Ordinations

I just thought I would post this picture, because I am rather fond of it.  I should have done it some time ago, but time sort of gets away from me. It is from the ordinations to the priesthood celebrated at the Basilica on Pentecost weekend this year. At the conclusion of the ordination Mass, after I announced where I was assigning the three newly ordained, I asked the three to give me their first priestly blessing. My thanks to Father Andy Gutierrez, Father Jesús Paredes, and Father Luis Roberto Tinajero, for their prayer and blessing. And I am grateful to God for having inspired each of them to offer priestly service to the Church in the Rio Grande Valley.

La Fiesta del Corpus y la libertad religiosa

La fiesta del Corpus es una de las solemnidades más hermosas del calendario litúrgico, y es un día de fiesta del cual soy particularmente devoto. Estoy realmente convencido que cuando honramos, adoramos y damos gloria al Señor en el Santísimo Sacramento del altar, Él nos responde de  una manera bondadosa y generosa. Su presencia es en sí el principio y el fin de esa bondad. 

Cada año desde que llegué a la diócesis, he tenido la gracia de celebrar la Misa del Corpus en la Catedral, o en una de sus  capillas, y después guiar la Procesión Eucarística por el centro de Brownsville, concluyendo con la Bendición con el Santísimo.

Este año empezamos con la Misa en la Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción el domingo a las 6:00 pm y procedimos bajo el vari palio, con incienso y los feligreses cantando y rezando el rosario. Primero fuimos a la iglesia de Santo Tomas, y después a la del Sagrado Corazón. Me conmovió profundamente la fe y devoción de los parroquianos, y me sentí profundamente motivado por cómo jóvenes y ancianos, y gente de todas las edades, participaron en esta expresión de fe de la Iglesia.

Creo que vale la pena señalar que caminamos por las calles (después de adquirir los permisos adecuados) y no por las banquetas. La Iglesia está en la ciudad, y en la comunidad y en el país. La Iglesia no es una entidad privada relegada a la banqueta, y nosotros ciertamente no queremos ser limitados a caminar adentro de la sacristía. La Iglesia y su Señor tienen un lugar en el dominio público, al igual que todas las instituciones no gubernamentales en nuestra comunidad.  

Peregrinar por las calles es un símbolo de una realidad más grande. Es una de las mayores bendiciones de nuestro país que los individuos y las instituciones sean libres de vivir y crecer de acuerdo a su conciencia, mientras esta vida y este crecimiento no lastimen el bien y la paz de los demás. (Es por eso que se necesitan permisos para hacer peregrinaciones públicas. Alguien tiene que redirigir el tráfico).

Tradicionalmente nuestra sociedad ha reconocido que es bueno tener iglesias, asociaciones civiles e instituciones saludables y vibrantes. Todas tienen un lugar en las fluidas asociaciones sociales que componen nuestras relaciones humanas en este país. Así pues los VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars, por sus siglas en Inglés) pueden tener desfiles, la antigua orden de hibérnicos pueden marchar el día de San Patricio, y el equipo de fútbol local puede ser celebrado con un desfile después de un juego de campeonato. Ninguna de estas son instituciones gubernamentales. Sin embargo éstas son instituciones de personas que se asocian libremente para hacer sus contribuciones al bien común y la sociedad local y nacional.

El gobierno ayuda a nuestra comunidad y a la vida nacional cuando busca mantener la esfera pública como un lugar libre y sin trabas. El gobierno juega un papel importante al proteger los derechos de los diversos grupos que viven y crecen en una sociedad libre. El gobierno, no obstante, obstaculiza el bien de la amplia sociedad nacional cuando trata de dictaminar lo que una institución debe hacer para poder contribuir al bien general. No dejemos que el gobierno le diga a los VFW lo que debe tener su código de honor para poder ayudar a los Veteranos. No dejemos que el gobierno le diga a los hibérnicos lo que necesitan para ser irlandeses. Y no dejemos que el gobierno le diga a la Iglesia lo que su conciencia moral debe o no debe de permitir al administrar nuestras escuelas, universidades, hospitales y organizaciones caritativas.

