Corpus Christi (and First Weekend at St. Pat/St. James)

I must admit that I am still surprised to be here. When the bishop called me in to tell me he was naming me pastor of St. Pat, I was dumbfounded. I am grateful to God for the chance to return here as a priest and a pastor. I always felt like this was a second home to me, and I hope it will truly be that for me now. I want to start off by expressing my thanks to Father Black, for all the work he has done for our parish for the past two years. I hope he’s ready, because the real work now begins.

But what is the work of pastors and priests? What is it that we are called to do? Our feast day today gives us the answer, for our priests and pastors are ordained to give us the sacrament at the center of our faith: the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Our Lord did not leave us a book or any sort of writings; the New Testament was written by His Apostles and disciples. He left us the sacraments and the sacred liturgy, because in them we find Him present once more to us. And this divine presence is found in its fullness in the Eucharist.

The Church calls the Eucharist and the sacred liturgy the source and summit of the Christian life. Everything either directs us to the Eucharist, such as baptism and confession, or flows forth from the Eucharist, such as the works of mercy. It is because Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the bread and wine consecrated at the hands of the priest. What we receive in the Eucharist is not merely a symbol or a sign; it is actually Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who gave Himself up for us on the Cross. Far different and far greater than the manna God gave the Israelites in the desert, the heavenly Father pours upon us the bread of angels become our food for the journey.

The sacred liturgy - which is the Mass and the rituals surrounding the sacraments - is meant to communicate to us this truth: that Jesus Christ did not abandon us when He ascended into heaven, but that he is now present to us in the sacraments or mysteries of our faith. Each time the priest proclaims, “The mystery of faith,” he calls us to believe what Jesus said so clearly in the Gospel: This is my body, this is my blood. But only with the eyes of faith can we see that presence so real yet so difficult to apprehend. Only in faith do we receive what we believe is true.

Yet the sacred liturgy cannot be ignored or put aside to focus solely on the Eucharist. Everything in the liturgy points to or aids us to understand more completely what is happening and who is present to us once more. Jesus didn’t simply establish the sacraments to be something we merely do, but the means to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, so that we may be happy with Him in the next. The liturgy is like the frame that accents or highlights the picture, giving us a better means of seeing what we are supposed to see.

My hope as I begin my pastorate is to help you understand far better the sacred liturgy so that you can better appreciate and receive Jesus in the sacraments, most especially in Holy Communion. If you can put the puzzle pieces of the liturgy together, then you can see most clearly Jesus Christ, who is for us the human face of God. This may require changes or challenges to what you have known or experienced, but all of this is done so as to more boldly and more clearly proclaim Christ our Lord. If we do not proclaim Jesus Christ in everything we do here at Saint Pat, whether in the church or in the school, then we are not doing as Jesus commanded us to do.

Let us pray that God will pour out His Holy Spirit upon our parish, that we may be awakened to His promptings and His call for all of us to be holy. Please pray for me and for Fr. Black as we serve you, as we seek to bring you Jesus Christ, that we may be humbled before the Lord mysteriously present in the Eucharist. Let us pray for one another, that we may be elevated by all that the sacred liturgy offers, from the texts and chants to the incense and candles, so as to truly encounter not an idea or a philosophy, but a real person, a person who hides in the Eucharist so that we may not be overwhelmed by His greatness, but humbled by His smallness, to draw nearer to Him and become what we receive. May the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ truly bring us to everlasting life.

First Weekend at St John's (12th Sunday per annum)

If there is one thing a priest begins to learn rather quickly in his ministry, it is the necessity of self-denial. From the minute the priest places his hands in those of the bishop at ordination, he must be prepared for whatever may come.  This is especially true when he is ordered to move to a different church.  While most of us are creatures of habit, the priest must be ever prepared to literally pick up his cross and follow the Lord, no matter where it may lead.

