we do,” Cardinal Dolan said, adding that our culture’s “most sugar coated temptation is to prefer having and doing to being, to identity”.
“We are children of God,” the prelate told the congregation gathered at the newly renovated basilica in Knock.
“Made in his image and likeness, redeemed by the most precious blood of his only begotten son our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. That’s our identity,” he said.
Cardinal Dolan led the first American diocesan pilgrimage to Knock for this year’s annual novena at the Co. Mayo shrine.