Sermon preached on the Occasion of Bishop Andrew’s Installation and Enthronement in the Bishopric of Ross

in the Cathedral Church of Saint Fachtna, Rosscarbery by

The Right Reverend Andrew Orr, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross

18 October 2026

I am conscious that some of you have been to all three enthronements, many of you were at the Diocesan Synod last week, and quite a few of you were at Prize Day in Bandon Grammar School last Friday. So there are people here who have now heard me speak five times in two weeks, which is more than enough penance for anyone. Except for those of you who are also coming to the Diocesan National Schools’ Service on Thursday… I promise, after that you’ll get a break.

Perhaps the most dramatic part of the installation or enthronement is the part that comes near the beginning where the new Bishop knocks three times on the doors before they are opened.  It is of course symbolic, but out of interest I did google to see if anyone had ever been refused. I couldn’t find any instances of it; certainly not in Rosscarbery where everyone is always very friendly and famous for their hospitality!

Interestingly, today’s readings, prescribed for St Luke’s Day, do speak to us of closed doors, at least in a symbolic sense.

First, we hear of Paul and his companions, who, in some unspecified way, find doors shut to them in Asia (modern day Turkey) and then in Bithynia. It’s not clear what this means, a vision perhaps, or the word of someone they meet on the way.  And so, thanks to Paul’s dream, they set sail for the area of Macedonia, and the city of Philippi.

Macedonia wasn’t Paul’s choice, it clearly wasn’t Luke’s plan either (notice how the narrative changes from they to we), but Macedonia was given to them. And so the gospel arrives for the first time in Europe.  The beginning of Western Christianity. Something new happens unexpectedly and Luke is there is to facilitate it, and record the unexpected, which is a pattern with him.

There’s a long tradition that, as well as being a doctor, Luke was also a painter. In St Brigid’s Church, Castleknock, where I ministered for almost ten years, there is a Harry Clarke window of St Luke, and at the base, there is a little vignette in glass where he is there at the easel, painting the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the functions of art is to confront us with the unexpected—to make us think anew about what we have always taken for granted. Most modern art tries to this—to shock us out of old conventional ways of thinking. Damien Hirst’s pickled sheep mightn’t be art, but it does stop us in our tracks. Luke’s gospel confronts its readers with a Jesus who is constantly doing the unexpected: praising the Gentiles for their faith, forgiving those who nail him to the cross and talking to women—all deeply shocking to the people of his day and all designed to make people stop and think about what they believed about God. He tells the three great stories of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son, altering the hearers perception of God and asking them to think again.

I know it’s a cliché to say that where one door closes, another opens, but it is true that in all ministry, we can come across times where things don’t seem to work, nothing goes right and everything and everybody seems against us. That is where we need the gift of resilience to get up again and carry on again. I spoke briefly on Friday in Bandon about the importance of not blaming yourself when things don’t work the first time, and of learning to forgive yourself. We need, too, the gift of patience in prayer to listen to the voice of the Spirit, who might be calling us to do and try something different. Not every door opens as easily as the one in Rosscarbery.

Second, the gospel reading for today from Luke Chapter 10, has Jesus’ instructions to those who go ahead of him. He sends them without purse, bag or sandals. They are deliberately unprovisioned, deliberately dependent on the welcome of strangers. He tells them: whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house.” Remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide. Cure the sick, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

The labourers are not equipped with resources: it is simply their presence. They are going everywhere, trying to do everything, simply to find the open door, the welcome. They eat what is set before them, heal the sick, and demonstrate in word and deed that the Kingdom of God has come near. Our ministry to one another ought to be like that. The besetting sin of clergy and indeed bishops is business. We all too often try to do everything and be everything to everyone. The demands on our time and energy are limitless. We constantly fall into the trap of having to be in charge and having to be the dispensers of grace and goodness, when sometimes what we need to do is to step through the open door and be ministered to; to eat both literally and metaphorically what is put in front of us.

One of my roles as Bishop is to think with you. Not just to be an administrator, although administration matters, but to help us all together see where God might be calling us, what he is saying to the churches, and what doors he might be opening for us. The harvest is still plentiful and the labourers are still few, but the Kingdom of God still calls us to travel on.