Attached is the homily delivered at the close of the Forty-Day Fast for the Truth of Gospel Nonviolence, at the Shrine of the Lamb in Knock, Ireland, August 9, 1988.
On August 21 of 1879, at the rear of St. John the Baptist Church in Knock, Ireland, four figures appeared: Mary, Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, and a fourth that was the visual, symbolic, theological, and spiritual focus of this apparition. The fourth figure was a lamb, standing on an altar, surrounded by angels. Today, the Shrine of the Lamb at Knock is Ireland’s national shrine, and to fathom the meaning of this Irish icon, it is necessary to ponder the meaning of the figure of the Lamb.
