Today, we are starting our first Youth
Mass, which we will have the first Sunday of every month. Today, we also kick off the Year of faith
that Pope Benedict has declared for our Church.
The Year of Faith officially starts on October 11, which coincides with
the 50th anniversary of the convening of the Second Vatican Council
and also the 20th anniversary of the publishing of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church. On October 11 of
this year, Pope Benedict will convene a special synod in Rome that will address
the new evangelization that we need in the world.
I find it both wonderful and appropriate that
today we hear part of the creation story from Genesis in our first reading this
morning. God creates the universe as a
fruit of his goodness, as a fruit of his creativity. We can imagine how God created the universe
and all of creation because he did not want to be alone himself, just as he
imagined that man would not be alone and how man needed a partner. The birds of the air and the wild animals of
the earth did not provide an appropriate partnership, so God created both man
and woman.
As I mentioned, we are celebrating our first
Youth Mass today. One of the things that
the Second Vatican Council emphasized was our need to dialogue with our world
and to make our faith relevant to all that is going on in our lives. That is one thing I cannot stress enough,
especially to the youth and the children of our parish. Our Catholic faith is so rich in our teachings
and traditions. As a part of our faith
and our spirituality, our Church attempts to address many different aspects of
our lives and of our world. You will get
a brochure and a magnet today, giving us suggestions as to what we can do to
fully celebrate our Year of Faith.
Taking time for daily prayer, worshipping wholeheartedly at mass,
studying the teachings of our Church, and reaching out to the poor and
marginalized in our world are some of the things we can do to celebrate this
year.
We can look at this creation story that we hear
today from Genesis from different viewpoints, which is the richness of our
Catholic faith and our Catholic traditions.
Just this past week, our Church recognized the feast of St Francis of
Assisi, one of our beloved saints, and the patron saint of our parish of St
Francis which we had for many years here in Yazoo City. Even
though Frances of Assisi was born in the late 12th century more than
800 years ago, his teachings still speak to our modern world and still seem so
fresh and new. A friend sent me this
book called Care of Creation, which is a Franciscan spirituality of
ecology and caring for the earth. The
early Church rejected the philosophy of Gnosticism, which it later declared as
a heresy. Gnosticism saw the material
world that we live in as being inferior to the world of our spirits, with us
needing to gain salvation from the material world in which we live here on
earth. The Church, however, saw the
world as intrinsically good as a part of God’s creation. Francis of Assisi saw a unity between human
beings and all of creation. He saw the
sun and wind as his brothers, the moon and water as his sisters. In recent years, as we have become more aware
of how human beings have had a destructive affect on our environment, our
Church has developed a spirituality of being stewards of God’s creation in the tradition
of St Francis, of how to translate the spirituality of recognizing God’s
presence in all of creation to individual and societal acts we can promote in
order to better be stewards of the earth and of all God’s creation.
When Pope Benedict declared the Year of
Faith for our Church, he stated that our “faith grows when it is lived as an
experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of
grace and joy.” Benedict goes on to say
that our faith “makes us fruitful, because it expands our hearts in hope and
enables us to bear life-giving witness.”
Our faith opens our minds and our hearts to the invitation that our Lord
Jesus gives to us, to follow his Gospel and to become his faithful disciples.
I want to challenge all of us, especially our
children and youth, to find ways to grow in our faith this year, to use our
faith as a way to evangelize others. All of us need to decide how we are going
to live out Christ’s message – even those of us who are priests need to make
that decision. Some of the youth might
wonder why I spend so much time in prison ministry, as I usually go out to the
prisons at least a couple times a week, and sometimes even more. In fact, just this Saturday I visited four
different groups of prisoners at two different prisons. As disciples of Christ, we are not to stay
here in our parish and not evangelize to the world. Rather, Jesus sends us out to the world to
reach out to others. And you can
imagine, the prisoners are in great need of Christ’s Gospel of new life and
hope. Not everyone is called to the same
ministry. You need to discover where God
is calling you to use your gifts and talents to serve him and to serve others. I know that this afternoon you youth will be
visiting Sis Sanford, who has been homebound for a long time. I know she will be so happy to see you and to
visit with all of you. And I really see
this as a way you are ministering to others and living out the Year of Faith.
We will hear a lot about the Year of
Faith as the year progresses, and will find ways to live it out as individuals
and as a community. Take this leaflet on
the Year of Faith home. Read over it,
and then read over it again from time to time as we journey through the Year of
Faith. This will be an exciting year for
us, for us to grow in our faith and to find ways to help evangelize
others.
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