St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square, London
Father Sherbrooke, Father Selman, my brother priests, Deacon, honoured graduates and your family members, dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I am very grateful that you’ve invited me to celebrate Holy Mass with you today, and to share in the celebration of your graduation from the St. Patrick’s Evangelization School.
You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that my concelebrants and I are vested in red. This isn’t because we are rooting for England in the World Cup—although all of us would like to see the Three Lions achieve victory over Uruguay on Thursday.
We’re vested in red today because we are celebrating a special Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit. Today we are recognizing in a particular way the movement of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and, in particular, in the life of those individuals who are graduating and completing a special year of missionary formation and evangelization here at Saint Patrick’s Soho.
The Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit has been a part of academic tradition since the inception of universities in the Middle Ages. Traditionally, the work of students and faculty, is entrusted to the Holy Spirit as classes commence. And, in many places, the Holy Spirit as invoked at the time of graduation, when students move on from alma mater into the next chapters of their lives.
Today, my dear graduates, you move on from the St. Patrick’s Evangelization School, which has been your home over these past nine months, into the next chapter of your life. Of course, you already know that SPES is not an ordinary school. You’ve had coursework, and lectures, and you’ve applied yourselves to academic study—to be sure—but SPES is much more than an academic enterprise. SPES is a school of discipleship—a school of friendship in Jesus Christ and in the proclamation of that friendship which we call evangelization.
St. Patrick’s Evangelization School is a school of missionary discipleship. In his first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis writes that he dreams of “a ‘missionary option,’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world.” (EG 25)
St. Patrick’s Evangelization School is precisely that—a missionary option of the Church. And today, you go forth, into the world, as missionary disciples.
You are sent out today like the 72 missionary disciples in the Gospel of Luke that we just heard proclaimed. Our Lord warned them, as I will, that they were sent out like “sheep among wolves.” (Mt. 10:16) They were sent to a world infected with ugliness, with violence, and loneliness, and depravity. They were sent to a world infected with sin. But they were sent with the power of the Holy Spirit, the power to cast out demons in the name of Jesus—to claim souls for Christ. And the Lord reminded them, and he reminds each one of us that “the Kingdom of God is very near to you...” and “your names are written in heaven.” (Lk 10:9, 20) What consoling words our Lord speaks to us.
And Christ promised the 72 that harm would not befall them. He promised them that they would trample the evil one—that neither serpents nor scorpions would harm them. And he promised them that they would cure the sick. The commissioning of the 72 was a promise that the impossible could become possible—a call to undertake what could only be undertaken in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We too are called to the impossible. We are all called to be missionary disciples in the world in which we live.
The mission of SPES is drawn from the first letter of St. Peter—“always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within you.” (1 Peter 3:15) Today that account has never been more important. In his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, on the Hope that will Save, Pope Emeritus Benedict says that modern man—his mind overrun by materialism, atheism, and progressivism, lives in a “world without hope.” (SS 44) Of course, the Holy Father was right. We’re called to witness to a hope in a world that is short on hope. This seems both impossible and inspirational—like the 72 disciples sent out, we’re called to the kind of missionary discipleship which can only be successful by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are called to be witnesses to hope. Witnesses to the hope that we have known and experienced in Jesus Christ. And as an antidote to hopelessness, an antidote to the despair and boredom of the world, Pope Francis calls each of us to evangelize by the “via pulchritudinis,”—the way of beauty. Pope Francis says that “beauty can be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus.” He says that beauty witnesses the reality that Christ is “capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties–” (EG 167) in short, the Holy Father says that beauty witnesses to Christian hope.
Beauty exists in a sphere beyond time. And so beautiful things expose us to the timelessness of eternity.
This is why beauty matters, in an eternal sense. Beauty was part of God’s creative plan in the beginning, and it is just as much a part of his redemptive plan now. God has placed the desire for beauty within our hearts, and he uses that desire to lead us back to himself.
Truth and beauty are both gifts from God. So as evangelists, as missionary disciples, we must work to make truth beautiful. We must make use of beauty—to infuse a “world without hope,” once more, with the hope of the Gospel.
Your lives here in Soho Square have been more powerful witnesses to beauty than you might recognize. SPES is a light shining from the ugly corners of Soho. Your neighborhood is the heartbeat of London’s sex trade. Drugs can be found on many corners. Ugliness abounds—and yet, the light of your faith brings with it the beauty and the hope of Jesus Christ. Your very presence witnesses to the transcendent realities of your interior lives. To borrow a phrase from Pope Benedict XVI, you now have “wounded hearts with the arrow of beauty.” And those hearts, penetrated with beauty, are also penetrated with the love and hope of Jesus Christ.
Through the beauty of the sacred liturgy well celebrated in this newly restored and renovated temple of the Lord, through adoration of the Holy Eucharist on a daily basis, through the beauty of friendship and living in community, through the beauty of serving the poor, the needy and the destitute, and through your pilgrimage to Rome, the Eternal City, and the beauty of the rich heritage of our Catholic faith, you have been immersed in a world of gift and mystery that has had over these past months a profound impact on your lives and the lives of countless through God’s providence.
Here, at St. Patrick’s School of Evangelization, you have had the grace of good leadership, of true friendships, and of ongoing formation in Jesus Christ and his Church. But now you are sent out, and perhaps not even in pairs, as were the 72. You are sent out to do the impossible, and it can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit.
It won’t be easy to maintain the order and the discipline of your prayer life outside of this community. And don’t be discouraged that if in six months from now you feel as if your spiritual life is not making the progress you would desire. Don’t be disheartened. This is all part of transitions in our lives.
Always remember what the Lord said to the seventy two in today’s gospel, “the kingdom of God is very near to you.” And when you are tempted to be discouraged or to lose hope, remember what Saint Paul said to the Romans in our second reading: “these sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”
My dear friends, stay close to the Lord as you leave St. Patrick’s. And stay close to one another in your prayers. Lift each other up in your prayer as you head your separate ways. You are being sent out as the Lord reminds today, as “sheep among wolves.” Stay close to the Eucharist. Stay close to confession. Stay close to the Blessed Mother. The world needs the hope that you have in your hearts. The world needs the “way of beauty.” The world needs the hope of Jesus Christ.
Be missionary disciples, dear brothers and sisters. Make disciples of all nations. Be ready—in truth, in deed, and in the way of beauty—be ready to witness to the hope that you have.
For “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts though the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”
