Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien – Thoughts on Our Church

In these days, as we prepare our hearts anew to celebrate the Incarnation, let us ask the Holy Spirit to purify us of sin and to shape and mold our hearts, that we response to our calling as Mary responded to hers: in humility, in a spirit of holiness, full of wonder and awe, a readiness to cooperate with God’s plan, a faith that seeks understanding, a heart, a mind, a body, a soul that surrenders to God’s plan and indeed to the part he is asking us to play in fulfillment of his plan.

Assenting to what seems humanly impossible, going the extra mile when the road has already been long – all of this becomes possible when, at Christmas, we peer into the creche and see the Word made flesh lying in a manger, the very One we receive in Holy Communion.

We are surrounded by “a [heavenly] cloud of witnesses” – the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, the angels, your dear father, who are praying with us and for us in the communion of saints.
Above all, we have entered into the presence of Christ, the great High Priest.

In searching for us, God’s Son did not stride the earth like a giant but came rather as a pilgrim, clothed in our own human nature. His pilgrimage took him to the depths of the human experience, for he rescued us from oblivion by undergoing the oblivion of the Cross – the very mystery that we celebrate at every Mass.

The Gospel proclaims a message of hope and consolation, as indeed you pastor is called upon to offer hope and consolation to you, his people, especially in time of illness, loss, weakness, and uncertainty.

Advent, as we know, marks the beginning of a new liturgical year, and I could not think of a better way to begin this Year of Grace than by paying you a long overdue visit, and on this occasion, to install officially your pastor.