By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily during the graduation and commissioning ceremony for ecclesial lay ministers, held June 4, 2016 at St. Mary Cathedral, Miami.
One of the ancient fathers of the Church once said the New Testament is hidden in the Old; and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. And so today’s first reading provides the background for St. Luke as he tells us how Jesus raised the widow’s son to life. Both scripture readings place before us people in trouble, people in pain, people enduring unspeakable loss.
In the first reading, Elijah � a great Hebrew prophet � is trying to escape famine and drought; an elderly widow is preparing a last meal for herself and her son, and though earlier Elijah had miraculously provided for them, her son dies. She blames Elijah who doesn’t run away but stretches himself over the boy’s body and prays that God restore him to life; which God does and the widow then acclaims Elijah as truly a man of God.
Drought, famine, untimely death: even today the poor, especially in the underdeveloped world, face these scourges. For the poor, whether in Elijah’s time, or in Jesus’ time, or in our own day, life can be brutish and short. And most of the time, those who are not poor pretend not to notice or care.
In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is approaching a village when he sees a funeral procession coming out. A funeral procession coming out of a village was nothing extraordinary � it was every bit an ordinary part of everyday life. Jesus could have walked past the funeral, nobody would have objected, nobody would have noticed or cared. But Jesus is moved at the sight of the widow; he is not indifferent to her pain, her grief � and at his word of command, the young man sits up and talks.
Again, as I said, the Scriptures today place us before people in trouble, people in pain, people enduring unspeakable loss � for to bury a child is a parent’s most dreaded and dreadful suffering. Yet, the “good news” in these Scriptures is that we see people who bother about other people. They do not distance themselves from other people who are in pain.
In the first reading, the poor widow shares the little that she has with a hungry prophet and he in turn shares the touch of life with her dead son. In the Gospel, the neighbors of the widow share their sympathy with the widow who is now very alone in life. And in the middle of this, we find Jesus who does not let loss and grief pass him by. He is touched by the pain of others; he is not indifferent; he is not aloof. And the power of his word gives new life and new hope. As I said, the good news is that we see people who bother about other people.
As Catholics, knowing Jesus Christ by faith is our joy, following him is a grace and passing on this treasure to others is a commission that the Lord has entrusted to each one of us, in calling us and in choosing us in our baptism. A faith that brings joy � and faith that seeks to be passed on, to be shared � demands that we be those people who bother about other people just as Jesus bothered about the widow of Naim. This faith is the antidote to the “globalization of indifference,” to use a phrase that is often on Pope Francis’ lips, an indifference that closes us within ourselves and within our own little worlds.
The Joy of the Gospel is not meant to be a sedative that would prevent us from being sensitive to the misery around us. Joy is not about the avoidance of pain and suffering � true joy will never be diminished by bothering about other people. Experiencing the joy of knowing ourselves loved by God allows us to draw nearer to those who are suffering and alleviating their pain.
This evening we commission � or recommission � a number of ecclesial lay ministers. I thank you for your commitment and I pray that your commitment will be for you � and for the people you will serve � a joy, a grace, a treasure received and shared. Whatever the particular ministry you are engaged in, it is fundamentally a call to you to be people who bother about other people. Not people who bother other people � but people who bother about other people.
I thank you for your generosity � a generosity already shown in your commitment to formation, a generosity that will continue as you take up your specific ministry in your parish community. Your involvement in lay ecclesial ministry has required of you an exercise of great stewardship � balancing the demands of family, work and Church � as you give of yourselves and your time, talent, and treasure for the building up of the Kingdom.
And building up the Kingdom requires more than just good will � it requires planning, preparation, training and formation. Too often, and this is because of the demands placed on us and the immensity of the challenges before us, we in the Church have contented ourselves with “improvising on the fly.”
And a lot of times pastoral ministry can seem a bit like battlefield medicine � since we encounter those wounded in the struggles of life, and since they are so many out there needing our help, we sometimes are forced to do some triage. Take care of the emergency now � and we do the clean-up later on. The Church is, as Pope Francis is fond of saying, is like a “field hospital.”
But we should take care that those we send to treat the wounded � whether one is a highly trained surgeon and another is a lowly orderly � are well prepared and competent at what they do. I am convinced that if we are to evangelize seriously we have to take up the task with seriousness that planning, preparation, training and formation imply. We should give our best � God and his people deserve no less.
You are commissioned to act in the name of the Church by the delegation of your bishop in a specific ecclesial lay ministry. In a very real way, you become my co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord. Our first priority is to make Jesus Christ known, loved, adored, announced and communicated to all; and we do that best when we are people � like people we encounter in today’s scriptures � who bother about other people.
