Twenty-second Sunday (B) St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Fryeburg, 25 th Anniversary Mass Dt 4:1-2,6-8; James 1:17-18,21B-22,27; Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23. It is a joy to be with you this morning. Sunday, always Sunday, always a day to rejoice in God s goodness, and to do it with you in community reminds us all of its value. Today Silver anniversary of Church dedication of this beautiful mission. I think I have things a little backward this morning. Three weeks ago I was in Harpswell for Mass. I was asked there if I had been here. They are a copy of this church. So I saw the copy before the original. Now I am happy to be in the main event. It is a church filled with light. That adds to our joy as we contemplate the source of light, our loving God, who created light, and who sent his Son as our Light to redeem us and bring us ever closer to him. All of that makes our celebration more joyful. I thank you sincerely for all the effort you have made to gather folks for this day. Thanks to the committee and all who took part in bringing us together. As I begin my remarks I want to take a moment to offer a special word of thanks to your priests. They are devoted to you, their people. These men are a real gift to our diocese. Fr. Innocent Okozi and Fr. Peter Shaba are members of the African Mission Society. They are generous missionaries who come here to our diocese in the USA as missionaries went to their homeland in years past. They are returning the favor and, in their generosity of leaving home and family, serve us. I am particularly grateful to Fr. Okozi who has accepted my invitation to take up a new assignment after he returns from a well-deserved visit to his family in Nigeria. I am grateful to both of these fine priests for their presence among us. 1
History tells us we celebrate 25 years today from the dedication of this beautiful church as a place of worship to gather this community. It is a great reason to come together. In fact, however, we should also remember that the history of our diocese tells us that the Catholic faith has been lived here in Fryeburg back to Colonial days. There is evidence going back almost 300 years of the fact that Jesuit missionaries had preached the Gospel to the Pequawket Indians who lived in this area. Chief Nescambiouit and Molly Ockett are names from that period. As such, as Fr. Steve Concannon related in a letter he wrote to the parish on the occasion of this anniversary, it was a very appropriate thing to name this Church after St. Elizabeth Seton. She lived around the same time as these first Catholics in Fryeburg. She, like the Native Americans attracted to the faith by the missionaries, also saw something attractive which brought her to profess her faith in God in the Catholic Church. Fr. Concannon suggests that the fact that she lived later in the colonial period, that she was a convert and that she was a woman were important reasons for making her the patron of the Church. All of those are good reasons. But, as we gather today, there may be more about her that we can look at in seeing her as a model of Christian faith. She was an extraordinary woman of faith and perseverance. Her service to the poor was beautiful and legendary in her own time. She named the women she gathered around her to share her mission Sisters of Charity. Elizabeth was a real disciple of Jesus. The Our Father is Jesus prayer. Your will be done. That was Jesus life. Thou knowest the desire of my soul is to do Thy Will. For Elizabeth, doing the will of God meant being aware of God s presence in her life, not only when she was praying or reading the Bible but every day, in every happening, in every circumstance. 2
Elizabeth came to understand that she could live God s will by living as Jesus lived. She wanted to love people as Jesus did. She wanted to follow his example. In that way she believed that she would find holiness in her life. I received a new biography of Elizabeth Seton for Christmas. (American Saint by Joan Bartel) It gave me a renewed appreciation for this great woman of the American Church. (Ordination day, her feast day) There was one story in the book that I found interesting. After a Sunday Mass she spoke to the young priest who had celebrated about his homily. He admitted to her that he had not worked sufficiently on it. She never hesitated to tell a priest that she felt he hadn t done what he was supposed to do. To her, the Word of God and its proclamation demanded the best. I can only imagine what the young priests in Baltimore thought when they would be assigned to preach at the convent of the sisters. St. Elizabeth as follower of Jesus seeking to do the will of the Father model for us. But, as we celebrate today this anniversary there is one more aspect of her faith story I think important to underline. She joined the Church because she felt that this was the community within which she would be able to come to know Jesus. She was moved to consider becoming a part of the Church by the kindness of people whose charity she was given at a time of trial in her life. (Her husband s sickness and death in Italy.) She found the liturgy beautiful. Her decision to become a Catholic was not just a decision about herself. It was a decision to become part of this community and be nourished with the Real Presence of the Eucharist at Mass and listen to the Word of God in the proclamation of the Scripture. And she wanted to do that with people who believed as she did that, by so doing, they would be doing God s will. Your patron saint is a remarkable woman. Her life reminds us of things important for us to recall. Our gathering to thank God for the gift of this Church is a gathering to recommit ourselves to be the gathering it represents. We are Church, and we are 3
called to seek God s will, together. We do it by following Jesus. The community of the Church strengthens us in our mutual care for each other. The Church also shows us a direction. It helps us to know what is right and what is wrong. Jesus had definite teaching on things. Look at the Gospel today: Jesus names evil. A passage like this reminds us that Jesus was no teddy bear. He knew what was evil and he named it. (look at Gospel Jesus names the Pharisees for critique they were not faithful) The example they gave to others was harmful. That was what was upsetting to Jesus. Notice the first reading today Moses calls on the people to commit themselves to fidelity to God. He knew that they would strengthen each other... So too is that our reality as Church. We find Jesus here in the community of the Church. He is in His Word. Yes. He is in the Eucharist. Yes. But he is also in those who daily strive to live like Elizabeth Ann Seton, as his followers, striving to do the Father s will. By so doing we help each other. We show that our gathering is not just a casual coming together. It is a community. And St. James reminds us in the second reading today that the community which has been formed in the mind of Christ is formed to service Be doers of the word. It is a true joy to be with you today for this anniversary. My prayer for you is that the celebration is a time of renewal for you. May you see yourselves as disciples working together to bring the light of Christ into our world. It is the beginning of school in these days, a good time to begin again. We hear these words in the Epistle of James this morning: All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Those are appropriate words for us to hear today as we come togtehr to gve thanks for this beautiful place of worship. Gathered in this sacred space filled with the light 4
of Jesus Christ and his Word, we give thanks for God s gifts to us, and we ask him to strengthen us so that going forth from this beautiful place of gathering we might serve him as his disciples announcing his Word through our service to each other and the lives of charity we live. 5