August 24, 2023 at 6:00 a.m.
Lifting up our loved ones
Life is a journey. All us human beings take this road from our first to our final days on earth. Few make the journey without facing detours, even roadblocks. Like a driver without a GPS, or even a map, many find the challenges daunting, often discouraging. Whether by our own choices, or the sins of others, we can find ourselves in a virtual labyrinth, where promising turns end up being a deceit. To whom can we go to set our course aright and pick us up when we have been wounded, and left to lie — to die — alone?
Without a clear goal and a road plan to lead us there, we might seem to be abandoned to fate, our destiny little more than our genes and pedigree. In short, what has happened to us, the ditch that the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” have thrown us down into. We might attempt to regain control, struggling out of the covetous quicksand designed to pull us down, denying or striving against our past, but without some light to lead us, we will easily sink down again, losing our way.
Life may also be viewed as a pilgrimage. Most commonly, the pilgrim’s way is to a holy place, be it Mecca, Jerusalem or Rome. The goal is to arrive at a site that somehow signals hope, salvation, an ideal way of life that deep down we all feel called to. It is customary at funerals to speak of decedents as going to “a better place.” If accompanied by religious faith, that prospect becomes more than a euphemism for oblivion. Our vision is rooted in the long Judeo-Christian narrative of a deep and most intimate belief in a personal Creator who loves the human race, each and every person, as uniquely formed in the image and likeness of God. This belief informs us that every human life indeed does have a future, that it is reached in God’s presence and, therefore, does not end at death.
The pilgrimage, however, is not only about reaching a holy destiny, a good end, but leading a holy life. God is the most inclusive of all, we believe, for it is God’s will that all of us should be saved. Unless we throw barricades in God’s way, refusing to pray, to listen for God’s voice, and turning to various idols and false gods — those would be our sins — “amazing grace” will lead us home. A Christian life is, by definition, one centered completely around Jesus Christ. And Jesus has poured out upon his Church, the sacramental life that offers communion with him, his disciples on earth and even the saints of heaven.
To breathe the rarefied air of heaven, however, we must develop the spiritual lungs, so to speak, and acclimate our hearts and minds to the life of heaven. God does not expect us to do this alone. In fact, we cannot go it alone. So Jesus gives us himself! He commissioned all his disciples to tell the whole world about this good news, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Mt. 28:16-20). So important is this baptism, that it can be administered with pure water even by one who does not fully accept the doctrines taught by the Church, so long as they follow the form and wish to do what the Church does, what God does through the sacramental actions.
The pilgrimage to heaven begins with baptism, but it does not end there. We need companions along the way and benchmarks to assure us we are not losing our path. Jesus himself is that companion, our best friend for life (“I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,” Jn. 14:6). He is present to us in the sacramental life of the Church because he wanted us to experience his love in very concrete and perceptible ways. That is why he instituted the ministry of priests, who preside over the Holy Eucharist, at Mass, and represent the forgiving Father in the peace-giving Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. In moments where we are faced with serious illness, or surgery, not only near the time of death itself, priests anoint the faithful with the soothing Sacrament of the Sick.
Deacons also participate in the administration of sacraments. They can preach, celebrate baptisms and officiate at the Sacrament of Matrimony. Only bishops administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders and are the ordinary ministers of Confirmation. A bishop does not cease being a deacon and a priest, because each of the three stages of Holy Orders — diaconate, presbyterate and episcopacy — is built on the former. If anything, these steps are not elevations, but each is a descent into the depths of humble service and sacrifice, in imitation of the life of Jesus himself. Recall that at the Last Supper he got down on his hands and knees to wash the feet of the Apostles, commanding them to do the same to one another and those to whom they would be sent. Apostle means “one who is sent.”
The prime ministry of priests is to sanctify, to lift others up to God on their spiritual journey, so that all may reach our goal, the eternal life of heaven. All the faithful can rightly be called “a priestly people” by virtue of our baptism. All of us, by prayer and fasting, service and sacrifice, including specific actions like the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, are invited to participate in the priestly service of the entire Church. The ordained, however, have a very specific charge to celebrate the sacraments and preach the Word of God which, by Holy Orders, they are assigned to, in response to a vocational call discerned among and affirmed by the community of faith.
Clearly this is a call for which no man is worthy, nor capable of following without superabundant grace and the continual support of the Christian community. All of us struggle with a propensity to stray and to sin, sometimes grievously so. Our priests are human, too. A priestly vocation includes no exemption from every temptation to vice that the worst sinner in the world is capable of. Jesus himself was tempted, not only in the desert, but throughout his entire life. The taunts of the evil one did not end even on Calvary: “if you are the son of God, come down from the cross” (Mt. 27:40).
The life of a priest is never about himself but for those whom he serves, to whom he is sent. This week as we accompany our brother, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, on the final steps of his pilgrimage toward the One whose judgment seat we will all face at the end of our earthly journey, and commend him to the Father of all mercy, we pray for him and for all those who, throughout the course of his life as priest, bishop and friend, were inspired and encouraged along their own journey, especially those who received the sacraments through the active years of his diaconal, priestly and episcopal ministry.
Priests are called to sanctify, to “make holy,” to lift others up to God. As all priests are human, broken men, in need of redemption themselves from their own sins, we also pray for those who in any way were hurt or wounded by any priest they may have encountered. It is a terrible cross for anyone to bear — the cross of suffering created by a priest who did not bring sanctity but rather the harm of his own failures. We can help one another. We can pray for each other and walk patiently together. Ultimately, we must lean into Jesus to help us bear such a cross and to bring justice and restoration where there has been none. You and I may be the only Christ some person may ever know! For all our own unworthiness and sense of inadequacy, we pray for the grace and courage to accompany all the wounded, all survivors, meeting them wherever they are on their pilgrimage to the loving arms of the God of all mercy.
We join with everyone who can see this moment as an occasion to pray for all priests, living and deceased, and those they serve or have served, to lift up our minds and hearts to the one God who alone knows our hearts and seeks the salvation of us all. No matter where we may be on our spiritual journey, our pilgrimage to heaven, God meets us exactly where we are. Whatever may be our struggle, our memories, our past, we are more than what has happened to us, the detours we have wandered into or the pits to which the sins of others may have cast us. The message of Jesus on the cross — a God who dies for us — reminds us that no matter how far we have fallen or been cast down, he is there to meet us, embrace us and lift us up. May this be our prayer: “Jesus, as a child of God, help me to trust in you as my friend and savior. You alone are my hope!”
@AlbanyDiocese
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