Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta
Homily for Mass for Consecrated Life
Readings for St Matthias: Acts 1:15-26; John 15:9-17
God the potter refashions and repurposes what is left of us for the kingdom
Dear friends in Christ,
What a week it has been for Catholics and especially for those of us in consecrated life! They say that lightning does not strike twice. Yet the Holy Spirit has done it again. He has inspired the conclave to pick yet another member of a religious order to be the new Pope, this time an Augustinian.
Three weeks ago, Pope Francis’ passing left us orphaned – for a while. We felt like a ship without a captain. We were anchorless and adrift on the turbulent waters. Then in the midst of uncertainty and apprehension, the conclave on Friday delivered us a result few of us had expected: the new Pope who is steeped in the rich contemplative spirituality, who has spent decades sharing the Good News of Christ among the poor in a country far from his own in America. He took the name of Leo XIV, in honour of the Pope who is remembered for his social teaching on the rights of working poor. Though there are great challenges ahead, we are encouraged by this sure sign of God’s accompaniment. Under the leadership of Pope Leo XIV, may we be the living witnesses of the Gospel for today’s fragmented world.
The Scriptures today speak about trust in God who challenges us not to settle into our default mode of comfort, security and self-preservation.
He uses the pattern of his Son’s suffering, death and resurrection to shape us into his instruments of renewal. In the first reading, the early followers of the way were profoundly shaken, wounded and broken not only by the passion and death of Jesus but even more so by their own failure and disloyalty. As they gathered after the traumatic events in Jerusalem, they recognised the need to be replenished and refashioned. They chose Matthias to replace Judas. But in some sense, they could not have been the nucleus of the new Israel without undergoing inner healing and refashioning.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples in an intimate way about what it means to follow him. “Love one another as I have loved you” he told them. The disciples had seen this love of Jesus in action. It was shown in his embrace of the poor, the marginalised, the sinner, the foreigner, the social outcast. It was powerfully illustrated by his gesture of foot-washing which was a symbolic act of self-negation. But it was only through his suffering and death on the cross that the command to love one another crystallised as the ultimate act of kenosis. It was through this prism that the disciples understood the essence of Christian discipleship.
Dear friends in religion,
The Japanese have developed an art called Kintsugi, which specialises in repairing and mending broken vessels. This reminds me of the visit of Jeremiah to the potter’s house where he was told that Israel would undergo the process of being recast into the kind of vessel the Lord desired. The exile would act as the furnace and Israel would be refashioned in the same way the Kintsugi artist refashions the damaged ceramic.
I wonder if this is the metaphor for religious life as we are heading towards diminishment and even completion.
I wonder whether the “laying down of one’s life” that Jesus asked of his disciples would involve us undergoing the process of being disassembled and recast into something else we are yet to comprehend.
Recently, I officiated a ritual of closing the chapel at Marymount. There were a lot of mixed emotions during the ceremony: sadness, grief, pain but also gratitude, trust and even hope. It was a kind of “laying down one’s life” in action. For us religious, it is not the building, or the property or any other temporal thing that we attach ourselves to, absolutely. It is the security of insecurity that is often what we are called to embrace. It is the discipleship of vulnerability, humility and powerlessness that religious are challenged to model for others.
Hence, the ritual served as a reminder to us that we must learn to travel light, that we must radicalise our sense of trust by not holding onto things like possessions, wealth, institutional prestige, visibility and even numbers and membership.
The survival of religious institutes is not paramount. In fact, many have come and gone. Religious movements are but a finger pointing to the moon. It is the Gospel and the reign of God that you are utterly committed to. Like Israel during the time of the exile, we let ourselves be drawn into the furnace of cleansing, even dying so that God the potter can refashion or repurpose what is left of us into something that he alone knows and destines us to be.
Mass for Consecrated Life in Marayong. Image: Alphonsus Fok/Diocese of Parramatta.
All followers of Christ are called to exchange everything for that advantage or the pearl of a great prize. But religious visualise the radicalness of Christian discipleship by the witness of their vowed and consecrated life. The whole Church is indebted to you for being the eloquent sign of God’s kingdom, especially in embodying the alternative social model of hospitality, care and compassion.
In doing do, you have bolstered our confidence as we join together in making present “the new heaven and new earth” in the here and now.
As we join our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, in his Petrine ministry, let us live the security of insecurity. Let us embrace the command of laying down our lives for the sake of the God in whom alone we trust.
