First Sunday of Lent
Rite of Election
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
February 18, 2024
Desire for God
“O God, you are my God, for you I long; // for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry, weary land without water . . . “Your love is better than life // my lips will sing your praise . . .” (Ps 63).
What is it that has brought us together this afternoon, crowded as we are into this great cathedral? We come from different parishes, speak different languages, hail from various countries, represent differing cultures, engage in different occupations, find ourselves in many different situations. What is it that has brought us together? What do we share in common?
Is not our desire for God? Somewhere deep down, amid our joys and frustrations, we are longing for God. Our soul is thirsting, our body is pining – not for more of what the world offers – but for a love that is infinite and pure, a love fills us with strength and joy, a love that satisfies our desire to belong, our desire to be loved, a love that corresponds to who are as human beings created in the image of God. We are here because we want to belong to God, and belonging to God, we desire to belong to one another.
It’s not that we get up every morning and say, “I long for God! My soul is thirsting!” It’s not that we have some thought-out philosophy that led us to that conclusion. Maybe none of those things . . . but somewhere deep within we long for God. That persistent longing for God – for his truth, his love, his presence in our lives – this has led you here today as you prepare for Baptism and reception into the Church. How I rejoice to see all of you here today! How I thank those who fanned into flame that spark of divinity in your hearts! How happy I am to share in your journey towards God and towards God’s Holy People, the Church.
For in Baptism, you will be immersed into the life of God. You will share in the Death and Resurrection of his Son Jesus by which we are saved. Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, God will dwell in you as in a temple. Through the same Spirit you will become members of the Body of Christ, the Church. And those of you already baptized will come into full communion with the Church, that is to say, you will be fully one with God’s Holy People in the Catholic Church, belonging to those who, in God’s grace and mercy, profess “one Lord, one faith, one Baptism . . .” (Eph 4:4).
Belonging to Love
Today, those of you preparing for Baptism will be enrolled among the elect, even as we will ask God’s blessing on you, our candidates for reception into the Church. What a joy it will be for the whole Church as you receive the Easter Sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, First Eucharist! All of you, dear brothers and sisters, are called to belong to God’s Holy People, to experience the Lord’s redeeming love as God’s adopted sons and daughters, taking your place among those who are already members of the Church. Your godparents and sponsors are like ambassadors, introducing you into the life of the Church, helping you feel at home, encouraging you to continue seeking the Lord and growing in holiness, not as a solitary pursuit, but together with your sisters and brothers in the Faith, under the guidance of your pastors and catechists.
For his part, St. Paul urges you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. In Ephesians, he tells us what such a life should be like. He mentions humility, patience, loving forbearance, and striving to preserve unity in the Spirit. Think about those characteristics for a moment. Of whom do they remind you? Do they not remind you of the Lord Jesus Christ? . . . The Lord who humbled himself to share in our humanity so that we might share in his divinity. The Lord who deals patiently with erring sinners. The Lord who loved us to the very end. The Lord who prayed that his followers would be one, so that world would believe.
For even as you seek for God amid the busyness and distractions of life, so too the Lord and his Spirit want nothing more than that Christ be formed in you, and that you be incorporated fully into his Holy People. The life that St. Paul says is worthy of your calling cannot be reduced merely to a list of virtues or character traits you must acquire by your own effort. No, these are the qualities of mind and heart that enable the Lord to form you after his own mind and heart and to make you living members of his beloved Church, believers, disciples who will build up the Church in a unity of truth and love.
During the forty days of Lent, during this period of purification and illumination, let us engage in bodily mortification, prayer, and generosity to the poor, asking the Lord to forgive our sins and to flood our hearts with the light of his love. Let us ask the Lord’s mercy with confidence, for “[God’s] grace and mercy are with his holy ones // his care is with his elect” (3:9).
Salt and Light
If indeed you embrace the call you have received with minds and hearts purified by sin and illuminated by faith, you will become, as Jesus promises in the Gospel, “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”. When each of us, formed after the mind and heart of Christ, are united in the Church to one another by the Holy Spirit – we indeed become the salt of the earth—those who make a critical difference in the world, by our witness to the Lord and to his truth and love in our families, among our friends, and in the workplace. We become the light of the world because Christ shines through us onto a world darkened by sin and strife and confusion. As St. John Henry Newman prayed, “Stay with me [Lord] and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light for others . . . .” In a word, we will hand on to others what we have first received.
Journey towards Easter
May your Lenten journey towards the Easter sacraments be blessed indeed. May you experience as never before the power of God’s love in your lives. May your desire to belong to God and his people burn within you. And may you know the fullness of joy as with the Church you celebrate devoutly the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen!