Homilies
Saint Athanasius
Friday, May 2, 2008
Br. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
On the evening of October 24th, in the year 362, St. Athanasius began his fourth of five exiles from the episcopacy of Alexandria, at the age of 67. He was paddling up the Nile river by night, aware that somewhere not far behind him, a ship of Imperial soldiers were pursuing him, with orders to take him prisoner and probably to take his life, given by none other than the emperor who had renounced his Christian baptism, the so-called Julian the Apostate. Conscious that he could not out run his captors, Athanasius instead turned his boat around and paddled past them. When some one called down to him, “Have you seen Bishop Athanasius,” he replied in turn, “Not long ago I saw him going that way,” pointing over his shoulder, and added “If you act quickly, you might catch him.” And he kept paddling.
“Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.” These are the words of the Lord spoken to St. Paul in the book of Acts (18:9), but they could also aptly be said to St. Athanasius. He seems to have been an almost feverish man, of quick wit, reactivity, and terse activism, but also a person who loved monasticism and spent years in exile hidden with monks in Egypt, writing treatises not only about the divinity of the Lord, but also about the newfound way of life of monks in the Egyptian desert, which incidentally, he helped bring to Rome during his exile there. He had enemies that were formidable, such as Eusebius, the Arian patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor Constantius, and Julian the Apostate, who called him “the enemy of the gods.” But he also had great friendships, with Pope Julian, during his years of exile in Rome, St. Anthony the Great, his spiritual mentor, and St Pachomius, who called him, “The Father of the Orthodox faith in Christ.”
Of course in a real sense, as the champion of the divinity of Christ and the council of Nicaea, Athanasius was the enemy of the gods. Against the back drop of a traditional Greek pantheon of mediating figures, Arius and Arianism had posited the creature Jesus Christ as an emissary of God—supreme among all others certainly—but one among a host nonetheless. And Athanasius’s unambiguous denial of this teaching, and his corresponding excommunication of Arius, which were at the source of his first exile, were controversial because they were the denial of the possibility of a middle road between Trinitarian monotheism and polytheistic syncretism, wherein all religions remained viable. You must choose between the gods of civic society (who cannot save) and the belief in the unique mediator Jesus Christ, who alone can reconcile humanity with God because he alone is both God and man. So goes the logic of Athanasius.
But the life and example of Athanasius also teach us a great deal about the meaning of the Church as an ecclesial body, and the mystery of light and shadows in the body of Christ. Here I’ll limit my observations to two brief points.
First, Athanasius’ life teaches us that it is not enough to have institutions, buildings, Episcopal leadership, and even Sacraments and Holy Scripture, if these do not create a distinct culture of hearts and minds, a tissue of human members, visible and invisible, in whom the body of Christ thrives. Why could Athanasius return to Alexandria as Bishop after five successive exiles, each time to be received enthusiastically by the people and the monastic communities, despite Imperial attempts to destroy him, despite perhaps even a majority of eastern Bishops at the time who were Arian sympathizers? It was because of his moral authority as a Christian and a preacher. It was because he spoke to the sensus fidei, the sense of the faithful, of the monks and of the ordinary people of the city, without compromise, while confronting the very difficult controversies of his age directly, and convincingly, in ways that helped his auditors. And it was because he loved the people he served more than his own safety, and life. In other words, if we want to win the struggle over the identity of Christianity in our culture, we have to enter into the intellectual and moral agonies that afflict our contemporaries, both intellectually and personally, and offer truthful, and convincing answers from the Gospel, in a way of life that does not fear questions, and which is compassionate, but that also is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the values of secularism.
Second, Athansius’ life shows that the deepest source of identity, and of division on the level of culture, have to do with belief or unbelief in the divinity of Christ. All other decisions about culture are secondary. Christ is what is most concrete in culture. That’s still true today. We’re used to thinking about the natural law as something that can bind people together even in a pluralistic society, despite religious differences. Both human reason and the Catholic Church teach that this is the case, and its certainly true. But ultimately in concrete history, our discernments concerning natural law are deeply influenced by our understanding of the mystery of Christ, by our acceptance or rejection of the mystery of the Incarnation, of He who is Himself the enemy of the gods, the end of relativism. Think about the connection between the rational, moral belief in the natural right to life, and the apostolic, Catholic faith as the two are bound together in history. So whether we preach the moral teachings of the Church, or if we preach the divinity of Christ, we are not really in that wholly different a situation than St. Athansius. Our faith is the source of the deepest unity among human beings, or the deepest division. And this means that while we do need to do all that we can to make ourselves understood, rationally, supernaturally, compassionately, we shouldn’t expect to always be accepted. It’s certainly not our right and privilege. In fact, if we are not sometimes being rejected for what we say, we might not be doing what we’ve been commissioned to do. Because Christ is a Savior but, He is also a stumbling block, destined for the rise and fall of many in the house of Israel.
It’s true that in some ways, our historical age—like that of Athansius—seems to be in a kind of dark night of faith as regards the divinity of Christ; and in our civic life, there is a clear return of the time of the plurality of gods, our enemies out number us and are more efficient than we are. They have many warships, and our own little boat—the bark of Peter—seems to be moving rather slowly. But we should simply be sure to turn ourselves in the right direction: not out to the sea, a place that is teaming with human commerce, but back upriver toward the heart of Egypt, the desert, where our monastic friends are hard at work, and busy at prayer. There the river of life is not found in the waters, but in the blood, the blood of Christ that flows into the sea, not of this world, but of heaven. The greatest tradition that we pass on is the Eucharist, the handing over of the body and blood of Christ, that is itself the wellspring of life for the Church. To assure that this life is transmitted, all we must do is to be the faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, day by day. From this source, God can and will raise up a thousand Athanasius’—in our age or in any other—like a pillar of cloud, to lead the Church by day, and a pillar of fire, to lead the Church by night.
The Voice of the Good Shepherd
Fr. John Langlois, O.P.
April 13, 2008
In our Gospel today, Jesus makes a very interesting point about sheep and their relationship to the shepherd. He says that the sheep follow the shepherd because “they recognize his voice.” On the contrary, they will not follow a stranger, and in fact will run away from him, because “they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” The implication here is that sheep become habituated to the presence of a particular shepherd and the sound of his voice, and so come to trust him. They easily follow the shepherd because he is familiar to them and gives them a sense of security.
Of all the voices in our lives, the one that should be most familiar to us is precisely the voice of the Good Shepherd. After all, it is God who first spoke a word of love to us when he called us into existence. It is he who once again spoke a word of love to our souls when he redeemed us in the waters of baptism and filled us with his life-giving Spirit. And he is continually speaking to us in the depths of our hearts where he makes his home when we are in the state of grace.
Unfortunately, there are many obstacles that prevent us from hearing the gentle voice of the Good Shepherd and following him where he would lead us. First of all, our lives can be filled with a tremendous amount of noise. By noise here, I mean frenetic activity, a preoccupation with work that leaves no room for restful silence and meditation. The noise that blocks out the voice of the Good Shepherd can also be quite literal—an addiction to television, music, talk radio, internet surfing—the constant bombardment of sense data upon our minds from a variety of sources. It is very difficult for us to perceive the voice of the Good Shepherd in the midst of such noise. Learning to turn off media, to create pockets of time each day simply to be quiet and listen is essential to hearing the voice that is speaking to us in the depths of our hearts.
In addition to the obstacle of noise, there are other voices in our lives that compete with the voice of the Good Shepherd for our attention, and often lead us astray. Now since sheep run away from strangers because they do not recognize their voice, the fact that we often listen to other voices must mean that they are not that strange to us. We have become habituated to them. They are familiar. What are some of these other voices?
The most familiar because it is the closest to us is the voice of self, you know, the one that says, “I know what is best for me and so I’m going to do what I want.” Let’s be honest, have we ever been led to greener pastures by following this voice? Yet we seem to fall for it over and over again. Ultimately, we don’t know what is best for us or what will bring us the true happiness we long for. The voice of self, though it seems most familiar and trustworthy, is really the voice of a thief who wishes to steal from us the peace that comes from abandoning ourselves to the guidance of the Good Shepherd, who alone has our best interests in mind.
