Bishop Braxton's Homilies

"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!
 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is taken from a series of Lenten homilies given by Bishop Edward K. Braxton to seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in the Archdiocese of New York in 1987. They were later compiled into a book entitled “Saint Augustine of Hippo: A Man for All Seminarians.” Although prepared for men studying for the priesthood in mind they offer to all of us points to consider in our own vocations.

Scripture Readings: 2 Kgs. 5:1-15
Lk 4:24-30

“No prophet gains acceptance in his native place.”

The young man is trembling with fear. He has come to see you, his parish priest, directly from the doctor’s office. He is desperate. The doctor has told him he has Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He wants your help. Can you help him? You sigh deeply. You ask him to pray with you. You celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation. You bless a basin of water. You look him in the eyes and tell him to go home, tell no one of his illness and drink a cup of this consecrated water every morning for seven days; on the seventh day, he will be healed. The man, tortured to his soul, looks at you in utter amazement and disbelief. As he hastens to the door, leaving the basin behind, he mumbles that he has plenty of water at home and drinking it will not combat his fatal illness.
I suspect that it is a rare priest indeed who would put his faith to the test this way. And it would be an even rarer parishioner who would see any merit in obeying the simple instructions given by the priest in this story.
Yet, Naaman’s leprosy was the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome of its day, and Elisha was God’s servant. His instructions surely seemed as unbelievable as those that I have just suggested.
This is why we can all understand why Naaman’s faith was hesitant. The command to wash seven times in the Jordan River simply did not make much sense to him. There were plenty of rivers in Syria and no doubt he had bathed his leprous body in them often. Elsiha’s request seemed unreasonable. It was unbelievable that the mere act of a ritual purification could cure his deadly disease.
While most of you may not try your hands at faith healing, you may find that your ministry of teaching the Christian faith in the contemporary world will be met with suspicion, skepticism, and unbelief. In our materialistic, technological and scientific culture, the Jewish and Christian faith traditions are seen by many as simply two more products out there in the market place, competing with all the others. For many, especially among the well educated, traditional religious faith is out of the question. Indeed, Bernard Cardinal Law, the Archbishop of Boston, the American member of the Holy Father’s commission to prepare the international catechism, has noted that one of the main concerns of the commission is to develop a document that is written with a keen appreciation of the wide-spread reality of unbelief. The bishops have found that religious belief is very difficult in our day for many people, whether they are first, second, third world inhabitants.
This is the case, at a time when expressions of secular faith seem to abound. Every day, even the most agnostic people live their lives in an environment that presumes a certain faith in humanity, faith in science, faith in technology, faith in progress, faith in capitalism, faith in America, even a vague faith in the generalized mythology of television commercials. The reason many people were so shocked by the Shuttle disaster, so amazed by the Iran Arms Affair, and so annoyed by the Wall Street financial scandal is that these events go against their basic unquestioned faith in the political, commercial and scientific systems that surround them.
In the Mediterranean world of the 4th century in which Augustine lived out his own faith, the questions of belief and unbelief were often formulated in terms of the relationship between faith and reason. As Pope John Paul II explains in his Apostolic Letter on Augustine, this is perennial and vexing problem. “One must pass safely between two extremes, between the fideism that despises reason and the rationalism that excludes faith. Augustine’s intellectual and pastoral endeavor aimed to show, beyond any shadow of doubt, that “since we are impelled by a twin pull of gravity to learn, “both forces, reason and faith must work together.” (cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Augustine of Hippo, Origins, p. 285)
Augustine was always attentive to the Christian faith, but he also placed a great importance on reason. Each had its own particular primacy. He felt that it was necessary to believe in order to understand. But it was necessary to believe in order to understand. But it was necessary to understand in order to believe. When he wrote of his love of the Church, he gave some of the reasons for his faith. “The consensus of peoples and races keeps me in the Church, as does the authority based on miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, strengthened by its ancient character; likewise the succession of the priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted the care of his sheep after the resurrection, down to the episcopate of today; finally the very name of the Catholic Church keeps me in her, because it is not without reason that this Church alone has obtained such a name amid so many heresies.” (cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Augustine of Hippo, Origins, p. 285)
It is important to note that when Augustine gives the reasons for his Christian faith they are always dynamic, organic and, in a sense, personal. No one of them, nor all of them together are sufficient to convince another person to become a Catholic, in the manner of a rational and purely logical argument. For most people reasons alone are not definitively persuasive in matters of religion. Faith is not the result of a steel-trap exercise in logic. If it were, there would be no need for faith. Indeed, those who actually met Augustine and experienced his living faith might well have been more inspired to join the Church than those who simply examined his argument, rigorous as they are, apart from the person.
