3 September 2009

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you all with joy, peace, and hope, and strengthen you in mind and heart to live your vocations with unwavering commitment.  This is my prayer for all of you.  Please pray for me also, and especially in this Year for Priests, pray for your pastor and all our priests.

Last week, in Omaha, I attended the annual convention for Serra International, the parent organization of our local Serra Clubs, who pray for consecrated persons and for priests and for priestly and religious vocations.  Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York gave a very clear and challenging talk on promoting priestly vocations.  In fact, he reminded us, it is not at all difficult to have lots of vocations to the priesthood and to religious life.  Flourishing vocations depend very much on our Catholic families having a solid and holy life in the home.   The foundation of every subsequent vocation is our strong commitment to the universal call to holiness in the sacraments of baptism and marriage. The life long loving commitments of husbands and wives in a sacramental marriage goes hand in hand with the life long commitment to the priesthood and consecrated life.  When children see their parents sacrifice and love one another in a committed and faithful relationship, they are much more likely to want that in their lives as well.  Some will marry and enrich the Church with their children.  Others will accept the call to be priests or consecrated persons, their spouse becomes Christ in the Church and the people they serve. 

The only thing hard about this is that we actually must become more holy!  We know that Christ in His Passion has conquered sin and death, and that in our baptism we receive His life and the fruits of that victory.  But, we are still immersed in the world, where sin and death still surround us, although they do not rule us.  We cannot become what Christ calls us to be, without fighting against the tides of sin and death all around us.  We remain attracted to sin, in fact.  We call this “concupiscence.”  The fruits of sin taste sweet, and so we pursue them.

But the sweetness of sin is illusory.  The more we try to enjoy that sweetness, the more bitter it becomes; and as it turns bitter, we are driven to sin more and more, as we attempt to recapture that first sweetness.  If we do not turn back to Christ and seek His healing and forgiveness, we will be lost to His light and grace.  We cannot be fed and satisfied on the fruits of sin, but only on the true Bread of Life.

Each of us, as Catholics, must take responsibility for our own sins.  We must strengthen the habit of examining our conscience.  Use the Ten Commandments, and ask yourself honestly when you have done or permitted what God so clearly calls us not to do, for love of Him.  Use the Beatitudes, and ask yourself honestly when you have failed to do what Christ so clearly calls us to do, for love of Him.  Then, knowing how you have sinned by commission and by omission, go to Confession!  Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us this beautiful sacrament of healing, because He knows from His own personal experience how weakly we cling to our Father’s perfect will, and how easily we slip into temptation.  Use this precious gift! 

Moreover, use it with your family.  Parents you have a serious obligation to  teach your children how to examine their own consciences.  Take your children to this sacrament, and offer them the unmistakable example of your own regular use of it.  The commonly used “parish Reconciliation services” in Advent and Lent can be excellent places to begin, but don’t let your interior healing happen only once or twice a year.

The same commitment to sharing and passing on our Catholic faith by explicit teaching and concrete example must also be applied to eating meals together, praying together very frequently,  especially the rosary and attending Mass together.  There is no substitute, anywhere in the Church, for the devotion and faith learned in the home.  Everything else the Church does, even in our Catholic schools and parish religious education programs, can only build on the foundation of the life of faith practiced in the home.  Make that foundation a rock, not sand.

Nativity of Mary

Next week, on September 8, the Church celebrates the Nativity of Mary.  Exactly nine months ago, we celebrated the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.  Now is born the child whom God formed in Saint Anne’s womb without stain of original sin.  Mary has the unique vocation in salvation history to be the Mother of God Incarnate, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  For this, she was given the gift of perfect purity, so that, in accepting the difficult task God willed for her, she might make of herself the perfect gift of “a humble and contrite heart” not spurned by Him.  In remembering Mary’s birth, we remember also our own birth, and especially our baptism, when we were born in the Church.  Mary’s purity is the promise of our own holiness, which God gives us in that baptism, and renews in us in every holy sacrament, especially Confession and the Holy Eucharist.

May the Lord bless each of you with zeal and joy in our holy Catholic faith.

Your brother in Christ,

Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless