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World Youth Day 2008 Homilies and Talks
by the Most Reverend William E. Lori, S.T.D.
Bishop of Bridgeport
Sydney, Australia
July 16-18, 2008
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World Youth Day Homily #1
Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16, 2008
"You Will Receive Power When the Holy Spirit Comes"
An Appetite for the Eucharist
When I was eight or nine years old, my mother used to warn me about spoiling my supper. After school, my friends and I managed to get our hands on a sugary snack. So when my family sat down for dinner, I wasn't very hungry. That didn't go over very well. Having worked hard to put a good meal on the table, Mom didn't like the idea that I was passing it up for soft drinks, candy bars, doughnuts, and a lot of other things that are so bad because they taste so good. My brothers & I were expected to show up for dinner with a good appetite.
Sometimes I think about this when I'm getting ready for Mass. The Eucharist is, after all, the Lord's Supper. The place is the Lord's house, the Church assembled. The invitees are God's own family, the baptized members of His Church. The conversation is no mere idle chat but the revealed Word of God, the Words of "spirit and life". In the course of this meal, we have the opportunity to remind ourselves what brings us together as family by professing our faith and to ask our gracious Host for what is nearest and dearest to our hearts. The substance of the meal never varies. It is not earthly bread and wine but rather the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, "the living Bread come down from heaven;" "the Bread of Life" and "the medicine of immorality."
Yet how many people absent themselves from this extraordinary meal or arrive at it late and leave as early as they can. How many people complaint that they get very little out of Mass, that 'they are not fed' as the saying goes. So I ask myself before Mass about the condition of my appetite. What I am hungry for? Am I looking for the spiritual equivalent of the sugary snacks I liked so much as a kid - snacks that give you a burst of energy and then a big letdown? Am I merely looking for someone to make me feel good, something to compete with the media & entertainment overload in our lives? Or am I looking to nourish my relationship with God and others and to find the strength for what the Lord has asked me to do?
Mt. Olivet and Mt. Carmel
In today's Mass, through the Scriptures, the Blessed Mother instructs us how to go to Mass. For today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, the mountain where the prophet Elijah was filled with God's spirit so that he could boldly announce the Word of God. Mary appeared on this holy mountain in 1251 and since that time this holy place has been associated with 'the beauty, silence, and prayer that characterize Mary….' We see her beauty, silence, and prayerfulness also in the Upper Room, so near to the Mount of Olives where Jesus underwent his agony. Here she leads the disciples in awaiting the fulfillment of the promise the Lord made just before His Ascension in heaven: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses throughout Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the earth" The Scripture tells us that they joined together in prayer, begging for the promised Spirit.
The Holy Spirit did indeed come upon them all, opening their minds and hearts to the Scriptures, and reminding them of all that Jesus had said and done. The Holy Spirit empowered them to go forth from that Upper Room to Judea, to Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.
How To Approach the Eucharist
Not unlike my own mother, Mary the Mother of God teaches us to approach the Eucharist with a good appetite … 'to hunger and thirst for holiness.' Mary is urging you and me not to allow ourselves to be overloaded with all the attractions and empty promises of this world - the equivalent of the 'sugary snacks' that used to substitute for my supper. Instead, the Mother of God, who is with us at every celebration of the Eucharist, is teaching us to bring to Mass a loving receptivity for the Holy Spirit. For Mary, who conceived Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and remained sinless throughout her life by same Holy Spirit, wants us to experience the power of the Spirit at every Mass. Her life experience taught her and teaches us that the Holy Spirit links us to Christ and allows the power of His saving love to come alive in us.
Mary also wants us to understand that we will never really do the Lord's work unless we encounter and receive Christ in the Eucharist and allow Him to breathe His Holy Spirit into us. Ever Mass is a new Pentecost, a new opportunity for the Holy Spirit to make Christ present among us, to bring us together as Church, and to send us forth to bear witness to Him.
If you ask any great missionary - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, for example, -- where she got the strength to serve the poorest of the poor worldwide - she would tell you in a heartbeat that it was the Eucharist. The Spirit forged in her heart the link between the Body of Christ and the diseased and pain-racked bodies of the persons she and her sisters ministered throughout the world. In the Eucharist, it is the Holy Spirit who links us to Christ, deepens our relationship with Him, and makes us every hungrier, not for the empty and deceptive things of this world but for Him who loved us and gave His life to save us.
Not only during World Youth Day but throughout these days may we ask the help of Mary's prayers so that we may approach the Eucharist with hearts that hunger and thirst for holiness - so that we too may receive power from the Holy Spirit.
World Youth Day Homily #2
Mass for the Church, July 17, 2008
"The Church: The Body of Christ"
Gifts that Differ
When I was in the minor seminary, I used to play baseball. To tell you the truth, having me on the team was a case of good news and bad news. The good news is that I could hit the ball fairly consistently - batting both right-handed and left-handed. The bad news is that I was pretty terrible in fielding the ball, whether in the infield or the outfield. So they usually put me in the outfield, right field to be exact, since most fly balls came to the center or left field. When I managed to catch a fly ball, my teammates thought it was a miracle!
But somehow it all worked out o.k.; we were a team. The coach played to our strengths rather than to our weaknesses. He encouraged us to work together, to respect one another, and to respect the abilities that each of us brought to the team. We didn't win every game but in learning how to cooperate, we learned something more important than winning.
St. Paul is telling us something similar in our reading from 1st Corinthians. He is speaking to us as baptized members of the Church. He wants us to know that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. Just like my baseball coach of old, the Holy Spirit is playing to our strengths. Building on our natural abilities and strengths, the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts that are appropriate to each of us as individuals. Of course, the gifts of the Holy Spirit aim to make us better persons, to strengthen our relationship with Christ, and to bring us closer to salvation. But the gifts of the Holy Spirit aren't only about our personal destiny. They are ways in which God is at work in us so that we can put ourselves at the service of others in the life of the Church.
The gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us are very different. Just think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Both were women of deep prayer and service. Once was called to minister to the poor, the other to a life of contemplative prayer. Someone may be a good teacher of the faith and another might be good at helping the sick and the elderly. There are so many gifts the Spirit gives and if our sinful egos don't get in the way too much, these gifts truly do build up the Church as the Body of Christ, the Church, whose soul is indeed the Holy Spirit. As Pope Benedict has written: "By allowing themselves to be guided by the Spirit, each baptized person can bring his or her own contribution to the building up of the Church because of the charisms given by the Holy Spirit...."
Differing Gifts Resting on the Same Basis
I want to go back to my ill-starred days as a baseball player in order to illustrate the Gospel. The coach, as I said, recognized and used the talent of each player much as the Holy Spirit gives gifts appropriate to each member of the Church. But my baseball coach was also very respectful of the game of baseball. He insisted that we know the game and follow the rules. In other words, individual gifts were for the common good and were recognized on the basis of what the game of baseball requires.
Something similar can be said of the Church. We are all given gifts by the Holy Spirit and indeed each one of us is called to a vocation in the life of the Church, be it marriage, priesthood, religious life, or a single person in the world. But all of these gifts and vocations rest on the same basis. It's Peter's confession of the Lordship of Jesus: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Just as He promised, Jesus built his Church on Peter, the Rock, and on his confession of faith. Every gift, every vocation is all about bearing witness to Christ as Lord, as Savior, as Messiah of the world.
