Solemnity of St. Joseph
Priesthood Promises
We are about to be inundated with a barrage of
words, not me, I assure you. For me, this homily is fairly short. Rather …
At this celebration honoring St. Joseph, our deacon
brothers will state their final intentions before being ordained as priests.
In this context we are soon to hear over twenty
thousand words spoken, each set of which will end in an oath. Wordiness is the
order of the day and so you may wonder what my paltry comments might add or
detract from the performance we are set to witness. I wonder that to, but I
have a question.
What will these promises contain? Well, in
point of fact, nothing we have not already heard, heard once from them and
heard from our soon-to-be deacons
just as week ago.
The lives of our deacons and soon-to-be priests
are, indeed confounded by wordiness, very uniquely so.
Perhaps they need the words they are going to
express to us shortly to explain themselves. Perhaps they need to explain themselves in words, yet, God knows these men.
He knew them before they were born. Before their
first gasping, their first mewing, his designing finger traced providence in
the sand of their souls. He saw the grasping babe and he said something, he pronounced
it very good. He schemed. He planned. He envisioned.
He knew them in their toddling years. They struggled
to stand as if they could ever stand on their own. He placed his omnipotent
hand in the small of their infant backs. He looked with the Father’s love on them,
a big brother’s pride. He prodded, pushed, he plied. He cajoled, he encouraged,
with words and gestures. He let go and fretted. He watched them walk, run, walk
away, run away. They guarded their childhood games as they dressed up in the
rags of independence. They tried to hide, and he pretended to seek, but only
pretended, because he knew them. Even without words, he knew them.
He knew them as they learned to sin,
experimented with the little league vices of bullying, petty theft, the lie,
and then, more. Words of derision, accusation, ridicule, mocking laughter, they
learned to use words to inflict pain in the most painful places, twisting the
blade of self-image in to the hilt.
He knew them in their confusion as they struggled
wordlessly with relationships, with vocation, family.
He knows them in their doubt in those moments
of shear panic when they can hardly remember where they have been, hardly
recognize themselves in the mirror, and believe without utterance that God is
dead.
He knows them in their selfishness, their grasping,
their groping through the treasure troves of self-promotion, gripping tightly
to the handles of a loquacious golden cup called ego.
He knows them in their compulsiveness, their complacentness,
their neediness, their laziness, their restlessness. their carelessness.
These men are about to barrage us with words,
but we must always remember that the Word made flesh knows and knew them.
That was the same knowing God that approached Joseph
through the angel.
Saint
Joseph is a man whose aspirations and dreams were turned completely to the love
of God and his nascent Church. In that he offers these men today and us a path
to follow, a way of achieving our goal of being completely at the disposal of
God’s designs, God’s wishes.
Tonight our
brother deacons present themselves for promises, promises they have already
made last year, promises, in a sense that were made from their birth. Promises
that they will break or keep as their lives unfold into a manically wordy
future.
How will
the promises they proclaim tonight mirror the promise of the man whose life we
celebrate on this solemnity of St. Joseph?
The love
of Joseph was an unquestioning love, a love that could only have come from a
complete embrace of the grace of God.
Will
these men offer an unquestioning love to God and to his Church, will the remnant
of original sin that still clings to them be wiped away in lives devoted to
service, to tireless service lived as much in soup kitchens, food pantries and
parking lots as in the sanctuary? Like Joseph will their hands be made for
callouses and not just chalices?
The love
of Joseph was so profound and intimate it offered to the child Jesus the basic
needs of bodily and spiritual care.
Can
these men remember what is needed most in this life? Will they recall in times
of doubt and stress that God has called them to be his unashamed witnesses to a
world drowning in its own anomie? Will they be willing to be present at the
hospital, in the nursing home? Will they offer nights given up in prayer for
the needs of God’s people when there is no one to witness their so-called
heroism?
The love
of Joseph was a self-less love, a love that put the needs of the body of Christ
before his own needs and in that as well he offers them an important example.
Are they
ready for such brazen, such heroic self-negation, promising as they do tonight
to serve no master by Christ the Lord and him in the broken, often helpless
people of his Church? Will they still be there once those new vestments lie in
tatters to be burned because they have been used too often? Will they be there
through the third re-gilding of that precious chalice and perhaps the third
re-gilding of their ordination? Will they be there still after they have gone
through rehabilitation for some addiction? Will they be there when the bishop
asks them to go to the furthest corner of the diocese and minister faithfully
without regret? I know they will.
Joseph
is strong
Will
they be strong, strong in weakness, strong in compassion, strong in gentleness?
Can they offer good role models of fatherhood to those who are without them, to
the abused and neglected? Can they be good fathers to addicts and to abusers?
Can they give that model of paternity to those who are robbed of strength by
lives lived with too many expectations and not enough
native ability?
Joseph
is tender
Can they
offer the tender care of the savior to those reaching out, hungering as they
are for dignity and bread? Can they cry thorugh the night with broken hearts
for those so desperate that they try to take their own lives? Can they weep at
the deathbed of a child with parents who are so bereft they cannot even stand
up? Can they be there for the widow and the orphan, be there past the time of
common mourning, on into the years of overwhelming loneliness?
Joseph
is nurturing.
Are they
willing to hold the hands of the dying and nurture them into life? Are they
able to care for others and never think of themselves. Are they willing to see
themselves in light of God’s plan and his plan alone, forfeiting all of their
own designs to become a mere speck in the kaleidoscope of the divine life? Can
they both give and be the bread of life for a world that has yet to realize that
it is starving to death?
Brothers
and sisters, if they can accomplish these realities, if they can make these
principles living practices rather than dead precepts, then the words spoken, the
promises made by these deacons tonight will be a time of renewal for all of us,
for our parishes, our dioceses, our religious communities, and for this
seminary and school of theology.
They cannot
accomplish these lofty goals alone. They do not need to. They have each other. They
have their families and those who love and support them. They have their communities
of faith and their dioceses. Please God, they have us, the Church militant, and
they have the Church triumphant, the saints, in particular, St. Joseph. What I
find most interesting about St. Joseph is that in the entire course of the
Gospel accounts, in their complete understanding of him, he never speaks a
word.