Another voice that we can become accustomed to is the voice of popular opinion—wanting other people’s approval or being afraid of incurring their scorn. This voice also leads us astray from the path of inner peace because we’re trying to find security in the shakiest of foundations—the ever-changing opinion of the moment. The voice of “what other people think” can prevent us from doing something we should or encourage us to do something we shouldn’t, all for the sake of fleeting approval. The end result is always the same—anxiety and the loss of true self-identity. Only the voice of the Good Shepherd reveals to us our true selves and frees us from the vagaries of public opinion.
Finally, perhaps the most pernicious of all the voices that compete for our attention is the voice of Satan, who is the ultimate thief who seeks to steal, slaughter and destroy. It is the most pernicious because as Fulton Sheen pointed out, in the moment of temptation, Satan pretends to be our friend. “Go on, it’s not that bad, and besides you can always go to confession afterwards.” But once we have fallen into the snare, he turns from advocate to prosecutor. “Look what you’ve done, you worthless, miserable wretch! You’re not worthy of God’s love. Don’t you think you’ve used up God’s patience and mercy by now?” And in this way, Satan tries to drive us even further away from the saving embrace of the Good Shepherd. This pernicious voice leading us to despair is the voice we must run away from at all costs because it is the most deadly. It cuts us off from God, our only hope of salvation.
So how do we prevent these other voices from having sway over us? The answer lies in re-habituating ourselves to the clear, gentle and assuring voice of the Good Shepherd who speaks to us in manifold ways. His voice is heard through his living word in the Scriptures. His voice is heard in the guidance offered by the Magisterium, and for those of us in vows, through the decisions of our superiors. His voice is heard in the sacraments which communicate his life to us, particularly the Holy Eucharist and penance. His voice is heard in the silence of our hearts when we make time to hear it and put away all that might distract us. The more attentive we are to this voice, the more familiar it becomes to us, the more these other voices will be shown for what they are—the voice of strangers. Automatically, we will reject them, run away from them, for we will recognize that they lead to death, not life. The voice of the Good Shepherd, and his alone, can guide us to the life and happiness we so desire.
The Healing Love of Lourdes
Brother Hugh Vincent Dyer, O.P.
January 11, 2008
It is to our mother’s house that our siblings come; the lame, the sick, the proud, and those who party too much.
One hundred-fifty years ago Our Lady visited Lourdes, France, a place that looms large in the Catholic imagination. Long before Poland Springs became popular, Catholics had their own brand of bottled water. It was well known that if you were sick, Mrs. Murphy or Mrs. Gimminiani or any number of women in the neighborhood would have a bottle of Lourdes water for you. We knew also that the word “grotto” was exclusively associated with Lourdes. Once after watching the movie, The Song of Bernadette, my father remarked that Jennifer Jones, the young actress who played Bernadette, beat out the Blessed Mother for Best actress at the 1944 Academy Awards
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A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to Lourdes. My first feelings of the place were similar to the ones I had felt on a visit to Atlantic City. It had a sort of baroque splendor in neon and plastic. Just before exiting our bus to register at the hotel, a scream sounded in the street. A taxi had just run over a woman’s foot. “Good thing it happened to her in Lourdes,” I thought. Not long after that, I headed to the café in the hotel basement. There a large elderly Sicilian woman sat playing a solitary game of cards. As I sat drinking my café au lait the Sicilian woman lumbered toward me, stroked my goatee and said, “I like Dominican”. I did not return the compliment.
Recently, an English priest wrote on his blog that he was going to stop visiting Lourdes because he was distressed at how much the English pilgrims drank and partied. Apparently he hasn’t met the Irish pilgrims. Whether they’re English, Sicilian, Irish or any other nationality, the human condition is on display in Lourdes.
The beginnings of the great story of Lourdes are not much different. Lourdes was a crude little place steeped in poverty. When Bernadette told her mother that she had seen a little girl with a rosary in the grotto, her mother responded in the way a responsible mother should—she gave her daughter a sound thrashing. Neighbors proposed an explanation; the apparition, they said, must be the soul of a recently deceased woman. The people of Lourdes believed also in fairies and strange woodland creatures; perhaps Bernadette had seen one of these. During the second apparition, Bernadette threw holy water at Our Lady to see if she really was a heavenly apparition.
