Upload
rocco-palmo
View
212
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Bishops & Priests of the Province of New Orleans Convocation
New Orleans, Louisiana
Wilton D. Gregory,Archbishop of Atlanta
The Alpha & Omega of Our Lives
My Dear Brothers,
I am deeply flattered to have been invited
to be with you if only for a brief part at
the beginning of your time together as
Priests and Bishops of the Province of
New Orleans. I deemed it a great joy to
have been asked to share these remarks
with you regarding the importance of our
Church’s past in our mission as a commu-
nity of faith and as a vitally significant
component of our ministry as Ordained
Ministers of the Gospel. I apologize that
my time with you must be so brief – but
my own Presbyteral Council meets to-
morrow morning and I don’t want them
to sell the ranch – at least – not without
me!
Page | 2
In light of this current Year of Faith,
which Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI intro-
duced, to commemorate the 50th Anniver-
sary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Council, I believe that 2013 has provided
all of us with abundant possibilities to
ponder some of the numerous significant
world events that have occurred within
that half-century time frame. I opted to
use the word ponder since it’s the word
that we most frequently hear used when
describing Mary’s reflective stance dur-
Page | 3
ing those events surrounding Jesus’ birth
and the finding of the adolescent Christ
in the Temple when He spoke to His par-
ents about His mission. She thought
carefully about what these events and
predictions would mean both for Him and
for Her. To ponder something implies
that we believe that God may be at work
in the events and moments of our past
and for our future.
Page | 4
Many of our perspectives regarding the
issues that we currently wrestle with to-
day would then have been vastly different
50 years ago and directly impacted by
the Second Vatican Council, which was
still in its very early stages. At that mo-
ment in time whenever Catholic Bishops
and Priests might have managed to meet
together as we are today now more than
50 years later, there would probably
have been a noticeable mood of euphoria,
felt throughout the Church, of excite-
ment, curiosity, and perhaps even jubila-
Page | 5
tion. We would then undoubtedly have
been much more formally attired than we
may be today and probably we would not
have mingled so easily or casually to-
gether. Moreover, this new informality is
indeed a very welcome change as it now
draws priests and bishops together in a
treasured friendship and important rela-
tionship that enriches all of us.
The world itself would have been mas-
sively different fifty years ago. The his-
Page | 6
toric American Civil Rights Movement
was also then in high gear at that time
and the races were still routinely and in
some places formally separated from
each other. Most of us might not have
been very attentive to the mobility needs
of those people among us with disabili-
ties; the long-lasting International Cold
War was then heating up. For the most
part there would not have been any femi-
nist movement to speak of and few peo-
ple would have been so concerned about
public safety at that moment as we obvi-
Page | 7
ously are today because of the seemingly
endless occasions of vicious public vio-
lence that erupt and have claimed far too
many innocent lives. World events
would not have been as omnipresent in
all of our lives as they are today thanks
to cyberspace and the Internet.
Fifty years ago, unlike today, we would
have received most of our information on
the evening news or with the morning
newspaper. The price of gas was very
cheap especially by current standards,
Page | 8
media entertainment was generally PG,
and Catholic priests as indeed religious
leaders in general were almost univer-
sally admired and widely respected. We
each probably have cherished memories
of priests from our youth who now loom
large as our idols if not the instruments
of our own vocations. They remain as a
treasured part of our heart’s history and
their good examples continue to give an
idyllic character to that past that remains
a spiritual and personal treasure from
our youth. As Archie and Edith would
Page | 9
eventually croon together – “those were
the days!”
Within the past month, our nation has ob-
served the 50th Anniversary of the March
on Washington and the exquisite sermon
that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached
to the people of this nation on that epic
occasion. In recalling that momentous
event from a half-century ago, many com-
mentators invited us to reflect on how
life has changed for our nation and our
world. Some observers have chosen to
Page | 10
see the glass as half-empty while others
have seen it as half-full. It all depends
upon one’s perspective on history. Much
of that perspective depends upon where
one might reside on the racial divide of
our nation. Certainly, the oppressive
structures that kept all of us – Black and
White People – either enslaved in our
privileged state or in our social condition
have changed. Yet we also must confess
that more must still be done since op-
Page | 11
pressive tyranny and unbridled privilege
always make for a noxious twosome.
Very few of us however would honestly
ever seriously choose to return to those
bygone days in spite of the fact that we
all do seem to like to reminisce about
them and the retrospective carefree cli-
mate that we might imagine that they
characterized. There is something quite
charming and intriguing about recalling
things from the past. We all have the
very human tendency to embellish the
Page | 12
good things from yesteryear and rou-
tinely to diminish the unpleasant things
that were also present. We might all
tend to imagine some past era as some-
thing of a golden age – whether one such
a time ever actually existed or not. How-
ever, we are men who are essentially di-
rected toward tomorrow even as we must
honestly understand, embrace, and value
the gifts of yesterday.