I stand before you today as your new priest.  At the command of the bishop, I have been placed in charge of caring for your souls, with the ultimate task of bringing you to the one who is at the heart of the Gospel, the one who challenges us in our Gospel today with the most central question of Christianity: “Who do you say that I am?” It is my duty to ensure that you understand the answer to that question and the implications that flow from that answer.

Why do I say that this question of Jesus’ identity is so central to Christianity?  It is central because it makes all the difference in how we approach the Church which still lays claim to speak solely and exclusively for Jesus, 2000 years after He left this world.  It is central because who we believe Jesus to be defines the response we give to His words and His actions.  It is central because it evokes differing responses based on who we believe this Jesus of Nazareth to be.

When He asks the apostles what the crowds say about Him, Jesus seeks to clear the confusion that exists about Himself.  The people believe Jesus to be a great prophet, a man like Jeremiah or Isaiah who calls the people back to God.  But that is not who Jesus is, and thus He asks the question of His apostles, “Who do you say that I am?”  Only by grace does Saint Peter proclaim Jesus to be the Christ of God, or the Christ, the Son of the living God, as Saint Matthew recalls it. Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, reveals to the apostles and to us who this Jesus of Nazareth really is: God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, the God who has become incarnate and walks among His own people.

This Jesus whom we have heard about so often in this church is not a mere mortal like you or me.  This Jesus who is remembered in the Gospels and the Scriptures is far greater than any human being who has ever lived.  This Jesus of Nazareth is not only a man, but is also God Almighty.  If this is true, if this is accurate, then it must challenge how we approach this God-man in Himself and in every moment of His life on earth.  It means that we must listen to Him not with merely the courtesy and respect due to another person, but with the awe and reverence due to the Omnipotent One.  It means that His words are not just the musings of a great mind, but that they are the very instructions of the All-Knowing One.  It means that His actions are not just good examples, but are filled with meaning and importance as being carried out by the One who acts without being acted upon.

But why is it that God has become man and come upon earth?  Jesus reveals this after Saint Peter’s revelation in telling us how the Son of Man must suffer and die at the hands of those whom He came to save, and that He would be raised from the dead on the third day. The most important point of Jesus’ life and ministry is the Cross, that which had been foretold by the prophets of old, such as we heard from Zechariah in our first reading.  By becoming the One who is pierced for our sins and killed, Christ becomes the fountain of mercy and forgiveness to all who look to Him in faith, as Saint Paul tells us. Everything Jesus proclaims and teaches leads up to the Cross, that moment when the whole world was changed for the rest of time, that moment and the message which has been proclaimed by the Church which Jesus founded while He was still personally present here on earth.

But what does all of this have to do with being your new priest? Certainly we know these things, we recall them each time we come to the Mass.  Yet the duty of the priest, the duty of the pastor is to recall to our minds the words and actions of Jesus Christ so as to inspire us to live the Christian life more fully and to reject anything and everything which goes against Christ.  It is also his duty to provide the sacraments which have been entrusted to his care through his ordination so that the people can receive the grace of God without which we can do nothing.  The priest is meant to work for God and for his people. And that is what I hope I will do for you however long I am here in this church and serving you.

I ask a few things out of you as I come into my own here among you.  I ask first of all for your prayers for me, that I may serve you and work for you to the best of my ability.  I am still quite new at this and still a little inexperienced. I may act slowly or may do things different than you are used to. Please be patient with me as I come to know you all and seek to discover what it is God wants me to do for you. I ask you also to please help me to get to know you.  I have already received many warm welcomes, and I hope the welcomes keep coming.  Do not be a stranger to me, but give me an opportunity to meet you and hear from you, either here or in your home.  I can only serve you best if I know who it is that I am serving.

Let us pray for our parish as my time here begins, that we may be closer than ever to the One whom we thirst after, the One in whom our hearts will find their true rest.  Let us pray for the healing of wrongs and the unity of our parish as Saint Paul teaches us, being all united together in Christ.  Let us also seek to consider, each in our own individual vocation, how we can follow the command of Christ to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow after Him.  But let us pray in particular for the grace to follow Jesus not only in this life, but to follow Him towards the goal of our faith: the glories that await the faithful in the eternal realities of Heaven.

