January 4, 2008: All-School Mass after 2007 Christmas Holidays (Feast Day of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton)
Homily by Abbot Caedmon Holmes, O.S.B.
Happy New Year! We especially wish you perseverance and success in the remainder of the Winter Term and the rest of this academic year.
Today the Church remembers St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. She was born in New York City in 1774, was brought up Episcopalian, married at 20, gave birth to five children, lost her husband to tuberculosis before she was 30 and while they were in Italy seeking a cure for him in a milder climate. There she became drawn to the Catholic Church and became a Catholic soon after her return to the States. Eventually she founded the first order of nuns to be founded in this country, the Sisters of Charity, who opened orphanages and schools. She is regarded as the foundress of the American Catholic parochial school system.
She was a Sister of Charity. It is charity that I want to say something about. "Charity" is a Latin word, caritas, meaning dearness. (Some of you may know the Spanish word carino, which comes from the same stem.) "Charity" means "love." When I was the age of most of you, we were still continuing the age-old practice in the English language of referring to "faith, hope, and charity," a trio more familiar nowadays as "faith, hope, and love." Over time the word "charity" had become almost exclusively associated in people's minds with acts of generous kindness to the poor. And so sometime in the late 1960s, I think, the word "love" was substituted for "charity," to indicate that what was meant was something deeper and broader than giving food, clothing, or money to the poor. (The danger may be that the word "love" is used too much and for so many things and so sentimentally and sometimes perhaps dishonestly.)
"Charity" means that selfless generosity which is God's way of being. (In the New Testament Saint John once even goes so far as to say flatly "God is love," or "God is charity.")
Charity is that selfless generosity of God by which he
brings us into being and
showers blessings upon us,
has sent his only Son to become one of us and to die for us,
forgives us our sins, and
is leading us to an eternal destiny,
the full sharing in his own life.
We, the Church, are beginning already now to share in God's own life, to live the way he does, notably when we do acts of charity, like, for instance, the Clothe-a-Child collection, which we commemorated when we were last here in Church together at the School Advent Service.
Pope Benedict has said, "For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being." (Deus Caritas Est, 25) He means that when we do acts of charity, we are expressing what we actually are as members of Christ in his Church.
In the first reading today we heard, "No one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother" (1 John: 3.10). Expressed positively, that means that when we do acts of love for another person we show that we belong to God.
And in the Opening Prayer of the Mass we asked, "May we express our love for you, O God, in love for others."
The Child born at Bethlehem---and crucified on Calvary, and raised from the dead---is the embodiment of God's charity, his love for the human race. To his Church that Child has purposely left, until the end of time, a special sign of his love, of his continuing presence, in the Holy Eucharist, which we are now celebrating. In Holy Communion we receive into ourselves this sign, which is called a sacrament---it is a sign which is not a mere symbol, but the instrument by which God actually imparts to us his grace, to strengthen us to love more and so to transform us into worthy partners of himself. (Think of this intention of Christ toward you personally, and you will realize that it is not possible to receive Holy Communion with too much mindfulness and reverence.)
After Communion some of the sacrament will be put away, to be kept in the tabernacle (the cloth-covered box on the altar opposite me), to be there as the sacramental sign of his continuing presence among us. We call it the Blessed Sacrament, and keeping it there is called Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. So the opportunity is always there, whenever we are free and want to, to come to church and be in Christ's real presence.
Today is the First Friday of the month. As usual on First Friday, I and all the monk-priests here are offering this Mass to ask the Lord to send vocations to this monastery. In accord with our custom, this evening we will bring the reserved Blessed Sacrament out of the tabernacle and expose it on the high altar, to be adored and prayed to during the night. You know that you are welcome to come, with permission from whoever is in charge in your house, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Formers until just before ten o'clock, Sixth Formers till eleven. We can spend some quiet time with Jesus, we can tell him what is in our hearts, we can pray for each other, for all our own needs and those of the entire human race. And especially we ask you to join us in praying that those whom Christ is calling to follow him in the monastic life here at Portsmouth Abbey will trust him and answer his call. Thank you for praying with us.
