By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily at the Mass where he installed Father Albert Lahens, Jr., as pastor of St. Edward Church in Pembroke Pines, Sept. 14,2024. Father Lahens served as administrator of the parish since June 2021.
In the years that Father Albert Lahens has been with you at St. Edward, he has learned much as a parochial vicar to Father John Peloso and more recently as your parish administrator, and he is willing and able to learn more as he continues to dedicate himself to you as a zealous pastor of souls. He has already come to love this community and wishes to continue to serve you. And he has no other agenda than to proclaim to you Christ crucified and yet risen from the dead.
And so, I am happy then to formally install him as your pastor today – which means you’ll get to keep him for a while. We formally give him the title of pastor – of course, the responsibilities and the headaches are the same as when he was just “administrator” – and so is the salary.
We pray that God, who called him to the priesthood and in doing so, began a very good work in him, will bring that work, through his service in this parish, to even greater fulfillment.
Today’s Gospel reading is taken from the 8th chapter of St. Mark. This is about halfway through Mark’s Gospel. In the preceding chapters, we witnessed the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when he gathered a group of disciples to himself, and he went about Galilee doing good through some remarkable miracles.
As I remind my priests, Jesus didn’t start off talking about the cross; he started off by first making friends, establishing relationships with the people, people whom he met at their level, speaking their language.
I tell my priests that because too often it seems in our contemporary pastoral life we start off with the cross. For example, a young couple comes to a parish rectory inquiring about arrangements for a wedding and instead of being congratulated by the priest or more likely the parish secretary, and instead of perhaps asking how they met and thereby establishing some connection with them, the couple is asked, “Are you registered here? Do you use the church envelops?” You see what I mean, too often we start off with the cross.
I think this is perhaps the genius of Pope Francis. He understands that evangelization is first about an encounter. “Come and see,” Jesus tells those first disciples. They come, they spend time with him, they follow him because his personality, his words, his deeds are attractive. In a word, they experience the Joy of the Gospel.
But as they continue to walk with him, he forms them into his “disciples” — and “disciple” means essentially a student, and students inevitably are given “tests” by their teachers. And so, in today’s Gospel reading — halfway through the Gospel of Mark — Jesus springs a pop quiz on his disciples, his students.
Jesus asked his disciples: Who do people say that I am? After hearing their replies as to a broad gamut of public opinion about his self, Jesus then asks them: Who do you say that I am? Both questions are important — both for the apostles and for each one of us today. They are defining questions — if we are to understand and to embrace our call to be — in the words of Pope Francis — "missionary disciples."
Again, to be effective and credible missionaries we must be faithful and committed disciples. We must know who Jesus is. In asking his apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus is not looking for an opinion — rather he is looking for an affirmation of firm faith, an affirmation that Peter, speaking for the rest of the apostles, gives.
“Who do you say that I am?” is the basic question whose answer defines our relationship to the Church and to the person of Jesus Christ. To make Peter’s faith our own is what makes us Catholic. “You are the Christ” is the first creed of the Church — the other creeds grow from it — and it is through that creed which gives expression to the faith of Peter and the Apostles we can come to a true knowledge of who Christ is — a true knowledge that is not just knowing something about Jesus but is the knowledge of knowing Jesus. We can come to know Jesus because we believe what Peter believed — namely that Jesus is the Messiah of God.
Certainly, to be disciples we must know the Lord — but if we are also to be missionaries, we also must know the people to whom we are sent. And here the other question on Jesus’ quiz is also important: “Who do people say that I am?”
Peter and the apostles answered with an early Palestinian version of an opinion poll. What Peter affirmed of Jesus was born of faith; but the crowds merely opined. The missionary disciple today must be ready to give an answer for the hope that is his or hers — but he or she does so in a world that is often indifferent to faith because it thinks it already knows. But lest we talk past those to whom we announce Jesus Christ, and for us to engage the world into which we are sent, we must understand not only what people have to say about Jesus and his Gospel but why they say what they say.
But as we reflect on today's Gospel reading, we might ask why Jesus, after eliciting from the apostles a profession of faith, would tell them not to tell anyone about him. You would have thought that they would be wanting to shout out from the housetops that they had found the Messiah. And of course, one day they would. But Jesus first wanted the apostles to understand what his being the Christ meant not on their terms but on his terms.
Peter got the title right when he recognized Jesus as the Christ, but he got the meaning wrong — which is why Jesus told them then "not to tell anyone."
For the apostles then and for us now, the task of discipleship is accepting God’s terms and not insisting on our own. And here is where the cross comes in. To carry one's cross today often just means to endure some difficulty with patience. But in Jesus' time, carrying one's cross meant accepting a death sentence: to follow Jesus meant that life as you knew it was over.
So, to proclaim Jesus is the Christ of God requires more than just some short-lived enthusiasm. “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Jesus is telling us that a faith without the cross is no faith at all; at least, it is not a faith that can save. Salvation will come through sacrifice, the sacrifice that awaits Jesus on Calvary. And for our part, self-denial and cross-bearing describes what it means to follow Jesus. Following Jesus — that is, to associate with a Christ who will be rejected — means taking on an identity and a way of living that poses a threat to the world's corrosive ideologies and idolatries.
These ideologies and idolatries create very turbulent waters for the Barque of Peter and for those of us who travel on the ship that is the Church. Yet we should never give into a spirit of pessimism, to paraphrase St. John Paul II in speaking of today's youth, people today — whatever their possible ambiguities — have a profound longing for those genuine values that find their fullness in Christ. "Is not Christ," asks John Paul, "the secret of true freedom and profound joy of heart? Is not Christ the supreme friend and the teacher of all genuine friendship? If Christ is presented to young people as he really is, they will experience him as an answer that is convincing and they can accept his message, even when it is demanding and bears the mark of the Cross."
Father Lahens, as your pastor, is to be a faithful steward of you, the people entrusted to his care, and he is to dispense to you — with single minded and wholehearted devotion — the means of grace by preaching the Word and administering the sacraments.
Father Lahens, love your people with a shepherd’s heart and feed them, lead them to Christ and teach them gently by word and example. Be a sower of hope in this congregation by present Christ as He really is.
Dear people of St. Edward’s, Father Lahens has been entrusted with the “care of your souls,” which in Latin is called “cura animarum.” He is to carry out his duties “not with a spirit of cowardice, but rather of power and love and self-control” (cf. Timothy).
This care of souls is a threefold task: first, he must teach you faithfully what the Church believes and teaches. He doesn’t speak in his own name, but in the name of Christ; second, he must lead you, like the Good Shepherd, to safe pastures; and third, he must bring you to greater holiness.
In the confessional, in the Eucharist, in the anointing at Baptism, Confirmation and in the care of the sick, Father Lahens will strengthen you in the grace that will have you grow in holiness before the Lord.
Father Lahens, I am sure, will serve you well as he has already done; and he will serve not by calling attention to himself but by calling attention to the Lord; he will serve not by seeking his own interests but by putting first God’s will and his people’s good and well-being; he will serve not by trying to please everyone, for one who tries to do so usually ends up pleasing no one; rather, he will serve you best by trying to please the Lord in all things.
