Homily for Beginning of New Academic Year at St. Patrick’s Seminary
Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart
Readings: Ez 34:11-16; Ps 23:1-6; Eph 3:14-19; Jn 19:31-37
Introduction
As some of you may know, I have recently returned from a brief trip to Nigeria. My purpose in going was to ordain priests at the invitation of Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, which I did last Saturday. Makurdi is in Benue state, the central region of Nigeria, where the Fulani – Islamic jihadists – are persecuting the Christians, slaughtering them in droves and forcing them off their land. What little that is reported of this here in the West is fanciful to the point of absurd. They actually want us to believe that the reason for this massacre is not religious persecution but climate change.
Persecution
Their made-up a story is that the land in the north (the predominantly Muslim area of the country) is more arid now due to the warming of the earth, so the people have to move south to continue their farming and ranching, and do so by stealing the land from the people already living there, who happened to be mostly Christians.
That does not explain, though, why the two-million internally displaced people inside of Nigeria are all Christians. Nor why the terrorists would attack a temporary village of internally displaced people, slashing them with machetes and burning down their village, and then leave. I saw the aftermath of that with my own eyes. I say this in order to paint a picture for you of the dire situation there, and which hit me in a profound way as I was ordaining these priests, fourteen of them.
They were being sent into a dangerous world. And there was a powerful reminder of that right there at the site of the ordination. The Ordination Mass took place at the top of a hill where Bishop Anagbe is building a pilgrimage center. The Mass had to be held outdoors because there is no church in the Diocese large enough to accommodate the many thousands of people who attended. At the top of that hill, a few yards away from where the ceremony was taking place, lies a graveyard, in which are buried seventeen people – fifteen laypeople and two priests – who were slaughtered inside of a church while Mass was being celebrated.
Blood of Christ and Blood of Martyrs
I cannot get these thoughts out of my mind, and as I was reflecting on what to say in this homily for this Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart, it made me think of how the blood and water flowing from Christ’s side continues to flow in the blood of martyrs in every age. And we can see that meaning hidden in the text of St. John’s Gospel describing the scene if we look close enough, specifically, if we look at the way the Greek text is translated in Vulgate. St. John tells us that “one soldier thrust his lance into [Jesus’] side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” Immediately: the Latin word which the Vulgate uses to translate the Greek eὐthús is continuo. Now, it has always caused me to wonder: why continuo and not statim? Yes, the two words are synonymous, but statim is the more commonly used one. I surmised that there must be some nuance of meaning here. And so – and I’m sure you will not be surprised, word nerd that I am – I decided to finally look this up. (Since I’m preaching here to a seminary and not a parish, I can get away with indulging myself in such academic exercises from the pulpit, and so I’m going to do so.)
The adjective from which the adverb continuo is derived is, of course continuus (or for you Latin purists, continuus, -a, -um). This adjective conveys the sense of connecting with something, or something going on without interruption. There is also the adverb continue¸which regards the sense of continuity in space or time, whereas adverb continuo conveys more the sense of something that immediately follows after something else specifically in the dimension of time, an uninterrupted series of events one after another.
The meaning, then, is that, in this world confined by time, the blood and water that pours out from our Lord’s heart on the Cross gushes forth immediately and also always. He was wounded out of love for us, and it is the blood and water flowing from his wounded side that heals us. It continues to flow, always; and it repeatedly, continuously flows in the blood of the martyrs in every age of the Church.
Permanent Indwelling
Lest we understand this in some sort of a macabre or sadistic way, though, we must connect it with another sense of continuity, or permanency. This is what St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Ephesians. He exhorts his fellow Christians in Ephesus “to be strengthened with power through [God’s] Spirit in the inner self … that Christ may dwell in [their] hearts through faith …” It is the word “dwell” that is the key here. The Greek word katoikein means to settle into a place, into one’s permanent residence, a home, not taking up a room at an inn from which one will soon move on. Our hearts are supposed to be a home for Christ. He must feel at home there, a place where he will want to stay.
This corresponds to what St. Paul says earlier about the “inner self,” by which he means our reason, our conscience and our will, the deepest part of who we are. Christ is to enter into the deepest recesses of our being and find a happy home there. And the only way for that to happen is for us to do the work of cultivating the interior life. For people in places like Nigeria (and there are many other in the world), their circumstances force this on them. In every age God chooses a people to be the means through which Christ’s blood flows immediately and continuously in this world of time through the witness of the martyrs.
It is now Nigeria’s turn. But I noticed a curious irony when I was there. Life is hard in Nigeria, there are many things the people do not have much of. Safety, security and peace, yes. But many other things as well, that, common to poorer nations, they do not have much of: reliable electricity; reliable running water; clean drinking water; paved streets; efficient government; free and fair elections; dignified housing. The list goes on and on. The irony is, though, something else on the list of the things that Nigeria does not have much of: mental illness.
In Our Circumstances
What about us? We live in very different circumstances. But perhaps there is a different kind of persecution going on here, a less noticeable one, one that affects us on the inside. We live in a land of affluence, but awash in depression, anxiety and loneliness. Why? Because Christ is not at home deep down inside of us – as a society, and too many individuals within our society. The home deep down inside is uninhabitable, and will continue to be so without cleaning it up – that is, cultivating the interior life.
Nothing can be more important, of more consequential significance, in the life of the priest than that, for when all is said and done, to be ordained and sent out as a priest is always a dangerous endeavor, even in the most peaceful of times. Without the interior life, a priest can settle for mediocrity, for indifference, and can easily, even unwittingly, slide into leading a comfortable, superficial life. The path of Priesthood is dangerous not simply because in doing so the priest jeopardizes the state of his own soul, but also, and even more so, because of the harm caused to souls, harm to the spiritual well-being of those to whom the priest is supposed to give pastoral care.
Christ’s blood flows continuously through the blood of the martyrs; and that includes the white martyrs. Christ’s blood will continue to be poured out through you when you suffer for the price of fidelity to be his priest. Times of weakness; times of betrayal and lack of support when you are trying to do your best – from brother priests, from the people you serve, and maybe even from your bishop; times of failure; times when prayer becomes more of a burden than a delight, and the people you serve more of an annoyance than the sheep for whom you are called to lay down your life; times when you receive no recognition for the heroic sacrifices you make to do the right thing and preserve integrity in faith and morals; times when your opinions and advice on matters of major importance are dismissed as nonsensical; times when you suffer contempt for being a publicly recognized representative of a truth to which the culture in which you live is hostile – so hostile that it will blame the wholesale massacre of Christians on climate change!
Conclusion
Christ’s blood is poured out through you when, at such times, you do not turn your back on the one into whose Priesthood you will have (please God one day) been ordained, but pick yourself up and keep moving toward him; when you turn to him for his abundant mercy, especially in the sacrament; when you continue to set aside quiet time to spend with him one-on-one, even when it seems like he is not listening or speaking.
A faithful priest suffers a quiet, invisible shedding of Christ’s blood – perhaps we can say he is washed with the water that gushes immediately and continuously from his glorious pierced heart, which cleanses the greatest depths of his being, making it spic-and-span so as to be a welcome, pleasing home for Christ to take up his permanent dwelling place. And dwell there he will, if the priest perseveres in such fidelity, until the day he reaches the end of his long, dangerous and sometimes twisted earthly pilgrimage, and hears the words of welcome from his priestly Lord: “well done, good and faithful servant, come share your Master’s joy.”
