One of the most
exciting things to happen in our parish while I’ve been here is our dream
sessions. I was encouraged and moved by
the number of parishioners that gathered together to help us articulate what
our dream is for this parish. I wonder
what might have happened if St. Luke had wandered in to one of those
meetings? Would he have read out the
selection from Acts that Tim proclaimed?
Because here we have a description of an idyllic church, right after
Pentecost has sprung itself on the small band of nascent Christ-followers. This is an image of Church that draws on all
kinds of dreams Luke’s contemporaries in different philosophical circles had
expressed for the ideal society, and he paints a picture of this community
restored by Christ through the Spirit and says: here it is, it’s possible and
Christ did it. Strife, dissension,
marginalization and persecution would all come, and he won’t whitewash those
away, but for a brilliant brief while Christ made us truly live as Church.
It’s a
devoted community: a community that was devoted to the teaching of the
apostles, delighting to hear Jesus’ voice re-echo through those he had left
behind to teach, a community in which miraculous things happened. It was a community which lived in harmony and
unity, bearing each other’s burdens, leaning on each other and acting
self-sacrificially with their possessions to meet real needs and in thus encountered
their Lord who had loved them to the end in perfect sacrifice. It was a community that encountered Him again
in the breaking of the bread, and that was bold and persistent in approaching
him in prayer. It was a community that
enjoyed favor with all the people; that was a beacon in their neighborhood.
I find
that here. I find that here in our Mass,
where we hear the apostles’ words, share our possessions in the offertory,
break the bread and offer our prayer.
And in all that, I find Christ in this place. And from our liturgy flows the rest of our life
together where I continue to find that.
I find people excited about teaching and learning, who share their food
with the needy, break bread in soup suppers and lift each other up in prayer. My dream is to find that more fully, to be
more profoundly that idyll of Church done right. I am humbled and delighted to be called upon
to offer the beginning of my ordained priesthood to serve you, the baptismal
priesthood of this parish, as we seek together to be Church on the corner of
Wilber and Vassar and of Brookfield and Florence.
How about
John? What if he had wandered in to one
of our dream sessions? Might he have
told the story from his gospel that Fr. Brian proclaimed? Because that’s a story of Church too. It’s a very different type of image than what
we read from Acts, not description of the habitual patterns of grace, but of a
pair of brilliant singular encounters with the divine. It’s a community that gathers on Sunday. They gather fearful, but in their midst they
find their Risen Lord who shares with them his peace, entrusts them with
mission of forgiving sin and breathes the Spirit upon them, re-creating them
with the messy intimacy of the God who first breathed His own life into us
through our nostrils. It’s followed by a
story of a man who has constructed his own set of criteria for faith in Christ
and receives an invitation from the God-man who has accepted vulnerability, receives
an invitation to enter deeper, and is dared to have faith. He responds with adoration.
I find
that here. I find that here in our Mass
and our practice of baptism, reconciliation and our confirmation. Our sacramental practice flows into our common
life and I find that whenever we risk sharing in Christ’s vulnerability and invite
someone to dare to trust, to have faith, to “come and see.” I find that in our adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament and our encounter of Christ in the poor served. My dream is to find that more fully, to be
more profoundly a place of daringly peaceful encounter with Christ, where we’re
vulnerable enough to forgiven and be forgiven.
I am humbled and delighted to offer the beginning of my ordained
priesthood to serve you, the baptized priesthood of this parish, as we seek
together to be Church on the corner of Brookfield and Florence and of Wilber
and Vassar.
Because those corners
need us to be that. As our Joy of the Gospel groups have read
together: “The Church is sent by Jesus Christ as the sacrament of salvation
offered by God.” The world needs the
Light that Christ is to shine through his Church, because there’s so much
darkness that he longs to illumine. We
must break bread to remain connected to the God who let Himself be broken for
us. That’s the love we encounter, who
comes into our midst here, and begs us to make that known: a love that would
break for us, that would accept wound for us, that would be pierced by sin and
return nothing but love, forgiveness, peace.
A love whose spirit inhabits and animates us, comforts us, quells our
fear, invites and dares us to join him, to be close to him, to held by that
loving wounded hand as it extends in risky loving encounter, to be that beacon.
My ordination yesterday
was a moment of profound self-gift, but not mine. God claimed me in baptism, and I gave myself
to Him through my perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the
Congregation of Holy Cross back in September.
Yesterday, God gave His very self, to you, his holy people, through
me. That’s the kind of self-gift
priesthood is. It’s God’s. It lets me break the bread for us. But it’s Christ who loved us enough to break
for us. That’s my dream: to be able to
help the world see that in us.
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