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| Bishop Speaks | ||||
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| May 22, 2003 Edition | ||||
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The Church
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On Friday of this week we will celebrate the ordination of three men whose names are familiar to you regular readers, and we welcome them in parish ministry: Father Jay Poster will be assigned as Parochial Vicar to St. Maria Goretti Parish, Madison; Father Diego Cuevas will be assigned as Parochial Vicar to St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee; and Father Brian Wilk will be assigned as Parochial Vicar to Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, Madison, with the link of St. Joseph Parish, Madison.
Charisms for ministry
Each of these men brings a unique gift to his priestly ministry. Charisms vary for each but all are centered in Christ, the High Priest.
"Can parents, as they look around at their children, honestly pray, 'Lord Jesus, choose from our family those needed for your work?'" |
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We need many more priests in the years to come and we must earnestly pray that the challenge for more priests will awaken in our families that sense of sacrifice needed to raise up a priest. Can parents, as they look around at their children, honestly pray, "Lord Jesus, choose from our family those needed for your work?"
The Church has had a lot of publicity about clergy sexual abuse and it has hurt us and makes some of our potential candidates say: "No thanks." You and I must pray and strengthen our young people to say yes to God's call to be priests or enter religious life.
The world offers our young many opportunities for study, for advancement with many a company - big salary, position, and other benefits - you name it, it looks good.
To follow Christ's call
In that market it is sometimes difficult to recruit men for priesthood, yet in this year's class, as in other instances, our seminarians, now priests, were well established working at good promising jobs. They were on their way to earthly success but stepped away from it in favor of becoming a priest. They were like the early apostles who dropped what they were doing and answered Christ's call to follow him.
It is that kind of sacrifice that provides a firm foundation in priesthood. Life is about Christ. Life is about sacrifice.
On Friday of this week we will gather in the mother church of our Diocese, St. Raphael Cathedral. Here we pray that God will draw us closer together in the sacred bond of unity and love which the Spirit gives: one diocese, one presbyterate, and one priestly people of faith.
As women and men who walk under the sacred signs of God's everlasting love expressed in the sacraments, we, as members of the Body of Christ, bring our joys and sufferings to the altar of sacrifice and to the Lord's table.
A sacrifice of love
Pope John Paul II reminds us that Christ's sacrifice imparts to us his generous love and this banquet nourishes us with the Body and Blood of Christ, the Divine Lamb.
We then must open ourselves fully to communion with the universal Church as we celebrate Eucharist because the joy and hope, the anguish and suffering of all people converge in sacrifice and in sharing this sacred meal.
As God's priestly people our mission goes beyond celebration; our mission is to meet the challenges of our day by bringing Christ in Word, Sacrament, and Community to all people in need.
Challenges of our day
In my homily at the Chrism Mass I outlined five major challenges: terrorism, war, sexual abuse by clergy, respect for the consistent ethic of life, and shortage of priests. Yet there is another challenge that I believe has developed out of the priest shortage in the U.S.A.: that priests become so preoccupied with their own individual parishes that they fall into a survival mode rather than seeing the connectedness with the total universal Church. Linking, clustering, and merging do not bring about a more universal vision and worldwide sense of mission; parochialism and congregationalism narrow our scope, lessen our energies, and dampen our enthusiasm.
We work hard as priests, long hours, and frequently we manage conflict, but we must work more effectively in order to keep the vision of hope and joy before our people, who constantly experience anguish and suffering in their daily lives.
Dreaming about that universal Church, donating generously to the foreign missions, and finding ways to become more multicultural are only stepping-stones to the word "Catholic" in the Church.
Look toward the mission
"Go teach all nations." We are nearly 70 percent Third World in our membership, yet, while we boast that we are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, we must always look toward our total mission in Christ rather than the sacrifices of just "our own" parish, diocese, or country. History teaches us that a community turned in on itself does not last.
It is the sacred bond of unity and love that fosters a vital spirituality. How we respond to all the challenges of our day is rooted in God's universal call to holiness in his worldwide, Catholic Church.
Those who will be ordained priests this Friday are imbued with this vision, this spirituality, this optimism, for with it we shall flourish, without it we shall only muddle our way through. We want Christ's vision of Church, and that, as our Holy Father reminds us in his encyclical, is a priestly Church of the Eucharist.
Once again, I am enormously proud of our priests and these newly ordained as of Friday, May 23rd. We must pray for them and all our priests that their lives will show forth the worldwide ecclesial vision, in order to help, not hinder the work of the Holy Spirit.
"You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."
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