St. Paul at the Areopagus (Raphael, c. 1515) |
“Almighty God …
You grant that the Church, his body,
adorned with manifold heavenly graces,
drawn together in the diversity of its members,
and united by a wondrous bond through the Holy
Spirit, should grow and spread forth
to build up a new temple
and, as once you chose the sons of Levi
to minister in the former tabernacle,
so now you establish three ranks of ministers
in their sacred offices to serve in your name.”
This is from the Prayer of Consecration of the Rite
of Ordination of a Deacon, which Archbishop Gregory will be praying over y’all,
brothers, in just a few days.
The triple rank of Holy Orders in the New Covenant
is foreshadowed by the choosing of the sons of Levi to minister in the
tabernacle of the old Covenant. Deacons are often referred to as Levites in the
liturgical books … for instance in the Easter proclamation, the Exsultet, which
perhaps some of you might be chanting next year, he calls himself an unworthy
member of the tribe of Levi.
So this got me thinking – what is it about the tribe
of Levi that it received this particular honor and blessing? There was already
a priesthood, from Aaron … why the Levites? In Deuteronomy, when Moses is
blessing the twelve tribes, of Levi he says, "Give to Levi thy
Thummim, and thy Urim to thy godly one, whom thou didst test at Massah, with
whom thou didst strive at the waters of Mer'ibah; who said of his father
and mother, 'I regard them not'; he disowned his brothers, and ignored his
children. For they observed thy word, and kept thy covenant.” (Deut. 33:8)
Levi, who regarded not
his father and his mother, and disowned his brothers and ignored his children.
When Moses came down
from the Mountain and found the people worshipping the Golden Calf (fashioned
by his own brother Aaron!), he asked for help in carrying out God’s punishment
on the people impartially, disinterestedly, without consideration of kith or
kin. And it was the tribe of Levi that answered that call.
“And
Moses said, "Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the
LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, that he may bestow a
blessing upon you this day.” (Ex. 32:29)
At
the cost of his son and brother … ! It was zeal for the Lord that caused the
sons of Levi to answer the Lord’s call, even setting aside the particularly
powerful attachment of family bonds!
Zeal
for the Lord. “An earnest desire for God’s honor, leading to strenuous and bold
deeds on his behalf, and that in spite of every obstacle,” is how Blessed John
Henry Newman describes it.
And while one can say
that the heart of the virtue of religion consists in loving God above all
things, it is the special quality of zeal that seeks to magnify the Lord, to
defend his honor, and to love Him above all men, even one’s closest friends and
relations.
We see this in the
blessing bestowed on Levi. We see it in what the Lord says to Moses of Phineas,
after he executes judgment on straying Israelites – it was his zeal for the
Lord that gives him and his descendants an everlasting priesthood. (Numbers 25:12-13)
It seems, writes Bl.
Newman, that zeal is the very
consecration of ministers to their office! And so, Our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, manifests his ministry with two acts of zeal. First, at the age of 12 He
stays back in the temple, seemingly disregarding His earthly family, in order
to be about the business of His Father. “Did you not know I must be in my
Father’s house?” And at the beginning of His public ministry, in the Gospel of
John, He drives out the money changers from the Temple with a cord of ropes …
“Zeal for thy house will consume me.” St. John says that later his apostles
recall the words of Ps. 69 being enacted powerfully in front of them.
It
is a zeal for the Lord that has brought you, dear brothers, to this juncture,
where, forsaking family, forsaking all, you are about to give yourself away to
Him, for His sake, and in that love for Him, for His Bride the Church.
We
need this zeal. We so need it.
It
is this zeal for the Lord that becomes a zeal for souls that we see in today’s
reading from the Acts of the Apostles, as St. Paul preaches boldly,
unabashedly, in the face of curiosity, mockery and insult, the Good News, to
the Areopagus in Athens.
“God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent, because he has established a day on which he will judge the world with justice through a man whom he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NAB)
“God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent, because he has established a day on which he will judge the world with justice through a man whom he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NAB)
The
world needs this zeal for the Lord!
One
just has to look at the news reports of the past few days to realize just how
much the world needs zealous souls who hunger to proclaim Good News.
And
I don’t have to remind y’all that your generation, the much commented upon and
often derided millennials, barely engage in the life of the Church. Maybe 10 or
12% of baptized Catholics who are millennials, are involved in any way in life
of the Church. One third of all baptized Catholics, if that, take part in the
life of the Church. We see it very simply when we compare the number of those
registered with those who show up for Sunday Mass. We have, what, some 1800
families registered here at St. Andrew’s, Fr. Dan? But we don’t see those many
souls on a Sunday. Maybe 1300 or 1400 at all our Masses. May 2000 or 2200 at
Easter, or a First Communion! And while many in our society profess belief in
God, they might say they are spiritual and not religious – i.e. they want the
comforts of belief without any of the demands, a God made in their own image
--- and across the board, there is a sense of decline in Christianity in our land.
