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| Bishop Speaks | ||||
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| May 29, 2003 Edition | ||||
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Ordination to priesthood:
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This week's column consists of the text of Bishop Bullock's homily from the Mass of Ordination to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, Diego O. Cuevas, James M. Poster, and Brian J. Wilk, May 23, 2003, St. Raphael Cathedral.
Dear brothers and sisters of Jesus and especially you men, our brothers, about to be ordained:
"The love that enables you to answer 'yes' to the Church's need for priests cannot ever be separated from the trial, the Cross, and the sacrifice that will characterize your priestly life." |
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Diego, Jay, and Brian, we rejoice with you and your families, and with the entire Church of Madison on this important day in your lives, a day important for the whole Church.
Like all of us you are fortunate to be Catholic: you don't have to make things up as you go along. You are part of something greater than yourselves, and as part of the Church and a presbyterate you won't have the crushing burden of being an independent loner, for our ministry is not solitary, but is united with other priests, with your bishop, and with the universal Church. Remember this basic truth, for it underlies all you are and everything you do as priest of the Church.
Commanded by Christ
As priests, Brian, Diego, and Jay, you will daily offer the prayer of the Church, especially in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Commanded by Christ, you will baptize; you will prepare men and women for marriage. You will receive the confession of young and old. You will visit the sick and suffering, bringing the grace of the sacraments. You will bury the dead and console the grieving. You will preach God's word for the salvation of the people entrusted into your pastoral care.
By your leadership you will govern by fostering growth and holiness in the Christian community. And each day you will celebrate the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, as in your hands you hold the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, and the Cup of Eternal Blessing, the Blood of the Lord. You will hold, lift, and drink from the chalice of suffering unto yourselves and God's people.
Priestly ministry
These tasks form the very life of the Church to be entrusted into your priestly ministry. For every priest, the ministry we have from the Lord Jesus is a moment of salvation for God's people.
At once every priest celebrates the mystery of the Lord's love for his Body, the Church, and at the same time he carries the Cross with the Lord, but not in his pocket - for these cannot be separated: the love of the Lord and the Cross he carried.
The love that enables you to answer "yes" to the Church's need for priests cannot ever be separated from the trial, the Cross, and the sacrifice that will characterize your priestly life.
Eucharist at heart of mystery
In the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II begins with a statement at once obvious and yet deeply profound: "The church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth," our Holy Father reminds us, is at "the heart of the mystery of the church." (EE#1) "Christ himself [is] our Passover and living bread."
"Many problems darken the horizon of our time," writes Pope John Paul II later in this encyclical.
At the Mass of Chrism this year I also mentioned but a few: the war in Iraq, and now lethal violence in more places; terrorism around the world and here at home; the clergy sexual abuse scandal; the lack of consistent respect for human life; and the worsening shortage of priests. In response to these problems we must not push the panic button, but bring them to our prayer, especially to the Eucharist, laying them at the feet of Christ and there laying down our lives in Christ.
Christian hope shines forth
"We need but think of the urgent need to work for peace," continues the Pope, "to base relationships between peoples on solid premises of justice and solidarity, and to defend human life from conception to its natural end.
"And what should we say of the thousand inconsistencies of a 'globalized' world where the weakest, the most powerless, and the poorest appear to have so little hope! It is in this world that Christian hope must shine forth! For this reason, too, the Lord wished to remain with us in the Eucharist, making his presence in meal and sacrifice the promise of a humanity renewed by his love." (EE#20)
At the heart of the mystery of the Church, then, is always the Eucharist, for "at every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal triduum, to the events of . . . the Last Supper and to what followed it." (EE#3)
At every Eucharist, we sup with the Lord before his passion, we partake of the new covenant in his blood, we stand before the Cross on which he died for us, we wait at the tomb, we rejoice in his resurrection, we await his return in glory.
At the heart of the mystery of the priesthood, too, is always the Eucharist. Every aspect of the life of a priest, conformed to the life of the Lord Jesus and given as a sacrifice for building up the Body of Christ, the Church, draws its strength from the Eucharist, and draws the priest himself back to it.