First Weekend at My New Parish

I stand before you today as one who has taken up anew the command of Christ which we have just heard in our Gospel for this Sunday.  I do not come with another to accompany me, which I guess shows either great confidence on the part of the bishop or overconfidence on his part.  Either way, I stand before you as the priest given charge over this parish as the new administrator, as the new pastor.  But what does that mean for us?

We receive a hint about this when we hear St. Mark tell us that the Twelve went off and preached repentance.  The pastor is not a businessman, though he must be involved with finances.  He is not a janitor, though he does take care of buildings.  The pastor is, above all these things, a shepherd, as the prophet Amos hints at in our first reading.  That is the reason he is called a pastor, from the Latin word for shepherd.  He is meant to call the one flock of Christ together and minister to them.  He is charged with the duty of preaching the same repentance that the Twelve first preached as we hear today and which has been continually declared by the Church since the day of Pentecost.

But in what does this repentance consist?  Saint Paul provides some clues to this repentance in our second reading.  It all begins with God the Father calling us, from before anything even existed, to Himself towards holiness.  God desires all of humanity to be clean, without any blemish or sin, and has willed that for all of us.  Yet we have sinned; first through our parents in the garden of Eden, then in our own sins which compound the filth upon ourselves.  However, God did not leave us in this state of filth and brokenness.  In the fullness of time, God sent His Son, Christ our Lord, to win for us “redemption by His blood, the forgiveness of transgressions” (1:7).

This is the foundation of the message of repentance Christ desired His apostles to proclaim: that God is willing not only to forgive us of every sin, but is even willing to make us His children, which Saint Paul reiterates when he says that “in love [God] destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ” (1:5).  If we abandon everything that separates us from God, if we repent of our sins, then we can truly be what He has desired us to be since the first moment of time, and even before that.  Saint Paul even declares to the Christians in Ephesus and to us that this is already happening to those of us who have received the gospel of salvation, have believed in Him, and have been sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit.

All of this is what the pastor is meant to nourish and encourage within those entrusted to his care.  Nothing else matters except the salvation of souls.  Whether buildings are raised up or torn down, whether communities grow or diminish, whether there is peace or discord, the pastor must concern himself primarily with stirring up the people towards living out this message of repentance so that the same people can gain the prize of eternal life.  And that is what I promise to do for you for as long as I am here.

I make no other promise than this: that while I am here, I will do everything I can to bring to fullness the message of repentance which you have already received.  I cannot promise anything more, but that will hopefully be more than enough.  Every decision I make must be bound up in this task of your sanctification.  Already, I have made some changes to help better facilitate this through our participation in the Mass.  And you will probably notice other changes or differences from what Fr. Barth has done for you.  I do not critique anything he has done; he has done what he thought was best for you, and now I must do the same in my own way.

I ask of you now, as we begin our time together in the Lord, for a few things.  First and foremost: I ask for your prayers and support: we must all pray to God for understanding and guidance in all this.  If we do not do what God wills for us, then it is all for nothing.  Second, I ask that you please have patience with me.  This is my first time being in charge of a parish, my first great duty as a priest.  I will move slow in some things and quick in others.  Be patient with me as I begin to grow in my duties.  Finally, I ask for you to help me come to better understand you along with our parish.  Feel free to speak to me, to tell me your issues and concerns, your joys and your delight in our parish.  I, on my part, will do what I can to come to know you better.  I hope to meet every one of you both here and outside of here so that I am not a stranger to you nor are you a stranger to me.

Let us pray to our Lady assumed into Heaven that our parish may be strengthened by her intercession so as to hear and receive the message of repentance.  Let us pray to Saint Matthew, the patron of this church, that we will not only hear the Gospel but that we may also live it out faithfully.  Let us be resolved to be counted not among those whose dust is shaken from the feet of the apostles, but are numbered among God’s possession, to the praise of his glory which awaits us for all eternity in Heaven.