Saying Yes to the Lord’s Call
- June 26, 2010
San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer delivered the following homily at the Mass of Ordination to the Priesthood at St. Mary’s Cathedral June 26, 2010.
In the Gospel reading that Wade and David have chosen for this Mass of Ordination to Priesthood, Jesus Christ describes himself as the Good Shepherd. Unlike a mere hireling, who works only for pay and runs away at the first sign of danger, a good shepherd treats the flock as his own, and will lay down his life for his sheep. Jesus our Savior did exactly that on the Cross for all of us, his flock.
“Lay down his life:” That’s an interesting phrase. It can mean sacrificing oneself unto death for the sake of others, or it can mean offering one’s life day by day, year after year, decade after decade, beginning as a young person and continuing the giving all one’s days. Both ways of giving one’s life are wonderfully generous, but which is the more difficult? That’s probably a question we can’t answer.
I remember a Flannery O’Connor short story about a mischievous little girl in Catholic school who listened to the nun who was her teacher talk about saints and martyrs. The little girl knew herself pretty well, and her verdict was that she could never be a saint, but maybe she could be martyr if they killed her quick!
However, it’s not the vocation of most of us Christians to be “killed quick.” Rather, we are called to lifelong fidelity and generosity as spouse and parent, as single person or as priest or religious. That’s why we need the gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus our Savior and his Father give us in the Sacraments, in prayer, and in the daily events and relationships of our lives. We need to ask for those gifts and to open ourselves to receiving them and responding to them.
In the first reading we hear the prophet Isaiah describe the gift of this Spirit which empowers him to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to proclaim release for the captives. In the synagogue in Nazareth, his home town, Jesus began his public ministry one Sabbath by reading this passage and announcing that it was fulfilled in him, the Good Shepherd. Jesus Christ is the Good News, he is healing and joy for our hearts, and he releases us from such prisons as loneliness, despair, resentment, sin, addiction, and a life without purpose. Jesus calls all baptized Catholic Christians to be share in these saving works, and he calls priests to a lifelong, single-hearted sharing as servant and leader in the Church.
The Second Vatican Council described what the ordained priest in our time does and means for the Church. In his special way, the priest is to be Christ the Priest, Prophet and Shepherd for the People of God. Father Bjerke and Father Schunk will be Christ the Priest by presiding and celebrating at Eucharist and the Sacraments, by leading the people in prayer, by praying themselves, and by carrying Christ’s Cross alongside their people. Each of them will be teacher and prophet, proclaiming the Word of God as one who knows Christ personally, and not just from hearsay, and telling forth God’s will as he applies the teachings of Christ and his Church to present-day life. Each one will be pastor, or shepherd, building up and uniting the community of the local church in faith and prayer and service.
So that’s what Fr. Wade and Fr. David will be doing. But if we stop there it’s mostly a job description, an assignment. Priesthood is so much more. It would be like describing parenthood as “feeding, clothing and housing children.” As far as it goes it’s true, but it’s rather cold and quite incomplete. What a priest does, and what his life is like, come together in the texture of his daily life.
Our first reading gives clues to what the texture of life as a priest is like. The words are from the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus used these words to describe his ministry and life, Jesus said that God had anointed him and God’s spirit was upon him, because he had been sent to bring glad tidings to the lowly; to heal the brokenhearted; to proclaim liberty to captives; to comfort those who mourn.
You can see why Jesus applied that prophecy to himself: those were exactly the kinds of people in need that Jesus sought out and taught and healed. And, those are precisely the kinds of people that the wisdom of this world tells us to avoid at all costs: the wisdom of our world tells us that the lowly have all sorts of problems that they’ll try to get your help with, but those problems are mostly their fault anyway; that the brokenhearted and those who mourn are no fun at a party; and that captives probably deserve everything they get, besides which they are often dangerous to be around. Jesus the Good Shepherd came to turn all those judgments upside down.
There are all kinds of being lowly, and even rich people experience some of them. There are many kinds of prison that don’t involve iron bars. And there are almost as many different kinds of broken-heartedness as there are human hearts that break. Everyone is needy, including those who don’t think they are, and those in need make people nervous. One of the Pharisees’ main objections to Jesus was, and I quote, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” That’s not a bad description of a Catholic priest: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” And he feeds them too: with Eucharist, with the Word of life, with the gift of his own time and energy and attention.
“Pastor” is the Latin word for shepherd, and like a shepherd, the priest cares for, leads, protects, nourishes, and goes looking for the flock when they get lost. So if you are a priest, you let Jesus in the bread and wine teach you humility, you let frightened sinners teach you gentleness, you let baptisms and weddings teach you joy and hope, you let funerals teach you faith, you let parish meetings teach you patience, and you let Mary at Bethlehem teach you trust.
When he was a young priest the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York lived in a rectory with an elderly retired priest he admired very much. One day he got the courage to ask the old man if he could give some advice to a young priest starting out. The old man gave him three pieces of advice, “Love the people, love the people, love the people.” But we can’t always be loving unless we permit ourselves to be loved. Fr, Wade and Fr. David must let the People of God love them and must let Jesus Christ love them. Staying in touch with the love of God in a close, prayerful, personal relationship with Jesus is essential for the life of a happy and holy priest. We cannot lead others to friendship with Christ if we are strangers to him ourselves. Jesus Christ first called the twelve apostles into close friendship with himself, then he sent them out to proclaim and serve.
The priest’s private life and his personal relationships must be consistent with the sacred actions he performs. This morning’s ritual puts it well: “Know what you are doing and imitate the mystery you celebrate.” Some priests ignored this challenge to be single-minded and single-hearted; they led double lives, betrayed their calling, and the Church has suffered grievously for their sins. We clergy cannot lead double lives without causing enormous suffering, any more than husbands and fathers can.
But vocation is a joyous matter, and this priestly ordination is a joyous occasion. It is a celebration of life, of the life of Christ in his Church. Jesus was a man people wanted to be around, enjoyed being around. The priest must be like that too. The priest is called to celebrate the goodness in people, the goodness in our world, the goodness that leads us back to God.
It can seem like a complex life, being a priest. But Jesus Christ the Priest will never ask Wade or David to do or experience anything apart for him and his love. Jesus gives that love to us most often through one another. This means all of you, all of us. Only two people in this Cathedral this morning are being ordained priests, but everyone here is involved, committed and obliged. All of us clergy, laity and religious are charged by Jesus Christ to support Father Wade and Father David with our prayers, our companionship and our caring. We are not bystanders and onlookers. We are the church for whom they will become priests of the Risen Christ.
I want to conclude by quoting some encouraging and challenging words that our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, spoke several years ago to some newly ordained priests in Rome. Pope John Paul II said:
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to your family, to the priests who have looked after the formation and growth of your faith and to all those who, together with your parish communities and ecclesial institutions to which you belong, have helped you to discover the “gift and mystery” of your vocation, and to say “yes” to the Lord’s call.
You are becoming a priest at a time when strong cultural tendencies seem to want to make one forget God, especially among young people and families. But do not be afraid: God will always be with you! With his help you will be able to walk on the ways that lead to the heart of every man and to proclaim to him that the Good Shepherd has given his life for him and wishes him to participate in his mystery of love and salvation.
To carry out this work, which is so necessary, Jesus must always be the center of your life and you must remain in intimate union with him through prayer, daily personal meditation, faithfulness to the Liturgy of the Hours and especially the daily devout celebration of the Eucharist. If you are full of God, you will be a true apostle of the new evangelization, because no one can give what he does not have in his heart.