Dedicated to God's Word
Diego, Jay, and Brian, the words of the prophet Isaiah that you know so well, are words spoken to you tonight, together with your bishop and your brothers in the presbyterate. If you are to live a life dedicated to God's Word, celebrating the Sacraments of the Church, and leading the Community in its growth toward holiness, you must bring the call and promise of those words every day of your life to the Eucharist at which you will preside.
Those words of Isaiah bind us in a sacred union with those to whom they were first proclaimed: namely, the lowly, the brokenhearted, the captives and prisoners, the unfavored, the mourning, the downtrodden, the humble, and the vulnerable.
Success in God's eyes
By your life as a priest the Lord has sent you to bring the glad tidings of his word to these lowly. How will you succeed, not as the world measures success but as God does? Only if you allow the Lord to fill you with his love for those who truly need God.
By the sacrifice of the Cross of Jesus, to which you are invited to conform your life each day, it is the Lord himself who sends you to proclaim God's liberty and release to those imprisoned by sin, to those in captivity to addiction, to those bound by a worldly way of thinking and being contrary to the life of the Gospel.
We want you to succeed in the priesthood, but you will succeed only if you remember that the new covenant of the Lord's Body and Blood is central to your priestly life. If you allow the Lord to fill you with graciousness and gentleness for those who see no way out, if you bring them to the Lord, who is the way, the truth, and the life, then you will be successful. God's scoreboard for that kind of achievement is seen only in the Kingdom.
By the life of prayer and service that you will lead as a priest, the Lord sends you to announce his favor and vindication, a jubilee of praise for God, a jubilee of release for the world. You will succeed, my brothers, Diego, Brian, and Jay, only if you remember that the Eucharist, which is the heart of the Church, has a universal, cosmic character, as Pope John Paul II teaches us.
Do the will of the Father
Allow the Lord to fill you with peace, with a thirst for justice, with delight in the beauty of creation, with patience and humility, so that those whom you serve will see in you not just a man who is also a sinner, but the person of Christ, who draws all people to himself.
By your ordination to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, dear brothers, you receive the oil of gladness on your hands and in your heart, to give it away to those who mourn, who suffer from a listless wandering spirit, who are in great need of God's presence and mercy. You will succeed with God, not the world, only if you remember that, like Christ, your food is to do the will of the Father.
And the will of the Father is that not even one of those given to Christ should be lost. The poor, the humble, the vulnerable, the sinner - all those loved by God and redeemed by Christ on the Cross - for them it is the Eucharist which must be their food, and yours. For in the Eucharist we see the Father's will. He desires healing, and release, and comfort, and gladness for all his people.
How will all those described by the Prophet Isaiah have the mercy and love of the Lord? They will only have it through the mission and ministry of Christ. They will only have it if you are faithful to your priestly calling. They will only have it if you offer to them what you have received, as St. Paul reminds us, "with all humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."
Keep vision of Church
You, my brothers, dedicate yourselves to succeed as only God can measure it with love for God, with love for the Church, with love for the people, with the love for the Eucharist.
Then the love that you have received will multiply and grow in the community of the Church and will bring you back to what is most central in the Church's life, the heart of her mystery, the source and summit of all she is and can be: the Eucharist, the mysterium fidei, the mystery of our faith in the Lord's death and resurrection, until he comes in glory. (cf. EE#5)
Without this vision and our commitment to the whole, entire, universal, Catholic Church we will fail. But each day we as priests and God's people can say: "As morning breaks I look to you O God to be my strength this day," especially at the Eucharist. Let us help one another keep this vision.
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Official Appointments:
Most Reverend William H. Bullock, Bishop of Madison, wishes to announce the following:
Rev. Diego O. Cuevas, newly ordained, to Parochial Vicar, St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee, effective noon, June 11.
Rev. James M. Poster, newly ordained, to Parochial Vicar, St. Maria Goretti Parish Madison, effective June 11.
Rev. Brian J. Wilk, newly ordained, to Parochial Vicar, Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, Madison, linked with St. Joseph Parish, Madison, effective noon, June 11.
Msgr. Paul J. Swain
Vicar General
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