Homily for August 24, 2014
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
Church Universal
The
first time I thought seriously about becoming a priest was because of an
incredible experience I had when I was fourteen years old. I had the privilege
of taking a pilgrimage to Rome for 10 days – without my parents, which was
awesome! – and it was really life-changing. For the first time, I realized that
the Church was so much bigger than my little parish back home – it was truly
universal, it was both ancient and new, it was something that martyrs shed
their blood for. My parish was great, but here I was, at 14 years old,
surrounded by about 800,000 people from every continent, gathered together in
the presence of the Pope. You could feel the universality of the Church at that
very moment!
Since I
arrived at St. Benedict’s, I have heard from many of you how important your
parish is in your life. Some of you have been parishioners here for fifty,
sixty or more years. And what a blessing you have been to this parish! I am so
glad to hear that St. Benedict’s has been such an important part of your life for
so long. Even those who have been here for less time speak fondly of their
attachment to this parish.
But I
hope that along with your love for St. Benedict’s, you have a love for the
Universal Church as well. Six years after my trip to Rome, my home parish back
in Maryland burned to the ground. It was a horrible accident – someone who was
doing some roof work left a hot iron on the roof when they went to lunch, and
when they returned, the entire 160-year-old structure was engulfed in flames.
Very little was salvageable; it was almost completely destroyed. And all of us
– parishioners and our pastor alike – were heartbroken.
But this
too taught me that the Church is bigger than my individual parish. During the
four years that it took to rebuild our parish church of St. Peter’s, we held
Mass at local Protestant churches and in our social hall. The CHURCH of St.
Peter’s was still intact even though the building had burned down, because WE
are the Church. Our faith was much bigger than a building, much bigger than a
parish. It was a community of disciples who gathered to worship the Lord, to
receive the Eucharist and celebrate the Sacraments, all in union with the
teaching of the Pope, who is the successor of Peter from today’s Gospel.
I know
that this parish has undergone some turmoil in the past few years. But I urge
you to hold fast to what the Church truly is – it is the community of
disciples. In Greek, the word for Church is “ecclesia” – which literally
translates to “called out of”. We are people who are called out of the world
into a body of believers in Jesus Christ. For this reason, we must not become
too attached to a place, to a building, or to a name like St. Benedict’s,
because those things come and go. What remains is our Faith. Jesus promised in
the Gospel that “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against His Church – in
other words, His church will never disappear; it will always remain faithful to
the teachings of Christ and to His mission of saving souls. He never promised
that our church buildings will always be here; He never promised that our
parishes will remain the same that they were ten or fifty years ago. He
promised that the Faith would never change, and that the universal Church will
always be here.
That’s
why it’s great to be a Catholic. The word “Catholic” means universal, and we
truly are a universal church. A couple of summers ago, I did a long walking
pilgrimage across Spain – 32 days of walking 498 miles to get to the bones of
St. James in a town called Santiago de Compostella. The walk was called “El
Camino” – the Way – and it’s one of the most famous pilgrimages in the world.
Along the journey, I attended Mass in six languages – English, French, Spanish,
Portugese, Italian, and Korean – and though I definitely don’t speak those
languages, I knew exactly what was going on because the Mass is the same
throughout the whole world! I was really struck by the universality of the
Faith that I belonged to – the Catholic Faith is much bigger than my own
parish!
And we
are Catholic, ultimately, because it is the True Church that was founded by
Jesus Christ. Just recently I was having lunch with someone who made an offhand
comment that their college-aged daughter was getting involved with a boyfriend
who was an evangelical Protestant. My friend commented that, “Well, at least
she’s going to church, and after all, it’s pretty much the same as
Catholicism.” To that I wanted to respond, “Yes, we have many things in common
with our Protestant brethren, but we’re Catholic because the Catholic faith is
the True Faith! It is the church that was founded by Jesus Christ upon the rock
of Peter, the first Pope, and this Catholic Church is the only one that has the
fullness of truth! It is the only one that was promised by God that the gates
of Hell will never prevail against it! It is the surest and safest way to
salvation!”
That is
ultimately why we are Catholic. Not because of the great preaching, not because
of our beautiful church buildings, not because of our fun parish picnic coming
up on September 7th. We are Catholic because it is the Truth.
Because it was founded by Jesus. Because it is the clearest path to Heaven.
Because it will never disappear. Regardless of what happens to our individual
parish, regardless of where we travel in the world or where the journey of life
takes us, we build our faith on the rock of the Catholic Church, which is the
most solid rock we could ever build our lives upon!
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