Before the apparitions ceased there would be plenty of other instances that seem almost comedic. The local law enforcer would hover over humble, uneducated Bernadette while offering her threats of imprisonment. When Our Lady told Bernadette to dig for water, Bernadette emerged with a muddy face and grass in her mouth.The onlookers laughed and her aunt gave her a good wallop. And so it happened, Bernadette confounded her interrogators and the waters flowed.
A friend once remarked that Marian shrines are special because they are our mother’s house. And so it’s to our mother’s house that our siblings come; the lame, the sick, the proud, and those who party too much. Mary has a special place for all; even the revelers. After all, she’s the one who interceded at a party when the wine ran out. She knows the love of those who buy cheesy holographic images of her, cigarette lighters decorated with pictures of the grotto, and little bottles shaped like her. When our birth mothers die, we too are hard-pressed to find artistically fine tokens of love among her effects. Rather, we find the scribbled art of our childhood, a stick figure with the primitive label “mommy” above. Our blessed mother blesses our humble imperfect offerings of love with a maternal heart.
An old story is told of two young men who grew up together as friends. One became a priest and the other a sailor. The priest would occasionally see his friend, and he could see that he was up to tough living. The sailor drank hard, gambled, used filthy language and had a girl in every port, the kind of girls who have a man on every ship. After many years the priest was called to the side of a dying man. Seeing that the man in bed was his sailor friend the priest wondered: “How is it that such a sinner comes to a blessed death?” He asked his friend: “How is it that you, of all people, come to receive the Lord’s mercy?” The dying sailor raised a trembling hand entwined with a broken rosary.
Lourdes reminds us that we are in need of healing and that we are called to help the sick among us, those who are deprived in any way. Our Lady recognizes the suffering of her son in all her children. If we fail to imitate her in this then we disregard the very criterion of the final judgment. Today, we eat the Eucharist in order to give to others what the Blessed Mother wants all her children to have—the merciful love of our brother, Jesus Christ; it is for this reason that we are a family.
Saints Timothy and Titus
January 26, 2008
Br. Anthony Giambrone, O.P.
I. Timothy and Titus appear in the calendar as the direct and immediate fruit of St. Paul’s conversion. In a sense, one might say, today’s feast continues on the momentum of yesterday, which (you’ll notice) celebrated not merely the life of a saint, but an event in salvation history. In other words, it isn’t Paul’s private, hagiographical history that makes his conversion liturgically notable; the stunning conversion of St. Augustine, for instance, gets no special day. It is, rather, that Paul’s conversion is an event of ecclesial magnitude, a watershed happening in the history of the New Covenant—on scale with the Baptism of Christ or even the very day of Pentecost. The Lord’s appearance en route to Damascus initiates a colossal new revelation in his plan of salvation; through this vas electionis, this chosen vessel and vessel of election, Christ the Lord inaugurates the massive mission that would graft all nations onto the election of Israel.
So, if Paul’s conversion sets the Gentile mission in motion and thus becomes the channel by which—the vessel from which God pours out his elective grace indiscriminately upon the world, Timothy and Titus are living expressions of that grace. Each man was a beneficiary of the mission, and each man in his own turn became a coworker with Paul in that mission, an apostolic delegate, free-ranging and bearing the full power of the Gospel: evangelizing and preaching, organizing and ordaining.
Timothy, whom Paul first met at Lystra in Acts 16 while on his first missionary journey, became, on account of the youth’s high reputation among the believers in that city, an immediate companion of the Apostle. As Paul’s own trust in him grew, Timothy became the Apostle’s favorite, on-site troubleshooter—deployed to pacify the factions in Corinth and to quiet the errant heretics in Ephesus with the pure teaching of sound doctrine.