This is because of the complex and interdependent relationship between faith and reason. Christians do not come to believe in the Church because rational arguments and evidence are so conclusive that they could not do otherwise and remain persons of reason. Theologically speaking, faith is certain because of the authority of God revealing. But from the point of view of unaided reason, faith involves the risk that one’s beliefs might be incorrect.
This is not unlike the experience of intimate friendship and love. When two people become very close friends, or when a man and a woman decide to marry, their relationship is not the automatic result of a logical process. Indeed many people outside of the relationship might not be able to see what two people find to be so appealing in each other. Potential friends do not compile a list of the ten irrefutable reasons for loving someone and only then decide to love them, based upon the certitude of reason.
What seems to happen is that little by little we grow in a profound relationship. Perhaps without even realizing it we gradually realize that we love and are loved in return. Sometimes the graphic image “fall in love” is used to describe this process. Now, when we actually love someone, we can reflect upon the relationship and see that it is reasonable that we should have grown to care for this person. But the reasons do not produce the reality of love. Indeed we may also be able to think of “objective” reasons why we should not have grown so fond of them. The reasons of faith, like the reasons of love are, at least in part, the reasons of the heart.
This means that you as future priests will be called upon to be like St. Augustine and witness to your faith with your minds and your hearts. Glean all you can from the treasury of the Catholic intellectual tradition. Study well the thoughts of Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Ambrose, Anslem, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, and Francis de Sales; the teachings of Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II, Leo XIII, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. Study the writings of Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Danielou, Cardinal de Lubac, Gerard Manley Hopkins, G. K. Chesterton, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Thomas Merton, John Courtney Murray, Bernard Lonegran, Karl Rahner, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy. The recovery of a distinctively Catholic intellectual tradition in America could make a distinctive contribution to the combating of what University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom has called the impoverishment of the souls of American students, in his recent book, The Closing of the American Mind.
However, for many of your future parishioners, the reasons of the heart may have a special importance. They may be more interested in how prayer has been important in your life than in theories about the effectiveness of prayer. The importance of the sacrament of Reconciliation for you personally may matter far more to them than any theories that you can recall about the metaphysical nature of sin or the ontological implications of the redemption. As Catholics we have no reason to be uncomfortable with personal testimony. This is not somehow the exclusive prerogative of the Protestant traditions. But if the priest is to be effective in giving personal testimony that is truly his own, yet authentically Catholic, he must know himself and the Catholic tradition. And he must know both well.
To speak from the heart about your relationship with Christ and the power of the Spirit in your life is not always easy. You must not only know what you know about faith and know what you think about faith, you must also know what you feel about faith. Few people can express such feelings without a certain degree of personal vulnerability.
You are bound to startle some of your people. The reasons of the heart are profoundly disclosive. They are not constituted by coherent, abstract, logical schemata that allow one the security of distance and non-involvement. Faith is not the place for the spectator, it is the domain of the participant. The reasons of the heart flow from the stuff of our interiority. They are the result of a dynamic orthodoxy that is sustained by a genuine orthopraxis.
You may never be an Elisha who is called to cure Naaman’s leprosy. But you will be called every day to do wondrous deeds. You will call your people together to hear God’s Holy Word. You will offer gifts with and for them at the altar. You will bless the cup of salvation and break the bread of life. You and your people with you must use light-filled eyes of faith and reason if you are to behold wine that bleeds and bread that breathes.
No priest can shrink from this prophetic responsibility. Like Jesus you may find that some of the people from the old neighborhoods of your life will find you unacceptable. They may be filled with indignation, rise up to expel you from the town. For no prophet gains acceptance in his native place.
You will be called upon to proclaim God’s word in season and out of season. You may have your dry seasons when you will pray with Augustine “Lord I do believe. Help thou my unbelief.” But always remember that if the Catholic Church is to reach the people of our day, the Church must proclaim Elisha’s faith while understanding Naaman’s doubts. If I may paraphrase Cardinal Newman, it will not satisfy to have two independent systems, one for the life of the mind and the other for the life of the spirit. The priest in the year 2000 must be profoundly religious. But this same devout priest must be the friend of intelligence.

To apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint.
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love.
Ardour and selflessness and self surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unsee, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is
Incarnation.

T. S. Eliot
Four Quarters

18 November 2001

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is reprinted from a series of Lenten homilies given by Bishop Edward K. Braxton to seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in the Archdiocese of New York in 1987. They were later compiled into a book entitled “Saint Augustine of Hippo: A Man for All Seminarians.” Although prepared for men studying for the priesthood in mind they offer to all of us points to consider in our own vocations.

Scripture Readings: Dn. 13: 1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62
Jn. 8: 1-11

“Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her.”

Considerable critical acclaim but little popular recognition, have greeted the works of Louisiana novelist Walker Percy. Many scholarly analysts in the literary world, however, believe that Percy may be the best Catholic novelist of our time. One could use his novels as a point of departure for a course on Catholic theology or for an exploration of the decline of spirituality in what Alexander Solzhenitsyn has called the exhausted West. For his vision is not only rigorously Catholic, it is splendidly, uproariously catholic, as well.
Walker Percy’s books unabashedly tackle the themes of modern man’s abandonment of faith in God and the widespread rejection of the spiritual dimension of the human person. As a result, in Percy’s view, many people now worship at the altars of science, technology and sociology. His novels are thus preoccupied with sin, perdition, forgiveness, redemption, grace and free will.
In Percy’s most recent work, The Thanatos Syndrome, something of a sequel to Love in the Ruins, there is a passage in which the central character, Dr. Tom More, an indirect descendant of Sir Thomas More, is asked a rhetorical question by a priest, his friend, Father Smith: “Do you know why this century has seen such terrible events happen? The priest proceeds to enumerate some of these events. “The Turks killing two million Armenians, the Holocaust, Hitler killing most of the Jews in Europe, Stalin killing fifteen million Ukrainians, nuclear destruction unleashed, the final war inevitable?” Father Smith then answers his own question. “It is because God agreed to let the Great Prince Satan have his way with men for a hundred years – this one hundred years, the twentieth century. And he has. How did he do it? No great evil scenes, no demons – he’s too smart for that. All he had to do was leave us alone. We did it. Reason warred with faith. Science triumphed. The upshot? One hundred million dead.”
All Satan had to do was leave us alone. We did it ourselves. This may have been equally true in past ages as well. While we cannot bring about our salvation, our free will allows us to choose our damnation.
Percy’s themes of free will, sin, forgiveness and eventual redemption are the turning point of the scriptures we have just heard. In the story of Susanna, the elders who lusted after her and tried to force her to be unfaithful to her husband, Joakim, are ultimately trapped and destroyed by their own lies. The decision to lie is the result of their own free will. The elders, in the gospel, who would stone the woman caught in adultery are reminded of their own past free choices to sin. (“Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone.”) They have the good sense to walk away. Both of these biblical stories are told with a narrative force and integrity that far surpasses most popular novels and primetime television programs which often, unfortunately, treat marital infidelity in a manner that implies a total lack of moral responsibility for our free choices.
St. Augustine of Hippo, who 1600 years ago today was but a few days before his Easter Baptism, examined this question of free will, sin and forgiveness in the context of the classical debate on grace and freedom. A crucial part of his complex thought is summarized by Pope John Paul in his Apostolic letter. “While defending liberty one can give the impression of denying grace and vice versa. One must therefore believe in their compatibility just as one must believe in the compatibility of the two entirely necessary offices of Christ, who is at once savior and judge, for it is on these two offices that freedom and grace depend: ‘If then God’s grace does not exist, how does he save the world? And if free will does not exist, how does he judge the world?’” (cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Augustine of Hippo, Origins, p. 288)
