THANKSGIVING SERMON 50 YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD JUNE 14, 2015

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1 THANKSGIVING SERMON 50 YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD JUNE 14, 2015 Two months ago, Blasé Cupich, the new Archbishop of Chicago, spoke at a Mass for priest jubilarians celebrating their 50 th anniversary. He chose, as his theme, words from the story of the multiplication of the loaves that appears in all four Gospels. He began his homily with this question: Where can we find enough food to give them something to eat? The archbishop pointed out that that was the very question Jesus posed to his disciples. Moreover, he said that it is the same question which the jubilarians themselves have faced throughout their 50 years of ministry. This morning, as a priest who has tried to serve God s people for the past 50 years, I want to claim that it is my question, too. What is amazing and consoling for me as a priest is that the answer to the question is found in this morning s Gospel reading. In Mark s fourth chapter, Jesus explains the meaning of the kingdom of God to his disciples by way of a rich metaphor. That metaphor in today s parable is the seed scattered on the ground which eventually becomes our bread, our food, our sustenance. Clearly, the seed is an image of God s word which is planted in the soil of our hearts. Each Sunday, that seed, that word is watered, nurtured and fertilized by the priest s preaching. In truth, it is that seed, that word, proclaimed Sunday after Sunday by the priest that begins to take hold, to sprout and to grow in the lives of all who listen attentively. As the priest coaxes the seed and breaks open the word in the good soil of his own heart and the hearts of his listeners, an amazing transformation takes place. On its own accord, the soil of our lives yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. At the moment the grain is ripe, God, the ultimate sower, wields the sickle for the harvest of food that it has become. 1

2 It is this harvest of food that emerges from the tiny seed of God s word that feeds us, God s people. It is this harvest of food that answers the question Archbishop Cupich raised at the jubiliarians Mass. Speaking personally, today s Gospel, in so many fundamental ways, captures for me the essence and core of my own 50-year journey as a priest. In season and out of season, in good times and bad, in consolation and desolation, my life as a priest has always been first and foremost to preach the Gospel, to plant the seed, to provide the sacrament of the word in conjunction with the sacraments of baptism, eucharist, confession, marriage and anointing of the sick. Yes, in light of today s second reading from Paul s Letter to the Corinthians, I have walked by faith not by sight. In spite of all my weaknesses and failures, I have tried in faith and trust to be courageous as God s priest by preaching God s word according to the spirit of Paul s words, namely by aspiring to please the Lord. Reaching back for a moment to that day in 1965 when Cardinal Cushing of Boston placed his hands on my head and the heads of 25 other Jesuits and offered a prayer calling down the spirit upon us, and then anointed our hands with oil, the ministry of preaching the word, of proclaiming the Gospel, has been for me full of graces and blessings beyond telling but also pregnant with challenges and struggles latent within the Church and within the wider everyday world. Recall that I was ordained a priest in a Church whose theology, culture and lifestyle had been established at the council of Trent some 400 years earlier. To put it in a single but inadequate phrase, I was ordained into a Church that was ruled by clericalism. The priest was on a pedestal and he had all the answers and also had his hands on all the levers of control and of decision-making that impacted people s lives from birth to death. The era of momentous changes, the spirit of aggiornamento captured at the Second Vatican Council, had not yet begun to flower. Pope John XXIII s Church of the People of God and of open doors and windows had not yet emerged. In fact, my peers and 2

