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Seventeenth Sunday of the Year
28 July 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
As Father Cassabon celebrates his first Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving, we give thanks that in the past two years there have been three priestly ordinations from St. Mary’s and that Catherine Pelicano takes leave of us today to become Sister Catherine Anne in the postulancy of the Nashville Dominicans. Given that decisions to enter the priesthood and religious life are all too rare in our time, it is natural for us to wonder why St. Mary’s would be blessed with these vocations and the evident signs of so many others among us. Answering this question, of course, requires many responses because each story of a call to the priesthood or religious life is unique. But I believe that two qualities of life in our parish help explain this recent flowering of interest in various forms of consecrated life.
First, our emphasis on Evangelical Catholicism teaches us clearly that being a follower of the Lord Jesus requires that we move from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction. This, in turn, demands that we consciously accept the Gospel as divine revelation, not human wisdom, and as the measure of our entire lives. By accepting the necessity and embracing the beauty of a personal friendship with the Lord Jesus, of direct knowledge of Holy Scripture, of full and faithful participation in the sacred mysteries of Christ through divine worship, and of Christian fellowship and service that call us out of ourselves, we are equipped to reject whatever is contrary to the Gospel and to live the life of the new creation to which we were called in our Baptism. In this environment of sacrificial love, deciding to give everything to God in the evangelical counsels or in priestly ministry is perfectly natural. Or, better, perfectly supernatural.
And second, in a community of Christian disciples who know that sacrificial love, the obedience of faith, and the gift of self are essential parts of following the Lord Jesus, the priesthood and religious life will automatically be understood as normal expressions of Christian faith and life. Priests and religious, of course, will always be a numerically small part of the Church’s life, but when these forms of Christian discipleship are seen as natural and normal expressions of the Christian life, then young men and women understand that becoming a priest or a religious is not for spiritual heroes or for the superhuman among us. The choice to become a priest or a religious is a normal, everyday manifestation of the life of grace in the Church, and all Catholics should regard it as such. Yes, renunciation of many kinds is required, but authentic Christian living requires renunciations of many kinds from all the baptized, not just priests and religious. The young man or woman who leaves home, family, career, and self-direction for the service of Christ and the Church is simply responding to the call of the Lord first received at Baptism: Follow me.
Father Newman