Titus—the non-circumcised, Gentile Christian—was (as we know from Galatians) at the Council of Jerusalem a veritable poster boy for Paul’s Gospel. He, too, was a go-between in the Corinthian turmoil—a reconciler, we can imagine, of considerable skill. Later, in Crete, it was his charge to organize and civilize an unstable and endangered, neophyte Church, to refute opponents, and to insist upon faithful word.
II. Now, in view of this heavy—or rather, total involvement in the Greek mission, it is no surprise that the three New Testament documents which bear the names of Timothy and Titus are deeply stamped by the thought and language of the Hellenistic world. And although exegetes have their own explanations for this intensely Greek tone of the letters, it is not ridiculous to believe that what we see in evidence here is a very basic strategy of these missionaries; as Paul formulated it elsewhere: “we take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.”
The so-called “epiphany Christology” of the Pastoral letters offers a nice example. The notion of a divine epiphany is lifted straight from the language of the Hellenistic cults. In our reading from the salutation to Titus, however, (which is incidentally the most elaborate Pauline greeting apart from Romans), Paul co-opts this epiphany idea and puts it at the service of an eschatological event: at the proper time he (that is, God) revealed (or better, manifested) his word by proclamation.
The proclamation mentioned here is, of course, Paul’s own preaching: the proclamation, he says, with which I was entrusted. This in itself is interesting. Normally, for Paul, the language of manifestation or epiphany is connected, in some manner, with the Christ event—as is also this idea of God’s “proper time,” which means the time when the promises are fulfilled. Here, though, the mission bearing the message is itself the apparition.
There is a certain Old Testament precedent for this. Isaiah in several places forecasts the scene: the eschatological announcement of good tidings: most famously, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring the good news! Israel was in exile; but at the proper time God would send messengers, preachers to proclaim that he, the Lord reigns. Their appearance would itself be a manifestation of the liberation they came to announce.
This is a beautiful thought—and it did not escape Paul, who in Romans applied the Isaiah text to his own mission. At the turning of the age, a team of preachers appears among the nations, bearing a message of hope and manifesting, by their mere advent, God’s urgent generosity and his expansive desire to gather all people to himself.
III. These few laborers—Paul, Timothy, Titus, a handful of others—are sent out into the Lord’s field to bring him the harvest at its proper time. So few spread thin across a world so large. In the Gospel, Christ himself reveals how embarrassingly abundant the ripe harvest is. To Timothy, Paul would moan how few they were: “Demas, enamored of the present world, deserted me and went to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke is the only one with me…I have sent Tychichus to Ephesus.”
With perfect resistance to every dismal, diocesan, vocational video, the harvest is—perpetually—completely out of proportion to the work force. It is a deficit and excess as certain and enduring as the very words of the Gospel. This suggests, I think, that the labor to be undertaken is, in fact, more than human industry can ever provide. The harvest of God’s designs will always be greater; and this means one of two things. Either, the laborers will be ever consigned to a life of hopelessly over-burdened frustration; or the Lord will expand the value of their service, and provide results completely out of proportion to the work force, ever exceeding the paltry power of their own stamina, wit, or will.
IV. This, of course, is where we, finally, fit into the picture. Like Timothy and Titus we are coworkers in this great mission of preaching, a mission which stretches down through the ages and covers every time and place—yet, a mission never finished until the Son of Man will at last send his angel harvesters to gather in all that is his. Until then, it is now still the “proper time”; and God continues to manifest his word by the same perennial proclamation.
As the Church’s own preachers, we are made bearers of the Gospel and must continually reveal the saving will of God by our preaching. Our charism is, like Timothy and Titus, to be specialists in the mission. The grace given to St. Dominic, which we share and cooperate in, is in the service of the same “sound doctrine” which these saints so nobly defended. “Hold fast to the true message; exhort with sound doctrine; refute opponents.”
The truth of this doctrine is—as our first reading calls it—the “truth that accords with godliness.” As ill as our world is in its appetite for such truth—all truth has become unpalatable—the odds against us are simply a measure of God’s power to save. For our very call to preach reveals that the Lord reigns. If he sends his laborers out as lambs among wolves, he also lays down his life for his sheep.