¿Qué es lo que está en juego en la lucha de la Iglesia por defender la libertad religiosa contra la invasión del gobierno? Muchas cosas, pero una de las más vitales es la preservación de ese amplio espacio en nuestra sociedad y cultura donde las personas e instituciones libres pueden operar, propagar, cooperar y competir. Cuando el gobierno oprime demasiado fuerte las operaciones públicas de las instituciones no gubernamentales asfixia con mano dura a las instituciones que la gente establece y forma libremente. Cuando esto pasa, todos sufrimos la pérdida de esa diversidad dramática y creativa de la vida nacional institucional que ha formado esta gran nación.

Continuaremos oponiéndonos al mandato HHS que obligaría a las instituciones de la Iglesia a pagar por medicamentos contraceptivos y abortivos. Nos opondremos a los esfuerzos por imponer una conciencia secular en las instituciones religiosas. Y continuaremos sirviendo a los pobres a través de instituciones caritativas sin importar su raza, religión, país de origen o estatus legal.

The Feast of Corpus Christi, and Religious Freedom.

The Feast of Corpus Christi is one of the most beautiful solemnities on the Church's calendar, and it is a feast-day to which I am particularly devoted. I truly believe that whenever we honor, praise the glorify the Lord in most Blessed Sacrament of the altar, He responds with a generous kindness to us. His presence is itself the beginning and end of that kindness.

Every year, since I arrived in the Diocese, I have had the grace of celebrating the Corpus Christi Mass at the Cathedral, or in one of its mission chapels, and then leading a Eucharistic Procession through downtown Brownsville, concluding with Benediction. This year we began with Mass at IC Cathedral at 6 pm, Sunday Evening, and processed with canopy, incense and the faithful singing, and praying the rosary. We went first to the church if Saint Thomas, and then to Sacred Heart. I was deeply edified by the faith and devotion of the parishioners. And deeply moved by how young and old, and all ages in between participated in this expression of the faith of the Church.

Speaking of which,...

I think it is worth noting that we processed through the streets (after securing the proper permits), and not on the sidewalks. The Church is in the city, and in the community, and in the country, she is not a private entity relegated to the sidewalk, and we certainly do not want to be limited to walking around the sacristy. The Church and her Lord have a place in the public realm, as do all non-governmental institutions in our community.

Processing through the streets is a sign of a larger reality, however. It is one of the great blessings in our country that individuals and institutions are free to live and grow according to the best lights of their conscience, so long as this life and growth does not injure the good and peace of others. (That is why permits are often needed to have public processions. Somebody has to re-direct the traffic). Our society has traditionally recognized that it is good for us all to have healthy and vibrant churches and civic institutions, and associations. All have a place in the fluid societal associations that make up our human relations in this country. Thus the VFW can have parades, the Ancient Order of Hibernians can march on Saint Patrick's Day, and the local football team can be honored with a parade after a championship game. None of these are government institutions. And yet they are institutions of people who freely associate to make their contribution to the greater good of the local and national community.

The government helps our community and national life when it seeks to keep the public sphere a free and unencumbered place. It is an important governmental role to protect the rights of different groups to live and grow in a free society. The government, however, hinders the good of the wider national society when it tries to dictate what an institution must do in order to deserve being a contributor to the overall good. Let not the government tell the VFW what it's code of honor should contain in order to qualify to help Veterans. Let not the government tell Hibernians what it takes to belong to the Irish. And, let not the government tell the Church what it's moral conscience ought, or ought not allow when administering our schools, universities, hospitals, and charitable organizations.

What is at stake in the Church's current struggle to defend religious freedom against government encroachment? Many things, but one of the most vital is the preservation of that wide space in our society and culture where free peoples and institutions can operate, persuade, cooperate and compete. When the government treads too heavily on the public operation of non-governmental institutions, it stifles and strong-arms the institutions that people freely choose to establish and form. When this happens, we all suffer the loss of that dramatic and creative diversity of national institutional life that has made this a great nation.

We will continue to oppose the HHS rule that would force the Church's institutions to pay for contraceptive and abortifacient drugs. We will oppose efforts to impose a secularist conscience on religious institutions. And we will continue to serve the poor through our charitable institutions without regard to their race, religion, country of origin, or documentary status.

