I
am very happy to be here today to celebrate with our newly ordained priest what
will be one of many masses of thanksgiving. This is the first however, and so,
quite special.
I have been giving a great deal of thought to what I wanted to say today, it being such an auspicious occasion.
I certainly took a hard look at the reading from the Acts of the Apostles and the establishment in Sacred Scripture of the Order of Deacon and I thought to myself, that’s a bit too late. We have priesthood this weekend.
I looked carefully at the Gospel: There we find Jesus’ great commission to the apostles
I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.
Great Christological Implications but, maybe not, perhaps too much and then I turned to the reading from the First Letter of Peter and the immortal quotation from the prophet:
“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion,
a cornerstone, chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame.”
We know of course that the cornerstone is Christ, we know it well. But I would say that it also applies to his priest, to the man who was ordained for the priesthood and who celebrates this Mass for us today:
Today, by his presence here, Fr. Juan asks an important question of us:
What has God prepared for us? What do we experience of the revelation of God in the world?
Is that not the proclamation of Jesus in the Gospel?
Is that stone in Zion not the altar upon which Fr. Juan offers the Holy Sacrifice today?
Can’t we hear the invitation of our Lord today?
Come to this altar, for this altar is the throne of God, upon which Fr. Juan celebrates this mass of thanksgiving.
This altar is the habitat of humanity
This altar is the place where our cares and burdens are offered up and our souls refreshed and cleansed in the one sacrifice of the cross, that sacrament that keeps the world from flying apart.
This altar is the place where we unite our hearts with the sacrifice of Jesus and by the pure grace of God we become what we eat and thus unite ourselves to that heavenly reality of myriads of angels and archangels who approach with impunity the Living Light of Heaven.
This altar is the place where countless saints in festal array gather, although we look more like folk in our Sunday best. Our halos are hidden but at this altar we soar, we mount those heights of Zion upon which our forebears feared to tread.
At this altar we hear the voice of Jesus, his call: I am the way, the truth and the life
So on angelic wing we boldly approach, with fear of God and faith we approach, not to consume the bread that cannot satisfy, the mere panacea of divine food, but the living God, he who said to his disciples on the Mount Zion of the upper room in days long gone, this is my body, this my blood.
My friends, in the context of this sacrifice we are even now moving up to a higher position.
And our priest, Fr. Juan is leading us there.
Here brothers and sisters we find ourselves in the assembly of the just made perfect. Not that we are perfect, far from it. But here we are in the company of the perfect, the Church militant entertains the Church suffering and the Church triumphant in a great cacophony of hospitality that is the paradox of the first becoming last and the last first.
And it is a paradox, for here at this altar we find Jesus, the living God who died upon the cross for us.
Here is Jesus, the same Jesus whose hands stretched out to save, to heal, to offer comfort to the hordes of humanity sinking in their sin. His hands outstretched on the tree to save the ones who ancient parents stretched out their hands to the serpent. And with those nail torn hands he beckons us: I am the way and the truth and the life. There is no other
Here is Jesus, the same Jesus, who though tried by the folly of human courts in the sham representation of human justice, now stands as the mediator of a new covenant, not forged on the anvil of human logic, but intermixed and intermingled, intertwined in the hot blood of the lamb flowing down from the altar of heaven over the littered landscape of the human condition. On that river of blood we rise and go up higher as he is the way and the truth and the life
Here on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus from whose pierced feet trampled out the vineyards, the grapes of wrath, the wrath of the human condition, healing the sick, freeing the captive and raising a fallen world to new life and cries out to us, we who stand shamefaced in our own corruption to come up higher, to be greater, not on the merits we possess but by his gift, his grace. For he is the way the truth and the life
Here at this altar on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus who rose from the dead and seated at the Father’s right hand will come to judge all the fallen hordes of humanity and in that dread judgment we pray that He will speak words to us of invitation, I am the way.
God is willing to give us so much, so very much
And yet these very reflections on the nature of this place, this sacrifice, this priest, ask us a more profound question: What am I willing to accept from God?
And what are we to understand?
That we must have a receptive spirit to receive what God has in store for us?
Indeed, as we know, we are the called and yet this open, this receptive spirit can so easily become entangled with the debris of worldly engagement.
We choke the Word so generously bestowed on us with thickets and brambles of our own fashioning
The brambles of personality, I am not fit for this discipleship, I am not suited for that
The thickets of our past, my life has been so .. it doesn’t matter, any excuse will do
The thorns of our present sinfulness, becoming self-fulfilling prophets of our own downfalls
The nets of technology and the trappings of progress
I can hardly expect to gaze unreservedly at the face of the expectant Christ when my neck is forever bent beneath the yoke of screens, pads, pods, phones. Heaven isn’t to be found in cyberspace but in the ever decreasing space between me and my brother in need, me and my sister in crisis. I think our new priest knows that.