Soon we will greet the successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI! He comes among us in the power of the Holy Spirit to repeat the confession of St. Peter: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" In the power of the Holy Spirit, we too can say, "Jesus is Lord". Our united confession of faith is not merely a matter of words but a powerful proclamation backed up by a way of life and loving service to others ? capable of attracting others to Jesus Christ. May we, the members of the Body of Christ, welcome the Holy Spirit and allow the Spirit to unite us in bearing witness to Christ whose love is stronger than death and more powerful than sin!
May God bless and keep us in His love.
World Youth Day Homily #3
Mass for the Church, July 18, 2008
"Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel"
Woe to Me
In the first reading, St. Paul discusses his calling to preach the Gospel. Paul makes it clear that it's God's strength and goodness that makes it possible for him to share the Gospel with others. But he also makes it clear that he is doomed if he resists the power of the Holy Spirit that urges him on to spread the Good News of Christ everywhere. "Woe to me if I do not preach [the Gospel]," he says.
The words "woe to me" sound a little old-fashioned and we probably would use them but we know what they mean. We might phrase it this way: 'It wouldn't be a good thing if I didn't get through college.' 'I'd better start thinking the job I'll get after I am out of school.' 'I hope I'm not living with my parents when I'm 39!' (Your parents might be saying the same thing).
But St. Paul says, 'woe to me if I don't preach the Gospel.' He's saying something more than I'd better succeed at my job. He is saying that it wasn't really his original plan to preach the Gospel. His plan was to persecute the Church of Christ. Instead, the Lord intervened and ordered him to preach the Gospel. He is not the author of his own vocation. Rather, his vocation came from Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul is only the steward of his vocation as an apostle of Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel to the nations. He can only be happy doing God's will.
The Great Commission Is Addressed to Us
Paul's vocation is very similar to the other apostles. In the Gospel, the eleven disciples find themselves on a mountain in Galilee. They were ordered to go there by the Risen Lord, perhaps the place where He had preached the Sermon on the Mount. There Jesus summons all the authority given him by the Father and prepares even his doubting disciples to receive that same power from the Holy Spirit. And in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus commands them 'to make disciples of all the nations and to baptize them in the name and power of the Trinity.' For the Paul and for all the apostles it is the same: preaching the Gospel is not 'an optional extra', a matter of taste or preference, but an urgent summons from Christ.
And where does that leave us? We can imagine many things in life that would bring us woe - that would bring us failure, shame, economic or physical hardship. But is failure to bring the Gospel to others something we fear? As the result of Baptism and Confirmation - in which the Spirit of the Risen Lord touched our inmost selves with new life - do we feel a compulsion to follow Christ so closely that we attract others to follow in His footsteps?
The Church of which you and I are members does many things. We run many parishes, excellent schools, and in most places the Church provides more charitable and social services than any other entity except possible for the government. But as Pope Paul VI taught and every subsequent Pope reminded us, the deepest identity and mission of the Church is to proclaim the Gospel. It is to open minds and hearts to Christ so they, like ourselves, can receive the Holy Spirit who enables us to understand the Scriptures and to accept and live the faith of the Church 'in the holiness of truth'. The Holy Spirit is the chief agent of the Church's mission of evangelization but you and I are called to be its servants. 'Woe to us if we do not preach the Gospel.'
And how crucial it is for us to be the Spirit-led servants of the Gospel, the evangelizers, witnesses, and harvesters so needed by the Lord and by His Bride the Church! So many people today live as if God did not exist. God is either off the page of their lives or barely on the margins. And with the abolition of God comes the abolition of human rights as the basis for a just and peaceful society. With the abolition of God comes the negation of authentic human dignity, for it is our calling to friendship with God that gives us 'the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Preaching the Gospel is not about escaping the world but shaping the world according to the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit…a love we've called to share in for all eternity. Bearing witness to the Gospel means bringing back to Christ and the Church those who have forgotten or abandoned their calling. The Pope will be asking you to bring just one person back to the Church. If every practicing Catholic did that, think of the difference we would make!
World Youth Day is a moment for you and me to hear the Lord's urgent summons to be disciples and to make disciples. May the Holy Spirit give us the courage and strength to answer that call!
World Youth Day Talk #1, July 16, 2008
"You Will Receive Power When the Holy Spirit Has Come Upon You: And You Will Be My Witnesses"
Acts 1:8
"Called to Live in the Holy Spirit"
Introduction
I don't know if Homer Simpson is known in this part of the world but I'm going to bet that most of you know him pretty well. He says and does many things I won't repeat here - except one. When he's in church or when anyone says anything half-way serious to him, he's likely to respond with the word, B - O - R - I - N - G!
I can't say I haven't done the same thing. I've been bored listening to good and well-informed people who were trying to tell me important things about the faith and about life. Sometimes, even now, if I'm not careful, I find myself not paying attention, drifting off, letting my imagination roam. This can happen in conversations with others including my conversations with The Other, with God. And no doubt I would have bored God by now except that God is God and that means He has infinite patience!
But I'm also guilty of boring others. I administer the Sacrament of Confirmation about 70 times a year. Sometimes I get to the parish after a long day … I'm tired … or maybe the dinner at the rectory before Confirmation was too much. When tired and overfed, one can be deadly. Before Confirmation I meet with those to be confirmed and almost always there's time for give and take. Young people are usually excited about being receiving the Sacrament, but there's often someone I don't seem to reach - some who, if he could, without getting into trouble, would say, "BORING!"
And let's face it. A lot of young people don't continue their religious education after Confirmation and some young people and not so young people - don't go to Mass on Sunday, at least not regularly. Sometimes I get the chance to talk to people not practicing their faith. I ask, "what's wrong?" "Is it what the Church teaches?" "Or what you heard the Church teaches?" "Is it that someone representing the Church has hurt or offended you?" Sometimes the answer to those questions is, "Yes, it is those things" and then we have an awful lot to talk about. But often people will tell me, "I don't get anything out of going to Mass on Sunday!" "It's kind of BORING!"
And only your friends will tell you! Not too long ago I was preaching in not such great Spanish to a packed house. There were so many people in church that night that people were standing right in front of and under the high pulpit - almost shoulder to shoulder - I'm glad the fire-marshal didn't show up! As I was concluding my homily, a man right in front of me fainted dead away! I rushed out of the pulpit to see if I could help him. As I was coming down the steps, my priest assistant met me and said, "Boy, Bishop, that homily was a killer!" I'm happy to report that the man recovered - a lot sooner than my ego!
What's Missing?
Well, the Lord himself is the original preacher of the Gospel we hear at Mass. And it was the Lord himself who gave us the Mass at the Last Supper. And for you and me, the Mass brings to life and makes real the greatest act of love in all of human history: the Son of God made man giving His life for us and for our salvation - and giving Himself to us as our nourishment. Beginning with the Blessed Virgin Mary, any saint that ever lived will tell us that the Eucharist rules! People in our own times have given their lives for the Eucharist and for the chance to celebrate the Eucharist. For 2000 years the Church has taught that it is central to our lives as Christians. But on Sunday morning, going to Mass might be the last thing that alot of people want to do.
