50 years ago Friday, I was ordained.
In my homily at my first mass,
I quoted a line from Leonard Bernstein’s musical,
MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers.
• At a climactic moment in the production,
at the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, the breaking of bread
the singer playing the role of the priest
lifts high the chalice and the bread on a glass plate
and hurls them to the ground
where they break into pieces…
• There’s silence on the stage
as the priest bends down and picks up the pieces and sings,
“How easily things get broken!”
• You and I don't need Leonard Bernstein
to remind us of something we know so well,
so painfully well in our daily lives,
“How easily things get broken!”
I used that image in the homily at my first mass
because just the week before, on my ordination retreat,
the retreat master had told us:
“Each of us has a right to our own brokenness.”
Each of us has a right to our own brokenness,
because it’s in our brokenness
that we find our need for Jesus…
It’s in our brokenness that we meet,
that we come to know, that we experience our need
for the presence and the compassion of Jesus;
for the mercy of Jesus;
for the mending, healing touch of Jesus;
for the wisdom, counsel and the truth of Jesus;
for the consolation, the peace and the joy of Jesus…
• It’s in our brokenness
that we meet the One who was broken for us;
• it’s in our brokenness
that we meet the wounded Healer;
• it’s in our brokenness
that our scattered selves
and our shattered dreams
find hope of being mended, gathered,
fulfilled and made whole
in Jesus…
How easily things get broken…
Each of us has a right to our own brokenness…
Or as Saint Peter put it in the second reading:
Rejoice - to the extent that you share in the suffering of Jesus
so that when his glory is revealed, you may be overjoyed.
• And over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking of
and asking the Lord to forgive me
for any brokenness, harm or hurt
that may have come from my carelessness,
my clumsiness, my laziness, my inattentiveness
as a priest, as a pastor.
• And I ask your pardon, your forgiveness,
for any ways the rough edges
of my brokenness as a human being
have bruised or scraped or broken
your heart, your spirit, your hope, your faith…
On the other hand...
there’s another way - in which it’s fair to say
I was ordained to break things:
that in a real sense - I’ve spent the past 50 years
breaking things - on purpose!
I’ve spent a half a century
doing what priests are ordained to do:
to break open the scriptures
as one breaks a loaf of bread;
to break open the Word
to nourish God’s people;
they break open the Gospel of Jesus
to reveal the wisdom in his saving word.
AND
a priest is ordained
to break the bread of eucharist;
he’s ordained to gather peoople, God’s people
at the altar,
in the shadow of the Cross of Jesus
that we might break the bread of this holy Table
and in HIS brokenness find our healing,
our communion, our peace, our joy, our hope
and a taste of the life he promised us
in the waters of the font of baptism.
And so…
for you - and with you - for 50 years -
I’ve been breaking open
the Word of God and the Bread of Life,
“so that we might know God
and the One he sent, Christ Jesus the Lord…”
And these have been a challenging 50 years
in the world, in our nation
and certainly in life of our Church.
How easily things got broken in 2002
when the tragic details of clergy sexual abuse
revealed just how broken, how damaged can be
the Body of Christ, the Church.
We are still reeling from, dealing with and healing
from a brokenness that has no rights - except
the right to acknowledge our sin,
to repent and plead for God’s mercy,
and to structure our church anew
- and the world around us -
to be a place, a home, a sanctuary
where all - especially the innocent and powerless -
where all can grow in faith and love,
free of fear of harm or danger.
Only in radically acknowledging
our guilt and culpability for this brokenness
will the Church open itself
to the mercy and healing it needs
and that it needs to offer to those we have failed.
And how easily things got broken in 2004
when the archdiocese suppressed
Our Lady’s and Saint Bernard’s parishes
and sold off Our Lady’s Church in West Concord.
I mention this, not to open an old wound,
but rather for us to pause and examine
how that wound has healed;
how our brokenness was mended
in our breaking open the Word of God
and finding embedded in the ancient scriptures
our own story of exodus and deliverance.
AND
in gathering together again and again
to break the bread of the eucharist,
and in the one bread and the one cup,
finding ourselves becoming one people
- Holy Family Parish.
How easily things get broken
but each of us has a right to our own brokenness
for it’s in the brokenness of our selves that we meet,
that we come to know,
that we experience our need
for the presence and compassion of Jesus;
his mercy,
his mending, healing touch of Jesus;
his wisdom, counsel and truth of Jesus;
his consolation, peace and joy
- our faith, our life in Jesus offers…
Those two stories of brokenness (in 2002 and 2004)
provided the saddest, the most difficult
and the most challenging moments in my 50 years as a priest.
Let me explain.
After 50 years of ministry as a priest
I can say, without reservation,
that I cannot imagine any other way
I would rather have spent my life.
And I can say that precisely because
I find my joy in serving you...
In shepherding you
through the brokenness of our life as the church,
I find my joy.
I find my joy in serving you.
And the “you” in that statement
is a double-sided pronoun:
I find my joy in serving you, my God
-and-
I find my joy in serving you - the people of God,
my sisters and brothers in Jesus.
For in serving you,
in the brokenness we share,
I find Jesus
and in him I find my joy.
In the morning when I rise
In the morning when I rise
In the morning when I rise
give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus, give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
give me Jesus.
In the good times and the bad
When I’m broken, when I’m whole
In my sorrow, in my joy,
give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus, give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
give me Jesus.
In the joy of serving you
In the joy of serving you
In the joy of serving you
give me Jesus!
Give me Jesus, give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
give me Jesus.
Happy 50th, Austin! Next year my class and I celebrate our 40th. So happy that our paths crossed during your 50! Blessings from Paris, ❤️ Jim
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