Baccalaureate Mass
Saint Gregory the Great Seminary
Bishop James D. Conley
Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary
May 9, 2015
Bishop Bruskewitz, Father Eickhoff, dear brother priests, esteemed faculty and staff of Saint Gregory the Great Seminary, dear parents and family members, beloved seminarians, dear friends in Christ.
What a joy it is to be with you today to celebrate the Baccalaureate Mass of the Saint Gregory the Great Seminary. Today marks a significant milestone along the path of priestly formation for all twelve of our graduates.
My brothers, today marks the conclusion of one stage of your preparation for priestly ministry, a preparation for a life of consecrated and sacramental service to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the world. Each one of you, like St. Paul in the first reading, is called to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. And each one of you, as Our Lord promises in the Gospel, will face the hatred and scorn of the world as you proclaim that Kingdom.
There is no avoiding this simple fact—if you are faithful, joyful, authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, you will face persecution, rejection, and hatred in the world.
Dear sons, our nation grows ever more secular. Our state grows ever more secular. Our communities grow ever more secular -- and we can expect, as Christian morality and even reason itself, are jettisoned more and more from public consciousness, that those who propose Jesus Christ will face real persecution. Our Lord anticipates this very fact in today’s Gospel, and he assures us that if we are persecuted, we will be in solidarity with him. For our Lord promises: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first… If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
And of course, facing persecution in the midst of an inhospitable world has been the destiny of Christians from the time of the Church’s foundation. Our times are not unique because the Church faces difficulties. The ordinary vocation of Christians is to stand, with virtue and grace, as a sign of contradiction before a world that “first hated,” and “first persecuted,” Jesus Christ our Lord.
As you prepare for continued formation as priests of Jesus Christ, I’d like to make two points about the readings of today’s Mass.
My first point is that although we are not “of this world,” we are created to be servants of God’s beloved children “in this world.”
Consider what Christ says in today’s Gospel about the reason for Christian persecution. The Lord says that world will hate and persecute you because “you do not belong to this world.” He goes on to explain that, “If you belonged to this world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to this world, and I have chosen you out of this world, the world hates you.”
Christ calls us “out of the world.” For those called to be priests of Jesus Christ, our lives are consecrated, in some way. We are to be set apart for holiness. But it would be a grave mistake to think that being “set apart” by Christ means that we are absolved from responsibility for proclaiming Christ, or set in a binary relationship of discipleship, which isolates us from the sin and suffering of this world.
Instead, dear sons, our lives are set apart so that they might be instruments for the holiness of others. Christ’s priests are consecrated so that they might enter into the suffering of this world, deeply, in order to serve as conduits of sanctifying grace, in solidarity with all of those whom Christ calls to holiness.
Every time a priest offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—in this chapel, in a packed piazza in Rome, in one of our parishes, or alone, in the cloistered chapel of a monastery—he mediates grace for the world. He pours himself out in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass precisely for the salvation of souls. His entire life, in fact, is configured to mediate grace, as he does it in persona Christi in the celebration of the sacramental life.
All who are baptized are not “of this world.” But we, who are called to the priesthood, are sent into friendship, and unity, and sacrifice for the world, in humble imitation of the Suffering Servant, Christ himself.
Dear sons, we are, indeed, “set apart” from our own interests, our own goals, our own agendas, our own ambitions, so that we might radically follow the call of the Lord, in order to bring grace to every single human soul.
Consider St. Paul, in the first reading, from the Book of Acts. Paul is set apart, so that he might go where the Lord calls him, to every corner of the known world, to be an instrument of the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Whatever the Christian life looks like—whatever form it takes—it is a life “set apart“ for profound self-gift, in unity with the self-gift of Christ on the Cross, and in the Resurrection.
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My second point is about the mysterious call of St. Paul to Macedonia. Saint Luke tells us in todays first reading that, “A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’”
The call to Macedonia, in Paul’s second missionary journey, is his first foray into Greece, and onto the European continent. In Greece, Paul enters the classical world—the world of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle – names very familiar to you philosophers.
In Greece, Paul encounters the philosophical ideas that support the Gospel with reason itself – philosophical ideas that give rise to the theological formulation of the Church’s early fathers. When Paul enters Greece, Christianity enters a new era, and Christian thought begins a profound new chapter.