So what's missing? Maybe it isn't a something that's missing but a Someone. And this "Someone" really isn't missing from the Eucharist itself - but He may be 'missing in action' in our lives … This "Someone" is the Holy Spirit. It's not that we didn't receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation; it's just that we managed to put Him in the cellar and to lock the door. The "Someone" who is missing in action is the Holy Spirit and He is only missing because we've stifled Him. World Youth Day is about un-stifling the Holy Spirit in our lives! We've come together from all other the world to have the words of Jesus, addressed to the apostles, fulfilled in our lives: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses!" (Acts 1:8).
To have those words fulfilled in us … even to expect that the coming of the Holy Spirit will fill us with the power of God's love … means we need to remind ourselves how we even know there is a Holy Spirit, who He is, and what His role in our lives is meant to be. So maybe it's time to revisit what we were taught about the Holy Spirit things we may remember very well and find ourselves living to the fullest - or things we never really understood or let ourselves understand when they were first presented. In this setting of prayer, support, and expectation, there's a good chance that the truth about the Holy Spirit might sink in deeper not just to inform your life but to transform you life. That's what this is about; so please give me your undivided attention.
Who Is the Holy Spirit? How Do We Know Him?
The first thing we might say about the Holy Spirit is that He has been around for a while - in fact, from all eternity. The human family came to know the effects of the Holy Spirit who was present and active when the world was made. There are a lot of explanations about how the world came to be - the only one we can't really accept is the view that says we're just an accident: "Against incredible odds, all this just happened and for no purpose at all." Scripture tells us that, at the dawn of creation, 'the wind was moving over the face of the waters' (Gen. 1:2) and that 'God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). Here the Bible is telling us that the world and each of us was created by the power of God's love, by the power of the Spirit.
And even before the Holy Spirit was really known, God's Chosen People felt the power of the Spirit as God revealed himself, brought them together, delivered them from their enemies, gave them His law, and called them back to faithfulness by the prophets. In all these ways and many more, the people of Israel experienced the power of the Holy Spirit - the ruah, the breath, the rush, the impulse - of God's Holy Spirit by whom they looked for the coming of the Savior. Thus the prophet Joel wrote: "In those days," meaning in these days, "I will pour out my spirit" (Joel 3:1-2).
And that is what the Lord God did. He poured out His Spirit upon the Virgin of Nazareth who conceived the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, by the Spirit of the Father's love. When Jesus began his public ministry in the Jordan, He was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove and the Holy Spirit accompanied Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection. That is why Jesus stood up in the Synagogue and repeated the words of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19; cf. Is. 61:1-2). The Spirit came upon Jesus, God's Son in the flesh, and because of that, his human nature - our human nature - became the means by which we would hear the Gospel and be saved.
So whenever you read about what Jesus said or did, when He chose and formed the apostles and called his disciples, when He preached the Good News and healed the sick, when He forgave sins and even raised the dead, Jesus was accompanied by the Holy Spirit. And when He was preparing His followers for His Passion and Death, He told them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Consoler. The Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would bear witness to Him, remind his followers of all that Jesus taught them, guiding them to the fullness of Truth (cf. Jn. 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:13).
This is the Holy Spirit that Jesus gave to the world when He delivered up His Spirit on the Cross, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, the Spirit the Lord gave to His Apostles on Easter Sunday night when He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit"… and then empowered them to forgive sins in His Name. This is the Holy Spirit who came upon the Apostles and the Virgin Mary, gathered in prayer at Pentecost, 9 days after the Lord's Ascension into heaven, the Spirit who transformed them from being timid and afraid into bold witnesses whose proclamation of the Gospel won thousands of minds and hearts to Christ.
In the wonder of creation, in the law and the prophets, but most especially in the teaching of Jesus Christ we come to know who the Holy Spirit really is, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, co-equal with the Father & the Son. In the Creed we profess our belief in the Holy Spirit: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and Son, He is glorified, and Who has spoken through the prophets." The Holy Spirit is the Personal bond of the love between Father and Son, proceeding from them both, and revealed to us by Jesus in his teaching and saving deeds. The Spirit who is poured out endlessly within the Trinity has been poured out on us in the life of the Church, especially in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.
The Role of the Holy Spirit in Our Lives
But what is the role of the Holy Spirit within our own lives? Sometimes, after all the young people have prepared for Confirmation, I ask: "How will you be helped by receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit?" Answers may vary to that question but the big "take away" from WYD is this: The Holy Spirit is the One who puts you in touch with Christ. St. Paul said it very clearly: "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). The Father has sent us the bond of love between himself and His Son so that we might know and love Jesus and touch His life. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (nos. 683 ff.) says so beautifully, "to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit!" It is invisible, self-effacing Presence, the Third Person of the Trinity who enables us to hear the Father's Word. We do not hear the Holy Spirit, for He does not speak on His own, but we can indeed experience His presence as He enables us to hear Christ, as He "unveils" Christ for us and enables us to contemplate His face.
Because the Holy Spirit plays this critical rôle in our lives, Pope Benedict XVI is inviting you at this World Youth Day to come to know the Holy Spirit more personally and to welcome the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is not enough to approach the Holy Spirit "by the book" - a good doctrinal understanding of Who the Holy Spirit really is - is essential. Yet, as the Holy Father says in his message for World Youth Day: "…it is not enough to know the Spirit; we must welcome Him as the guide of our souls, as the 'Teacher of the interior life' who introduces us into the mystery of the Trinity because He alone can open us up to faith & allow us to live each day to the full."
You have heard it said many times that you received the Holy Spirit first in the Sacrament of Baptism & then the fullness of the Spirit in Confirmation. You might have said to yourself, "Well, I was a baby when I was baptized" - and - "I really wasn't fully aware of what was happening to me when I was confirmed." "How would that equip me really to know the Holy Spirit?" The answer is that both Baptism and Confirmation mark us out as children of God and give us the Holy Spirit as part of our spiritual DNA! We are permanently "sealed" by the Holy Spirit whom we hold - as it were - "in reserve" in the depth of our hearts. We unlock this reserve as we encounter the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, as we pray, as we continue to allow our faith to shape us, and as we develop a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit Himself. In other words, we are retrieving and developing the grace of the Holy Spirit that we have already received because of the preaching of God's Words and the action of the Sacraments of the Church.
And one of the most important goals of this WYD is to allow the Spirit to guide you toward Christ not merely as an external force, cajoling and badgering you to open your hearts to Christ but as One who lives within you and bears witness within you to Jesus Christ, 'the only name in heaven and on earth by which we can be saved!' Yes, we will speak about the Holy Spirit empowering us to be witnesses to Christ but first we must allow the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ within our own hearts; to remind us of all that Christ taught us through the Church, and to open our eyes to the depth, the beauty, the wonder of Christ's love, so that we might say with St. Paul: "He loves me and He gave His life for me!" (Gal. 2:20). That's what's often missing. That's why faith can seem as dry as dust. We forget to allow the Holy Spirit to do exactly what Jesus said He would do: bear witness to the truth and love of Christ in the depth of our hearts, to consecrate us in truth, to be our interior guide, for "…God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom. 5:5).
