"THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST"
SILVER JUBILEE HOMILY
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DIOCESE OF LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA
The Feast of St. Mark, the Evangelist
April 25, 2005
The Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D, S.T.D.
Bishop of Lake Charles
Dear People of God:
"This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!"
Jesus of Nazareth is the reason why the Diocese of Lake Charles exists. Jesus, the Christ of God, is the reason why the Catholic Church is in Louisiana. Jesus Christ and the good news of His life, teachings, wondrous signs, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension are the reasons why the Catholic Church exists all over the world. He is the reason why we are gathered here this morning. Christ Jesus is the reason why our hearts are full of wonder and gratitude for the pontificate of Pope John Paul II and why we rejoice in the continuity and hope of this first week of the pontificate of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, to whom we pledge our prayers and fidelity.
The history of our first twenty-five years is ultimately the history of individuals, families, neighborhoods, parishes, and communities striving to live out their baptismal commitments to "put on Christ." For a quarter of a century the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, working in the sacraments, has renewed and transformed the People of God by Divine grace, reminding us that Christ is the sacrament of the encounter with God and we are called to be the sacrament of the encounter with Christ. Ours is the history of all of the People of God getting up each day facing joys and sorrows with a renewed commitment to loving God with all of our hearts and to loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.
"This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!"
As far as we know the first Catholics to venture into Southwest Louisiana, were Spanish soldiers commanded by Jose de Evia, who led an expedition into what is now the Diocese of Lake Charles in 1785. Fourteen years later, in 1799, Martin LeBleu, a native of Bordeaux, France, migrated from Virginia with his family to the Spanish colony of Louisiana and became the first settler in the area. He built a modest house on the Calcasieu River.
The first record of the celebration of the Eucharist in what would become our diocese is dated 1850 when priests began to visit the little community huddled on the banks of the lake for the first time. At that time the Rev. P.F. Parisot, OMI, visited Southwest Louisiana. He had migrated from France to Texas at the request of Bishop J.M. Odin of Galveston, and was assigned as a missionary of the Beaumont area in East Texas. Because all travel was by horseback or ox cart, Archbishop Antonine Blanc of New Orleans asked Bishop Odin if the Beaumont missionaries could minister to Catholics in Western Louisiana.
This missionary period of the church in Imperial Calcasieu came to an end in 1869. Archbishop Odin, who had been transferred from Galveston to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, established St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lake Charles. The Archbishop appointed the Rev. Francois Magniny as Pastor of the new parish. St. Francis became the "Mother Parish" of Southwest Louisiana around which much of the Catholic history of Imperial Calcasieu centered for years to come. Eventually, the Diocese of Lafayette was erected in 1918.
Sixty-two years later His Holiness Pope John Paul II announced the erection of the Diocese of Lake Charles on January 29, 1980. It was one of the first dioceses erected by the youthful pontiff in the early years of his pontificate.
In the spring of 1978 Bishop Lawrence P. Graves of the Diocese of Alexandria asked Archbishop Jean Jadot, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, if he could petition the Holy Father for an Auxiliary Bishop to assist him in caring for the faithful in the Diocese of Alexandria. While the Catholic population was not huge the sprawling area was very large. The following August Archbishop Jadot asked Bishop Graves and Bishop Gerard L. Frey of the Diocese of Lafayette to consider the possibility of restructuring the dioceses in Southwest and North Louisiana. When Bishop Frey traveled to Rome later that year for his Ad Limina visit to the Holy See, he further discussed restructuring with the Congregation for Bishops.
Archbishop Jadot sent Monsignor (later Archbishop) Clemente Faccani, from the Apostolic Delegation to Louisiana in February of 1979 to discuss the restructuring with clergy and lay people of the affected area.
When I made my Ad Limina visit to the Holy See in December 2004 I discussed these developments with Archbishop Faccani, who lives in retirement in the Domus Sanctae Marthae where the College of Cardinals lived during the recent conclave. The Archbishop remembered the history well and spoke of how much he enjoyed his brief visit to the area. The Holy See wanted him to determine the feasibility of establishing a new diocese in Southwest Louisiana. He knew that there were strong feelings for and against depending on which communities would be affected and how the boundaries of existing dioceses would change.
Archbishop Faccani recalled the graciousness and warm hospitality of the Christian Faithful in the region and he observed that there was more enthusiasm for the erection of a new Diocese of Lake Charles than there was for dividing the Diocese of Alexandria.
Later Archbishop Jadot sent his recommendations to the Holy See. Pope John Paul II decided not to divide Alexandria at that time. The Pontiff did, however, erect the new Diocese of Lake Charles and this Church of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1913, was designated as the Cathedral. He appointed Monsignor Jude Speyrer, Vicar General of the Diocese of Lafayette, to be the founding Bishop of Lake Charles.