We
need this zeal, brothers! A zeal for the Lord, for souls, which asks, as Fr. George
Rutler, pastor of Holy Innocents in New York put it, not how many Catholics are
in his parish, but how many Catholics will there be in my parish!
Zeal,
however, has a bad reputation in our time. It did also over a hundred and fifty
years ago in Bl John Henry Newman’s times.
“It
is the present fashion to call Zeal by the name of intolerance, and to account
intolerance the chief of sins; that is, any earnestness for one opinion above
another concerning God’s nature, will, and dealings with man,—or, in other
words, any earnestness for the Faith once delivered to the Saints, any
earnestness for Revelation as such. Surely, in this sense, the Apostles were
the most intolerant of men: what is it but intolerance in this sense of the
word to declare, that “he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the
Son of God hath not life!”
In
this sense, brothers, be intolerant.
Intolerant
of bad ideas, and of error, sticking with zeal to the Word of God, in season
and out, staying close to the Church, to her doctrine, and to the very Lord
Himself who has called you. Love all people – none of us is free of error, or
doesn’t need to learn. The Church possesses the fullness of the truth, but I
don’t, and my brother priests here will eagerly tell me when I am in the wrong!
But strive with all your mind to pursue truth, to accept it, and to conform
your life to it, and to teach it, in love, to a people who longs for the food
that fills and satisfies and leads to eternal life. For the One who sends you,
His food is the will of His Heavenly Father.
Zeal,
however, warns Bl. Newman, needs to be tempered. It was an intemperate zeal
that led St. Peter to cut off the ear of the servant of the High Priest,
Malchus, when they came to arrest the Lord. It was zeal that led the sons of
Zebedee to ask Him if they should call down fire from heaven on unrepentant
Samaria.
Zeal
must be tempered with love, with charity, that love of God that loves all
people. Remember they are created in the image and likeness of God, of infinite
worth, and for whom Christ shed His Most Precious Blood. But zeal also must be
tempered with faith. Faith that in God’s providence, He permits on our pilgrim
path, the weeds as well as the wheat. Faith that waits for God to act, and ever
alert for compromise with the world, looks to the Lord attentively, like the
eyes of servant on his master, of a hand maid on her mistress, looking to the
Lord till He show us His mercy (Ps. 123).
Bl.
Newman continues, “Christian Zeal, therefore, ever bears in mind that the
Mystery of Iniquity is to continue on till the Avenger solves it once for all;
it renounces all hope of hastening His coming, all desire of intruding upon His
work. It has no vain imaginings about the world’s real conversion to Him,
however men may acknowledge Him outwardly, knowing that “the world lies in
wickedness.”
It
is this obedience of faith, especially, obedience to the Lord, to His will,
that tempers zeal, and leads it to serve the Gospel more perfectly.
We
need this zeal.
We
need this zeal to counteract the ever present temptations to mediocrity, to
settling, to conforming ourselves to the world. I see this in myself, barely four years out of seminary. And the ever present desire to escape the present and
imagine perfect scenarios where everything is according to my taste, when I’m
finally in charge. Ignoring the Lord’s presence here and now. The Lord is
present, and alive and powerful here and now, and He loves us now, and leads
us, if only we trust Him, and follow Him …
This morning we laid to rest two priests, Fr. Terry Kane and Msgr. Leo Herbert, of that great generation of priests that the Emerald Isle sent out and that built up the Church in Atlanta over the past fifty years …
This morning we laid to rest two priests, Fr. Terry Kane and Msgr. Leo Herbert, of that great generation of priests that the Emerald Isle sent out and that built up the Church in Atlanta over the past fifty years …
..
and on Saturday we’ll ordain 4 deacons. A month later, two new priests … –and, God willing, five priests next year – and
then more to come, please God!
I
have often said, and my brother priests here have corroborated this, that every
time I have spent time with our seminarians, I come away with a feeling of awe.
Lord, how on earth do we get these men? Such good men? How do we deserve this?
This is truly your gift, and I am moved to silence, and gratitude.
Your
zeal, your eagerness, your love for the Lord and for the Church are a gift to
me, dear brothers, to this presbyterate, and to this local Church.
May zeal for the Lord’s house consume you and me, so
that forsaking all, we love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves,
and continue, as He gives the grace, to lay down our lives for our Bride, the
Church, to lead a great harvest of souls to that Blessed Kingdom of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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