Seminarians Linh H. Nguyen (center) and Eric H. Flores (right), along with their fellow seminarians participate in evening prayer, i.e., Vespers. Photo by Juan Guajardo
Seminarians of the Diocese of Fort Worth
December 18, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Philippians 4:4-5
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: Rejoice! Everyone should see how unselfish you are. The Lord is near.”
Generosity is another word for unselfishness. One of the characteristics required for priesthood and one of the qualities that you are called to develop in your formation is generosity and selflessness. A generous disposition begins with responding with a “yes” to what is asked of us by Christ. All of the Christian life is based upon saying “yes” to Christ. The Christian life is not based upon saying “no” to other “no’s” spoken to Christ. In the algebra of discipleship a double negative is not a positive; a clear affirmative spoken with a grateful heart is required.
The Advent of Jesus Christ begins with the perfectly pure “yes” of the Blessed Virgin Mary; it follows with the “yes” of her spouse Saint Joseph, a just man who silently speaks his “yes” with trust in God despite hearing His call in the cloudiness of a dream. God’s justice requires a clearly affirmative response that overcomes the twilight of a dream.
The pure “yes” of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the just “yes” of Saint Joseph come from the redeeming love of Christ, who speaks His “yes” to the will of the Father throughout His earthly ministry with obedience unto His death on the Cross. What Christ redeems is the long line of outright negative responses to God’s commands descending all the way from the first corporate “no” of Adam and Eve, the bitter fruit of the Tempter who first shouted his irrevocable, arrogant, and dishonest non serviam—“I will not serve.” Whom Christ redeems are each and all of those human beings who speak their “no” to God throughout history—including us.
Christ is born in a manger because people willingly said “no” to the Holy Family’s request for shelter. Some might say that, “if only we recognized the Holy Family’s true identity we would have given them shelter and hospitality.” Yet, this is only an excuse and not a reason. They would have simply been more polite about the refusal. Christ is born in a manger because that is where animals feed and not where human beings were intended by God at creation to eat. The manger is beneath the dignity of human beings as being created freely in the image and likeness of God. The manger is a place where animals go by instinct and self-preservation but not by reason and not by faith. Instinct and self-preservation: the manger is the best that the human condition can do without God’s grace—the grace that is freely given in Jesus Christ’s birth.
At His birth the Son of God meets the human condition in a manger; yet, before His agony and death, He offers the banquet of His own eternal Eucharistic “yes” to the Father’s Will. This sacrificial “yes” transforms humanity through selfless love and the fullness of the truth.
St. Paul writes to the Philippians, “Rejoice! Everyone should see how unselfish you are.” That Eucharistic “yes” is shared very intimately within and through the witness of a priest’s life. Each priest enters into that mystery every day in the celebration of Mass. The Eucharistic “yes” permeates each priest’s day throughout countless interruptions to a priest’s prepared schedule; it precedes his other expectations and best judgments; at times it interrupts much needed sleep; at other times it frustrates our recreation. Yet, this Eucharistic “yes” of a priest is what identifies him most clearly as a priest. It is especially spoken in his vocation through his promise of obedience.
The promise of obedience always inconveniences each one of us—even to me as a bishop whose office requires it from my priests. The promise of obedience is the gift that Christ invites us to make so that we can formally grow in the grace of unselfishness and generosity. The promise of obedience is the formal way by which we respond to St. Paul’s command to manifest our unselfishness to everyone and in so doing manifest the unselfishness of Jesus Christ, Head and Shepherd of the Church. Whenever we priests hedge on our promise of obedience we allow the “no” of fear and selfishness to creep into our fundamental “yes” to Christ’s call to us. It is obedience that structures a priest’s compassionate visit to anoint the sick; it strengthens the priest’s attentiveness to absolve sinners in hours of confessions that can become tedious because of the boredom that is sin. The promise of obedience facilitates the priest’s decision to get up early to pray, to keep up with one’s spiritual reading, and to celebrate Mass every day. The hedging on the promise of obedience can begin in the seminary with gifts that we take for granted as entitlements.
So, when the just expectations of seminary life—like the seminary schedule, like required presence and attendance at community events, like classwork, and most especially holy hours and liturgical prayer—inconvenience you and tempt you to seek arbitrary exceptions for distractions in order to do what you’d prefer to do, think of the manger and then think of the Eucharist. Reflect on the Baby Jesus, on the pure selflessness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on the decisive justice of Saint Joseph. Ask for their help that you might share in their unselfishness and generosity by saying “yes” especially at inconvenient times. A priest is called to make known this selflessness by every aspect of his life at all times to the people whom Jesus came to save. Begin this now as seminarians.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: Rejoice! Everyone should see how unselfish you are. The Lord is near.”