Augustine enfleshes this tension between grace and freedom in his writings in The Confessions about the power of lust in his personal life. His narrative, which reads like a novel, echoes the stories that we have heard this morning from the Book of Daniel and the Gospel of John. Describing his own free choice to give in to his lustful urges he writes: “What was there to bring me delight except to love and be loved? But that due measure between soul and soul, wherein lie the bright boundaries of friendship, was not kept. Clouds arose from the slimy desires of the flesh and from youth’s seething spring. They clouded over and darkened my soul, so that I could not distinguish the calm light of chaste love from the fog of lust. Both kinds of affection burned confusedly within me and swept my feeble youth over the crags of desire and plunged me into a whirlpool of shameful deeds. Your wrath was raised above me, but I knew it not. I wandered farther away from you, and you let me go. I was tossed about and spilt out in my fornications. I flowed out and boiled over in them, but you kept silent. Ah, my late-found joy! You kept silent at that time, and farther and farther I went from you, into more and more fruitless seedings of sorrow, with a proud dejection and a weariness without rest.” (cf. The Confessions of St. Augustine, Image Books, John K. Ryan, Translator, pp. 65-66)
He continues by noting the way in which he sought in vain to escape from God. “I, poor wretch, foamed over: I followed after the sweeping tide of passions and I departed from you. I broke all your laws, but I did not escape your scourges. For what mortal man can do that? You were always present to aid me, merciful in your anger, and charging with the greatest bitterness and disgust all my unlawful pleasures, so that I might seek after pleasure that was free from disgust, when I could find it, it would be in none but you, Lord. For you fashion sorrow into a lesson to us. You smite so that you may heal. You slay us, so that we may not die apart from you.” (cf. The Confessions, p. 66)
Augustine readily acknowledges that he has indulged his sexual appetites. However, he is not like the elders, in the story of Susanna, who wanted to conceal their sinfulness. He is more like the woman caught in adultery. He is remorseful of his freely chosen sinfulness and he seeks forgiveness. Augustine experiences genuine gratitude because even though he may have abandoned God, God has not abandoned him. God remains for him and for us the Hound of Heaven.
St. Augustine’s mediations on grace and freedom, sin and forgiveness, today’s scriptural are reflections on sin and forgiveness and Walker Percy’s concerns about the rejection of God and perdition have been dominant themes of the scriptures during these days of Lent. The Johanine stories of the Samaritan woman at the well, the story of the man who was blind from birth, and the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, that we heard earlier, are all from the St. John gospels, as is today’s account of the woman caught in adultery. As narrative theology, these dramas are unsurpassed in their powerful portrait of the titanic struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, life and death that are the central theme in John’s gospel, the book of signs.
The same struggle is waged in each of our own personal lives. In the Eucharist we are assured of the presence of Christ as our light, our good, our life, our grace and our forgiveness. Christ never wrote a book of any kind that is known to us. Today’s gospel contains the only scriptural mention of his writing anything. “He bent down and began to write, tracing his finger in the sand.” It is tantalizing to try to imagine what he might have written.
It is easy to suggest that he was writing down the grievous sins of the accusing elders. However, what he might have written about those who were seeking the death of the adulterer is not very important. We would do better to contemplate what Christ might write in the sand about each of us. What might he write that would cause each one of us to drift away from those at whom we are tempted to cast the first stone of accusation and moral judgment? Because he knows us better than we know ourselves, Christ could write the pages of our own most personal stories. These would be pages of a novel more profound and more important to us than anything anyone else could write. They would be so telling that, on the one hand, we would be most eager to read them and, on the other hand, we might wish never to read them.
While it is unquestionably true that Christ could reveal each one of us to ourselves by writing in the sand before our feet, it is we ourselves who are writing our own life stories. The choices we are making, no less than those of Susanna, the adulterer, the elders, Augustine or the characters in Percy’s novels, are defining us as the one and only editions of ourselves.
During these final days before Palm Sunday, before we go up with Jesus to Jerusalem, let us read carefully the pages of our own soul. Are we ready for Jerusalem? Are we ready to go with Christ and stay with him after the hosannas have died down? Are we ready to recline with him at table and receive bread and wine that are food and drink indeed? Are we ready to obey the new commandment and continue the ministry of the washing of the feet? Are we ready for the garden and the agony? For the scourging and the crowning? For the cross, the passion and the dying? Are we ready for the tomb, the silence and the vigil?
Are we ready to open up our hearts to everyone we meet and say Jesus Christ is the Way? If we are ready, then his story becomes our story. And it is the greatest story ever told!

