Bishop Bambera’s Homilies 2025

HOMILY
30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mass for those in Consecrated Life – October 26, 2025

Last Sunday, some of you were present for our celebration of World Mission Sunday. You may recall that Bishop Matthew Gyamfi of the Diocese of Sunyani in Ghana – a dear friend of mine who has been good enough to send us some of his best priests and sisters to serve in our local church – preached the homily. Our time together this past week afforded me the opportunity to reflect a bit on my first visit to his home in Ghana several years ago.

For all that I experienced during my African sojourn, from celebrating Mass at a diocesan festival at which over 15,000 people were present, to visiting schools, clinics, hospitals and parishes, there was one place that I requested that we visit that was located outside of the diocese, close to the countries capital city of Accra. I wanted to visit the historic Cape Coast castle.

Cape Coast was one of about forty “slave castles” or commercial forts that originally engaged in timber and gold trade. Eventually, it became a center for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The castle was used to hold enslaved Africans before they were loaded onto ships and sold in the Americas. Maybe you’ve seen the “gate of no return” – the last stop for slaves before leaving their homeland.

One area that we toured at the “slave castle” has been seared into my mind and heart so intensely that I doubt that it will ever leave me. We were taken to a room – a dungeon – not the size of this sanctuary. It was hewn out of the rock on which the castle was built with no windows, no place to sit – nothing. We were told that it held about 1,000 slaves at one time, jammed together with no light, no fresh air, and no access to any facilities to take care of their needs. Food would be thrown into the space from an opening in the ceiling. Many slaves would die once they were placed in the space. Most would get sick. They were intentionally weakened so that they wouldn’t have the strength to escape.

As bad as that experience was for me to imagine, what we were shown next was far more unsettling. … On top of that dungeon was the church that served the leadership of the castle. Every Sunday morning, right outside of the doors of the chapel, worshippers would walk right by that opening in the ceiling of the dungeon through which food was tossed to the slaves. While listening to cries of anguish from those suffering below, worshippers would enter the church, sing praise to God, and then leave, feeling quite righteous and noble in their faith.

An unbelievable image, isn’t it? … What bothers you most about what I just shared? Likely the disconnect between what we profess as Christians and how we live – the disconnect between where and how we encounter God: in a hymnal in Church or in the lives of one another who are made in God’s image and likeness.

I couldn’t help but think of that experience in Ghana as I read the gospel in preparation for today’s Mass. Let’s look at it again. It has a lot to say to us about human nature, our attitudes about ourselves and ultimately about God.

We encounter two very different individuals. One was a Pharisee – a religious leader – who should have known better – but didn’t. He believed God was his to manage. All he needed to do was to say his prayers louder than the next, to fulfill a host of incidental laws and rules and regulations – and he was suddenly far better and more righteous than everyone else was.

The other was a tax collector. He was a simple soul who recognized his need for God’s sustaining help in his life – who understood that the greatest commandment that he could follow would be to love his neighbor – to treat his neighbor with mercy, with compassion, with justice and with care. … While he was humble enough to admit that he often failed, he understood that it was in the respect that he showed for his neighbor – whomever that neighbor happened to be – that he would encounter God.

There is a very simple message, brothers and sisters, that I hope we will all take from today’s gospel. Jesus calls us to live our lives with integrity! … He calls us to give the beliefs that we profess a life! He reminds us, time and again, that it’s not enough for us to simply voice our beliefs with empty words. At some point, we must acknowledge our brokenness and need for God, trust in his mercy, and live the mission that we profess.

Today, we gather in prayer to celebrate the gift of consecrated life in the Church. We give thanks for those women and men who have understood the heart of today’s gospel and have embraced Jesus’ call to authentic discipleship rooted in his example of selfless service and sacrificial love.

We join today with woman and men celebrating jubilees of 50, 60, 70, 75 and 80 years in religious life. Quite honestly, as I look at all of you who gather today in our cathedral – many of whom I’ve known for years – I can only conclude that most of you must have entered religious life when you were five! You are amazing! … Collectively, our jubilarians represent over 1,415 years of service to the Church in Consecrated Life. What a blessing we’ve been given in all of you!

My sisters and brothers, we celebrate your lives and we give thanks this day for your unique and singular contribution to the Church. More than you realize or appreciate, you continually challenge us to trust in the mercy, love and forgiveness of God – something that many of us in the Church forget, all too often.

Your openness to listening to the needs of God’s people – your willingness to dialogue and discern how we can best walk together as sisters and brothers – and your determination to engage and serve the entire people of God give us hope! Your commitment to work for justice for the marginalized – immigrants, the poor, those held captive today by greed and sexual exploitation, and all those oppressed by far too many who deem themselves righteous – provides us with a unique and powerful witness to the presence of God at work in our world – today in 2025!

In a recent address to congregations of religious sisters, Pope Leo XIV shared words that speak powerfully to your ministry within the Church during the unsettled times in which we live. “Your response to the challenges of the past and the present,” the Holy Father noted, “make clear that fidelity to the ancient wisdom of the Gospel is the best way forward for those who, led by the Holy Spirit, undertake new paths of self-giving, dedicated to loving God and neighbor and listening attentively to the signs of the times.”

