The Big Takeaway

Every preacher has a certain style, and I imagine by now most of you have become accustomed to mine. Typically, I begin a homily with some common starting point: an experience or observation with which we’re all familiar, or occasionally a story or rhetorical question. And then from there I try to make a connection to our readings, to see what lesson or insight is contained therein that God wants us to hear for our lives now. And hopefully, by the end, there is some takeaway for us in the present moment.

This week I didn’t have to work too hard in coming up with a connection, because as soon as I read the words: “I will be with you only a little while longer,” I knew what the Lord wanted me to talk about. Many of you have heard by now, but for those who haven’t, I announced this week that I’ll be leaving our parish next month to begin a new full-time ministry in Little Rock. It is bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I don’t want to leave; I have come to love you all and this community. On the other, this is the life to which I have committed myself and this the test of the promise of obedience that I made to our bishop when I was ordained. So while I am certainly sad to be leaving you, in a real sense, my life and ministry are not my own. They are God’s, and He, through the bishop, guides me where he needs me to go.

But still, that means that I’ll be leaving Holy Rosary, and that brings sadness for me and perhaps in the short term for you too. That’s understandable, but we shouldn’t allow it to keep us from hearing what the Lord wants us to hear in this present moment, and I think he has some important words for us in our Gospel today. With a pastoral change taking place, how fitting it is that we should hear this passage, in which Jesus gives his disciples his final instructions. This is the big takeaway he wants to leave with them, what sums up everything he has taught them, by word and example — this new commandment to love, to love as he has loved them, to love sacrificially as he will show them on the Cross.

This one message sums up our Christian faith, and it is at the heart of everything we do. It is the foundation of everything about our parish: every Mass offered, every homily preached, every Bible study or catechism class held, every community gathering or potluck dinner, every child enrolled in our school. And it should be the foundation of everything about our family lives and individual lives, too: all of our labors, goals, efforts, sorrows, hopes, dreams – the purpose for all of them should be to help us to live out Jesus’s commandment to love others in the way that he loved us. It’s such a simple idea and yet we know living it out is not so simple, which is why we have to work at it, every day, every moment, examining our efforts, looking hard at ourselves to see whether we are really fulfilling it.

Alexander Ivanov, Leaving the Last Supper (c. 1850)

The good news is that Jesus doesn’t just command this of us, and then leave us on our own; he’s at work among us to help us carry it out. He is at work in the priest, who offers prayer and sacrifice to God on our behalf, who communicates the grace of Jesus in the sacraments, and who helps demonstrate his love by means of service. I am grateful to God for how he has allowed me to serve our community these past three years, even as I recognize I have done so imperfectly. But I am excited for you that in mid-June you will have a new shepherd, one who will model the love of Christ in a different way, with his own unique talents and gifts. The new pastor, Fr. Babu Battula, will be coming to our parish from India, and so much like Paul and Barnabas in the first reading, he is coming to us as a missionary, to proclaim the Good News and to help us to live it more faithfully. Fortunately, Fr. Babu also has plenty of experience of serving in Arkansas, and with many of the dynamics that make up our parish, so I feel confident that his wisdom and experience will be a blessing. That’s not to say that there won’t be a time of transition; Fr. Babu will have his own style, his own way of giving homilies and in handling other things. But if you trust in the Lord’s faithfulness, and look for where he is present, I am sure that soon enough you will see his hand at work.

If Jesus is at work in every priest, then he is also at work even more importantly in and through the people – that is, through you. The priest might lead the parish for a few years, but you *are* the parish, and to recognize that fact is to begin to see how Jesus calls you to love as he loved. I know our community here has had a succession of several pastors the last decade or so, and that has its challenges, which you have dealt with in patient and resilient ways. Still, with another change on the horizon, there might be a temptation to pull back or to become dispirited, and I want to encourage you not to give in to that feeling. There are a lot of exciting things on the horizon right now, and even opportunities for growth, and those don’t have to change, even if the pastor will. I’ll be working to help Fr. Babu catch up to speed on where we’re at, but you can do that, too, just as you did for me three years ago. Trust that the Lord is at work through you, and seek to love as he loved, and he will take care of the rest.

Friends, I look forward to these next few weeks with you, and I hope you will remind me as I remind you of what is most important for all of us: to keep loving Jesus, and to keep striving to fulfill his command of loving others – each other, Fr. Babu, everyone we encounter – in the way that Jesus has loved us. Let’s let that be the big takeaway for all of us, not just for this homily, but in all that we do – the Lord’s new commandment to live out newly each day.