24 November 2001
 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is taken from a series of homilies given by Bishop Edward K. Braxton to seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in the Archdiocese of New York in 1987. They were later compiled into a book entitled “Saint Augustine of Hippo: A Man for All Seminarians.” Although prepared for men studying for the priesthood in mind they offer to all of us points to consider in our own vocations.

Scripture Readings: Is. 42: 1-7
Jn. 12: 1-11

“The chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, because many Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him on account of Lazarus.”

Ronald Reagan can count on one thing for certain when he leaves the White House. There will be a flood of biographies analyzing every detail of his presidency. He may very well contribute an autobiography of his own. Friends and foes alike would be amazed if any one of these books made no mention whatsoever of the Iran Arms affair. The event was of such magnitude that no biographer could expect to be taken seriously if he or she omitted it. This is especially true because of the close relationship between the President and some of the key players in this controversial affair.
The Lenten scriptures frequently remind us of the close relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and Lazarus of Bethany. Certainly, the resurrection of Lazarus was an event of great magnitude in the public life of Jesus. Yet, no mention is present in the Synoptic gospels. Scholars speculate as to why it is found only in John. It may be significant that John and Lazarus had a similar relationship to Jesus himself. Perhaps John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who rested his head on his chest while they were at the table, was particularly sensitive to the close friendship between Jesus, Lazarus, Martha and Mary. That sensitivity is apparent in today’s gospel in which a special banquet is prepared by the close friends in honor of Jesus in Bethany. The gospel tells us that Martha served Jesus, Mary anointed and perfumed his feet, and Lazarus reclined at table with him. Every time Martha, Mary and Lazarus are mentioned in the scriptures, it is obvious that Jesus had a very special relationship with them. They were not mere acquaintances. He cares about them very deeply. He loved them. The only mention of Jesus crying, other than the Agony in the Garden, is when he weeps at the tomb of Lazarus.
Some Christians give the impression that they are uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus had genuine, personal, human relationships. They would rather suggest that he maintained a detached, impersonal, universal love for all people. He could not have had friends in the ordinary sense of the word. Yet, if Christ, in his earthly life, was a man like us in all things but sin, then it follows that he must have had real and genuine friends. He must have entered into the complex web of human emotions and entanglements that are necessary for an authentic relationship. He may have taken great comfort, support and understanding from Martha, Mary and Lazarus as he went up to Jerusalem for the momentous final week of his earthly life.
As each one of you already knows well, your response to the fundamental need and desire for friendship is a reality you must integrate into your life. Much of that integration, though by no means all of it, will take place during your formative years here in the seminary. In time you will come to appreciate the paradox of your fatherhood when you realize that in your parish you are the welcomed guest of every family, but you are a member of none. We each know, at the time of our ordination, that our commitment to presbyterial ministry is such that we are forsaking the wonderful joy, fulfillment, and companionship of a wife and children. We also know that our love for the Church, our personal relationship with Christ, our love for God’s people, the support of fellow priests and the laity, and God’s grace itself strengthen us for this commitment.
However, some priests seem to have concluded that in order to be faithful to our ministry and in order to avoid becoming too close to anyone, the priest should be a loner, with no significant relationship with anyone. They have even suggested that this is an imitation of Christ himself. This has resulted in an implicit psychology and even a cryptic theology of the priest as the mystical cowboy.
According to the “theology” of the mystical cowboy, the priest is not unlike the enigmatic hero in Jack Shafer’s justifiably celebrated novel Shane. Shane rides into town, finds out who the bad guys are, runs them out of town, has a glass of milk, and then rides off into the sunset. By now all of the town’s folk have grown very fond of him. They lament his leaving, crying “Come back, Shane. Shane, come back!” Shane, however, seemed to be completely oblivious of their great affection and love for him. His most significant relationship seems to be with his horse.