It's only when we've allowed the Holy Spirit to fulfill His rôle in our hearts that the Scriptures come alive and are seen as applicable to our lives, that the teaching of the Church not only makes sense but is seen as life-giving and beautiful; it is only the power of the Holy Spirit that we approach the Eucharist and the Sacraments of Penance with any sense of expectation, with any real awareness of what God in his mercy is ready to do for us within the community of His Church. And it is only when the Spirit has witnessed to us the depth of Jesus' love for us that we can really love God above all things and begin to love our neighbor as Jesus has loved us.
A very wise religious superior in the United States, a Poor Clare, wrote a beautiful reflection on the simple prayer which you and I should offer to Christ from time to time: "Never let me be separated from Thee". It's a prayer the priest says before receiving Holy Communion and it is one of the petitions of an old and beautiful prayer, the Anima Christi. (Pope Benedict has also identified this as one of his favorite prayers). Sometimes we think of Jesus as the one who stays put while we go out and wander around, wander far from Him. We think of Jesus as stationary while we are in motion and we think of being with Jesus as always being at rest. But if you read the Gospels you find that Jesus was always in motion… always going from place to place, 'to other towns and villages,' on His way to Jerusalem, always on His way from the Father and to the Father. That's what His life on earth was about and that's also what happens whenever we celebrate the liturgy - except that Jesus is taking us with Him to the Father.
When we pray, "Never let me be separated from You" we are praying that we may accompany Jesus as He goes to the Father and He goes in the power of the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth. Jesus is a "moving target" thanks to the fact that "the Spirit blows where He wills" and we must ask the Holy Spirit to help us keep pace with Christ and not fall behind, lingering in sin, in so much frenetic activity in the world that leads nowhere and to nothing. Only Jesus leads us to the goal of our lives and only the Holy Spirit enables us to follow Him unreservedly. G. The great vitality - the power, the enthusiasm, the overflowing love - which is so evident on the day of Pentecost and in the lives of all God's holy ones - is destined to be yours and mine. As our Holy Father is saying to us in these days: "…the Spirit of the Lord always remembers every individual, and wishes, particularly through you our young people, to stir up the wind and fire of a new Pentecost in the world."
Conclusion
By now, Homer Simpson has long since dropped off the charts and is snoozing in front of his TV with a can of Duff beer. But I hope that this poor attempt on my own part to speak about the Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, will help awaken in you a desire to come to know the Holy Spirit more personally so that you may participate in the Christ's mission carried out in and through the Church.
Come Holy Spirit and renew our hearts by the fire of your love!
Thank you for listening. May God bless you and keep you in His love.
World Youth Day Talk #2, July 17, 2008
"You Will Receive Power When the Holy Spirit Has Come Upon You: And You Will Be My Witnesses"
Acts 1:8
"Holy Spirit, Soul of the Church"
Introduction
If you're an old person like me, you probably carry a Blackberry, a mini version of a cell-phone and a lap top computer. Like millions of people, I can be seen at airports scrolling and reading the little screen with all my emails, using my thumbs to send urgent messages, and when, when worse comes to worse, calling. You are probably more advanced. You probably have a cool looking I-phone, smaller, without all the buttons, to go along with your I-pod which is even smaller and contains more music than you could ever listen to in one lifetime. Yes, I'm getting old.
But there's something my old Blackberry and your I-Phone have in common. A microchip; they have 'Intel Inside'! Just about everything has Intel Inside and/or something similar, that brings your computer and other devices to life and causes them to run, including all their programs and applications. It might be fair to say that Intel Inside animates your electronic devices. By way of comparison, we might even say that the microchip is like the "soul" of the I-Pod or I-Phone you might be carrying right now.
The Notion of the Soul
Before Silicon Valley thought up the micro-computer chip, God created the human soul. We have to understand this point a little better to get hold of our topic: "The Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Church". When you were conceived, your mother and father supplied your body but it was through the Holy Spirit that you received your soul, the spiritual, animating principle, the heart of your life. This is not the product of evolution or of heredity but instead your soul was created directly and immediately by God. Each human soul is individual and immortal and does not die with the Body but will be re-united with a glorified body in the final resurrection. You might say, then, that the human soul is God's Intel inside. It's what runs our human consciousness and freedom; it's what makes us most like God and capable of friendship with God and others. This friendship is what the heart of every human being was created for!
There are lots of people who think that while computers have Intel Inside, we are only made up of flesh and blood … the most sophisticated product of evolution thus far. We're here at World Youth Day because we know we're more than sum of our parts and because through the Holy Spirit, Christ and His Father dwell in our hearts.
Looking at the Church Only from the Outside
This sets the stage for helping us understand what it means to say that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. A lot of people have impressions of the Church & ideas about the Church formed by just looking at the Church solely on the outside … it's like trying to describe a computer merely by screen and the keyboard but without looking deeper to find out what makes it work.
So people will look at the Church from the point of view of sociology, talking about statistics, demographics, and trends. These studies are very important and people like me have to pay attention to these studies - but they are not the whole story. Others look at the Church in comparison to other religions and other Christian denominations - just the other day I received a letter from a person who told me that the Protestant church down the street from her parish had a better youth program - and she had a point. Some compare what the Church believes and how it's organized to the beliefs and organizational models found in other faith groups. This is both interesting and important, for we continue to learn from other religious bodies and they learn from us, even as we try to promote good relations, understanding, and cooperation.
Still others look at the dark side of the Church and there is one. While we firmly believe in the "one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church", we also know that the members of the Church - this means you and me - still struggle with sin and many of those struggles are messy and scandalous. Often culture takes those struggles - especially when they become headlines - and uses them to discredit what the Church believes and teaches, especially when our teaching goes against the grain of many modern cultures. Jesus said this would happen when he warned his followers against giving scandal. Scandal isn't just shocking behavior, even though it may shock us. Scandal is an attitude and/or behavior that leads others into sin and gives them an excuse for not following Christ as members of the Church. We should be known by the love we show for others not self-centered behavior.
Looking at the Church on the outside, many people in history figured that they would put an end to it, starting with Roman Emperors; ? that didn't work out too well. Because of the witness of the martyrs, many became Christians. During the French Revolution, efforts were made to do away with the Catholic Church in France once for all and to replace it with the "Cult of the Supreme Being". That too didn't work out too well for after all the bloodshed and repression the Revolution brought in its wake, the Church in France in the 19th Century was renewed and became vibrant. (There was a new Pentecost in France lasting to the eve of WW II). Closer to our times, Stalin got angry at an aide when he suggested that Stalin take into account the Vatican's point of view on some question. "How many divisions does the Pope have?" he asked dismissively. "How many does He need?" we might ask! In our own times, there's a whole new group of militant atheists who are hammering the Church as an evil force in society and in some places calling for its suppression. Sometimes the attack is harsh and direct - often its more softer and subtler - e.g., stand up comedians, news commentators.