And so, we never fatigue to hear those magnificent words of Paul’s final testament to Timothy, words inscribed as an emblem and title over our Order :
“Proclaim the word; be persistent, whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth. But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.”
HOMILY ON THE MEMORIAL OF ST. ANTONINUS (1389-1459)
May 10, 2007
To enter religious life in the early twenty-first century, one has to pass a relatively mild battery of psychological and physical exams. To enter religious life in the early fifteenth century, St. Antoninus had to memorize the Decretals of Gratian. It took him a year to do it, but a successful examination, and the mercy of his superiors, afforded his entrance into the Order. 
As a boy in Florence, Antoninus, literally “Little Anthony,” spent an hour in prayer each day in the Chapel of St. Michael, and he loved to hear the Dominicans preach at Santa Maria Novella. There was one friar in particular who fascinated him. His name was Giovanni Dominici, whom we know today as St. John Dominic. As Antoninus came of age decided to become a Dominican, he approached John Dominic, not at Santa Maria Novella, but in Fiesole, just outside of Florence, where his future mentor was establishing a new reform priory. John wanted the strongest and brightest for his new foundation, and this explains the odd test he gave Antoninus of memorizing the Decretals. Already interested in canon law, however, Antoninus succeeded at the task and hence received the white habit. With John Dominic, Antoninus became a key figure in the Italian Dominican reform movement of the fifteenth century. Of that first group gathered at Fiesole, seven have been either canonized or beatified. Among this number is the well known Fra Angelico.
After serving as prior in Naples, Gaeta, Siena, and Rome, Antoninus was elected vicar-provincial of the Lombard Reform Province. At the end of his term, he was then chosen as the first prior of San Marco, the new reform priory in Florence, his home town, famous today for its frescoes by Fra Angelico. Because of its discipline, the priory became a center of spiritual renewal in the city, and in those early days of the Renaissance, benefactors showered the poor but scholarly friars with books and manuscripts, so much so that San Marco also became an intellectual center of the city, specializing in the re-appropriation of the ancient classics.
After serving another term as the vicar-provincial of the reform province, Antoninus was selected by Pope Eugenius IV to serve the Church of Florence as its archbishop. At first the humble Dominican resisted, but soon the pressure from his family and the citizens of Florence, including the Medici’s, became too much, and Antoninus acquiesced. In his short biography of our saint, Bede Jarrett describes the events surrounding his consecration. Antoninus chose to receive the episcopal dignity in the priory chapel at Fiesole, where he had enjoyed many hours of prayer as a novice. He then walked barefoot to the city. Upon arriving he participated in an ancient Florentine ritual, wherein was symbolized the mystical marriage of the new archbishop to his see. This ceremony obliged the new ordinary to visit a monastery of Benedictine nuns and place a ring on the finger of one of them. Antoninus then walked to his cathedral, the Duomo, where the Te Deum was sung, and from its pulpit he preached for the first time as archbishop.
Antoninus served the See of Florence for twelve years—preaching, urging moral and social reform, caring for the poor and the sick, and being a father to his priests. Despite his numerous duties, he kept the disciplines of the Order. As we heard this morning at the Office of Readings, Antoninus spent the first hours of the each day studying and writing. One thing in particular that occupied this daily period of study was the writing of textbooks for his clergy. In the early- and mid-fifteenth century, European presbyterates were still suffering from the effects of the plague and the disruptions of the Western Schism. Antoninus sought to remedy the situation by writing manuals, especially in canon law and moral theology. As his death approached, Antoninus’ holiness increased, as did his fame. Even the pope reverently joked about canonizing Antoninus before he died.
As we prepare to live the Dominican life in the twenty-first century, what can we learn from our saintly fifteenth-century brother? We may be overwhelmed by his holiness in comparison to our mediocrity, discouraged by his scholarship in comparison to our ignorance, or embarrassed by his love in comparison to our indifference. Can Antoninus be followed? Can we in our own lives replicate the events of his? I’m not sure that’s the purpose of our remembrance of him today. Instead, we study his gifts for the purpose of thanking God, for every so often he sends the Order a saint to remind us what it is for, and what it is capable of. These saints manifest again the great charism of St. Dominic and reveal that the ideal of the Order is one that lies very close to the heart of the Church. St. Dominic knew, as did St. Antoninus, and we are striving to learn today, that a life given over to holy obedience, in which a disciplined schedule of communal prayer and sacred study ground an active life of preaching, can bear much fruit for Christ and his Church.