Archbishop Jadot, in his 95th year, lives in retirement in Brussels, Belgium. I have known him since I was a graduate student at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. I visited him two years ago and he was happy to hear of the vitality of our diocese. He asked me to express his prayerful good wishes to you on this Day of Jubilee.
Since the newly designated cathedral was not large enough for the Liturgy of Episcopal Ordination and Installation for Bishop Speyrer, The Lake Charles Civic Center was used instead. On April 25, 1980 it was filled with the Christian faithful, bishops, civic, and religious leaders from Lake Charles and beyond. John Cardinal Cody, Archbishop of Chicago and former Archbishop of New Orleans, who had ordained me a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago ten years earlier, was also present.
Looking back on the many memorable accomplishments and outstanding achievements of Bishop Speyrer’s long years of service as our bishop, perhaps we might single out the building of the St. Charles Retreat House and Spirituality Center in Moss Bluff. This Eucharist centered house of prayer and reflection was clearly the apple of his eye. It was dedicated on Sunday November 5, 1995. As a sign of his special affection for this serene environment of prayer, the Bishop made his home on its grounds until his retirement in 2000.
In accepting his new ministry Bishop-elect Speyrer said, in part:
"My appointment as first Bishop of Lake Charles comes as a shock to me. It is with a sense of faith and duty that I accept the Holy Father’s nomination. I am grateful to him for his trust and confidence in me. I pledge to the Holy Father and to the members of my diocesan family that I will serve you faithfully, to the best of my ability."
As we recall your 20 years of service as our Founding Bishop, all of us gathered here see clearly that you served very faithfully indeed! As you celebrate the Silver Jubilee, the 25th anniversary of your Episcopal ordination twenty-five years ago today, we thank you and we salute you, Dear +Jude, for your many years of pastoral service and leadership. Ad multos annos! Gloriosque annos, Vivas! Vivas! Vivas!
"This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!"
The life of our community of faith formally began as a diocese on this date, the Feast of St. Mark. Thus, our history is uniquely linked to the Evangelist, his gospel and through him to Blessed Pope John XXIII and the great Second Vatican Council, which he convoked.
Mark wrote his account of the life of Jesus before Matthew, Luke or John. His style is direct and contains the least amount of elaboration. Omitting any kind of infancy narrative, he begins with the adult Jesus and he immediately arrests our attention with his powerful almost confrontational first sentence that announces his central message. "This is the beginning of the Good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!"It is almost as if he were saying, "Brace yourselves. This news is going to change your life!"
John Mark was a close companion of Peter. Papias, Bishop of Heiropolis in Asia Minor writing around the year 112 said, "Mark, the interpreter of Peter set down accurately everything that Peter remembered of the words and actions of the Lord."
Mark gives us a very dynamic portrait of Jesus through his words and actions, and the responses they arouse in others. He highlights his great energy, firmness, and friendliness, his power of command, his severity, his sympathy, and his tremendous courage. Mark paints a background of a ruthless Roman occupation, of a privileged aristocracy, a religious leadership based on strict fidelity to tradition and the Law, amid emerging political firebrands, religious and political extremists, a depressed people, and a deep longing for deliverance. Mark sets the stage. Jesus’ path will lead inexorably to challenge, conflict, confrontation, and, ultimately, rejection, redemptive suffering, self-sacrifice, and glorification. On Mark’s Feast Day, in a sense our feast day, we can claim his account of the Christ’s ministry as a road map to guide us through the next quarter of a century.
Mark was probably in his early 50's when Peter and Paul were martyred under Emperor Nero in Rome. Eusibius records that Mark eventually became the first Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. His relics were taken to Venice, perhaps as a prize of war, and placed in the Doges’ chapel, now St. Mark’s Cathedral. Angelo Giuseppi Cardinal Roncalli was Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, when he was elected as Pope John XXIII in 1958. He summoned the Vatican Council, calling the Church to open her windows, read the signs of the times, embrace aggiornamento and update the Church, enter dialogue with the modern world while remaining completely faithful to Christ and the magisterium.
As one educated for the priesthood during the exciting days of the Council, I have tried to serve as your bishop in complete fidelity to the teachings of John XXIII’s historic Council as interpreted by Pope John Paul II.
The last words of Mark’s gospel are the ones we heard this afternoon, the same ones many of you heard in the Civic Center twenty-five years ago today. "Go into the world and proclaim the good news to all creation." These words have been our guide for the past five and twenty years and they are our mandate for years to come.
The Church of Lake Charles begins its second quarter of a century with a new Holy Father, Benedict XVI. In the months ahead he will give to you a new Bishop to lead you and guide you. I know that you will welcome him and embrace him as you have welcomed and embraced me.