The Most Holy Trinity, and Families

We are made unto the image and likeness of God, Scripture tells us. And from Augustine, through Saint Thomas, to Von Balthasar, and into our own time, the teaching of Scripture has moved the great souls to ponder and delight in this truth. It speaks of our dignity as creatures, and of our capacities as creatures called to  share the divine life. Augustine wrote of our memory, intellect and will as the created likeness that grace sharpens into image; Saint Thomas contemplated the flow of the word from the human mind as it understands something, and the spontaneous love that follows upon our understanding. And in this he saw an image of the Trinity. The Augustinian-Thomistic tradition looks inward and sees the human soul’s dynamic ability to know and to respond in love to what it knows. This is the likeness in us that mirrors, however opaquely, the dynamic in the Triune God. The Father knows himself perfectly in the Word, and the inner Trinitarian response to the beauty and goodness of the Word is the eternally concurrent flow of the Holy Spirit.

Building on this traditional perception of dynamic movement of knowledge and love in the Godhead itself, Von Balthasar, I think, provides an additional insight. Between human persons there is a flow of knowledge and love, and this interpersonal relationality bears also a kind of likeness to the Godhead. Let me try to illustrate in a clumsy but, I hope, not useless way, what Von Balthasar is aiming to have us contemplate.

Parents and Children: I sometimes think that parents don’t fully appreciate that the most important thing that they give their children, they give before they know they are giving it. Moms and Dads make spontaneously funny noises to their newborn children, and before long older brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmas and granddads are all doing the same thing. Goo, goo, goo, we say, or we make funny clicking sounds with our tongues. All of this is called nonsense, and hence no word at all, but they are words. A word is a sound that bears meaning, after all. These noises that we direct to babies are very meaningful, perhaps the most meaningful of all our human words. For they say to the child, “you have our attention, we love you, we are glad you are here.” The noises continue for some time, but there is a moment in the life of the family when someone says: “look, she smiled”. Inevitably, a grump in the room will say “no, she just burped.” But we all wait for the smile, because we want a response. It is the most natural thing in the world to want a baby to respond somehow to all our noises that mean “we love you” with a smile. And the smile says back to us: “I get the message, thanks, I love you too.”

I say this is the most important thing children receive from the adults around them because it assures them that the world is not a lonely place. It is a good place, where big people are looking out for you, and are giving you attention. A child does grow to know this. And a child does, sooner or later, give a smile in response. And the smile means exactly what we think it means: Thanks, I am glad to be here, and I love you too. To know we are loved is the prerequisite for knowing how to love back. It is the dynamic that makes human families strong, and life vibrant.

If we worry about what is going to happen to our kids in the future, we have only to ask ourselves how many children have no one to give them attention they need at the earliest moments, and beyond. The world does not have too many children; on the contrary, we have too many adults who have no time to make baby noises to the next generation when they are in the crib. Of course, it cannot stop with making baby noises; we need to accompany our young people with words and actions that continue to reinforce this fundamental truth: “you have our attention, we love you, and we want you to know that we are glad you are here.” We give this gift so that a baby or a young person can happily give a response, a smile in return. Without this dynamic in family and community life, human relations fall apart. Human beings simply cannot learn how to love unless they are loved first. Our love is always a response to a prior love that we have known and experienced.

This dynamic in human relations is also a way in which we mirror, however vaguely, the inner dynamic of God’s Trinitarian life. The Word is known by and knows the Father, and the Spirit is the love that eternally erupts in the knowledge of this sublime perfection of divine goodness. And it is this inner Trinitarian life that swoops down into our world in order to save us. For the Father has sent us his Word in the flesh, and his whole Person is an expression of the simple, irreplaceable truth that the Father loves us, that he has our attention, and that He is happy we are here. And we hear this Word directed toward us in Christ Jesus, and by holding fast to the mystery of faith, we get the message, and something spontaneously wells up in our hearts. This is the gift of the Spirit, who makes us able to smile back at the Father with a word of love.  

I hope it is not disrespectful to suggest that the mystery of faith is all about God directing baby noises to the human race, so that we can be assured in our childishness that someone really big is glad we are here, and that He is looking out for us. The sad alternative to responding with the smile of faith to these most meaningful of words is to live in this world with the unhappy thought that we are alone, orphans, abandoned and completely on our own. In Christ Jesus, my friends, we are given more than enough assurance that God has our attention.

As God is in himself, so He acts to save us. The Word breathes love, and knowledge of the Word causes love to spring up in us in its most graced manifestation. We were made in his image and likeness precisely so that we could grow in grace to know how much God loves us, and—in grace--  to love him in return. Amen.