'Our world needs hope': Bishop of Raphoe says drugs and Mica blighting Donegal

Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, the Bishop of Raphoe, says that towns and villages in Donegal are ‘awash with drugs’ and the Mica crisis remains a huge issue in the county.

In his Christmas message to parishioners across the Raphoe Diocese, Bishop McGuckian says those in trouble can take heart from the Christmas story.

“We need hope,” Bishop McGuckian said, telling the story of a young woman who is going through a difficult time. The woman confided in the Bishop last week that she has been taken by the bible verse: ‘the loving kindness of the heart of our God will visit us like the dawn from on high’.

The woman told Bishop McGuckian that she has experienced a lot of loss and said: ‘I need hope and I choose to believe that for Christmas the gift of loving kindness is coming for me right from the heart of our God’.

“Our world needs hope,” Bishop McGuckian said.

“Listen to the news from the Holy Land or Ukraine; here in Donegal our towns and villages are awash with drugs and Mica is still a huge cloud over many people’s lives; the sacred gift of life is cherished less and less among us. We are a weary world in need of a saviour, a prince of Peace.

“The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. The hope of the Christians is not the same as optimism; it does not fear to look troubles in the eye.

“The Christmas story is about a God, all loving and all powerful, going looking for trouble.

“He searched out the poor and the outcast and the lowly and he was born as one of them because he loved them. Because he loves us.”

The 70-year-old, a native of Cloughmills, was appointed as Bishop of Raphoe in 2017.

He drew on the story of the shepherds in the Christmas story - ‘themselves lowly, miserable types, who were not well thought of’ - who were ‘guided by a heavenly light’ and who ‘saw the embodiment of God’s love wrapped in rags’.

He said: “The child Jesus – a gift from the heart of our God.

“We don’t all enjoy the festivities in the same way. If for some reason they drag on you, you can be like one of those shepherds.

“They were humble and lowly but open to the gift of seeing the presence of God, amazingly at home in the broken and imperfect world that we live in.

“If, on the other hand – praise God – you delight in the togetherness and the giving and receiving of gifts you can choose to be like Mary. In her quiet strength ‘she treasured all these things and pondered on them in her heart’.

“Whether you are caught up in the hustle and bustle these days or not, all of us Christians are invited to be still enough to ponder the extraordinary love that descended from the heavens into a humble manger.”

Bishop McGuckian said Jesus came into a ‘broken, war-torn world out of love for the lonely, the disregarded, the refugee, the sinner’.

He added: “It is my fervent hope that everyone of us, this Christmas, will celebrate ‘the loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high’.”