It is not for me to recount or to evaluate my own efforts during my years as your bishop. It is sufficient to say that I have been grateful for the many extraordinary opportunities that I have had to serve and build up the Church during my years of pastoral leadership here. I have tried to rise each morning with my heart and energies focused on how best to serve you. I have spoken from your pulpits with the Sacred Scripture in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other, knowing always that it is the Scripture that has the power to challenge, illuminate, and transform the morning headlines. I have been nourished each day with you by the Bread that ‘breathes" and the Wine that "bleeds." I have retired at the end of the day serenely thanking God, knowing that I had done the best I could.
From a certain perspective the most significant "spiritual" events during our years together have not been specifically ecclesial events. I believe that two of the most significant spiritual events took place in 2001 and in 2004. They were both terrifying. The first event on September 11, 2001, that terrible day, when commercial passenger jets became instruments of death destroying the World Trade Center, damaging the Pentagon, and violently incinerating three thousand innocent people, is burned into our minds forever. It was followed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and for some a perceived conflict between the "west" and Islam. That horrific day brought an end to our ‘age of innocence’ and raised many profound and unanswered questions in the human spirit. At first, some asked in dismay, "Is God on our side?" In time the deeper question emerged, "Are we on God’s side?"
The second event was on a date, which, alas, we may have already forgotten. On Sunday, the day after Christmas, December 26, 2004 an 8.9 magnitude earthquake occurred on the seafloor in the Indian Ocean near northern Indonesia. The earthquake generated a huge tsunami wave, hitting the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and even Somalia on the west coast of Africa. This cataclysmic tsunami swallowed up more than two hundred and fifty thousand people in a matter of hours as the world watched in helpless horror. Significantly, the suffering and death unleashed by this eruption of nature was far greater than that of September 11, 2001. But the emotional response in our country was far less. Perhaps this was because it was not the work of fellow human beings but, as they say, ‘an act of nature’ on the other side of the world. In its wake an old woman was seen walking by the now calm sea and cursing its waters demanding. "Where is God?" "Where is God?" "How can a good God let this happen?" Others suggested these horrors were a manifestation of Divine wrath. "God is not pleased with the sinful, materialistic ways of our world today. In His anger He destroys the innocent with the guilty!" Others dismissed this as anthropomorphic superstition.
The easiest response to such incomprehensible event is to put them out of our minds with a quick prayer of gratitude that they did not happen to us or to those we love. But such horrors require more of us. They did happen to us and to those we love. They happened to our fellow human beings. I believe these events call forth the profoundest thought about the meaning of Christian faith and the deepest prayer. Not only must we do what we can locally to diminish conflicts between cultures, faiths and peoples and assist those who have suffered unspeakable losses, but we must also be open to maturing spiritually and face a challenging and disquieting truth. God is not God the way we would be God if we were God! And we must turn with renewed trust in prayer and contemplation in the wondrous Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and to Mark’s Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Today is a day to acknowledge with deepest gratitude all of those who have made our Local Church so vital during the quarter of a century that has raced by. You, the Christian Faithful in all of our parishes make the Church the Church. From your generous families of faith have come the selfless sisters, the Women Religious who daily do more good than can be measured. From you have also come our faith-filled deacons and their wives who are making indispensable contributions to the life of our diocese. From you have come our spirit-filled priests who call forth and serve our Eucharistic communities. The unselfish service of all of you makes it easier for the Bishop to lead and build up the Body of Christ.
We are happy to be joined today by the gracious presence of Brother Bishops. We are honored that our Metropolitan Archbishop, The Most Reverend Alfred Hughes of New Orleans, is with us. Archbishop Hughes has been a true friend and understanding confidant for many years. His predecessor, Archbishop Francis Schulte, who installed me as Bishop of Lake Charles, has been generous supporter and wise guide for even more years. Other bishops from the Province of New Orleans and beyond are here as well. We are deeply appreciative of your support and your presence on our Day of Jubilee.
We are particularly grateful for the presence of representatives of Christians of other Traditions, representatives from Temple Sinai, and for the presence of the Imam, Ahmed El Mamlouk and members of the Islamic Center of Lake Charles. We welcome various civic leaders, especially our friend, dear Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach and his wife Nancy.
"This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God!"
Jesus of Nazareth is the reason for our Silver Jubilee. We celebrate and give thanks to God for all of our journeys of faith on this Festive Day.
As we believe, so let us live.
May all those who look upon us the Church of Lake Charles
Say in all sincerity;
See, see how they love one another.
And wherever we go, whatever we do
May the report go round about
That the poor are clothed,
The hungry, fed,
The sorrowful, comforted
And all creation proclaims
The wonderful works of GOD!
"Greet one another with a holy kiss. To all of you who dwell in Christ, Peace." (1Pt. 5, 14)
Amen!
