Homily for Wednesday, 3 September 2014– Memorial of St. Gregory the Great

Wednesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Psalm 33:12-13, 14-15, 20-21; Luke 4:38-44

This homily was given at our St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish staff retreat Mass at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry, Rochester, NY.

“Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.” Let us think for a moment: In what ways are we blessed? In what ways has the Lord chosen us “to be his own”? In what ways does this powerful prayer we have prayed in our Psalm response not just apply to people who lived long ago; who heard it for the first time, but to us?

My sisters and brothers, we are “blessed.” The Lord has chosen us “to be his own.” We are blessed to be able to partake in today’s St. Kateri Parish Staff retreat. We are blessed to have Sr. Pat Schoelles facilitate our retreat. We are blessed with the diversity of ministries and unity of purpose: the building up of the Kingdom of God beginning with the faith community we serve within our one parish. We are blessed with one another’s support in our ministry at St. Kateri. We are blessed in our faith in Christ. We are blessed from the moment of our baptism, when the Lord first chose us “to be his own.”

There is, admittedly, a danger in believing ourselves to be especially “blessed” as God’s “own.” We could interpret the first verse of our Psalm, “Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,” along nationalistic lines, putting country above God. We could view our particular ministry in our parish as more privileged; more “blessed” than another. We could become attached to a particular leader in the Church (a pope; a bishop; a pastor; someone on the parish staff…), or a particular style or place of worship. We could lose sight of God as the source of our blessing; the source of our calling to be God’s “own”; the source of the tremendous growth of our parish community in just the last few years.

As St. Paul reminds the Corinthians in our first reading, God “causes the growth.” I do not think we need the same reminder as the Corinthians did. We are in good shape, as it were. We know and act as though God is the source of our blessing. Our blessing; our ministries; our parish are not “all about me,” but about God.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Gregory I, one of only two popes (officially) to have been known as “the Great” (the other is Leo I). Why was St. Gregory “the Great”? Perhaps this is because he let God be great in him. Gregory knew, whether as a monk or as pope, God had blessed him; chosen him “to be his own”… eventually. Gregory’s first reaction to having been elected pope was to hide in a cave to avoid going to Rome! I hope none of us has ever wanted to hide in a cave to avoid our ministry, although we are called on this day to a retreat from active ministry; to pray over how we are “blessed”; over how we are, individually and together, a “people the Lord has chosen to be his own.”

God has chosen us “to be his own” for one purpose. And what is this purpose? We hear in Jesus’ words in our Gospel reading the purpose to which we have been called as St. Kateri staff; indeed as Christians from the very moment of our baptism: “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” I will not begin to list the ways in which we as St. Kateri Parish staff “proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God,” because I will inadvertently prioritize some while missing others.

But know that, in our ministry beginning with St. Kateri Parish to “proclaim the Kingdom of God,” we have been blessed. We are a “people the Lord has chosen to be his own.”