Homily for Closing Mass for St. Luke Parish, Flint, August 3, 2008

St. Luke Parish was founded in 1950 with the first Mass celebrated in early 1951 just a few months before my birth to serve the ever expanding Catholic population in this area of Flint. This was the beginning of a rich, booming, vibrant, and glorious history of service to the faith in this area of Flint. I particularly like the story of how Fr. Edward Donahoe, your second pastor, in 1964 needed a car for the sisters and asked the parishioners to send in their trading stamps; he had such confidence in you good people that he ordered the car even before he made his appeal; and the appeal worked. We celebrate that past today and give thanks to God for his many blessings on us over these 58 years. I thank all of you who have lived and promoted our holy faith in this area of Flint. I am especially grateful for the untiring and wonderful service of Sr. Judith Blake and especially her great work with the Women’s Center. Thanks also to Fr. Gary McInnis for the obvious love and dedication to the good people of this parish. I am also grateful for the gift to the Diocese of Lansing which you, the parish of St. Luke, have made with vocations. I am also mindful of the many years of service of your first pastoral coordinator Sr. Jean O’Conner, IHM, and your many pastors prior to her including Fr. Bernie Reilly who in 1987 called St. Luke’s “the land of flat roofs” as he sought permission to repair yet another one. I am also mindful of the Adrian Dominican Sisters who taught in your school from 1952-1970s; certainly Sr. Weber represents them here. Finally, I am very grateful to your new pastor Fr. Tom Firestone and to the parish community which is opening its arms to all of you.

But today is not just a day of thanks for the past. It is also a day to pledge to God our faith and the witness of that faith in the present and the future. And we make such a pledge even as Jesus pledged himself to us in the bread and wine we share. But mostly we make our pledge as an imitation of Christ’s own fidelity to the will of his Father.

At the Last Supper we are told that Jesus took bread and then he took wine and in each case, he gave thanks. He gave thanks for the gift of his own body and blood which he knew he would be poured out and broken the next day. He gave thanks for what was about to happen to himself.

This is the point of the reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans today. Paul asks if anything can separate us from the Love of Jesus—when things don’t go our way, are we cut off from God’s love? When we are suffering or dying are we cut off from God’s love? When we are hungry or don’t have all the things we need or want, are we cut off from God’s love? St. Paul tells us that we are never cut off from God’s love, so that even when we are confronted by any of these difficulties or evils, we can face them with confidence, because we know that in the midst of them we are still loved by God. Thus we can even give thanks in the midst of them.

Why is this? Why can Paul have such confidence? Why can Jesus, the night before he is to suffer and die, give thanks to his heavenly father over his death? Why are all Christians to be confident about life, even in the face of horrors and great evils and misfortunes? The reason why we as Christians can have such hope is given in the gospel story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes today. We are told that when Jesus got out of the boat and saw the large crowd, he felt sorry for them. Since Jesus is God and is the revelation of God, then we can be confident that when God sees evils afflicting his Son and us, that God feels sorry for us, and will make all things work for the good.

This is a powerful belief that we have. Now we have to be careful here about what I am saying. Because we are confident does not mean that everything is going to work out soon or even in my lifetime; some things are just not going to get set aright this side of the grave. Rather, we are confident even in the face of life’s greatest difficulties because we believe that God will draw the greatest good possible from whatever evil comes our way.

We have this belief because we also are completely convinced that God is more powerful than any evil; that he can allow evils to exist because he is greater than they are and he can defeat them. That is what Jesus did in the resurrection from the dead.

Thus, my brothers and sisters, whenever difficulties come our way, no matter what they are, we as Christians need never give up, we need never think that we are separated from God’s love. We merely have to hand that difficulty over to the Lord, ask his help to get through it, and believe firmly that somehow, though we may never figure it out this side of the grave, somehow this evil will be transformed by God into a blessing and his kingdom will grow because of it. And so we give praise and thanks to God

The closing of this parish is a painful event; our memories here are deep and our love of one another in community is strong. These are good things. But now we are being asked to sacrifice all that we are for the greater glory of God and because we believe God will draw good from this. It is not our will we seek but his as we seek to strengthen our new parish at St. John Vianney Parish.

My brothers and sisters, today we remember and celebrate our past, but today we also pledge anew our faith in God, seeking no other task than to be like Christ, who gave his all for us in supreme confidence in his Father.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL