Life Justice & Family: Partners in the New Evangelization Convocation
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
July 25, 2008
A common problem in society in general which also affects the Church in particular is what I call paralysis by analysis.; Each of us in our separate disciplines examines those areas which are pertinent to that particular subject, be it social justice, marriage and family life, right to life concerns.; So very often we operate in our own cubicles working diligently but wondering why we haven’t made a greater impact on those we are serving.; What can we do to produce the good we seek?
Remember what we learned in first grade catechism: “We are made in the image and likeness of God.” ;But our God in whose image we are is a Trinity, that profound mystery, one God, one Divine Nature, three distinct persons, Father, Son, Spirit,; The Divine Unity, and the Divine Diversity is always the key, and must be as to how we live and move and are as Church.
Quoting Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, “’If you see Charity, you see the Trinity,’; says St. Augustine…The spirit is the energy which transforms the heart of the ecclesial community so that it becomes a witness before the world to the love of the Father who wishes to make humanity a single family in His Son.” (Deus Caritas Est, #19); To be Church, to act as Church, is an expression of love that seeks the good of all people.
So, let’s tear down our cubicles, let go of our turfs and let us look at Trinity and humanity—Father, Son, Spirit, woman, man.; The center point of the above is Jesus, truly God, truly man, one in being with the Father, but also one in nature with us.
What does Jesus, the God man, teach us by word and example?; Each human being is precious, a treasured gift from God. Each one has a profound God-given dignity and worth from the first stirring of life in the womb, through the intervening years of childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, senior age status to the last breath breathed.
Jesus:; Let the little children come to me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus: Giving back a dead son or dead daughter to a grieving widow, distraught father.
Jesus: Healing a servant of a Roman official, Jesus calling forth his friend Lazarus.
Jesus: I was hungry, naked thirsty, imprisoned, homeless and you ministered to Me.;
Jesus:; Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing, Jesus, whose sins you shall forgive are forgiven them.
Jesus: Love one another as I have loved you.; No greater love than this that one lays down his life for a friend; you are my friends if you keep my commandments.;
Jesus: Put your finger in the wounds in my hands, put your hand in my side; be not unbelieving but believing.
All of these words and actions are so familiar to us and yet do we live them?
Are we not much more like the apostles: ;Which of us will be greater in the kingdom? Let me sit at your right or your left in that kingdom.; Are we not more Petrine bluster and boast or Thomistic doubt and skepticism, one of the group that keeps our distance from the passion and dying?
No, we are the called who are told “Peace be with you, my peace I give to you.”; “Go out and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
We are the ones who by our baptism have become Church, have been grafted onto Jesus. We are the ones who share Sonship with Him by our adoption. We are the ones called to witness to Jesus, His message and His mission, and we are;strengthened for it by the coming of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation.; We are the ones nurtured by the Body and Blood of Christ in Eucharist.
We are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.
My friends, it is time to get back to basics, to renew our understanding and commitment to what we have learned, but more importantly to who we are.; We are one body as the hymn says; we are the body of Christ.
How can we dishonor, dismember, destroy that body?; If we truly believe how can we kill the unborn, how can we bomb the Iraqi, shun the person whose skin color is different than ours?; How can we refuse to welcome the immigrant seeking a better life for his family?;; How can we be so blind as to not recognize Jesus, black, brown, yellow, white?; How can we deny that you, the least of my sisters or brothers, are Jesus and still believe that Jesus lives in us?; How can we, individually or collectively be so self righteous yet fail to see that we are not at all righteous?;
We have been given profound gifts in the Gospel and in the New Testament writings, especially of Paul and Peter.; We have a treasure of Church teaching throughout the ages.; In our own times we have the magnificent documents of the Second Vatican Council especially Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, and Gaudium et Spes, the Church in the Modern World.;; Our recent popes—Pope Paul VI, have given us sound and profound encyclicals and motu proprios.
Our challenge is, I believe, to read these documents, to re-read them, to live them and to teach them.; The world of sound bites and catchy headlines does not begin to do justice to any of these great documents.
The tragedy of Humanae Vitae, for example,;is that it was not read,; that people have failed to appreciate the depth of its teaching on marriage and especially marriage as the sign of the Unity of Jesus with us,; His Church.; They have failed to see the pastoral compassion of Pope Paul VI in this document. And sadly, so has it been with so many other splendid writings.
And thus I ask us as part of Continuing Faith Formation to read, to discuss, to explain, to understand, and to live these writings.; It is most important to pray over what we read.; It is prayer that illuminates discussion, understanding and strengthens us to live what we read.
In today’s Church there is no room for competition, no room for going it;alone.; To be Church is to be Community.; But how can we who lead draw others to understand and live community if we ourselves, fail to lead, to minister and to pray as a community.; Jesus had a reason for sending out His disciples two by two: ;as St. Augustine explained, to teach Community.
St. Francis of Assisi told his followers to preach the Gospel always and, if necessary, even to use words.; In a culture of individualism it is most important that together we live and model what we teach.
We have gathered together for these three days to reflect, to discuss and hopefully, to grow.; As we return to our own home dioceses I pray that what we have most discovered is that only by collaborating, by having torn down the walls that separate us, by giving up our prerogatives of turf, by being willing to submerge our own need for recognition to the greater good that we seek to proclaim and to live that we will discover a more ecclesial way of ministering.
We hold these this treasure in earthen vessels.; Please remember that the treasure is more important than the vessel which contains it.
Thank you.