My sisters and brothers in Consecrated Life, thank you for opening your lives to the power of God’s grace – for trusting in God’s plan – for quietly yet boldly proclaiming the gospel message in a world that far too often fails to embrace it – and for reminding us of the hope that is ours when we live not so much for ourselves, but for Christ, in service of one another.

HOMILY
Installation of Lectors – October 11, 2025
Deuteronomy 30:10-14; 2 Timothy 3:14-17; Luke 24:13-35

Just three days after his historic election, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass in the crypt of Saint Peter’s Basilica near the tomb of Saint Peter. As he no doubt reflected upon the life-changing call that he received to lead the Catholic Church as Peter’s successor, Pope Leo asserted just how important it is “to listen to the voice of the Lord, to listen to it, in this dialogue at Mass, and to see where the Lord is calling us to serve.”

The road to Emmaus story, just proclaimed, is one of the great stories that has come down to us in the scriptures. It occupies a singular place in our hearts because, in many respects, it’s our story, isn’t it? We’re all travelers on the road of life seeking to hear the voice of the Lord as he leads us to a place of meaning and purpose, peace and fulfillment. And the story reminds us that the very voice of the Lord that we seek speaks powerfully to us through the sacred scriptures, the very Eucharist itself and the community of believers in and through whom the risen Jesus lives.

Luke begins the story by describing the profound disappointment of two disciples walking along the road. They are approached by another traveler, a stranger whom we know to be Jesus, but the two travelers do not. When the stranger asks what they are discussing, Cleopas retells the story of Jesus’ passion, ending with the most amazing news: the tomb in which the body was placed was found empty. To their surprise, the stranger chastises the disciples for not believing what the prophets had announced. He then recounts the passages from the scriptures – the Word of God – that referred to Jesus – ultimately to himself.

Luke is quite clear in noting that the Word of God is integral to understanding Jesus’ true identity. While it was during the breaking of the bread that Jesus was recognized, the disciples also affirm, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Our late Holy Father, Pope Francis, often reflected upon the centrality of the Word of God in the Christian life, focusing attention on the Emmaus story just proclaimed: “The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and the sacred Scripture is essential to our identity as Christians. Without the Lord who opens our minds to them, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures in depth. Yet the contrary is equally true: without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible.”

The Holy Father noted further that the Emmaus story “demonstrates the unbreakable bond between sacred Scripture and the Eucharist. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, ‘the Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she has venerated the Lord’s body, in that she never ceases, above all in the sacred liturgy, to partake of the bread of life and to offer it to the faithful from the one table of the word of God and the body of Christ.’”

Simply put, brothers and sisters, Luke’s cherished story of the encounter of the Risen Jesus by two disciples who were at a particularly low point in their journey of faith provided hope not only to the early Church but to Christians down through the ages to this very gathering of God’s people in prayer.

So, to our brothers who are receiving the ministry of Lector, I pray that this understanding of the vital role of the Word of God in our lives as Christians impresses upon you the urgency of caring for the treasure that is being handed on to you this day. This moment is not merely a stepping-stone in your diaconal formation. To the contrary, you are being called to a special recognition of the Word of God in your lives that is essential to the life of the Church.

As Jesus made all things known to us and then entrusted his Church with the mission of preaching the Gospel to the whole world, you will assist in this mission and so assume a special office within the Christian community. You are being given a responsibility in the service of our faith, namely, to proclaim the Word of Life in the liturgical assembly, to instruct children and adults in the ways of the gospel, and to bring the message of salvation to those who have not yet received it.

What an awesome yet humbling responsibility to so walk with Jesus through your encounter of him in the Word of God.

Consider for just a moment the challenges that we face these days within our land and within our lives as Christians. From far too many tragedies that reflect a failure to treat one another with the dignity and respect – to living in the midst of the polarization that has enveloped our world and even our Church – we are reminded that the mission of the disciple of Jesus – a mission rooted in the proclamation of the Word of God – is as much of a challenge today as it was in the earliest days of the Church. As such, if the Word’s proclamation is to be efficacious, it can never be reduced to mere symbols on a page or to hollow sounds of the self-righteous. It must be living and vibrant.

So, brothers, sear into your hearts the words of Saint Pope Paul VI: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers. And if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Live with authenticity the Word of God that you will proclaim through love and service of the People of God.

Finally, brothers, in your desire to deepen your relationship with the Lord, never forget that while you’ve been invited to this moment in your journey of faith by the Church, you have been accompanied not only by those entrusted with your formation and care, but by loving families, supportive friends and faithful parish communities. To the wives and to the children, parents, family members and friends of the men who are in formation for the permanent diaconate – I thank you for your support, your encouragement, your willingness to allow these men to listen to the call of Jesus and to say yes to his invitation serve.

Please know of my gratitude and that of the entire Church of Scranton to each of you, our candidates, and to you, their families. As a diocese, we are blessed by your commitment and richer today, because of your generous response to Jesus’ call to serve. And so, we continue to walk with you with our love, our support and our prayers as we all seek to build God’s Kingdom in our midst.