This Liturgy of praise and thanksgiving is not just a significant event in my life. As you recall, through our Baptism we all share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and are called to serve the Lord whether we are ordained or not. Today’s parish celebration is at the same time a reminder to all of us of what it means to be a priest of Jesus Christ in the real world of today. A review of our call to be priests is the best way to commemorate a golden jubilee of ordination. Above all else, we as priests must be persons of faith, of total, wholehearted, and generous faith. Like Abraham, our father in faith, we must redirect our entire personality to Jesus our Lord by loving God above all and by loving others as we love ourselves. Such faith is no picnic, for it implies risk, the kind of risk Abraham took when he left the security and comfort of home for the unknown land that God promised to show him. Faith for us Christians means risking our entire personality and life to follow the Lord. But by Christian paradox, when we give up everything to follow the Lord we discover ourselves at the deepest level of our personality and learn the meaning of the true fulfillment. Being faithful we know the price to be paid for serving the Lord. We know the loneliness we will experience, the temptations we will face, the feelings we will have that perhaps our life may be irrelevant, unsatisfying, unfulfilled. But these adversities we will bear in the ministry and service of the Lord and our sisters and brothers, for our weaknesses will make us more aware of our complete dependence on Jesus without whom we can do nothing. Temptations and trials will become occasions of grace that will help us to be more sympathetic and understanding toward our sister and brother in need. If we are faithful, we cannot be a failure. We know who we are and that Jesus is the one who supports us and our ministry and life. With the Lord at our side we cannot fail as priests despite appearances to the contrary.
When Mother Teresa of Calcutta received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, a fashionably attired and beautiful reporter interviewed her on PBS television. What a contrast between the two women: one young and impeccably dressed; the other one, old, with shriveled skin, and dressed in that simple, cheap Indian habit called a sari. The interviewer said, “Mother Teresa, I’ve been to Calcutta and seen the misery, degradation, poverty, and squalor. There’s no way you and your sisters can be successful.” Mother Teresa replied, “Yes, my dear, you are right. But the Lord never asked us to be successful, only faithful.” What a perfect response! Fidelity should be the only standard we use to evaluate ourselves. Nothing else matters.
Fidelity coupled with a dynamic faith will give us the optimism our society desperately needs. Optimism is not wishful thinking; it is Christian thinking. It enables us to see and judge correctly. It is such optimism which empowers us to view ourselves and our human situations as redeemed and renewed and open to the power and love of God in whose image we are created. Optimism is a blood-sister to that forgotten virtue of hope. And where there is hope there is no room for pessimism or cynicism or grumbling. The loyal priest will also be a person of joy, like St. Francis. The wedding celebration at Cana would have been a social disaster if the wine had run out. Jesus came to the rescue by supplying an abundance of superior vintage. Like Jesus, the priest is to supply a thirsty and long-faced society with the wine of joy, the joy that is found in the Good News we call the Gospel. To be sure, the Church isn’t perfect. But being loyal priests, we look at the Church as we look at a real mother. Like other mothers, the Church has a few spots and wrinkles. But like loving children, we do not abandon or ridicule our mother because she is imperfect. Rather, we serve that mother, that Church, generously and wholeheartedly to make it less imperfect.
This is our vocation as priests. This is the life the ordained priest is called to live in a position of leadership in ministry of word and sacrament. This is the life the Lord is calling all of us to embrace and make our own. That is why we have good reason to celebrate today!
11:00 AM Mass, Holy Family Parish, Davidsonville, MD, 27th Sunday of the Year, October 2, 2005