The most powerful symbol of Paul’s missionary work in Greece is his sermon at the Areopagus in the ancient city of Athens. Paul was brought to the Areopagus—which was, quite seriously, a court of public opinion—by the philosophers of the city of Athens. Quite literally, it was the public square, the hub social and intellectual life in Athens. The Greeks heard what Paul was preaching, and they could not understand it. They asked him to explicate the meaning of the Gospel.
At the Areopagus, Paul used the philosophy, the poetry, and the mythology of the Greek people themselves to proclaim Jesus Christ. He gave them the Gospel in a context that was meaningful to them. To be sure, he was mocked and ridiculed by many, and he won only a few converts that day, but he began a project to which the Church continues to be called—Paul proclaimed the Gospel to a new people, in a way that they could understand it, and in a way which might compel them to believe.
Paul could preach at the Areopagus because he knew the content of the Gospel. He knew, at a deep level, what the Incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection actually meant. And, at the same time, Paul knew the culture of the Greeks. He knew their language and their philosophy and their art and their poetry. He knew their stories and their heroes.
Paul preached at the Areopagus because his mind was formed to proclaim Christ to a world that had no context in which to understand him.
In 1990, twenty-five years ago, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote his great encyclical on missionary activity, Redemptoris missio. In that encyclical he wrote, “The first Areopagus of the modern age is the world of communications, which is unifying humanity and turning it into what is known as a ‘global village.’ The means of social communication have become so important as to be for many the chief means of information and education, of guidance and inspiration in their behavior as individuals, families, and within society at large. In particular, the younger generation is growing up in a world conditioned by the mass media.”
Dear sons, you must be the missionaries of the Areopagus of the modern age. I am 60 years old. I will not be the missionary of the global village in the way that you will be. You are natives of the ‘digital continent,’ and I will always be an immigrant. To proclaim Christ in the Areopagus of the modern age, you must commit yourselves to active and serious intellectual lives—to be transformed, as St. Paul says, “by the renewing of your minds.”
Fr. Antonin Sertillanges, the great Dominican scholar and the author of the classic work “The Intellectual Life,” gives this admonishment: “love truth and its fruits of life, for yourself and for others; devote to study and to the profitable use of study, the best part of your time and your heart.”
Today, you are concluding your philosophical studies. You will study theology for four years, and then, God willing, you will be ordained priests of Jesus Christ.
But, dear sons, your philosophical studies must not end today. Your theological studies must not be a four-year project, abandoned at the conferral of your degrees. Dear sons, to be effective missionaries of Jesus Christ, your intellectual lives must be always committed to understanding the faith, the world, and the human heart. You must continue read poetry, and literature, and philosophy, and history. At seminary, you must make time for novels, and music, and art – in addition to your study of philosophy and theology.
To be effective missionaries to a world that does not understand Christ, you must know the cultural and intellectual history of our Church, and you must know the cultural and intellectual life of the world.
Again, in Redemptoris Missio, Pope St. John Paul wrote “in secularized societies, the spiritual dimension of life is being sought after as an antidote to dehumanization… The Church has an immense spiritual patrimony to offer humankind, a heritage in Christ, who called himself ‘the way, and the truth, and the life.’ . . . Here too there is an Areopagus to be evangelized.”
At the University of Nebraska, we are working to found a partnership between St. Gregory the Great Seminary, the Newman Center, and the University. The partnership is called the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture. Its goal is to transform students with the richness of our faith—to engender a love for what is beautiful, and to reveal what is true, and what is good. The literary imagination—the work of poetry, and music and art---reveals Christ as the true antidote to dehumanization. Form yourselves to reveal him in that way. Know and love what is beautiful, and reveal it to men and women dulled and beaten down by a culture of utility, hopelessness, and ugliness.
The Church has a rich heritage in Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are “set apart” to reveal this heritage, in the person of Christ to the world. To do so, you must be apart from the world, and yet you must know it, and engage with it. You must be disciples and missionaries. Your holiness is found in helping others to holiness.
Today, as we celebrate the Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Sede Sapientiae, may she who fosters the holiness in the world by revealing Jesus Christ, intercede for you, and inspire you, as you reveal Christ in the Areopagus of the modern world.