But it's not just dictators and social commentators who look at the Church with suspicion and derision. Sometimes these same attitudes are found in members of the Church, in people who have sidelined themselves from the faith, in people who have been hurt or disillusioned by scandal, in people who have exchanged their faith for secular culture, sometimes leaving their faith behind without ever having really known it. They all have this in common: ? they are looking at the Church only on the outside, only as an institution, not as a living organism with a soul. What's the "Intel" inside the Church? I
The Holy Spirit Is the Soul of the Church
In one of his many talks, Pope John Paul II taught that "… the Spirit is the life-giving principle of the Church." We should remember the close relationship of the Holy Spirit to Christ and to the saving work of Christ. The Holy Spirit accompanied Jesus throughout his life, most especially His death and resurrection by which we were saved. All that Jesus said and did was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, including founding the Church. In turn, the Holy Spirit gave life to the Church. As John Paul II taught, "There is a close link between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation." (General Audience, Nov. 28, 1990). In that same talk, our late and beloved Holy Father went on to show how close that link is by citing the words of St. Augustine & St. Thomas Aquinas: St. Augustine put it this way: "What our spirit, that is, our soul is with relation with our other members, so the Holy Spirit is to the Church" (Sermo 269). St. Thomas Aquinas compares the Holy Spirit to the "heart" of the Church because the Spirit invisibly gives life and unifies the Church just as the heart 'carries out its inner influence within the human body.' (cf. ST, III q. 8, a.1. ad.3; cf. General Audience, op. cit., November 28, 1990) Let's see how the Pope John Paul II and these two great doctors of the Church help us understand what the Scriptures teach us about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
When the Holy Spirit descended like wind and flame upon the Apostles, then, on Pentecost, is when the Church came to life. The Holy Spirit reminded the Apostles of all Jesus had taught them, helped them to understand it and accept it in the depth of their hearts, and then gave them courage to go out and preach the Gospel, even at the cost of their own lives. While the Church was being born throughout Christ's entire ministry, it truly came to life when the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead came to rest upon the Apostles, the Virgin Mary, and that first small group of Jesus' followers.
Yet, St. Paul is the one who really helps us understand the Church to which the Spirit gave life at Pentecost. He describes the Church as "the Body of Christ". This comparison helps us see that the Church is more than buildings, institutions, and programs. Although these "outward" things are a necessary part of the Church's life (just as the human body is a part of who we are) - the outward appearance of the Church doesn't tell the whole story, any more than your bodies tell the whole story of you. The "outward" gives clues to the inward but never fully reveals 'what's on the inside'.
So when we speak of the Church as the Body of Christ, we see the Church as an extension of Christ, the Church which came to be when Christ gave His life for us on the Cross; [the Church which, at Ephesians 5:22, St. Paul calls "the bride of Christ".] If we follow St. Paul's theme carefully, we will see what it means to say that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. It means that Christ is present and active in the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit; it means that the Church is not a dead institution but a living organism, a communion of persons founded on, modeled on, and sharing in the life of the original Communion of Persons, the Blessed Trinity. Just as the Holy Spirit is the living bond of love between the Father and the Son so the Holy Spirit brings the Church into unity and empowers her to do the works of love.
And this makes sense. If the Holy Spirit accompanied Jesus every step of the way - His conception, birth, hidden life at Nazareth, public ministry, and especially His death and resurrection - it only makes sense that the Holy Spirit would inspire, animate, and guide the Church which was founded by Christ to extend His mission until the very end of time.
What the Holy Spirit Does for and within the Church
The first thing the Spirit does is to supply the Church with holiness. The correct term is that the Holy Spirit "infuses" the Church with holiness. The holiness which the Holy Spirit imparts to the Church is not the result of our work or good will. It is the holiness of Christ, the Son of the Father, who loved us and gave his life for us. The Spirit concentrates the Lord's holiness in the Word of God and in the Sacraments of the Church and diffuses the holiness of Christ among the Church's members, at least those who are willing to receive it and take it seriously. Each of us receives a call to holiness through Baptism and Confirmation - a call to participate in the love of the Trinity so that we may love God above all things and to love our neighbors not just as ourselves - but rather to love them as God loves them - and to put not only our gifts and talents at the service of others but indeed to make our very lives a gift to God and to others ? by answering in the affirmative and we do this by saying "yes" to whatever vocation God has in store for us. Thus, in every age, it is the Holy Spirit who makes the Church "the Body of Christ". Pope John Paul II taught that holiness determines the Church's spiritual health and beauty, "a beauty which surpasses all natural or artistic beauty." So in the Creed, when we say we believe in the 'holiness' of the Church, this is what we mean.
The second thing the Spirit, as the 'soul' of the Church does in and for the Church is to guide the Church to all truth. Jesus, on the night before He died promised that the Spirit would do this: "When the Spirit of truth comes," he said to His Apostles, "He will guide you to all truth." It is by the Holy Spirit's light the Church proclaims the truth God revealed throughout salvation history, including the Old Testament times, but especially through Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The Holy Spirit does not merely dispense little bytes of information - He does not send the Pope a daily text message! - no, the Holy Spirit imparts to the Church what St. Paul calls 'the mind of Christ.' Because of the Holy Spirit the Church teaches the Gospel truthfully and reliably applies it to new questions and situations as these arise in history. Because of the Holy Spirit we also have an ability to recognize when the faith is being truthfully proclaimed and taught and when it is not. None of this is automatic but requires that we be formed in the faith. So when you are asked to take part in formal religious education, youth groups, and especially Sunday Mass … one of the purposes is to put you in the path of the Holy Spirit so that your "sense of the faith" can be sharpened. Many studies show that those who are formed in the faith and those who come to Mass on Sunday tend think with the Church on the issues of the day, that is, with 'the mind of Christ'.
The Holy Spirit is also the source of the Church's energy and strength, the source of the Church's dynamism, her spiritual energy. In fact, the dynamism of the Church's mission is an outgrowth of her holiness. As Pope Benedict taught, "…We can never separate holiness from mission." There are a lot of energetic people in the life of the Church. Think about Pope Benedict who at age 81 keeps an amazing daily schedule and travels many places, including his trip to Australia. I remember once receiving a call in which my old boss, Cardinal Hickey, was asked to call the Pope John Paul II to have him call Mother Teresa, to persuade her to stay in a U.S. hospital when she was ill. People like Pope Benedict, John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and others - seem to be almost super-humanly energetic … because they tap into an energy, a dynamism that is not their own … rather it is supernatural energy of Christ that Holy Spirit gives to the Church. The Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of the Church and in our hearts, helping us overcome our weakness, our spiritual sloth, our fear, and giving us the strength, courage to bear witness to the Gospel, and to unlock the dynamism, the power, of Christ in the world.
The principal place where we find this super-natural energy to lead good and holy lives and to advance the mission of Christ is the Eucharist. So we need to remind ourselves that the Spirit is the driving force of the Sacraments. Each celebration of the Eucharist taps us into the original Pentecost - it is like a "perpetual Pentecost …." for the Holy Spirit overshadows us as the Scripture is read, so that it is really Christ speaking to us; the Holy Spirit, invoked over the bread and wine, enables the priest to consecrate them in to the Lord's Body and Blood. It is the Holy Spirit who brings the worshipping community together in unity; no longer merely a collection of individuals, we are "one body, one spirit in Christ". And it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to pray as Jesus taught us, especially as we pray the Our Father and take to heart each part of that prayer. And it is the Holy Spirit who sends us forth at the end of Mass - to bring Christ and His peace into the world. Every Mass is the Upper Room of the Last Supper but it is also the Chamber of Pentecost where we gather in union with the Pope and bishops throughout the world and await the coming of the Holy Spirit.