This kind of rugged independence in which no one knows us as we are is sometimes proposed as the ideal for the priest. However, I do not believe that there is anything in the gospels to suggest that Christ, who is our example in all things, lived in this way. The scriptures make it abundantly clear that he was personally involved in the lives of his disciples and friends. John, Mary, Lazarus, and Martha were real, individual human persons to him and not merely souls to be saved.
St. Augustine, who struggled to rid his life of inappropriate relationships, has written eloquently of his relationships with his friends. One passage, in The Confessions, in which he speaks of the death of a dear friend, is particularly illuminating. He writes: “During those years, when I first began to teach, I gained a friend, my equal in age, flowering like me with youth, and very dear to me because of common interests. As a boy, he had grown up with me, we had gone to school together, and had played games together. But in childhood he was not such a friend as he became later on. Our friendship was sweet to us, made fast by our ardor in like pursuits. This man was now wandering with me in spirit, and my soul could not endure to be without him.” (cf. The Confessions, p. 97)
Commenting on his friend’s untimely death from the fever, Augustine writes: “Behold, you took the man from this life when he had scarce completed a year in my friendship, sweet to me about every sweetness of that life of mine. My heart was made dark by sorrow, and whatever I looked upon was death. My native place was a torment to me. Whatsoever I had done together with him was, apart from him, turned into a cruel torture. My eyes sought for him on every side. I hated all things, because they no longer held him. To myself I became a great riddle, and I questioned my soul as to why it was sad and why it afflicted me so grievously, and it could answer me nothing. Only weeping was sweet to me.” (cf. The Confessions, p. 98)
After some time had passed, he wrote: “Lord, these things have now passed away and time has eased my wound. Am I able to harken to you, who are truth, and to turn my heart’s ear to your mouth, that you may tell me why weeping is sweet to those in misery?” (cf. The Confessions, p. 98)
These are not the words of a priest whose friends were only his pals. These words do not speak about a superficial relationship. Augustine is not writing about someone with whom he only played basketball, with whom he only went to the movies, with whom he only played cards, with whom he only discussed Church politics, with whom he only compared rectory accommodations, with whom he only played golf, with whom he only shopped for vestments and clerical attire or with whom he only explored ways to put away enough money to buy a condominium in Florida for a comfortable retirement.
St. Augustine is mourning the death of a friend. Just as John, Martha, Mary and Lazarus were really Christ’s friends, this man was really Augustine’s friend. This must mean that they really knew one another. They might have wasted time together, as only true friends can, in the old neighborhoods of their lives. They shared the major truths of their lives with one another. They occupied a common soul space. He must have hoped that he would be in his life for his life. Thus, they do not simply laugh and play together. They could count on each other’s encouragements as they grew in their faith and as they matured in their vocations. If this man was Augustine’s friend, surely they would not have looked the other way if one of them had a problem with drugs, alcohol, sexuality or important aspects of his commitment to his ministry. They must have argued, cried, grieved and prayed together.
As priests we are all fortunate if we have a few true friends who know us face to face, with whom we share our soul space, who are in our lives for our lives and who help us and challenge us to be the best priests that we can be. But we must work to establish and maintain these relationships that are so important for our development as human persons and as support for our ministries. However, our experience may not be unlike that of the Master himself. Though Jesus had real and true friends, he was abandoned, betrayed and avoided at the crucial hours, at the turning point of his life. Simon, whom he called Peter, the rock, denied that he even knew him to save his own neck. His most certain relationship was with his Father. He counted on this intimate communion with Yahweh whom he called “Abba,” a familiar and loving expression for father. Even if we are blessed with a number of true friends with whom we can be by turns Narcissus and Goldmund we may also be disappointed. There may be crucial hours, turning points of our lives during which we feel abandoned, betrayed and avoided by those who we thought were our truest friends. Absolutely speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ may be our one true friend. He offers us his love and that of his Father. Perhaps God’s love for us is essential for us to love and accept ourselves and perhaps this self-acceptance is essential for others to love and accept us.
One month from today, on May 13, 1987, I will mark the 17th anniversary of my ordination as a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Yet, in my mind’s eye, my days as a seminarian at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, which is called “Mundelein” in the same familiar way that St. Joseph’s Seminary is called “Dunwoodie,” are only yesterday. And since, as Augustine would say, the mystery of time is what it is, life will have its way with you and, for those of you who become priests, the 17th anniversary of your ordination is but a blink away. Though I am profoundly grateful for the gift of the priesthood and though I am thankful for every day that I have spent as a priest, I must confess that my life as a priest has been utterly different from anything that I could have imagined when I was a seminarian sitting in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception listening to visiting preachers, from the outside world, as you do even now.
Since this is the last of my six Lenten mediations with you, the last time that I will preach from your pulpit and break bread at your altar, perhaps you will allow me to speak somewhat more personally. If someone had come to me, during the seemingly halcyon days in the enchanted forest at Mundelein and outlined my future, I would have thought that they were far from the truth. If they had said to me: Edward, after a few years in a parish, you will become a theologian, a writer, and a lecturer. You will teach at Harvard and other universities. You will be invited to give retreats and workshops for priests. You will live in Europe, Boston, Cleveland, Washington, New York and other dioceses as a part of your ministry.”
If they went on to say, “Edward, you will attain most of your spiritual, emotional and intellectual self-knowledge after you are ordained. Your religious pilgrimage will lead to the exploration of the limits of your soul-space bringing you to the edges of your self in moments of profound pain, silent knowing and joy unutterable. You will come face to face with racism which is so widespread in America and which endures in the Catholic Church. You will experience the disquieting frustration and anxiety of approaching your 17th anniversary as a priest while a Roman Catholic is the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in America. At the same time, you will become an active participant in efforts to strengthen the presence of the Church among African Americans. You will become the Official Theological Consultant to a leading Catholic publisher and influence the spiritual development of the millions of young people in America who use their religion books.”
If anyone had said these things would happen to me, I probably would have thought they were dreaming. But now I have lived and am living though these experiences with their great joys and great sorrows, great successes and great failures, great happinesses and profound disappointments. I know this. This much I know. I would not have had the spiritual resources to go through all of these experiences with a fundamental peace at the center without the benefit of true and caring friends. Those whom I call friends are now all in one place, one city or one diocese. They are all in places where I have served. Even though they and I shall never, ever all be in the same place at the same time, they constitute a network that plays a central part in the integration of my life and renews my spiritual being.
First amongst these friends are my dear parents, Evelyn and Cullen, who will mark the 47th anniversary of their marriage on the very day that I mark the 17th anniversary of my ordination. Their example of constancy and fidelity and their prayers have been invaluable to me and my vocation. I hope that each of you, who is blessed to have his parents, know how important it is to know them and love them as a great sadness for priests whose relationship with their parents is merely one of courtesy, duty and obligation.
The circle of my true friends includes believers and unbelievers, priests and lay people, men and women, scholars and pastors, young and old. Though we are separated by these limitations we are bound by a communion that transcends time and space. A 5:00 a.m. phone call from the other side of the world is no annoyance to me. It replenishes my ongoing dialogue with someone I may not have seen in the flesh for two or three years. The afternoon mail may bring a long missive from one whose life and work may be utterly different from my own. But because of a bond forged by easy conversation and mutual disclosure, every word must be read, re-read and savored. Geography is not obstacle, we are united by common meaning, our presence to one another, though not physical, is no less real. And these encounters outside the confines of time and space are brought in silence to the hours of prayer and mediation.
