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Before I begin it's an honor to follow in the footsteps of Frank DeSiano. He has been
a mentor since seminary days in terms of preaching and evangelizing and I think we Paulists should
be honored to give to our country such a great evangelist. Thank you. I hope I can keep the
momentum going from that incredible presentation. So I begin with the gospel---this is Matthew
28 verses 16 and following.
Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had directed them. And
when they saw Him, they worshiped Him. But some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo I am with you always, even until
the end of time. The Gospel of the Lord.
All: Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ.
Bruce: The phrase I take from the gospel for this morning is making disciples of all nations.
How in the world can you disciple a nation? I've enough trouble discipling a person! I
have enough trouble discipling myself! How does one then disciple a nation? Last week
I received in my Christmas mail a nice little emblem Organizing For Action---founding member.
It's a political action group focused on some of the pressing issues of our day. Healthcare.
Immigration. Economic disparity. Well to enter into a political action group with a heavy
population of young adults---isn't that a way to disciple a nation? Wasn't there someone way back when
who had the same inclination to join a political action group in order to make a change in
the nation? A political action group called the Locofocos. The equal rights branch of
the brand new Jacksonian Democrats. What were the issues? Slavery, child labor, immigration.
In fact the Locofocos would come out against the extension of slavery in the territories.
And who was the one who was one of the founding members? Isaac Thomas Hecker. And yet he would
move on to a phrase that expressed his way to disciple a nation. In the union of Catholic
faith and American civilization, a future for the Church brighter than any past. And
as he would write around the time of the founding of the Paulists in 1858 he would move from
political reform to social reform--- his sojourn with the Transcendentalists--- to personal
reform and finally to conversion. To religious reform. There's a wonderful passage in his
diaries. He has a cold shower because he's experiencing a passion for a woman. A Mira
Barlow---remember from Brook Farm? She was kind of coming on to him. And so he transfers
the passion that he's experienced for her to Him---to Jesus. O dear Christ. O loving
Christ. O more than brother, friend! O more than any other human being can be! Draw me
nearer to yourself. Baptize me in your Spirit. Loosen my tongue that I may confess your love
for man. It is intimacy with Jesus Christ. And wasn't this the focus of just about everything
said about the New Evangelization? It's certainly part and parcel of Pope Francis's Evangelii
Gaudium--in fact he begins with a conversion through Jesus. "An encounter with Jesus is
the very basis for evangelization. The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of
all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept His offer of salvation are set free from sin,
sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness." My own conversion to Jesus---my own encounter through Jesus--- began early on in my mother's
arms. My mom was one of the first lady marines---WWII, tough gal---but an evangelical Christian.
In fact brought up anti Catholic. Until she met my dad, and you know, romance can cover
a multitude of sins---- so her first born and asthmatic child she would hold in her
arms, as I was struggling with FEAR. Now there's an obstacle is it not? Maybe the primary obstacle
to sharing the joy of the gospel---to be afraid--- any worry warts among us? I was afraid of
dying. As a toddler---two, three, four--- some of my earliest memories were there in
my mother's lap. And what were they? She would sing to me.
(Singing)
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they
are weak but he is strong.
All Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.
Bruce: Frank you're not singing
Frank: I don't know the words.
(laughter)
Bruce: So that was my experience with Jesus because how could you not experience the love
of Jesus when you're struggling to breathe as an asthmatic in the arms of a loving mother
who had a beautiful voice was a beautiful woman to begin with. And interestingly enough,
when Pope Francis talks about homily preparation he talks about it as a mother speaks to a
child. Amen?
All: Amen
Bruce: The tone! And it's a mutual back and forth experience. Mother teaching the child
but listening to the child and the child listening to the mother in order to respond to the mother.
And as the Holy Father says---it becomes a music. So from Yes Jesus Loves Me to the Roamin'
Collars. From Beale Street in Memphis where the spirituals of the slaves became the Blues
of popular music--- to Sixth Street in Austin where my god-daughter Adrianna is a member
of a punk rock group. Can music be an idiom of the Holy Spirit? It was what brought Hecker
to that love of Jesus--- you heard the quote. One of the reasons our founder was so in love
with the Holy Spirit was because the Holy Spirit brought him to fall in love with Jesus
Christ. That's why. And so yes St. Paul says in Ephesians 5 does he not Don't get drunk
on wine but be filled with the Spirit. Addressing one another in psalms, hymns and inspired
canticles.
Bruce: And so evangelization---helping people fall in love with Jesus by putting them in
touch with that inner music---the music of the soul--- the music of the Holy Spirit.
Now Father Hecker of course talked about Jesus in terms of Catholicism. The Christ of Catholicism.
In the union of Catholic faith and American civilization a future for the Church brighter
than any past, but of course for Hecker Catholic Catholicism was not just something out there.
Catholicism was the total experience of a person. What St Augustine would call the Totus
Christus--- the whole Christ. And so when Hecker thinks of Catholicism he thinks of
Christ in a holistic way. A holistic, inclusive embrace of Jesus and we find that in the gospel
passage. Do we not? All authority in heaven and on earth. Isn't that total? Holistic?