What's more the Holy Spirit distributes his gifts - gifts that differ but complement one another - so that the Church can function the way a body does … each member contributing what he or she ought for the common good. In the Church, we live in communion or solidarity with one another; the Holy Spirit draws us together not just so that we can be together but so that we can build one another up, as so build up the whole body of Christ. St. Paul puts it this way: "To each is given a manifestation of the Holy Spirit for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:7). So to sum up, the Holy Spirit, the "soul" of the Body of Christ gives the Church holiness, truth, and power for her mission and gives to each one of us not only the invitation but everything we need to participate in the Church's mission for the glory of God and for our own salvation as well as the salvation of others.
The Upshot
So what is the conclusion of all this? I think there are few important things to take away from these reflections on the Holy Spirit as the Soul of the Church, which is the Body of Christ - conclusions that you and I need to reflect on as we enter upon World Youth Day.
First is that a lot of people are attracted to Jesus and His message but the Church is for them quite another matter. They feel they can follow Christ on their own without organized religion, which in these days is under attack almost everywhere in the world. There is no doubt that sinful humanity asserts itself in aspects of the Church's outward organization - as we have seen - but it would be wrong to discard the Church which was founded by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Instead, World Youth Day is clarion call - from the Pope guided by the Spirit - inviting you to participate in the intimate relationship of Christ in and thru the Church.
One of the most important steps you can take in that direction is to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation - if you haven't already. If you haven't, please considered yourself invited to do so - yes, by me and by your bishop - but also by the Holy Father himself. And if you have been confirmed, I extend the Holy Father's invitation to rediscover the great gift of the Spirit you have been given when you came before the Bishop and he anointed you with Christ, making on your forehead the sign of the Cross and saying, "Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit." As Pope Benedict teaches, "…the Holy Spirit is the highest gift of God to humankind … …the supreme testimony of His love for us…" The Holy Spirit is God's "yes" not only to our life in this world but our sharing in the life to come, when we see Him face to face. The Spirit that enlivens the Church in Christ seeks to enliven you in Christ - both now and forever.
I also hope you will see the connection between the Spirit and the Eucharist not just here at WYD where there is positive peer pressure to go to Mass - but also when we all return home and negative peer pressure returns. Not every Mass will be as outwardly exciting as the WYD with the Pope - but don't forget to look inside to see the power of the Spirit as the heart and soul of every Mass. Unless we renew ourselves in Christ and the Holy Spirit, we cannot be his witnesses.
Finally, I invite you to join the ranks of those men and women who share in the super-natural energy of the Spirit - to discover in yourselves the gifts the Holy Spirit distributes. The Tradition calls the Spirit the "dator munerum" - "the giver of gifts" - gifts which are for our good but above all for the good of the Church as well as for the good of humanity itself. You are called in one way or another by your lives of love to help others love as God loves them, to love God more than their sins, and to taste the peace and joy the Spirit gives. The Church seeks to authenticate these gifts, to put them to good use, and to help everyone see how lavish is God's love for us. And the Church seeks to help you discover, with all your gifts, the specific vocation to which the Christ is calling you through the Holy Spirit. This is the permanent way of life - marriage, priesthood, religious life - by which you are to bear witness to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God and the salvation of all.
Thank you for listening. May God bless and keep you in His love.
World Youth Day Talk #3, July 18, 2008
"You Will Receive Power When the Holy Spirit Has Come Upon You: And You Will Be My Witnesses"
Acts 1:8
"Sent Out into the World - the Holy Spirit, the Principal Agent of Mission"
Introduction
In the United States, there is a religion known as "Jehovah's Witnesses". This group was begun in the late 19th century. It acknowledges God (Jehovah) as Creator but does not profess his Son Jesus to be co-equal with Him. So, this group does not accept the Trinity (One God, Three co-equal Persons) as it emerges in the Bible and the teaching of the Church. They also have a very different view than Christians of what salvation consists in.
Be that as it may, they are zealous missionaries. Growing up in a small town, New Albany, Indiana, in the 1950's - I saw many Jehovah Witnesses missionaries going door to door, bringing the message of their religion to anyone who would listen. They were usually clean-cut young men with short haircuts, black pants, white shirts, with stringy black ties. And they were on a mission.
On more than one occasion they came to my parents' home. The first few times, Dad answered the door and told them we were Catholic and not interested in becoming Jehovah's Witnesses. But on one memorable occasion, Mom answered the door. She invited them and offered them coffee and/or a soft drink and chips which her visitors politely declined. They immediately started trying to talk my mother out of her Catholicism. In a wonderfully polite and calm way, mom not only answered them but also told why she believed with all her heart in her Catholic faith and justified her belief using Scripture, the Sacraments, and personal witness. Her visitors, frankly, weren't ready for this and after a while, one of them looked at my mom and smiled. "Ma'am," he said, "I can see you're a sincere Catholic. We'll be on our way." Without leaving her home and in her own way, Mom was a missionary that day.
After they left, my friend David and I (we saw all this from the next room) went in to congratulate Mom as if she had slain a dragon! I'll never forget how Mom looked at us and pointed upward. "It must have been the Holy Spirit," she said. At the age of 88, Mom and Dad are still going strong - Mom and Dad still live on their own home, drive a car, cut the grass, go to Mass on Sundays & during the week, and visit the "old people" in the nursing homes nearby. They've been relying on the Holy Spirit for a long time and he has kept them young in doing the Lord's work.
The World Today
I don't know if I inherited "the spunk gene" from my parents (my Mother thinks it was recessive in my case), but I am sure I wouldn't be standing before you today as a priest and bishop without the witness of my parents to the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives at church, at work, at home, and in society at large. They've faced illness, including my father's cancer which was thought to be terminal but which was overcome - they still care for my older brother who is retarded and lives in a group home, and they are vitally involved in the mission of the Church. They have convinced more than a few of my cousins to get their marriages fixed up and to return to Church. When my mother's sister who is 96 entered a nursing home, my mother spoke to her and gently brought her back to the Church. With my aunt's consent, she had the priest to visit her and for the first time in years received the sacraments. Mom and Dad have "credibility" - not only because they've kept the faith and have been happily married for almost 62 years, but also because they pray every day - and they pray deeply - and because they reach out to others in their need. Even in their late 80's, my parents will be helpful to anyone they know who is suffering from illness or trauma. B. Mom in particular would not be happy with this talk I'm giving. She's always told me to leave her and Dad out of my talks and homilies and not to canonize her or Dad either now or after they go to God. But what the heck! I'm on the other side of the world and they don't use email. So if you don't tell them, I won't either.
Mom and Dad come from the World War II generation. Their times, my times, and your times differ. When I wanted him to buy me a new baseball mitt or a set of golf clubs, Dad would tell me about growing up in the Great Depression. I used to think that was pretty quaint but now everyone thinks it's pretty quaint to be a Baby Boomer. Last week I was asked by a cab driver if I qualify for the senior citizen rate!
