Tuesday 18 October, 2011 Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist. Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist Savannah, Georgia

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1 Tuesday 18 October, 2011 Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist Savannah, Georgia Episcopal Ordination and Installation of Gregory John Hartmayer, OFM, Conv As 14 th Bishop of the Diocese of Savannah Wilton D. Gregory, Metropolitan Archbishop of Atlanta As Jesus Himself proposes in today s Gospel passage taken from Saint Luke the Evangelist, I would do quite well to begin our ceremony with a greeting of Peace to the entire Household of the Church in Savannah. I already know that there are countless peaceful people residing within this blessed local Church people of deep faith who gladly and joyfully welcome their new bishop and who in turn wish him

2 both peace but also a warm and heartfelt welcome. As the Lord was sending out those 72 disciples, He urged them to bring a greeting of peace to those homes that they entered. This greeting of peace was in fact to be His own initial greeting to His disciples encountering them after His Resurrection. The peace that Jesus Christ continuously offers to His Church is a profound spiritual gift and one that is intended to unite all of us in joy and hope at all times and in every place. The Church in the Diocese of Savannah has lived in peace and in security as a tribute to the extensive and faithful service of Bishop J. Kevin Boland who has guided it wisely for the past 16 years as its Bishop and also cared for it zealously 2

3 and with love for more than 50 years as one of its own priests. Bishop Boland, I thank you for your generous safeguarding of the People of God here in the Diocese of Savannah. We are so grateful to Almighty God for the gifts that you have lavished upon this local Church and we ask Jesus the Good Shepherd to grant you health, joy, and many more long years of continued ministry in the midst of the people who love you dearly. On a personal note, I furthermore want to thank you for being such a loyal and faithful brother in the Episcopal service of this entire State of Georgia. I could not have ever asked for a better brother across the line that separates the Archdiocese of Atlanta from our beloved mother Diocese of Savannah. 3

4 Gregory, my dear friend and beloved, brother today we begin an important new moment in our friendship and in our relationship one that is confirmed through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Today due to the gracious appointment of Our Holy Father, you will assume the pastoral care of the people of this gracious community. Gregory, my brother, today you undertake a humbling new responsibility. As a Franciscan, you first entered the Priesthood of Christ inspired by the example and the spiritual appeal of the Little Poor Man from Assisi. As a religious you already know and value the remarkable gift of living in community. Now the Church asks that you embrace this new responsibility as the Father in Faith of the entire 4

5 community of the Diocese of Savannah. You have chosen as your Episcopal motto the greeting that Francis himself often used: Pax et Bonum Peace and Goodness. May that motto mark all of your days as Bishop and may it forever be the response that the Holy Spirit generates in the hearts of the people entrusted to your care. Bishop-Elect Hartmayer, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI believes that your experience as teacher, administrator, pastor, and priest has prepared you quite well to accept this new obligation. We applaud and thank him for the transparent gift of your appointment as bishop. And today we renew our esteem for him as the Successor 5

6 to Peter the Apostle and Pastor of the Universal Church. We gratefully welcome and acknowledge the presence of Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume Chargé d Affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature. Monsignor, even as we await the appointment of a new Apostolic Nuncio for the United States of America, we kindly ask you to convey to the Holy Father the love, fidelity and devotion of all of the People of God in the Diocese of Savannah. Gregory, my dear brother, a bishop exercises a three-fold ministry within the Church as you obviously are well aware. Each bishop must teach, govern, and sanctify the People of God. Each 6

7 dimension of your service as a bishop is important and yet these three-fold responsibilities will continuously entwine themselves around your heart and usually consume all of your waking hours. It may be all but impossible ever precisely to separate your teaching, governing, and sanctifying of the people now entrusted to your care. These duties are not so easily compartmentalized. Yet it will be useful to consider each of these three charges individually for the sake of our reflection in our prayer today. Each bishop as a consequence of the very nature of our apostolic office must always be a teacher of the faith. We must proclaim the entire deposit of faith before the People of God. Later in our ceremony, you 7

8 will be presented once again with the Book of the Gospels as you were many years ago when you were ordained a deacon. The Church presents this lifegiving Word to you once more to remind you that all of your teaching must be grounded in God s Holy Word. However we bishops are also entrusted with the legacy of Faith which accompanies God s Word and that also belongs to the Church our Sacred Tradition. Every bishop must skillfully and consistently use all of his talents and zeal to proclaim the entire deposit of faith for the People of God. You must do so while simultaneously reminding God s People of the integrity of our faith the Church s heritage of belief 8

9 includes both its doctrine and its social teaching never allowing one to supplant the other or be separated in the lives of our people. All of your teaching must seek to make known the entire Truth that the Church holds as a sacred trust. This is a daunting task in the world today which so desperately needs such truth. The truth that the Church possesses and proclaims transcends the ages and crosses every culture and is intended to speak to the heart of all people. The Church s faith is true and eternal and not simply a collection of facts and data, but a truth that belongs to eternity and is ultimately subject only to God s authority. My brother, you must teach the entire truth whether 9

10 convenient or inconvenient as Saint Paul urges us. Yet this must always be done in such a fashion that it continually encourages people to believe the truth, to accept the truth, and to live by the truth. As a loving father, your teaching must always take into account the experience and the condition of the people you seek to enlighten by the truth. Episcopal governance is an essential service that bishops must offer to the Church since it involves and expresses the engagement that people have through you with Christ the Good Shepherd. Governing the flock of the Lord must always be exercised with constancy and fidelity to that sacred image. The authority of the bishop as shepherd 10

11 comes from Christ and must always be modeled on Christ. It is far more than simply possessing the authority to command people to do one s bidding. It is the responsibility of ordering the Church according to the design of God Himself. A bishop always seeks to guide and govern the Church in ways that draw people together around the truth and always in love. Even in the exercise of administrative decisions and organizational tasks, the bishop shows forth the compassion of Christ the Good Shepherd in the way that he fulfills his responsibilities. No bishop can ever shy away from prophetic candor and proclaiming the truth, but he must also listen to 11

12 the hearts of his people so that he will know how best to guide them always according to the mind and heart of Christ. Teach the truth with integrity, with wisdom and prudence, and always fully aware of the audience that receives your teaching so that they can appropriate what the Church proudly and consistently must announce to the entire world because that truth both comes from and is Christ Himself. A bishop is a minister who must sanctify the Church since you must propel the People of the Diocese of Savannah toward Christ Himself. You do so most importantly through your own good example of prayer and reverence for the things of God. A bishop 12

13 presides in charity over the local Church entrusted to his care. At the Eucharist, you will find the paramount and the central means of sanctifying your flock. As you gather the priests, deacons, and faithful around the altar of Christ, you will make Him present in Word and Sacrament but you must also remember that He is to be found within the very assembly that gathers around you. Let the people of the Diocese of Savannah observe you at prayer. They are comforted and strengthened when they see us in prayer and heartened when they know that we pray for them and for their children and loved ones. Our own journey of Faith becomes 13

14 for the entire Church a great source of hope and confidence. These three responsibilities that are placed upon the shoulders of a bishop, Gregory, indeed can be burdensome at times, but they are also always our means of following Christ and making Him present to the Church entrusted to our care and indeed to the entire world. You are accompanied today by many priests, deacons, religious and faithful from the Archdiocese of Atlanta where you have served so successfully for the past 16 years and by relatives and friends from Buffalo, Baltimore, and the other places where you have grown into the man of faith that you are today. They come to assure you of their 14

15 prayers and affection and they will leave those with you as you take up this new ministry here in South Georgia. From this day forward may you know only Pax et Bonum. Amen! 15