Here we are at this hallowed site of Scalan for another year, having gathered from all quarters of the land to remember and honour the difficult past history of our Catholic faith and perhaps to learn from it as we pray for the future well-being of the Catholic faith in our land at an unsure and uncertain point of history ourselves. We do this in the context of the Church's perfect worship of God, the Eucharist. Here, Jesus is today by our side - gentle and humble - as he was by the side of all who lived and worshipped here in times gone by.

Had I been born some years earlier than I was, and found myself a student here in 1730 I would no doubt have found myself branded as a trouble-maker…and might well have been among 'the several' who were dismissed from the College due to the bad blood between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders…however, within two years the problem was largely solved when a former student of Scalan, Hugh MacDonald, was consecrated Vicar Apostolic (Bishop) and the Scottish Mission was then divided in two vicariates: Highland and Lowland - the division was largely made according to language - Gaidhlig speakers comprised the Highland Vicariate, and English the Lowland Vicariate (we have to put geography very much to one side when Scalan was declared to be part of the Lowland Vicariate)…and in 1732 Bishop Hugh MacDonald withdrew the Highland students from Scalan altogether to be free to speak all the Gaidhlig they wanted in Eilean Bàn, in Loch Morar…(so if I had survived the highland clearance of 1730 from here, I would have been transferred to Morar in 1732) That move would in fact be a 'home-coming' as it was from Loch Morar that an original contingent had 'fled' from to open Scalan in 1716. Everything at the time seems to have been an escape from life-threatening danger of one kind or another.

After this split of 1732, the two seminaries were not to come together again to form a single national seminary until 1829 when Blairs College opened its doors (then the lowlanders moved in from nearby Aquhorties and the highlanders from Lismore).By then the climate of oppression that characterised the Scalan years had given way to a more tolerant society including religious freedom for all, and the former Highland and Lowland tensions were replaced by such cordiality that I've been invited to preach on lowland soil here today…though I dare not preach here in Gàidhlig yet!

I find it remarkable that in the Scalan context of such imminent danger from persecution and external hostility that the human condition of its inhabitants engaged in, and seemed more concerned with, internal strife and jealousies. The story of Scalan does not read as a Romance in the face of grave personal danger, thankfully its story is also far from a Tragedy; it is instead a fascinating story of human Drama where the ordinary struggles of life and communal living assume greater relevance and are maybe more difficult to contend with than are the massed armies intent on its destruction from without. In real life the larger picture is often hidden by the smaller concerns of daily life; these are the trials through which the grace of God's Spirit is active daily.

But before we rush to condemn, we can be guilty of watching the world around us become largely apathetic to religious observance and creed, and guilty too of hearing our moral standards and respect for life being dismissed as irrelevant, while we are meantime consumed with internal and largely irrelevant conflicts. The grace of God has to touch and heal these before we can address the pressing needs around us.

It is into that ever present human reality of struggle and strife and being overburdened that Jesus invites his listeners and followers to himself - laboured and overburdened he offers us 'rest' (peace, calm, quiet)…the experience that comes from shouldering/sharing the yoke with him, from the awareness that Jesus himself walks alongside us in life's time of difficulty (or joy for that matter).

I was at a priests' meeting recently where a young layman from Ireland gave a talk about promoting vocations…one of his observations was that whenever a group of clergy (he was talking about Ireland) come together to address the issue of vocations they will invariably lament that there are only 60 seminarians now in Maynooth, while in their day there were upwards of 600 - so they conclude: the future is bleak. However the young layman himself saw it rather differently: he thought that in the present climate and with all that the church in Ireland had gone through in recent years he thought it remarkable and a hopeful sign that as many as 60 were in seminary at all.

In its 80 years of existence, Scalan helped produce (some would say 'only produced') at the most 75 priests. In the great scheme of things that doesn't sound too flattering a record; but Scalan, against all the odds, kept the flame of faith and the notion of priesthood alive in Scotland until easier times came, and with the arrival of these 'easier times' it graciously closed its doors to allow other doors to open elsewhere.

209 years later from the closure of Scalan, the story is still pretty much the same - the flame of faith (smouldering perhaps again for other reasons) is now in our hands to keep alight and, importantly, to pass on…the situation appears precarious now as then…but the same gospel resounds in our ears here today as resounded in the ears of the community here over 200 years ago - the irresistible invitation of Jesus: 'Come to me…for rest…shoulder my yoke - allow me to be that close to you…to pull/carry your load and troubles and concerns and difficulties…in a word - your cross…with you…today.´

Who knows what the situation will be like in Scotland 200 years from now. Our calling is only to be part of the smaller picture where the divine plan of God works itself out in the ordinary struggles and events of our lives today…we can safely leave the bigger picture of which we are maybe a part to the wider unfolding of history which is also in the providence of God's hands and safe-keeping.

May those who struggled here to keep the faith alive for future generations be rewarded with the endless joy and rest of heaven…and may their example inspire us to persevere when faced with threatening danger, and the more frequent personal and trivial difficulties of daily living.

Amen.