REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ANNO DOMINI EXHIBITION OF CHRISTIAN HERITAGE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ANNO DOMINI EXHIBITION OF CHRISTIAN HERITAGE MONAGHAN COUNTY MUSEUM
Is cúis mhór áthais dom bheith anseo libh inniu chun an taispeántais seo a oscailt go hoifigiúil. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as an chuireadh agus as fáílte fíorchaoin.
It is a great pleasure to join you here today for the official opening of this wonderful exhibition, ANNO DOMINI, and indeed the start of this entire week of celebrating the Christian heritage of this area.
The night we entered the New Millennium was a night for fireworks and fun, a night of memorable festivities which most people spent close to home and family, drawn deeply to and by those strong bonds of love. The celebrations and parties were a curious mix of the spiritual and the secular allowing those who are Christian and those who are not to have a memorable carnival day together. However for Christians the significance of this remarkable Jubilee Year is a time of special grace which calls us to look afresh at the historic events two thousand years ago which started this particular clock running.
Ireland has been renowned for centuries as a place where Christianity took root, flourished and then shared its message across the world. But what should have been and could have been a showcase for the promise of Christ's message of love became also a by-word for conflict among Christians.
Christ’s message of love, unconditional and generous, has been so often crowded out by sectarian hatred and contempt, by ignorance and fear of difference. Tragically this has not been a place where Christians are known by their love. And yet out of that grim past came the small green shoots of hope, nurtured over lean and difficult decades by those who refused to give up on love, who refused to believe that history was inevitably destined to repeat itself poisonously from generation to generation. They believed in the redemptive power of love, the power of the human person to change him or herself and so to change the future. This peace we see rooting and settling before our eyes was built out of a mountain of hurt and an avalanche of prayer. Both are hard to measure, hard to capture but each contributed to the climate of change which created the space inside which the politicians and civil servants worked to design a way forward.
What has been given to us is a very scared trust to use this peace well, to never neglect its fragility to never doubt its integrity. It is both a gift and a trust given to each of us individually and collectively. No one can escape their responsibility for making this new dispensation work. It is both a responsibility and an exciting invitation. Let us begin our work of making this opportunity truly blossom, by learning to approach each other’s differences in a spirit of joyful curiosity, understanding that each is the work of God's hands, each a child of God, each our brother, our sister - no strangers here. In this area of so many strong traditions of Christian worship – an area which lies at the crossroads between North and South - you have taken up that invitation with enthusiasm and commitment. This exhibition, and the other events which will take place during the week, are clear evidence of how willing people are to learn about each other, to discover how much they share and to value the differences which enrich this community.
I warmly congratulate all of the Churches here in Monaghan for spearheading this initiative with such enthusiasm and commitment. I know that it would not have been possible without the tremendous support provided by Monaghan County Museum and especially its Curator, Patrick Long. I would like to pay tribute also to Jim Jenkins and all of the members of the Organising Committee for giving so generously of their time and energy to make this celebration such a wonderful success. Finally, I want to acknowledge the many kind sponsors, both individuals and organisations, who believed in the significance of this project and backed it up with practical support.
In this great climate of community vigour and cooperation, it is a great pleasure for me to declare Monaghan’s ANNO DOMINI officially open.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.