3 I were literally thrust into a Church that was about to experience a Catholic Tsunami, a monumental set of changes which are still being felt 50 years after the close of the Second Vatican Council in December There we were, newly ordained priests, neophytes, caught between the church of Trent and the Church of Vatican II, a clerical Church called to be a Church of the laity, a Latin-speaking church called to speak in our own vernacular language, a male church called to make room for women, a defensive, non-dialoging Church called to become ecumenical and interfaith in action, a semi-cloistered church called to open itself up and become concerned about social justice and the struggles of the poor. We, newbies, were called upon to handle the overwhelming task of facilitating a movement from the old to the new, from what used to be to what was emerging as a whole new Catholic world. And, of course, we were given no grand plan to carry out the changes. These past 50 years with all their successes and failures remain the future work of scholars of history to record for posterity. It is quite a story to tell. Yet, for me as a priest, no matter where I found myself from those early years in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago or in my middle years in Baltimore, Mexico and Toronto, or these past 25 years in Nigeria, back in Baltimore and even Vietnam, the one staying power at the epicenter of my priesthood has been the seed, God s word: praying it, preaching it, and trying to live it in my own life whether in the schools like St. Joseph s Prep, Loyola Blakefield, St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School or parishes like Old St. Joseph, St. Joseph Church in Nigeria and St. Ignatius, my special home in Baltimore. For that word, that seed, that holy sacrament is God s Good News in the midst of a world too often fraught with and torn apart by death, darkness and despair. I have tried, though often quite feebly, to keep faithful to the word and to share it as often as possible as a priest according to today s Gospel which is a perfect reminder to me what I, as a priest, should be all about. Yes, while God, the great master farmer, has been planting the seed for 50 years in my own life, God has also invited me to plant, to nurture and to harvest with him the fruits of the word in others. If truth be told, the measure of my planting and nurturing is recorded in the harvesting of those who 3

4 have heard the word and have now become stakeholders themselves in what is now referred to as the new evangelization. The work and ministry of my priestly life, rooted in God s word, has borne fruit in so far as God has raised up each of those persons to whom I have preached the word to become themselves scatterers of the seed, planters of the word and who now labor at the harvest, too. For sure, my mission as a priest, called to spread the word, has been blessed by God over and over again in raising up countless partners and collaborators in the ministry of the word at the schools and parishes already mentioned and also at the House of Prayer, the house for the poor in Nigeria and the retreat center at Blue Ridge Summit. How grateful I am to God for the many persons who have joined me in the work of the Gospel. God has enriched my life as a priest throughout these all-too-short 50 years. On the journey, I have learned many lessons. One of the greatest is that my priesthood is not mine. It is a gift from God that truly belongs to God s people. For God has raised up all kinds of wonderful persons who have shown me how to be a priest, how to stay faithful to my calling and how to grow more deeply into a priestly life by being a true servant of God and of those people God has sent me to serve. In looking back, therefore, I am profoundly grateful to you and to the countless persons, some of whom I will never know, who have supported me, blessed me, corrected me, and encouraged me to be a priest who scatters the seed, who preaches the word, who lives God s calling and mission to proclaim always the Good News of the Gospel of God s kingdom. Obviously, my own family, my many friends, my fellow parishioners here and at the other parishes where I have served and my many students and fellow faculty at all the schools where I have taught or administered, are the ones who shaped me to be a priest. Thank you from the core of my heart! In looking back, too, I am humbled that I have been forgiven by those for whom I have not always been the priest they wanted me to be, needed me to be and deserved me to be. I apologize to all those I have failed in my priesthood. I ask forgiveness. 4

5 Finally, mindful of the question Archbishop Cupich asked in his homily about Where can we find enough food to give them something to eat?, I would be totally remiss in my own celebration of my ordination as a priest, if I did not point to Pope Francis as a powerful and inspiring model for me in these my own senior years as a priest. I see in him an iconic figure of the priest who long since has found the food, the food Jesus speaks of in today s Gospel to feed the people. Day-after-day for more than two years Francis has been scattering the seed and nurturing it in his homilies, his speeches, his pastoral journeys and in his very life style as he reaches out to all people, not only in the Church, but across the whole world, giving all of us a new sense of God s mercy and forgiveness that opens up new horizons and fresh frontiers of joy and hope for all of humanity, especially for the poor and voiceless. In him, God s word lives. In closing, I want you to know how very happy I am to be a priest of the Church whose principal voice, Pope Francis, calls me and all priests to be humble, simple, and pastoral, preaching joyfully God s word of compassion and mercy, justice and peace even to the outer edges of the world. In deep gratitude to God and to all of you, I pray that God will allow me to continue to bring the food of the Gospel, the seed of God s word, to those God still may wish me to serve. So, with sincere thanks to you and to God, I offer a chant of praise to God, saying: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Rev. Bill Watters, S.J. St. Ignatius Church Baltimore, MD June 14,