Bishop Denis’ Homily for the Feast of St. Fintan 17.02.2025

Homily:In his reflection on holiness in today’s world, Gaudete et Exultate, Pope Francis helpfully points us to the ‘saints next door’[1]. Fintan of Clonenagh is very much ours. It was at Clonenagh he embraced an austerely simple life.It was his habit, we’re told, to eat barley bread and herbs and to drink only muddy water. Not the kind of person we might want to call into for morning coffee! Yet so many men were attracted to this life that he had to build a monastery and devise a monastic rule,