Fr. Tom Cassidy , provincial superior of the U.S. Province, gave the homily at the jubilee Mass on July 11. His text appears below:
Blessed is the man who does not walk
In the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the way of sinners,
Nor sit in company with scoffers.
Rather, the law of the Lord is his joy;
And on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
Planted near streams of water,
That yield its fruit in season.
Its leaves never wither;
Whatever he does prospers.
So begins the first psalm which serves as an introduction to the entire psalter. It is also one of the earliest biblical examples of a beatitude. A beatitude expresses both a wish and a statement that God’s blessing be upon a person or an object.
Today we celebrate with men, who through their years of living out their vows while serving God’s people in various and many ministries, are like those trees planted near streams that have yielded much fruit.
These men who are celebrating 25, 50 and 60 years of religious life, like the young Samuel, were attentive to their own divine call many years ago. I am sure, each one of them would explain it as coming in a unique and very personal way. Not, perhaps, as we find with young Samuel in the middle of the night, but just like Samuel, who with the assistance of Eli’s human intervention, finally understood that: The next time God calls you are to say, “Speak, Lord for you servant is listening.”
“Speak Lord your your servant is listening” is something each one of these men felt in his heart as he searched out his divine calling. “Speak Lord,” is something these men continue to repeat daily as they strive to be faithful to that divine invitation, meditating on [it] day and night.
Just as the divine call is very personal and unique so too are the gifts that each one of these men brought to his vocation. Just as there are many gifts in the body of Christ, as Paul reminds us today, so too are found many gifts in our jubilarians: a carpenter, a fund raiser, a librarian, a pilot and a bishop; pastors and missionaries. We are so pleased that Bishop Joe Potocnak, retired bishop of DeAar, South Africa, and Tom Fix of the Indonesian Province by way of India, are a part of the group we honor today. Likewise we welcome Donatus Kusmartono and Vincent Suparman, both from the Indonesian Province, celebrating their 25th anniversary of vows with us. Kus will return home this fall after completing his MA in Education Administration at Cardinal Stritch University, and Vincent will become a missionary in our own province, joining the Lower Brule/Crow Creek Pastoral Team that includes his countryman Christianus Hendrik — just as soon as Homeland Security finally, finally grants him an R-1 Visa!
Joe and Tom, along with Hendrik and Vincent, remind us of a time in which our province sent men to mission territory, first to South Africa and then, for a time, to Indonesia. And now, in turn, our Indonesian SCJs are assisting us in our important work among the Lakota of South Dakota.
Whatever ministry our jubilarians have done in the past, or are doing presently, has always been guided by the Gospel we heard today. When the US bishops wrote their pastoral letter on the economy they placed their letter squarely on the shoulders of these same Beatitudes.
We write [said the bishops] to share our teaching, to raise questions, to challenge one another to live our faith in the world. We write as heirs of the biblical prophets who summon us ‘to do the right and to love goodness, and walk humbly with your God’ (Mi 6:8). We write as follows of Jesus who told us in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are the meek…Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness….You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world’ (Mt. 5:1-6, 13-14). These words challenge us not only as believers but also as consumers, citizens, workers, and owners.
Just as the bishops infused their document with the spirit of the beatitudes so too Our Rule of Life calls each and every SCJ to profess the Beatitudes. Building on Lumen Gentium #31 that states: By their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the Beatitudes (LG 31).
[And so Our Rule of Life #40 picks up this theme stating] to express and actualize our full consecration to God, and to unite our whole life with the oblation of Christ, we profess the evangelical counsels through the vows of consecrated celibacy, of poverty and of obedience (cf. LG 44, PC 1), which free us for true love in accord with the spirit of the Beatitudes.
In closing, I would like to quote from a delightful book I recently picked up: Jesus with Dirty Feet: A Down-to-Earth Look at Christianity for the Curious & Skeptical by Don Everts. Jesus [he writes] was a man with dirty feet. He spent most of those three years walking around with people. He invited folks to become his intimate followers.
The message of Jesus, according to Everts, can be summed up in just two words: FOLLOW ME. The young Samuel followed his Lord’s call in the middle of the night. Paul followed the Christ he confronted on the road to Damascus. Our Jubilarians follow the same Jesus who calls them still to live up to a code of conduct they first promised to follow 60, 50 or 25 years ago. That code, simply put, is The Beatitudes.
It is no easy task to live this code of conduct, for as Professor Paul Boers reminds us, “the Beatitudes are constantly in danger of becoming churchy clichés we repeat but don’t ponder.”
Which kind of gets us back to were we began with a beatitude that is both our wish and our belief for our jubilarians:
Blessed is the man who does not walk
In the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the way of sinners,
Nor sit in company with scoffers.
Rather, the law of the Lord is his joy;
And on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
Planted near streams of water,
That yield its fruit in season.
Its leaves never wither;
Whatever he does prospers.