The friendship of which I speak of is not a weak emotional dependence that immobilizes and threatens emotional stability. I speak of a strong relationship of inter-dependence that is not confining but enabling. Such an affection is not possessive. It urges the beloved to go off to his or her work in the vineyard, knowing that there will be all the more to share at the hour of reunion. You may be able to attain these kinds of friendships with each other and with others during these seminary days. Though many priests find that most of their truest friendships are formed when they are more mature, after their years of formation.
Because of our celibate commitment, we may at times feel like Araby in James Joyce’s short story and feel compelled to sign: “I bear my chalice bravely through a throng of foes.” This is why we must be honest and circumspect. Our friends should know who our other friends are. Our spiritual director should know what we are about. Personal prayer and the sacrament of Reconciliation must not be neglected. Most of all we must be mindful that for us Christ himself must be our first and last friend. But we should not seek to be “mystical cowboys.” Jesus was not. And certainly Augustine was not. There are his words:
“What drew me closest to my brothers was the delight of chatting and laughing together; of showing our affection for one another by kindly services; of reading together from books that spoke of pleasant things; …of joking together amicably; of disputing now and then but without resentment, as one is wont to do with himself; of awakening by rare contest the pleasure of being one in mind; of mutually instructing one another; of longing for the absent one, and tasting joy at his return. We loved each other with all our hearts, and these marks of friendship that were shown on our faces, by our voices, in our eyes and a thousand other ways were among us like ardent flames that fused our souls together, and of many made but one.”
In the final words of his Apostolic Letter on Augustine, Pope John Paul II writes: “Finally, I should like to address the young people, whom Augustine greatly loved as a professor before his conversion and as a pastor afterward. He recalls three great things to them: truth, love and freedom – three supreme goods which stand together. He also invites them to love beauty, for he himself was a great lover of beauty. It is not only the beauty of bodies, which could make one forget the beauty of spirit, nor only the beauty of art, but the interior beauty of virtue and especially the eternal beauty of God, from which is derived the beauty of bodies, of art and virtue. Augustine calls God “the beauty of all beauties,” in whom and from whom and through whom exist as good and beautiful everything that is good and beautiful.” (cf. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on Augustine of Hippo, Origins, p. 291)
As you prepare to celebrate the Sacred Triduum, maintain a lively awareness of this extraordinary man who was preparing for his baptism at the hands of Saint Ambrose of Milan, during Holy Week long ago. If you do not know him, I urge you to get to know him. From him you can learn much. Augustine teaches us not to be presumptuous of the perfection of man. Thus, you should not naively prepare for you ordination day expecting to live with the ideal pastor, in collaboration with a flawless bishop, and completely mature fellow ministers, under the authority of a perfect pope for the well-being of saintly parishioners. This will not be the case for the same reason that no seminary is the perfect faith community led by a perfect rector and faculty and made up of the best of all possible seminarians. The reason is our imperfection and sinfulness and our common need for Christ. Augustine teaches us not to be presumptuous of the perfection of man, but to be hopeful of his perfectibility through the grace of Christ. Augustine was a man, a Christian, a scholar, a priest and a saint, what we are and what we wish to be.
Life being what it is, I may never, ever see many of you again. But we will be present together at the altar, in the breaking of the bread and in the blessing of the cup. Our communion will be real when we pray for all of God’s people, wherever they may be. As for me, when I think of you my memories will be happy ones, and when I pray for you my prayers will be full of Joy.

Even though you are young
you may grow weary and faint.
Yes, even in your prime you
may stumble and fall.
But, if you look to the Lord,
you will gain a new strength.
You will go forward and neither
grow weary nor faint.
You will runt he course and neither
stumble nor fall.
For you will take wings and
fly, like Eagles!
Isaiah, 40:31

November 18, 2001