Didn't they react to Jesus in the sermon on the mount with astonishment because he taught
with authority? Heaven and Earth? Fully God and fully human. That's why St. Monica didn't
want her son to become not any old Christian but a CATHOLIC Christian. Because in those
days 386 they were struggling with division within in the churches as we are today, Amen?
And what was the divisions or what were the divisions? Well you had the Apollinarians---
Jesus Christ is fully God but not quite fully human. Or the Adoptionists---Jesus Christ
is fully human but not quite fully God. And then you had people in the middle---the Arians---
Jesus was kind of a mermaid--- Fifty percent God. Fifty percent human. Or a centaur---
Fifty percent man; Fifty percent horse. Some say there are quite a few of those around
today. No for Monica a Catholic Christian was someone who believed that Jesus was one
hundred percent divine; one hundred percent human. How can that be? Isn't that the mystery
that we proclaim Amen? All time. Always. I will be with you always until the end of time.
How can you have something that's always? My iPhone 4S is already out of date! Is there
such a thing as an "Always iPhone"? Isn't that why some people become Catholic? Because
they want a rootedness? They want something that will give them stability? You know at
Ground Zero there was something very interesting. The World Trade Center had evaporated just
as the economy may evaporate. But the cross at ground zero was there. And it was placed
for a time in the courtyard of St. Peter's Church where Elizabeth Seton became a Catholic.
Is that symbolic? Isn't that why Jesus says On this rock I will build my Church. Because
we need a rock, do we not in our changing times. We need something. We need an anchor.
Oh yes. Teach everything. Everything! Doesn't that sound Catholic? Holistic? Universal?
I like to say the pizza supreme--- the Pizza Supreme-Jesus. The Catholic Jesus, the Pizza
Supreme Jesus, the totus Christus ---it's the same thing. From pepperoni to achovies.
And isn't that what we have as Catholics? Don't we have a total teaching? Not that we
always accept it. Not that every Catholic always accepts it but it's out there is it
not? Aren't we pro life? Aren't we pro poor? Aren't we pro immigrant? Aren't we pro family
aren't we inclusive? Don't we believe everything from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
Isn't that why we kept the Old Testament in the Bible because we want the whole Christ!
Everything there is to say about Jesus Christ. You know Catholic social teaching is so holistic
if we really believed it. When I worked at the Bishop's Conference we had a marvelous
guru named Joseph Cardinal Bernadin who believed in the consistent ethic of life. Isn't that
what we need today brothers and sisters? You know long ago there was a great man named
Peter Maurin--- he was a cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement with Servant of God
Dorothy Day. Here's what Peter Maurin said about Catholic Social Teaching. "The Catholic
Church is not today the dominant social dynamic force...it is because Catholic scholars have
taken the dynamite of the Church--- have wrapped it up in nice phraseology, placed it in a
hermetic container and sat on the lid. It is about time to blow the lid off so that
the Catholic Church may again become the dominant social dynamic force." That's not beating
around the bush is it? One of my joys in Austin is now to work in the Mary House Catholic
Worker Movement, the Mary House Catholic Worker, founded by a Paulist convert Lynn Goodman-Strauss.
Brought into the Church from Judaism and Episcopaleanism and many other isms because of the witness
of the Paulist Fathers at the UT Catholic Center. And all nations--- the Catholic Jesus
reaches out to ALL nations. And isn't that what we need today in the world my sisters
and my brothers--- something that embraces the world. My evangelical mother at the tender
age of 64 calls me up and says "I've made an important decision." She was a widow so
I thought she was going to tell me she was getting married again. "I decided to become
a Catholic." I practically hit the floor. I said "Mom, glory be to God. Why!?! How!?!"
And she says "well I'll tell you, at your grandmother's funeral you sounded so enthusiastic
about your religion. You really like it don't you?" When my grandmother died---my Italian
grandmother who I like the pizza supreme model--- I was giving a workshop on Renew in Harlem.
So I was able to share with my friends and Curé of Ars Parish on Long Island, New York,
my Jewish friends, my evangelical relatives, my Catholic relatives and people in orbit
some place--- that it was nice to belong to an organization that embraced all cultures
all demographics. Even today my brothers and sisters ethnically and racially different
then us are here at this table. We belong to the world's greatest rainbow coaliton---
that's the phrase I used that turned my mother on. And isn't it true? Wasn't Dr. King's great
dream--- was that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would
sit down at the table of brotherhood--- wasn't that what the "I Have a Dream" speech was
focused on? Do we not have that in the Eucharist? So there's the Catholic Jesus. Whole--all
authority--- always. Everything! And all nations. It all comes together in a passage from Fr.