Page | 13
One of my very favorite liturgical prayers
is the one that we now offer in English
during the blessing of the Easter candle
at the Vigil Mass where we pray: Christ
yesterday and today, the beginning and
the end, the alpha and the omega, to Him
belong all times and the seasons. This
blessing prayer references a title from
the Book of Revelation the Church pro-
claims as we begin the great paschal cer-
emony that assures us of Christ’s domin-
ion over all times – times from the past,
Page | 14
our own times with all of their many
problems, and the times that are yet to
come with their still unknown challenges.
There are no moments when Jesus Christ
is not in control of creation and over
which He does not have ultimate author-
ity.
Even in our darkest hours – and there
have been more than a few of them in re-
cent years, the Lord Jesus never loses
His control over His Church or abandons
Page | 15
us. Great saints whose witness and fi-
delity never languished have also accom-
panied every era of suffering that the
Church has endured or conflicts in which
she might have been engaged.
The great and life-giving paschal mystery
of the Lord has mastered every moment
in our history and managed to overcome
every adversity and every human blunder
– including those for which we are re-
sponsible in our own times. Further-
Page | 16
more, our futures are all secure in Him
who is Lord of every moment and season.
This is constantly a very important
prayer for our entire Church but perhaps
especially for those of us as priests and
bishops as in today’s environment where
we might easily be given over to believ-
ing that the best times for the Catholic
Priesthood may have already occurred
for us and for the ministry that we share.
This is perhaps the unarticulated sugges-
Page | 17
tion of those who believe that if we could
just turn back the clock to another mo-
ment in time when life seemed to have
been more secure and certain, more pre-
dictable and controllable that such an ad-
justment would solve all of our problems
and concerns today. There is no turning
back in search of a past sanctuary – for
those of us who believe in Christ Jesus
there is only preparing to live today with
courage and to look forward in hope to
tomorrow – even as we praise God for the
Page | 18
past that in fact has prepared us for to-
day and for tomorrow.
Several months ago I received a stinging
retort to one of my bi-weekly columns in
our Archdiocesan newspaper in which I
had extolled the work of the Second Vati-
can Council. The writer took harsh ex-
ception to my very positive comments
about the Council and suggested that the
problems that we now face within the
Church are directly related to the council
Page | 19
and its ecclesial reforms. The author in-
sinuated in the text that if the Second
Vatican Council had not taken place and
initiated so many sweeping and destruc-
tive changes in the Church that the diffi-
culties that we currently face might well
not have occurred. The letter suggested
that the Second Vatican Council itself
was the specific cause of our ecclesial
unrest as though all the rest of the world
would simply have stood still – save for
the Second Vatican Council. Viewing and
Page | 20
judging the past in light of the present is
always a very risky undertaking.
Imagine with me for a moment what our
ecclesial life might be like today had the
Second Vatican Council and its sanc-
tioned reforms not have taken place. The
Church’s liturgical life would be as it was
in the 1950’s, our ecumenical and inter-
faith encounters and dialogues with peo-
ple of other religious traditions would
have to be reset, our penitential prac-
Page | 21
tices would be reestablished as they were
a generation ago. What impact would
that now have on our lives and the life of
the world around us? Would it even be
possible to revert to such customs and
practices that once identified and classi-
fied us? Would it not be more similar to
those often popularly staged reenact-
ments of famous moments in history that
do help to remind all of us of a past that
is clearly important to remember but that
does no longer quite fit the world in
which we live today? Even those folks
Page | 22
who enjoy recreating historic moments
from the past must eventually take off
the replica costumes, set aside the props,
and return to the world of today.
While I did not respond to the author of
that critical letter presuming that what
was sent to me was more of a cathartic
exercise rather than a sincere desire for
amenable dialogue – we have all received
many such communications before – I am
certain. Nevertheless, the letter did
Page | 23
prompt me to think seriously and quite
often since receiving it, about what our
Church would be like today if the Second
Vatican Council in fact had never oc-
curred. Rather than maintaining its once
perceived secure and steadfast equilib-
rium, I believe that our Church would
now be hopelessly anachronistic – even
more so than many people consider us to
be already. The world simply would not
have paused in its development simply
because the Second Vatican Council
would not have taken place. The soci-
Page | 24
etal, moral, political, and technological
changes would not have been shelved if
the Second Vatican Council were not to
have occurred. The Second Vatican
Council in fact was intended to help to
prepare us to face and to respond to the
challenges that were just around the cor-
ner and that have now come to ultimate
fruition.
