Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.
Bishop of Scranton
HOMILY
Mass for Those in Consecrated Life – February 12, 2012
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Some time ago, I read an article written by the pastor of a parish in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. He took a group of young people from the parish on a mission trip to rural Kentucky.
The group spent a week converting an abandoned farmhouse into a mission chapel. By the end of the very first day, the city slickers were joined by three local teenagers, including a terrific young man named Dwayne. Dwayne and the Atlanta teens became fast friends and they were mutually fascinated by the stories they shared.
The Atlanta kids told Dwayne about the dining room atop a hotel in Atlanta that totally revolves every hour. Dwayne told the kids how his uncle had fallen down an abandoned coal mine and broke his hip. They told him about the Atlanta Braves and he told them about a pet barn owl that he had raised from a baby.
Dwayne and the kids from Atlanta worked together, played together, ate together and at the end of the week – prayed together.
On the final day together, they celebrated Mass in the new mission chapel. The kids were all deeply moved by their mission experience. Prayers were offered for the poor and many expressed thanks for the privilege of serving the poor in that region of Kentucky.
But after the service, Dwayne’s whole demeanor changed. Eventually, the pastor asked Dwayne if something was wrong. … There was something wrong. And Dwayne very forthrightly expressed his thoughts.
“You called me poor! I never thought of myself as poor in that way. I have all of these woods to run in. I have a grandma and grandpa who love me. I have a barn filled with animals. Does that sound poor to you? It doesn’t sound poor to me. You all should save your prayers for someone who needs them.”
The pastor wrote of the incident: No one meant Dwayne any harm. But we discovered through his words that we separated ourselves from Dwayne in our prayers. By setting him apart, we withheld from Dwayne what he really wanted – to belong – to belong to a community – and not simply to be the recipient of a mission project, regardless of how noble the project may have been.
Now reflect with me for just a moment on the words proclaimed in today’s Gospel. A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leper is one of the heroic characters of Mark’s Gospel. The leper places his entire trust in Jesus. For him, there is no doubt: this Jesus is the Messiah of hope, the Lord of life. His request for healing is more than a cry for help. It is a profession of faith, “You can make me clean.”
In response to the request, the cleansing of the leper becomes a climactic moment in Mark’s Gospel. But note – when Jesus healed the leper in today’s gospel, what did he do first? Did he simply heal the leper from afar as societal norms and religious dictates of his day and age would have suggested and even demanded? No. He first touched him. And in that simple gesture, Jesus tore down walls of discrimination, judgment and condemnation and welcomed the leper into his life. Indeed, Jesus made the leper a part of his life. … And then, he cured him. For Jesus, this wasn’t simply an encounter with an unclean soul. It was an encounter with a human soul in desperate need of belonging … of being loved.
Jesus, who healed the leper, comes now to “cleanse” us of all that so often blinds us to the sacredness and dignity of those we reject as “lepers” in our midst today – the undesirable, the unclean, the unwanted. Jesus challenges us in the Gospel today to realize that before God, no one is a leper beyond the reach of God’s mercy and compassion. All of us are sons and daughters of the Father, made in the image of the God of justice, peace and reconciliation.
Pope John Paul II once wrote: “The universal call to holiness is closely linked to the universal call to mission.” Today’s Gospel underscores that call profoundly. In approaching Jesus for healing, the leper exhibited a depth of trust that is foundational to faith and the holiness of life that flows from an authentic encounter with the living God. In responding to that trust, Jesus’ touch and healing of the leper becomes for us a model for mission, the ultimate purpose of which, for the Christian, is “to enable people to share in the communion of life which exists between the Father and the Son.”
Today we gather in prayer to reflect upon the gift of consecrated life in the Church. We reflect upon women and men who have understood and embraced the Lord’s universal call to holiness and mission. We join together in this Cathedral with woman and men celebrating jubilees of 25, 50, 60, 70 and yes, even 75 years in religious life. Collectively, our jubilarians alone represent over 3,595 years of service to the Church in Consecrated Life. What a blessing you have been and continue to be for all of us.
Pope Benedict on numerous occasions has spoken eloquently about the gift of consecrated life. Consecrated life “is a radical imitation of Jesus.” As such, we celebrate today countless numbers of ordinary women and men, like all of us in this Cathedral today, who have embraced an extraordinary calling: to imitate Jesus in their lives of service to the Church.
We celebrate each of you, my sisters and brothers in Consecrated Life, who have abandoned your very lives and – with deep trust – have handed yourselves over to God, allowing the Spirit to fill your lives with the power, presence, and holiness of Jesus. We celebrate your wholehearted embrace of the mission of Jesus. As Jesus touched a leper and welcomed him into a community of faith, you have helped to build the Church. You’ve built the Church, not of bricks and mortar, but the People of God, whose lives you have touched by your holiness and whose hearts you have helped to change by your willingness to embrace Jesus’ mission – to serve – to do as Jesus did – and in so doing, to reveal the face of God to a broken, struggling world.
Blessed Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Vita Consecrata, asked, “What is the point of the consecrated life? Why embrace this kind of life? … Is the consecrated life not a kind of ‘waste’ of human energies which might be used more efficiently for a greater good, for the benefit of humanity and the Church?” Blessed John Paul offered this answer to the question he raised. “Without this concrete sign there would be a danger that the charity which animates the entire Church would grow cold and that the salvific paradox of the Gospel would be blunted. … There is a need more than ever for people to show us the fatherly face of God and the motherly face of the Church, people who spend their lives so that others can have life and hope. The Church needs consecrated persons who, even before committing themselves to the service of this or that noble cause, allow themselves to be transformed by God’s grace and conform themselves fully to the Gospel.”
My dear sisters and brothers in Consecrated Life, we, the People of God thank you for challenging us to put our trust in the same God who has filled your lives with hope. We thank you for inviting us to lift our eyes beyond the overwhelming events of everyday life to the simple, life-giving way of Jesus. And we thank you for reminding us – through the example of your lives – of the treasure that is ours when we live not so much for ourselves, but for Christ – in service of our brothers and sister.
May you be blessed in your service of the Lord Jesus. May you be given the courage to face the challenges of our time. And may you be filled with the grace to bring to all of God’s people the goodness and loving kindness of our Savior, Jesus Christ.