Hecker's The Church and the Age, "The discerning mind will not fail to see that the Republic
(the American Republic--- United States) and the Catholic Church, are working together
under the same divine guidance forming the various races of men and nationalities into
a homogenous people. And by their united action giving a bright promise a broader and higher
development of man than has heretofore been accomplished." See for Isaac Hecker, Catholicism
was the prolongation, perpetuation, expansion of the Incarnation. That somehow the Catholic
Jesus would continue on but the Catholic Jesus would need a substratum--- a base. Heaven
would need Earth. Well where on Earth can I find---can we find a place for the Word
to become flesh and serve as a model. And of course, like John Winthrop who said "Here
is a city set on a hill", on the shores of Massachusetts. Like Joseph Smith who felt
that Christ would re-found his church on the shores of what would become the United States---and
others like Lincoln who saw a providential position to the United States---it would happen
in America. My sister my brothers, this is over 150 years ago. He knew that someday the
world would be looking at the United States as a cultural barometer. Is it? For better
or for worse do they not look upon us? For style? For music? For entertainment? For technology?
Dare I say.... for hope? And so if somehow we could bring together-- as bridge builders---
Jesus Christ --- The pizza Supreme Jesus Christ, the Catholic Jesus and this infrastructure,
this E pluribis unum-- this out of many one earthly experience called the United States---
can we become a model for the rest of the world? Isn't that why he lived in utopian
communities like Brook Farm and Fruitlands? Because that's what they wanted but weren't
able to attain. Here's how we could become that light to the nations, in the union of
Catholic faith and American civilization. A future for the Church brighter than any
past! And we could probably add--- a future for the world brighter than any past? Can
you think of anything more we need today brothers and sisters then to build bridges? You see
we ourselves as Catholic Christians experience the same divisions at times as the people
in our country. But isn't that good? Doesn't that in fact show that we are a mother and
child reunon---my apologies to Paul Simon. That somehow mother and child are listening
and working together to come up with a dream that can be shared at the table of the Eucharist?
We though many form one body--- isn't that kind E pluribus unum---the original motto
of the United States? Can you keep a secret? Can you keep a secret out there? I'm a priest
40 years going on 41. I've been tempted. Can I share a temptation? Can I do that? Is that
alright? I'll share a temptation. And it's not.... marriage or sex or kids---anybody
can have that--- my temptation was to be a Franciscan. Some of you know that. Some of
you argued with me about that for more than 40 years. That's been my temptation---I love
St Francis--- that's why one of the reasons I love Pope Francis. He's at least as much
Franciscan as he is Jesuit. Why? Because of simplicity of life style because of his love
for Jesus--- his love of beauty--- but also his love for the poor. And I give thanks to
God that the Paulist Fathers have given me incredible opportunities to minister to God's
poor. But I wanted to go even beyond that so I took a year out to live in Harlem at
Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Tremendous experience of living and working with God's
poor. The novice master---my novice master--- was also a friend of mine. Glen Sudano. Very
much in touch with American culture--- his sister en law was the Disco Queen, Donna Summer.
Glen had come daily to St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan because he worked for
CBS as a young man and he would pray before the tomb of Isaac Hecker for a vocation and
also in front of the beautiful painting of St. Paul--- I have fought the good fight.
But his journey took him not to the Paulists but to the Franciscans and he was a discerning
mind. So eventually he became impatient with me as we went along in my sabbatical year.
"Bruce! You gotta make a decision! Who's in the drivers seat? Is it St. Francis or is
it Isaac Hecker? And he prayed to Isaac Hecker. Well here's the answer! I came out. And who
was there to receive me? Almost as soon as I came out I saw a friend Cardinal Francis
George who grew up in the Paulist Choristers and you might know that that little experience
was the basis of a movie that won seven academy awards---Going My Way. I said "Your Eminence,
I'm back with the Paulists". He said, "Good. You've always made an attempt and done so
well with connecting the Gospel with culture." Isn't that what we're about? Connecting the
Gospel of Jesus with the culture of our time? And especially the Gospel of Jesus---the Catholic
Jesus--- with the culture of our people in this country and North America. Isaac Hecker
had that passion for Catholicism, that passion for America that got him eventually dismissed
from the Redemptorists. He was dismissed not because he wanted to give the Word of God
a voice, but he was dismissed because he was unabashedly Catholic and unabashedly American.
There with the Friars of the Renewal I realized how American I am. I apologize. Thomas Merton.
Dorothy Day. Elizabeth Seton. Thea Bowman. Caesar Chavez. John J Burke who had the dream
of someday what Peter Maurin said coud happen--- that we could become a dominant social force.
Isn't that the reason that that building next to us went up--- the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops. A passion that was brought together through the Holy Spirit. My sisters
my brothers let us pray that the Holy Spirit to give us that passion and that we are able
as my good friend Frank DeSiano and so many of you--- have been able to passionately proclaim
that love of Jesus Christ. That falling in love with Jesus--- that encounter with Jesus
Christ that our Holy Father Pope Francis not only preaches but witnesses to. Let us pray
that the Holy Spirit give us the passion of Isaac Hecker. And it may happen that in the
union of Catholic faith and American civilization--- that dream may come true. My prayer for you
is not only a happy New Year, but a future brighter than any past. Amen.
All: Amen!