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Evening Prayer My dear brother Priests:
To each of you, I say “thank you” for having answered God’s call to become a priest of Jesus Christ. To those who celebrate special anniversaries of ordination, I congratulate you and assure you of my prayers. In addition, on behalf of the people of this Archdiocese and indeed the church world-wide, I gratefully acknowledge the essential role that you fulfill. Each of you has been ordained to be an alter Christus, another Christ. Each of you represents Christ. Through your divinely appointed ministry, you bring Christ to the people and God’s people to Christ. Next week I will have the wonderful and blessed opportunity to be on pilgrimage in the Holy Land. Ours will be a spiritual journey of faith and I assure you of a remembrance in my Masses there at the sacred shrines. In addition to pilgrimages such as my own, however, some people travel to the Holy Land for other reasons, such as business, vacations, archeological research and so on. One day, I read a brief account of such an ordinary trip. I have read this once before at an archdiocesan event so you may have already heard it. Nonetheless, let me read this to you: A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000 or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150.” The man thought about it and told the undertaker he would just have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, “Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150? The man replied: “Long ago a man died here, was buried here and three days later He rose from the dead. I just cannot take that chance.” “I just can’t take that chance!” Dear brothers, when you and I responded to the call of Jesus, we were not taking any chances at all. We were not placing our confidence in ourselves nor were we seeking personal accolades, fame or fortune. We made a total and permanent commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ. Our response was just like Peter’s and Andrew’s and John’s and the other apostles. Like them, we were looking for the Way, the Truth and the Life and we found this in Jesus Himself. Therefore, when we heard the call and discerned that God was calling us, each of us responded in faith and with hope. “Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your Will. At the time of our ordination, all of us were aware that the job description for priesthood was drawn up by Jesus. He invited us to “take up the cross and follow Him.” He also said about Himself and therefore about those who would minister in His Name: “I have come to serve and not be served.” Today at the celebration of anniversaries of priestly ordination, the great Apostle, Saint Paul, in the brief Scripture reading we heard, was reminding us of our priestly role: “We do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus.” When we were ordained, we were filled with great joy and excitement, zeal and hope. But as time rolls on, we often feel the strain of work because of the decreasing number of priests, the secularization of society and certainly the aftermath of the priests sexual abuse scandal. All the more reason for you and for me to gather here tonight. Here in the Presence of Jesus, we can express our sincere appreciation to God and to our brother priests celebrating special jubilees. To you – Father Loth, Father Boyer, Father McCaffrey, Father Gallatin and Father Bao, thank you for your many years of good and faithful and effective priestly service. And to all priests gathered here tonight, I encourage you to continue the good work that the Lord has begun in you. I urge you to maintain the spirit of joy and excitement, of zeal and hope. And again, as Saint Paul says: “Since we have this ministry through the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged.”Certainly, we should never be discouraged. In becoming priests, we were responding to the invitation of a good and gracious Lord Who loves us completely and promises to be with us always. Yes, we are filled with great joy for we live now by faith and not by sight. Brother priests, thank you for answering God’s call. He is truly blessing you and He will give you eternal life. Have faith in Jesus because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Most Reverend
Eusebius J. Beltran |