The post-conciliar Church truthfully has
faced lots of serious difficulties many of
Page | 25
which still do need to be addressed. Our
catechetical efforts have genuinely fal-
tered to the point where we now find our-
selves confronting a second – if not ap-
proaching a third generation of Catholics
who may know little or nothing about
their own faith heritage. We must also do
a better job at helping our people under-
stand the connection that must exist be-
tween the doctrines of the Church to our
social teaching. These indispensable and
symbiotic dimensions of Church life are
Page | 26
not “either/or” propositions for Catholics
– although they are sometimes described
as such.
One of the first consequences of the Civil
Rights Movement was the enthusiastic
proliferation of serious studies of the his-
tory and the heritage of people of Color
in this nation. Where did we come from?
What are the gifts that we brought with
us and now have to share with others?
We African-Americans were all quite ea-
Page | 27
ger to discover the uniqueness of our
backgrounds as this knowledge and his-
tory had been denied to us and to our an-
cestors as a result of the oppressive con-
sequence of slavery and its aftermath.
There quickly developed many television
programs like Black in America, and
books like Before the Mayflower and
Roots, and myriad college and university
courses that delved into African history.
African-Americans and others were very
Page | 28
excited to recapture our history as a first
step toward restoring our dignity and fur-
thering our place in this multi-cultured
nation of ours. This interest in the past
was an important step toward securing a
more hopeful and informed future.
Many Catholics today unfortunately sim-
ply know far too little about the legacy of
our Church and the teachings of the faith
that we now share. Although cyberspace
continues to make universal experts of
Page | 29
any one with a computer, we have not al-
ways found thorough and clear presenta-
tions on the Internet that detail our his-
tory – with all of its obvious difficulties
and its triumphs. Recently some efforts
at presenting that history and heritage of
Catholicism have been made available
and seemingly attracted a great deal of
positive feedback – Father Robert Bar-
ron’s Catholicism and Tom Peterson’s
Catholics Come Home are but two exam-
ples. Both of these apologetic sources
Page | 30
present a balanced and positive perspec-
tive on the faith and the heritage of the
Catholic Church. They are professionally
done, attractively made, and intended to
introduce or re-introduce people to the
Catholic Church. What adds to their suc-
cess is that they encounter people using
a medium that is appealing and effec-
tively used in other venues – televised
productions readily available in cy-
berspace. We have become a society
that receives most of its information elec-
tronically and with visual display and not
Page | 31
through books. Whether you like that de-
velopment or not, the Church must make
much more effective use of these vehicles
of social communication.
Society in general has developed a keen
interest in genealogy. We can find all
types of resources on the Internet that
claim to be able to trace our personal ori-
gins. Ethnic groups have long celebrated
their heritage with festivals and celebra-
tions that trumpet where a particular
people originated and how these cultures
Page | 32
and traditions have enriched our world.
People want to log onto sites that will
help them discover where great-great-
grandfather came from, how our family
name is related to other names, what
personal legacy we can bring forth that
will link us to others from our cultural or
ethnic community. These searches are
intended to discover our pasts so that we
can situate ourselves more accurately in
the present moment. Occasionally these
searches are intended to help us better
understand our physical and medical
Page | 33
make-up with the practical implications
such knowledge brings.
We priests and bishops must also become
much more engaging in the presentation
of the faith of the Church. One of my
close priest friends started a study group
in his parish a couple of years ago – that
has now developed into two different
groups – that reads and reflects on The
Catechism of the Catholic Church – not
the abridged version that was published
Page | 34
by the USCCB – but the full text of the
catechism. He told me that many of the
people in his parish are fascinated to
read and to reflect with him on the artic-
ulated faith issues that are contained in
the catechism. Folks do want to know
about our faith heritage – not in a sugar-
coated or fabricated fashion, but with the
real honest truth – not just the highly
publicized historic or contemporary scan-
dals, but also with the glory and the
splendor of our Church that belongs to
Page | 35
yesterday. But why is the past important
for us? The past is essential for us be-
cause it will help us to live faithfully to-
day and to prepare for tomorrow.
It might seem surprising to some people,
but there is an authentic interest on the
part of lots of our folks to understand and
appreciate our Catholic faith more per-
fectly. We just need to develop better de-
livery systems to quench that desire. My
dear brothers, the 12-minute Sunday
Page | 36
homily is usually not the moment for
such necessary catechesis. The homily is
our weekly opportunity for spiritual inspi-
ration – certainly not devoid of informa-
tion – but a resource for our people for
living out the faith that the Liturgy
makes sacramental. The liturgical
homily is the occasion when we must
bring together in a harmonious unity the
Word of God, the ordinary lives of our
people, and their hopes for living out
their faith in the week that lies ahead.