And so we pray today for our brother’s intercession, that St. Antoninus will carry our intentions and our vocations before the throne of God. We ask him to assure that the grace of the Order will continue to take deep root in our minds, our hearts, and our imaginations, all for God’s glory first, then for our sanctification, and finally for the good of all God’s holy Church.
Rev. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Fr. Joseph Barranger, O.P., Prior
The Dominican House of Studies
Community Mass, December 8, 2006
For those of us who have lived a few decades, when we look back over the course of our lives, we can see God’s hand at work in the midst of the seemingly random tangle of events and experiences that are part of our pasts. For married people who are deeply in love, it is impossible to think that it was only fate that arranged for their first meeting and brought them together. For those of us who are religious and priests, so many people have invited us to enter their lives at critical moments–from the beginning of life to life’s end. And our pastoral encounters with them have changed us, and brought us to the place in our lives where we are today. Our lives are an unfolding mystery which we coauthor with God, but its ending is known only to Him. God’s plan for us, as mysterious as it is, reveals itself in degrees–and occasionally we get a precious glimpse of the end that was in the mind of God from the beginning. Fate–or luck–has nothing to do with it. For all of us, God’s hand can be seen, doodling through our past–weaving the threads of our present, and laying the foundation for our future.
And so, this feast of the Immaculate Conception is also the feast of the Providence of God–it celebrates God’s master craftsmanship in creating human beings. Mary was in God’s eternal plan. Even before she could do anything to merit God’s love, in the very moment of her conception, Mary was preserved free from sin as a beautiful work of God’s artistry. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is more than a work of God’s art to be admired by us. It shows us something of who we are in the eyes of God. God chose us in Christ before the world began to be his adopted children–and to be sinless in his sight. We cannot merit that choice. Becoming children of God the Father is his gift to us just as the Immaculate Conception was his gift to Mary.
And so, our vocation is to live as children of God. That is our choice. Think about all of the ways that God has prepared us for this calling. Through all of the joys and struggles, the triumphs and tragedies–even through the crosses that we have carried–God has been at work fashioning us; strengthening us; preparing us and helping us–to live out our call to be Children of God as followers of Christ. Because God is more powerful than even the most difficult or painful events of our past–he can redeem them all. He can raise up a new creation out of the shattered remains of our former selves.
But there is more! The Immaculate Conception calls us to ponder all of the things from which we have been preserved by God. There are countless ways in which we have been preserved from things that would have prevented us from embracing and living our vocation–even some seemingly good things. No matter how much we have struggled or endured, we will never know how much we have been spared. Just as there are things that God has permitted us to suffer–for a reason–there are other things that in His mercy He has not permitted. And so God’s artistry has been at work–even if at times it has been invisible and mysterious. It has prepared us to live as God’s children. It has brought us to the faith that we profess–the promises that we have made–the
vows we have taken. And we believe that God will continue to preserve us in the future.
Sisters and brothers, we need to cooperate in this work of divine preservation. We cannot frustrate God’s artistry in our lives or pollute the vision that He has had for us from the beginning of time. The fact is that we are artists with God as our future unfolds. And so, there are things from which we must preserve ourselves. There are many things that God will continue to decide for us. But we must continue to choose to live the life which he has prepared for us. The Immaculate Conception calls us to a life of preservation. To preserve the promises of our baptism. To preserve the gift of faith and the life of virtue. To preserve ourselves in fidelity to the vows we have taken. We have all seen the sadness and heartache that results when people forget who they are–and what they were created to be. They replace God’s vision for them with some silly fantasy that satisfies them for the moment–perhaps because they have found God’s plan to be too difficult–or God’s call to be an inconvenient interference in their own plans. And so they reject the preventative medicine of God’s Grace.
But today we celebrate that the divin |