 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Categories |
| Monthly Archives
|
Writings of the Bishop
Votive Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mid-Year Meeting Knights of Columbus State Deputies
November 2011
Posted in Selected Homilies/Addresses
I. Introduction
Devotion to Mary is fundamental to the Knights of Columbus.
Every Knight of Columbus receives a Rosary and is encouraged to pray it daily.
On the medal on the Knights of Columbus Rosary is found
the image of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe,
without whom the evangelization of the Americas would be unthinkable.
The apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego
has become a part of the fabric of the Knights of Columbus:
it is to her that the Worthy Supreme Knight has dedicated his administration
and it is through devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe
that the Order will continue to grow in numbers and in the strength of its mission.
Many of us recall the Marian Congress and the Guadalupan Festival in Phoenix
even as we look forward to an ever bigger Festival next year in Los Angeles.
It is to Mary that we turn as we start out afresh at every stage
in fulfilling the mission to bear witness to the Gospel
that has been entrusted to us as Catholics and as Knights.
II. The New Evangelization
A. As you already know, Pope Benedict has called for a “Year of Faith”
to be observed from October of 2012 to November of 2013,
so as to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council
and the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Church is preparing for a Synod on the New Evangelization
even as the Holy Father recently established
a Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization.
Clearly, Pope Benedict is leading us to proclaim Christ anew to the world,
not just by words and plans and programs
but by the witness of holy lives entirely shaped by Christ,
and joined together in the communion of the Church.
B. As members of the family of the Knights of Columbus,
we need to be on the front lines of the New Evangelization.
And that means we have to understand what is meant by this great mission
to which each of us is called by our Baptism.
And, we need to understand why Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict
made the New Evangelization a fundamental priority of their pontificates.
C. In one of his talks to us during these days,
our Worthy Supreme Knight reminded us of the prophetic words of John Paul II
who was really the first to call us to the New Evangelization
in his 1990 encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio, “The Mission of Redemption”.
These were his words:
“I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church's energies
to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes.
No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty:
to proclaim Christ to all peoples.”
D. A new document issued in preparation for next year’s Synod of Bishops,
sheds light on what the New Evangelization is.
It’s not a catch phrase or slogan but a way of entering into the Church’s mission
to proclaim the Gospel afresh in the times in which we live.
Here’s how that document describes it:
“The Church’s renewed efforts to meet the challenges
which today’s society and cultures . . .
are posing to the Christian faith, its proclamation and its witness.
In facing these challenges, the Church does not give up or retreat into herself;
instead, she undertakes a project to revitalize herself.
She makes the person of Jesus Christ and a personal encounter with him
central to her thinking, knowing that he will give his Spirit and provide the force
to announce and proclaim the Gospel in new ways
which can speak to today’s cultures” (Lineamenta, XIII Synod, no. 5).
E. Just think of how life has changed during our life-times.
Think of how the culture all around us has changed
and the crises which the Church faces almost everywhere in fulfilling her mission.
In some places, bloody persecution is still the order of the day.
In other places, powerful forces seek to discredit and extinguish the Church’s mission
by manipulating all the powerful levers of culture –
the news media, entertainment, public schools, the government…
Whether it is questions posed by advancements in science and technology
or the pervasive darkness of a godless secularism, or simply the age-old lure of sin…
none of us should imagine that it’s time for “business as usual” or for wishful thinking!
Not that we have to re-invent the Gospel
but we have to marshal all the gifts God has given us
to proclaim the age-old Gospel in new and convincing ways and with new vigor
in the actual situations in which we find ourselves today.
III. Star of the New Evangelization
A. Without the Blessed Virgin Mary we cannot truly fulfill the Church’s mission.
As Blessed John Paul II used to say,
it is at the feet of Mary that you and I “learn the Church.”
What does this mean?
From Mary we learn the very reason why the Church came into existence,
namely, to announce Christ and to make him present in our midst;
and in Mary we see the model of what the Church should be in prayer and mission.
After all, in the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the Word made-flesh was presented to the world.
She brought Jesus to the world and to history … to her cousin Elizabeth …
to the shepherds representing Israel,
to the wise men, representing the Gentiles.
It was Mary who shared more deeply than anyone else in the saving death of her Son,
and Mary who revealed to the newborn Church the mysteries of Christ life
which she carefully kept in her memory unclouded by sin.
Mary was a singular witness to Christ – yes, we cannot evangelize without her!
B. In order to evangelize, it is necessary to become witnesses to the life of Christ,
singular witnesses to the mysteries of Christ.
As Blessed Pope John Paul II said of Mary,
“having lived her condition as a disciple of the Lord perfectly, she calls Christians
to progress on the path of a fervent life in accordance with the Gospel.”
So, let us learn from Mary
that the testimony of one’s life must precede the testimony of one’s words.
Only witnesses are credible; only those who testify with their lives can touch
minds and hearts that are disoriented and confused.
We must be “Gospel figures” if we want the Gospel to take root all around us!
This is why the Person of the Blessed Virgin Mary illuminates evangelization:
She is a living Gospel, who perfectly embodied the Gospel of Christ.
If we really want to know Christ, we enter into the heart of Mary
who, in every sense of the word, knew Him perfectly.
From there we can give Christ to the world
with the same love, fidelity, zeal, and veracity with which she has given him to us.
C. Mary has been called the “Star of the New Evangelization.”
She, the woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,”
is the unchanging, ever consistent star
by which the Church’s mission, her voyage across time and history, is guided.
Her appearance at Tepeyac set in motion a great chain of events
which overcame the darkness of unbelief and evangelized an entire continent.
She is the Mother of the Civilization of Love, and she is our mother too.
She will obtain for us the grace to cooperate with God’s providence,
each in his or her own way, to bear a vigorous new witness to the Gospel,
so that the world may know new hope.
IV. Conclusion
And so, with Blessed John Paul II, we pray:
Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, Queen of Peace!
Save the nations and peoples of this continent.
Teach everyone, political leaders and citizens,
to live in true freedom and to act
according to the requirements of justice
and respect for human rights,
so that peace may thus be established once and for all.
To you, O Lady of Guadalupe,
Mother of Jesus and our Mother,
belong all the love, honor, glory and endless praise
of your American sons and daughters!
Vivat Jesus!
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Lectionary: 690A
RV 11:19A; 12:1-6A, 10AB
God's temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in the sky;
it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns,
and on its heads were seven diadems.
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky
and hurled them down to the earth.
Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth,
to devour her child when she gave birth.
She gave birth to a son, a male child,
destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.
Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
The woman herself fled into the desert
where she had a place prepared by God.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
"Now have salvation and power come,
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed."
RESPONSORIAL PSALM JDT 13:18BCDE, 19
R. (15:9d) You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God,
the creator of heaven and earth.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
Your deed of hope will never be forgotten
by those who tell of the might of God.
R. You are the highest honor of our race.
LK 1:39-47
Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled."
And Mary said:
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior."
« More of the Bishop's Writings | ^ Back to Top of Page ^