Saturday of the 4th Week of Lent
Mass in Celebration of Consecrated Life
St. Agnes Parish
March 16, 2024
Challenges Heretofore Unimagined
A few days ago, a bishop said to me, “When you were ordained, did you ever imagine we’d be facing the kinds of challenges and problems we’re facing today?” The answer, of course, is “no”, at least in my case. I can’t say that me and my seminary classmates weren’t told that there would be challenges and difficult days. I can’t say that we weren’t advised about the kind of challenges that we’d likely face. Yet, back in the day, nearly a half century ago, the situation the Church finds itself in today was hard for me to imagine. Nor did I imagine the kinds of challenges I would personally face. So I often think: Isn’t it good that the Lord allows us to experience life day by day and year by year, rather than showing us everything all at once!
I’m wondering if the experience of you, our jubilarians, is similar. When you entered religious life and made profession, could you have foreseen the challenges that you and your fellow religious would face over the years – both challenges in Church and the challenges you yourselves would undergo? I’m guessing that you are also thankful to the Lord that life unfolds day by day and year by year, and not all at once.
This is not to say that our lives of service to the Church are glum. It is not to say we are unhappy. Or that we are lacking hope. Or that we think the vocation we have pursued all these years was a mistake. Far from it. For all the challenges we face, we are a joyful bunch of people! Most every day, we find ourselves thanking God for our vocation. Most every day, we encounter consolations in prayer, in one another, and especially among the people we are privileged to serve. And as the years go on, if we continue to pray and are steadfast in our vocation, the Lord’s grace informs our lived experience, imparting to us a wisdom and strength we did not have at the outset. The Lord doesn’t show us everything all at once not simply to avoid shocking us. Rather, the Lord allows us to experience life gradually so that, in our experience, we will grow in the ways of wisdom and love.
No Discipleship without Suffering
When I first looked at the Scripture readings for today, I thought to myself, “These are really hard to preach on at a jubilee celebration.” We find Jeremiah in the throes of persecution for speaking God’s Word. Plots have been hatched to kill him. He is like a trusting lamb on the way to slaughter. In this, Jeremiah foretells what Jesus himself would experience. Listening to today’s Gospel, we see that the hour of Jesus’ death is approaching. People are divided about who he is and whether or not he really is the Messiah. The authorities are seeking to have Jesus arrested and condemned. There is no concern about due process. No concern about getting to the truth. In their eyes, Jesus is a trouble-maker from Galilee who doesn’t deserve to live.
Reflecting a little more on these readings, I began to see that they contain the kernel, the seed of the true joy and thanksgiving that we feel today as we celebrate the gift of consecrated life and as we celebrate with those who have remained steadfast in this vocation for many, many years. What is that kernel, that seed, that brings us joy amid the challenges we face?
The answer comes to us, not from a religious authority, but from one of the guards who was sent to arrest Jesus. He said, “Never before has anyone spoken like [Jesus].” What brings us joy amid the challenges, misunderstandings, and sufferings that are part and parcel of a religious vocation is just that: No one else speaks to our heart of hearts more lovingly, truthfully, and persistently than Jesus. Jesus who is the source of our life and joy. Jesus who willingly sacrificed his life so that we could live. Jesus who invites us to take up the cross of discipleship daily.
If we were merely celebrating years of smooth sailing, life without a hiccup, nothing but charts pointing upward, unbounded prosperity – our celebration would be empty indeed. But what we celebrate is the Christ who lives in us and among us, who speaks to our hearts both individually and collectively, and who does so in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is in this encounter that the meaning of our experience comes into focus. It is in this encounter that you and I gain the strength, wisdom, and love needed for the long-haul, needed for those challenges we can foresee, as also those we perceive only dimly, and even those that take us by surprise. In all of this, Christ continues to speak to our hearts: “Follow me,” he says.
Vows and Promises
At the heart of religious consecration are the evangelical counsels. Over the years, no doubt, you’ve listened to more talks about the vows than you can shake a stick at – so I won’t belabor the point I’m about to make. It is simply this: The vows at the heart of religious life and the promises which I have made as a priest – these are not a boast that we are tougher or better than others in the Church, that we can “take it”, that we can lives differently from others.
No, the promises and vows we have made are pathways of grace. They are the ways the Lord has called us to open our hearts so that he could rescue us from a life closed in on our thoughts, our feelings, indeed our limited horizon. They are the ways the Lord has rent our hearts so that his Word, a word unlike any other, might penetrate not only our bones and marrow but indeed the very core of our existence. For the Lord has called us to be credible witnesses in the realities of life to his suffering, death, and resurrection. Thank you for being those credible witnesses – credible because you have shared in the Cross, credible because you have given yourselves generously to others, credible because your joy shines with the splendor of truth and love. May God bless you and keep you always in his love.