Page | 37
Our Catholic people, no less than all of
us, come together each Sunday to plan
their lives for the next week. They un-
derstand that the future – even the rela-
tively immediate future of the next seven
days – needs preparation so as not to
catch them or any of us unprepared. The
Sunday assembly is filled with folks who
intend to do better next week than they
may have done last week. It is an assem-
bly of believers who really wants to take
Page | 38
their faith seriously into the week that
lies just ahead. We homilists are com-
missioned to become their spiritual
coaches to whom they regularly turn to
with reasonable expectations and high
hopes that we can indeed prepare them
to perform better in the game of life.
Sunday worship is filled with folks who
believe in tomorrow and they ask us to
help them to get there. One sure way
that we can help, them prepare for to-
morrow is to help them gain a healthy
and a balanced understanding of the yes-
Page | 39
terdays of the Church. Like good
coaches, we help them remember where
they came from even as we challenge
them to see the road that lies ahead for
them and for us. If we are to become
successful faith coaches, we need to find
a chalkboard that will allow us to exam-
ine the plays and the strategies that will
bring success to our players.
We Catholics believe that God’s Revela-
tion arrives for us through a dual but al-
Page | 40
ways unified source of Scripture and
Apostolic Tradition. Dei Verbum the
Dogmatic Constitution of the Second Vat-
ican Council on Divine Revelation is the
shortest of all of the four dogmatic con-
stitutions from the Second Vatican Coun-
cil and yet one of the most significant of
the council documents as it explains how
the faith is dependent upon our sacred
heritage and the very Word of God. This
council document enshrines our Apos-
tolic Tradition always combined with Sa-
cred Scripture as the vehicle through
Page | 41
which God reveals Himself to us. God’s
Voice echoes throughout our Tradition.
Our history and heritage are not insignifi-
cant nor can any of us afford to neglect
this sacred legacy. We find God Himself
in our traditions and in our yesterdays.
However, the Church Universal places in
a unique position of faith the Apostolic
Tradition the gift of heritage that belongs
to the ages. The tradition that the
Church enshrines is far more than the
mere customs and practices of a culture
Page | 42
or people – as important and cherished as
they may be. When the Church holds up
Tradition as a source of God’s Revelation
of Self, she refers to that Tradition which
links us to the Apostolic age and contin-
ues throughout each generation and era.
It is that meaning of Tradition that is
most sacred and timeless.
Nevertheless, we are not limited to our
yesterdays and in our heart of hearts, we
must always anticipate that the best is
Page | 43
yet to come – certainly, this will be found
in the fullness of God’s Kingdom, but
even in the immediate tomorrows that lie
ahead for all of us. It is that hope that
has been so manifest in the election of
Pope Francis whose simplicity and humil-
ity have already won the hearts of people
throughout the world. Even our cynics –
of which there is no shortage – seem to
take heart in the witness of this gentle
and approachable man. Francis dares to
challenge those of us who are priests and
Page | 44
bishops to raise our eyes and see the
promise of tomorrow. He also demands
that we lift up the poor and the neglected
in our midst above all because they are
our sisters and brothers made so in
Christ.
The Holy Father has invited all of us to
risk hoping in a tomorrow that is
grounded in the realities of today and
yesterday but always open to God’s
grace-filled tomorrow. His emphasis on
Page | 45
the poor is also a reminder that they are
never to be treated as collateral damage
in the wake of economic progress. His
unassuming character is a very important
reminder to all of us as pastors that we
can be most effective when we station
ourselves in the very midst of our people.
We priests must be willing to be spiritual
anchors for the communities that we
serve – constantly helping our people to
be rooted adequately in our Catholic faith
heritage, but always open to tomorrow
Page | 46
with its many graces and the obvious
challenges that will inevitably confront
us. We do this not by merely focusing on
things from yesterday and pretending
that former times were perfect; neither
can we simply neglect or deny our her-
itage and faith legacy and disengage our-
selves from the treasures and triumphs
of our inheritance. We must each be-
come the consummate realists in the
world of today who always remind our
folks of our hope for tomorrow and as-
sure them that the future is already se-
Page | 47
cure in Christ. Christ yesterday and to-
day, the beginning and the end, the al-
pha and the omega, to Him belong all
times and the seasons. Amen.
Page | 48