I am the way. I have established a stone in Zion, not that rejected by the builders, not a stumbling block
Jesus reminds us that our lives must open up to receive this precious invitation. Our lives must themselves be inviting, forming that essential bridge between ourselves and our neighbors. The soil of our existence must be fertilized by the careful cultivation of what is true, good and beautiful and resist the temptation to become the mere dirt of a transient cultural wasteland and false understandings of the human person.
Are we open?
Are we willing?
Are we anxious to receive the fullness of His grace, his way, his truth, his life?
Or do we hesitate, holding back, forever giving in to the lie that all of this can happen without loss, without sacrifice, without the pinch of the negation of false selves?
Fr. Juan are you ready? Are you open? Are you willing” Will you help us to understand?
And what are we understand?
Are we to understand that we are the way, truth life, that you Fr. Juan are way, truth, life because you bring God to us?
That our lives are to be lived out in perpetual abandonment of our own projects for the sake of proclaiming the Kingdom, that same Kingdom of which we are both representative and recipient?
That Kingdom which proclaims peace in a world in which the din of war seems insatiable
That Kingdom which announces Truth in a time in which lies and half-lies permeate our collective consciousness
That Kingdom that teaches Love in a culture of Hate, life in a culture of death, liberty in a culture of false ideas of freedom and choice
That Kingdom that is bound up in the person of the savior, the man of Galilee who was the eternal God, that kenotic King whose Kingdom was our slavery to sin, whose ransom was not his own, whose saving action was always on behalf of the unworthy others.
That Kingdom that reaches out to us in the appearance of Bread and Wine, even as we stretch out hands to unworthy pursuits and idolatries
And yet it is that Kingdom that the King of Times and Universes has placed in our hands, within our care, in our sphere of influence
But our lives brothers and sisters can become so entangled. How will we regard that gift?
Fr. Juan, some words for you
Each of us is called to one thing:
The salvation of souls but you must lead us there
Brothers and sisters we are placed in this world for one purpose, to assure that the way, the truth and the life is not in vain and that the message is proclaimed, fully, totally, unreservedly in our lives.
Fr. Juan, remember this:
You have but one vocation, saving souls for God and everything else is nothing but straw and dross.
Nothing can separate you from this zeal for souls if you are to be authentic to who you are and why you are here:
So that it may never be said of you:
“I am laying a stumbling block in Zion”
Look and see now the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
Listen to his voice crying out to us today from the sacrifice of this altar
We are called
We caught up forever, irrevocably in the wonder of his Grace
I have been giving a great deal of thought to what I wanted to say today, it being such an auspicious occasion.
I certainly took a hard look at the reading from the Acts of the Apostles and the establishment in Sacred Scripture of the Order of Deacon and I thought to myself, that’s a bit too late. We have priesthood this weekend.
I looked carefully at the Gospel: There we find Jesus’ great commission to the apostles
I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.
Great Christological Implications but, maybe not, perhaps too much and then I turned to the reading from the First Letter of Peter and the immortal quotation from the prophet:
“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion,
a cornerstone, chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame.”
We know of course that the cornerstone is Christ, we know it well. But I would say that it also applies to his priest, to the man who was ordained for the priesthood and who celebrates this Mass for us today:
Today, by his presence here, Fr. Juan asks an important question of us:
What has God prepared for us? What do we experience of the revelation of God in the world?
Is that not the proclamation of Jesus in the Gospel?
Is that stone in Zion not the altar upon which Fr. Juan offers the Holy Sacrifice today?
Can’t we hear the invitation of our Lord today?
Come to this altar, for this altar is the throne of God, upon which Fr. Juan celebrates this mass of thanksgiving.
This altar is the habitat of humanity
This altar is the place where our cares and burdens are offered up and our souls refreshed and cleansed in the one sacrifice of the cross, that sacrament that keeps the world from flying apart.
This altar is the place where we unite our hearts with the sacrifice of Jesus and by the pure grace of God we become what we eat and thus unite ourselves to that heavenly reality of myriads of angels and archangels who approach with impunity the Living Light of Heaven.
This altar is the place where countless saints in festal array gather, although we look more like folk in our Sunday best. Our halos are hidden but at this altar we soar, we mount those heights of Zion upon which our forebears feared to tread.
At this altar we hear the voice of Jesus, his call: I am the way, the truth and the life
So on angelic wing we boldly approach, with fear of God and faith we approach, not to consume the bread that cannot satisfy, the mere panacea of divine food, but the living God, he who said to his disciples on the Mount Zion of the upper room in days long gone, this is my body, this my blood.
My friends, in the context of this sacrifice we are even now moving up to a higher position.
And our priest, Fr. Juan is leading us there.
Here brothers and sisters we find ourselves in the assembly of the just made perfect. Not that we are perfect, far from it. But here we are in the company of the perfect, the Church militant entertains the Church suffering and the Church triumphant in a great cacophony of hospitality that is the paradox of the first becoming last and the last first.