And there really is a reason why I'm telling you all this. First, I wanted you to know about my mom and dad - the "at home" missionaries of Southern Indiana, USA! Second, I wanted to reflect on something important the Holy Father said in his message preparing us all for WYD, and it's this: Although the Holy Father is 81 years old, he has a really good sense of what's in the minds and hearts of young people. Because he is a man who prays, he is also a man who listens to the questions, fears, and aspirations that are in your minds and hearts as you assess the world that is being handed on to you. It is a world with grave injustices and suffering - if we could just think of what a place like Darfur is like, or visit a deep inner-city neighborhood of almost any city in the world, or if we think about the growing gap between the rich and poor. You are being handed a world in which so many people think only of themselves and a world marked by violence, fear, terrorism, and massive threats to the environment, eroding values, militant atheism combined with diminished religious observance, and threats to the institution of marriage and family. Pope Benedict calls it "a scarred and fragile world" - and as you inherit this world you might want to say to me and your elders, "well, thanks a lot!"
What Else Are You Given?
No doubt you are inheriting a world burdened with many problems. Yet where we see problems and difficulties, Jesus' unending love sees opportunity. Where we see crop failure, Jesus sees a harvest! In fact, Pentecost was originally the Jewish feast of the harvest. It is called "Pentecost" because it was held 50 days after Passover, a time when the Jewish people were to offer to God the first fruits of their harvest in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving.
Fifty days after the death and resurrection of Christ - whose death and resurrection brought about the definitive Passover deliverance, the apostles, the Virgin Mary, and a small group of disciples were gathered together, watching and praying for the promised Holy Spirit. They were looking for the new and definitive "harvest" that the Holy Spirit would bring from seed that had been sown by Christ by His life, preaching, and miracles, but especially by His death and resurrection. The first followers of Christ could not have inherited a more hostile environment in which to continue the mission of Christ. The Church was born in an Empire that was powerful yet decadent and in a place where local religious leaders were, for the most part, overwhelmingly hostile to Jesus and to His teaching. Their founder died a criminal's death and even though the Risen Lord appeared to them, the challenges they faced were humanly insurmountable. Now in the Upper Room, they did not hold strategy meetings to figure out how to defeat the hostile Romans and the Jewish leaders. They didn't devise their own plans for growing the Church … Instead, they remembered the Lord's own words about "catching men" and 'reaping that which they did not sow'. They prayed not to be religious CEO's but "reapers" - laborers for the harvest that Christ had sown by His death on the Cross and that His Spirit had brought to fruition. They understood that human strategies have their place, But also that they come and they go … but what really transforms the human spirit is the loving of God which is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
On the last day of the Feast of Pentecost, the Spirit descended on the apostles, the Virgin Mary, and the disciples - like the elements of earth - like wind, fire, and water. It was their day of Baptism and Confirmation combined, that day in which they were immersed into Christ and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit overflowed in them and they went forth to preach the Gospel without counting the cost. The Acts of the Apostles recounts the first sermon Peter preached after the Pentecost event … and makes a point of telling us that over 3,000 people were added to Christ that day - quite a good day's work! This is not just an amazing statistic but instead an indication that the Holy Spirit had unleashed into the world a love that is stronger than sin and more powerful than death, the love of Christ that purifies, transforms, elevates, and ennobles, a love which, in the world today, claims over a billion adherents, a love which has produced - for all of our fragility - an amazing harvest of holiness in the saints - past and present. The key is that the apostles went forth with a new heart and a new spirit, because they experienced in themselves the fullness of the Holy Spirit who dwells in Christ and in whom there is "all fullness" (Col. 1:19).
"Well and good, bishop," you might be tempted to say but that was then and this is now! And that is precisely the point of the Sacraments. The Sacraments brim with the power of the Holy Spirit so that Jesus' words and deeds are not past but present … present to you and to me so that in the Spirit we can be filled with the overflowing love of Christ and go forth to bear witness to the Gospel. That is why the Holy Father is coming here to Sydney: to invite us all to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit by rediscovering the Word of God and the power of the Sacraments, most especially the Sacrament of Confirmation. Because you received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you already have at your disposal the means to bring forth a harvest. You are already have what it takes to be a laborer in God's harvest, a reaper of the good things that Jesus in His love has brought us. The fruits of the Holy Spirit can already be found in you: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22).
So the Holy Spirit is leading you to Christ and teaching you that only Christ can fulfill the deepest desires of your heart. And whether or not you would describe it just this way, the deepest desire of your heart and mine - is for holiness for a lasting friendship with God and a relationship of love with those whom God has sent into our lives. We call the Holy Spirit "the Sanctifier" because He seeks to give you and me the undivided heart so necessary to be in love with Christ and to share His love with others. Again and again, the Holy Father stresses the relationship between mission and holiness … or to put it another way, the peril of trying to do the Lord's work without being deeply in love with the Lord.
This was the real problem with the Pharisees. And it is the greatest occupational hazard that I face. My most persistent temptation is to see the work I do in and for the Church as the result of my own talent and effort - forgetting the Lord's words, "without me you can do nothing". The Pope's message speaks of great missionaries - St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit who brought the Gospel to the Far East and used up all this strength proclaiming it; St. Therese of the Child Jesus, the French cloistered nun who never left the convent but whose intense life of prayer brought many to Christ. What these very different saints had in common was holiness - they were deeply in love with Christ because they opened their heart to the Spirit and that is why they were agents of evangelization, harvesters, reapers, in the footsteps of the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and the early disciples.
What Are You Being Asked To Do?
The Holy Father is coming here to invite you to be missionaries. Yes, we are looking for vocations - to priesthood, to religious life - but we are also looking for young people who will become those spouse and parents who live the vocation of marriage to the fullest. The Holy Father no doubt will invite you to open your hearts to whatever vocation Christ and the Holy Spirit have in store for you to give yourself to that vocation without holding back. He will remind you and he will also remind me that only Christ can fulfill the most intimate aspirations in our hearts. In Christ you discover a love more generous, more durable, more beautiful than any other love - truly the pearl of great price - and you are called to bring that into the world.
To use Pope Benedict's very beautiful words, "Only Christ can humanize humanity and lead to its 'divinization'". That is, Christ has brought the love of God into the world. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ instills God's love in our hearts and this is the love that makes us capable of truly loving others and placing ourselves at their service. Again, to reflect the thought of Pope Benedict, the Holy Spirit shows us the immense love of Jesus crucified and risen, and also shows us how we can before more like Jesus. This is how we become "the image and instrument of the love that flows from Christ" (DCE, 33). And if we allow ourselves to be led the by the Holy Spirit, so that we are alive in faith, hope, and love, we will see that it's not "an optional extra" to devote our lives to the Gospel. Instead, we'll bring from this WYD a sense of see how vital it is to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ in the world today. We'll bring from this WYD the conviction that the Holy Spirit is the One who drives evangelization and that we'll help spread the Good News only we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Obstacles to Be Faced
Of course, not everyone thinks it is a good idea to spread the Good News. You may have friends, classmates, relatives, and even elders who think that religion in general and Christianity in particular are the source of conflict and division, not peace. You may know many people in your lives who believe that trying to spread the faith means that we are being intolerant toward the beliefs and religions of other people - that we are trying to impose our beliefs on others and trying to gain a larger "market share" for the Catholic Church.
Yet we are not called to impose Christ but to present him - to bear witness to the truth and love of Christ in order to invite others to share His life and love. There is a big difference between evangelizing and proselytizing. When we proselytize we might use almost any means to convince others to abandon their faith - including psychological tactics, false promises, and disrespect and distortion of other faiths. We are not called to do any of that; the end does not justify the means! When we evangelize, we allow the Holy Spirit to speak in us and through us. We offer Christ to others not only with our words but above all by the witness of our lives. Pope Benedict says in his beautiful letter on Christian Hope that 'one who has hope lives differently.' To be evangelizers - harvesters, reapers - that critical difference has to be seen, perhaps most particularly the quality of our relations with others. No captive of peer pressure can really evangelize.
