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Ordination
Mass Homily My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We gather together tonight in faith and with great joy. By the grace and power of God, these three young men, your relatives and friends, are to be ordained priests of Jesus Christ. Their lives will be changed forever as will the lives of the people whom they serve through their priestly ministry. Priests are called by God and ordained by the Church to serve God’s people. The call to priesthood follows and is built on the universal call to holiness which all of us received in Baptism. God created everyone of us in His own image and likeness. We were created for a purpose, namely, to live and rejoice with God forever in heaven. Therefore, we must first meet the Lord and come to know Him in faith here on earth. Through faith and knowledge of God, we grow in the love of God. Love of God is not a vague term or a nebulous concept. Love of God is the awareness of and gratitude for God’s goodness. It is the reality of right living which is why Jesus identifies Himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is our gracious response to God Who loves us first, thereby making it possible to love Him in return. It is this love which we have for God which propels us to love our neighbor. This is what Christian service is all about - love God first and foremost and your neighbor as yourself. Dear young men of faith about to be ordained, you and all God’s people are called to a genuine holiness of life and to dedicated generous Christian service. But you have also been ordained deacons which entails further service. Moreover, tonight, through the imposition of my hands, you will be ordained priests which demands yet additional service. In more than one place in the Gospel, we hear Jesus saying: “I have come to serve and not to be served.” It is precisely this total, sacrificial service you must practice as Catholic priests of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to save us from sin. Jesus came to bring us new life. Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. This is the mission of the ordained priest. And the essence of the priest’s mission is to know Jesus Christ and to make Him known. The work being entrusted to you is not your private domain. You are to be the ambassadors, the ministers, the servants of God. The forgiveness you bring to the people in the Sacrament of Penance is the forgiveness and mercy of God. The life you share in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist is not your life but God’s life. You will change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus not by your own power and authority but in the Name of Jesus and on His authority and by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the anointing of the sick, it is the healing power of God for which you pray. God will work through you not only in the sacramental acts just mentioned but in these and countless other ways. Like Jesus, Who called Himself a teacher, you are to teach about the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, Who shared the Good News with His listeners, you too must be an evangelizer, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus to all people. Like Jesus, Who reached out to the poor, the sick, the needy, so you must maintain a priority for the poor and the troubled. Since you, as priests, will be ministers of the Lord and you will share in His mission and act in His Name, the Church will call each of you “an alter Christus.” This title carries with it a perpetual challenge to be like Christ but, remember, you are not “The Christ.” You are His instrument. Thus, wherever you are sent, whatever the Church asks you to do, you are sent and appointed to do the work of God. If you seek the credit or impose your own desires, you will no longer be doing the work of God but simply your own activity. The great danger in ministry is to transform God’s work into personal work or an agenda. It is then that difficulties, rivalries or disobedience begin and God’s grace ceases. An old Irish priest, a friend of mine, tells a personal story which can help us maintain our objectivity about what we do as priests and what God accomplishes through us. Here is his story. He writes: When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, I went home for the occasion. The Pope’s first day included a drive from the Dublin airport to the residence of the President, a journey of several miles. I was one in the huge excited crowd lining both sides of the streets, waiting to see him pass by. In due course, we heard the sound of distant applause, which grew louder and louder until it was a thunderous roar as the cry went out – “He’s coming! He’s coming!” Then the recipient of our cheering came into view. It wasn’t the Holy Father and his retinue but a solitary local character riding a bicycle down the middle of the street! What a story he could later tell his grandchildren! The cheers and laughing brightened the occasion even more. Of course, the real Papal cortege followed soon after, receiving an equally enthusiastic welcome. The moral of the story: Don’t let applause go to your head and think you deserve it. Joseph, Christopher and James Andrew, tonight we are giving you a tremendous applause. Tonight we sincerely congratulate you. We are proud and happy for you and for the Church of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Indeed what you are doing tonight is very, very important. Your genuine and generous response to God’s call is worth a great applause. But, more important than what you or I do here tonight is what God is doing. It is God Who took the initiative and action. He created you out of love. He redeemed you and promises you eternal life. Indeed it is God Who, through the Holy Catholic Church, calls you and commissions you as His priests to live and to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Who is the Eternal High Priest. This Jesus is our one and only Lord and Savior. To Him be all praise and glory now and forever. Amen! Most Reverend
Eusebius J. Beltran |