And it is a paradox, for here at this altar we find Jesus, the living God who died upon the cross for us.
Here is Jesus, the same Jesus whose hands stretched out to save, to heal, to offer comfort to the hordes of humanity sinking in their sin. His hands outstretched on the tree to save the ones who ancient parents stretched out their hands to the serpent. And with those nail torn hands he beckons us: I am the way and the truth and the life. There is no other
Here is Jesus, the same Jesus, who though tried by the folly of human courts in the sham representation of human justice, now stands as the mediator of a new covenant, not forged on the anvil of human logic, but intermixed and intermingled, intertwined in the hot blood of the lamb flowing down from the altar of heaven over the littered landscape of the human condition. On that river of blood we rise and go up higher as he is the way and the truth and the life
Here on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus from whose pierced feet trampled out the vineyards, the grapes of wrath, the wrath of the human condition, healing the sick, freeing the captive and raising a fallen world to new life and cries out to us, we who stand shamefaced in our own corruption to come up higher, to be greater, not on the merits we possess but by his gift, his grace. For he is the way the truth and the life
Here at this altar on this altar is Jesus, the same Jesus who rose from the dead and seated at the Father’s right hand will come to judge all the fallen hordes of humanity and in that dread judgment we pray that He will speak words to us of invitation, I am the way.
God is willing to give us so much, so very much
And yet these very reflections on the nature of this place, this sacrifice, this priest, ask us a more profound question: What am I willing to accept from God?
And what are we to understand?
That we must have a receptive spirit to receive what God has in store for us?
Indeed, as we know, we are the called and yet this open, this receptive spirit can so easily become entangled with the debris of worldly engagement.
We choke the Word so generously bestowed on us with thickets and brambles of our own fashioning
The brambles of personality, I am not fit for this discipleship, I am not suited for that
The thickets of our past, my life has been so .. it doesn’t matter, any excuse will do
The thorns of our present sinfulness, becoming self-fulfilling prophets of our own downfalls
The nets of technology and the trappings of progress
I can hardly expect to gaze unreservedly at the face of the expectant Christ when my neck is forever bent beneath the yoke of screens, pads, pods, phones. Heaven isn’t to be found in cyberspace but in the ever decreasing space between me and my brother in need, me and my sister in crisis. I think our new priest knows that.
I am the way. I have established a stone in Zion, not that rejected by the builders, not a stumbling block
Jesus reminds us that our lives must open up to receive this precious invitation. Our lives must themselves be inviting, forming that essential bridge between ourselves and our neighbors. The soil of our existence must be fertilized by the careful cultivation of what is true, good and beautiful and resist the temptation to become the mere dirt of a transient cultural wasteland and false understandings of the human person.
Are we open?
Are we willing?
Are we anxious to receive the fullness of His grace, his way, his truth, his life?
Or do we hesitate, holding back, forever giving in to the lie that all of this can happen without loss, without sacrifice, without the pinch of the negation of false selves?
Fr. Juan are you ready? Are you open? Are you willing” Will you help us to understand?
And what are we understand?
Are we to understand that we are the way, truth life, that you Fr. Juan are way, truth, life because you bring God to us?
That our lives are to be lived out in perpetual abandonment of our own projects for the sake of proclaiming the Kingdom, that same Kingdom of which we are both representative and recipient?
That Kingdom which proclaims peace in a world in which the din of war seems insatiable
That Kingdom which announces Truth in a time in which lies and half-lies permeate our collective consciousness
That Kingdom that teaches Love in a culture of Hate, life in a culture of death, liberty in a culture of false ideas of freedom and choice
That Kingdom that is bound up in the person of the savior, the man of Galilee who was the eternal God, that kenotic King whose Kingdom was our slavery to sin, whose ransom was not his own, whose saving action was always on behalf of the unworthy others.
That Kingdom that reaches out to us in the appearance of Bread and Wine, even as we stretch out hands to unworthy pursuits and idolatries
And yet it is that Kingdom that the King of Times and Universes has placed in our hands, within our care, in our sphere of influence
But our lives brothers and sisters can become so entangled. How will we regard that gift?
Fr. Juan, some words for you
Each of us is called to one thing:
The salvation of souls but you must lead us there
Brothers and sisters we are placed in this world for one purpose, to assure that the way, the truth and the life is not in vain and that the message is proclaimed, fully, totally, unreservedly in our lives.
Fr. Juan, remember this:
You have but one vocation, saving souls for God and everything else is nothing but straw and dross.
Nothing can separate you from this zeal for souls if you are to be authentic to who you are and why you are here:
So that it may never be said of you:
“I am laying a stumbling block in Zion”
Look and see now the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
Listen to his voice crying out to us today from the sacrifice of this altar
We are called
We caught up forever, irrevocably in the wonder of his Grace