The Pope believes in you and is counting on you. He believes that this generation of Catholics is as good and generous as any generation in the past. He knows that the Spirit of Jesus is inviting you today to allow God's love to burn within you so that you can respond to his call and bring the Gospel to your contemporaries. And Pope goes even further. We - your pastors and adult lay leaders - do not always do a good job of being the faith to you in a way you can understand and in a way that truly convinces you. Sometimes we come with our own scars and baggage, our own preoccupations, and a tendency to live in the past. It's not that we don't want to bring the Good News but we, like you, must continually be transformed by the Holy Spirit. All this, the Pope suggests, might be a sign that the Holy Spirit is urge you young people to take on the task yourselves of bring the Good News to others - in other words, help us, work side-by-side with us.
Pope Benedict points out that you know the ideals, the language but also the wounds, the expectations, and the desires for goodness experienced by yourselves and by your peers. You go places in contemporary culture I'm not likely to go. You live in the world of your peers' emotions, work, education, hopes, & problems. Who better than you to bring the Gospel to your peers. In my Diocese of Bridgeport, we formed what we call "The High School Apostles", wonderful young men and women drawn from our high schools who are serious about their faith. We give them the opportunity to meet one another, to grow in faith, to deal with their questions, to share the Sacraments - and equip them to go out and to peer-to-peer ministry in their homes, parishes, schools, and in society at large. We create a time and place - an upper room - where they can become harvesters, reapers, Spirit-filled agents of evangelization. They don't use the methods of the young men who visited my parents but instead find ways quietly and effective to help their friends and classmates to rediscover Christ and their faith. They are living right now what the Pope is urging all young people today: "Each one of you must have the courage to promise the Holy Spirit that you will bring one young person to Jesus Chrsit in the way you consider best…"
Conclusion
If there is to be a new springtime in the life of the Church, a new Pentecost, a new time of harvesting the fruits of Jesus' love, then you will have to be involved … it won't happen without you. May the joy and beauty of the Gospel overtake your hearts in the power of the Holy Spirit and may the Spirit make your witness to Jesus fruitful in your own lives, in the lives of many others, and in the Church - for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Thank you for listening. God bless you always.
World Youth Day Eucharistic Procession
"Eucharist: Medicine of Immorality"
Introduction - My Father's Comment
In the last few years, my father suffered from lymphoma. In addition to chemotherapy, my dad was subjected to many types of medication. His cancer was aggressive and he lost a lot of weight and strength; the prognosis was not good.
One day, when dad was doing very poorly, I came home and brought him the Eucharist. We had a little prayer service in my parents' home. After we prayed the Our Father, I gave him Holy Communion. When the little service had ended, my father smiled and said to me: "That was the medicine I really needed!"
St. Ignatius of Antioch
My father has not spent much time studying the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch - who died about the year 110 - but his faith in the Eucharist is so strong, that he instinctively came to the same conclusion about the Eucharist as that great saint and scholar.
For it was St. Ignatius who taught us to speak of the Eucharist as "the medicine of immorality". My father - against all odds - recovered from cancer and, at 87 years of age, is still growing strong. But his heart is set on Christ and the immortality life which Jesus imparts to us whenever we receive Holy Communion.
In his own way, my dad echoed what St. Ignatius taught/ He wrote to the Christian community of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey … urging them to come together "to break the One Bread which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, enabling us to live forever in Christ Jesus! (Ephesians 20,2).
Ignatius did not coin the phrase "medicine of immortality". This was part of the medical terminology of his day. It referred to an ointment - supposedly invented by the goddess Isis … that promised an indefinite lease on life. Ignatius' readers readily understood the comparison between the false and empty promises of the ointment of Isis and the eternal life to which the Eucharist gives access.
Pope Benedict & Pope John Paul II on the Eucharist
Not long ago, Pope Benedict spoke about the Eucharist at a center for youth in Rome called San Lorenzo. He talked about the age-old search for the fountain of youth. People in ancient times and people today try to beat the odds by staying young and alive as long as possible. Pope Benedict pointed out, however, that even if science discovered 'the pill of immortality' our troubles would not be over. He asks us to imagine what the world would be like if our biological life were extended indefinitely - so that there would never be room for new life and youth.
Of course, we want to preserve our lives but merely prolonging our lives is not the key to happiness. "Science and medicine…represent a great struggle for life but they cannot satisfy the desire for eternity proper to man… …the only true 'medicine of immorality' is the Eucharist, the certainty of being loved by God."
For in the Eucharist we taste and are possessed by a love which is stronger than sin & more powerful than death. Ours is a communion with Christ, the Physician of our souls who heals them from the ravages of sin and prepares them for eternal life and love in heaven.
In the wonderful words of Pope John II, addressed to Christ: "In the Eucharist you have become the medicine of immorality; you give us a taste for full life, the one that leads us to walk on this earth as joyful, confident pilgrims, with an eye always on the prize of endless life."
Blessed Mother Teresa and Cardinal Van Thuan
In the Eucharist we receive Christ's Body and Blood, the Bread of Life and Cup of Eternal Salvation. Through Holy Communion, you and I, even now, begin to share in the eternal communion of all the saints who have the fullness of life because they see God face to face.
This is life and love to the full. This is the life and love of Christ who opens our eyes to the suffering of our brothers and sisters. When Mother Teresa would receive the medicine of immortality, she would immediately bathe the wounds of desperately poor and sick people on the street. She cherished their lives because she knew they were called also the fullness of life.
Last night I saw a beautiful new film on the life of Cardinal Francis Xavier Van Thuan … the former Archbishop of Saigon who was imprisoned by the communists in Vietnam for 13 years. Once in prison, he asked his people to bring him "medicine" … and what they brought him was bread and wine for Mass. Even in the darkest solitary confinement, he would celebrate the Mass … with a spec of bread, and three drops of wine and a spec of water on his hand. With no hope of escaping prison alive, surrounded on darkness from every side … his hand became his cathedral altar and so that he might receive the medicine of immortality.
The Upshot
All these holy people - Ignatius of Antioch, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict; Mother Teresa; Cardinal van Thuan & my dad… all teach us the same thing:
The Eucharist - together with sacramental confession - heals our souls from the wages of sin and serves as the antidote for death. It is the food that makes us live forever.
So tonight, as we adore the Holy Eucharist, the Bread of Life, confide to Christ whatever is in your hearts. Confide to Christ your weakness, your anxieties, any spiritual malady from which you may be suffering, including those things that don't seem to have a way out… and ask the Lord to give you a deep love for the medicine which He, the Physician of our Souls, has given us - the medicine which infinitely surpasses the 'ointments of immortality' of our neo-pagan culture.
Receiving the Eucharistic Body of Christ, his risen life, means being welcomed into that space where the Spirit suggests to us 'what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what never entered the human mind … all that God has prepared for those who love Him!' (1 Cor 2:9).
O Sacrament most holy…
Return to the Writings of Bishop Lori
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