Priesthood Ordination
Cathedral of the Risen Christ
Bishop James D. Conley
May 28, 2016
Dear friends in Christ,
First of all, I would like to welcome everyone this morning to the Cathedral of the Risen Christ as we give thanks to Almighty God for the gift of four new priests of Jesus Christ.
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who joined us last evening for our diaconate ordinations, is not able to be with us this morning because he is ordaining four men to the priesthood for the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) at St. Cecilia’s Cathedral in Omaha.
I want to welcome all of my brother priests, deacons, and seminarians, here in the Diocese of Lincoln, as well as those priests, deacons and seminarians, who have traveled to Lincoln from afar, in order to be with us and to be with these four men this morning for this happy occasion. You are all most welcome to Lincoln.
I also want to welcome those representatives from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, PA, and the North American College in Rome, who are all with us this morning.
And, in a special way, I want to welcome the parents, family members and the friends of the four deacons who, in a few moments will become priests of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your love, support and prayers for these four men. Please continue to lift them up in your prayers.
And finally, I want to welcome you, our four ordinandi who will be advanced to the Order of the Presbyterate in just a few moments.
Today is a day of great celebration for the Church in Lincoln, and for the Mystical Body of Christ. Today we are given four new priests, priests who will be ordained to mediate the mercy of God by teaching, leading, and sanctifying us in the sacramental life of the Church.
We have great reason to rejoice today in the Diocese of Lincoln. As I mentioned, last evening I had the privilege of ordaining five men to the diaconate, men who are now assisting in their role as deacons at this sacred liturgy. God willing, they will be ordained priests next year.
Last year, I ordained eight new priests. This means that in a 24-month period, God willing, I will have ordained 17 new priests for our diocese. In the same span of time, we will have only one retirement, for a net gain of sixteen new priests.
The Lord has blessed us immensely, and it is for this reason that I will have released four priests in the past 12 months to serve in missions outside the Diocese of Lincoln. And so we give thanks and praise to God for his abundant blessings.
In today’s Gospel taken from Saint Luke, the Lord, with his apostles in the upper room, pours out his body and blood in the institution of the Holy Eucharist. And he commands them to do the same, in memory of him. That through their sacred words and actions, spoken and done in his name, in persona Christi, the bread would become his body and the wine would become “the new covenant in my blood.”
Today, the priests whom I ordain, will join in two-thousand years of the Eucharistic mystery—they will bless bread and break it, they will bless the chalice filled with wine—and by the mystery of the sacred priesthood, and the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, that bread and wine will become the body and blood of our Lord.
The body and blood of the Lord comprises the fountain of mercy for us. Christ died—shed his blood and broke his body—so that we might have life. The Eucharist is the mystery of his self-gift to us. This is the reason why the priest is the servant of all, why the priest follows the words of Jesus, who is “among us as the one who serves.”
The Eucharist is at the heart of the mystery of the priesthood. The Eucharist is the sacrament of truth—it is the real presence of Christ, from whom all other truths spring. And the Eucharist is the sacrament of God’s mercy.
You dear sons, as ordained priests, must become missionaries of mercy and missionaries of truth.
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Fr. Emil Kapaun was a farm boy from Pilson, Kansas, in my former Diocese of Wichita. He was a priest-chaplain in Asia during the Second World War. When the United States intervened in the Korean conflict in 1950, Fr. Kapaun asked his bishop for permission to serve.
He sailed to Korea in July of 1950. For months, he heard confessions, baptized, celebrated Mass and taught the true faith with his unit, as they marched relentlessly northward towards the Chinese border. On All Souls Day, his unit was attacked by communist forces. Fr. Kapaun’s soldiers fought tirelessly, through the night, and Fr. Kapaun stood along with them.
He dragged the wounded to safety. He gave last rites to the dying. He dove into foxholes to hear confessions, while machine gun bullets sailed overhead. His soldiers urged him to retreat, but he stayed with them for hours. By morning, his unit had been defeated, and he was a prisoner of war.
Fr. Kapaun marched, along with the captured soldiers, 87 miles in the cold. When a soldier fell, Fr. Kapaun carried him on his back. He persuaded his friends to carry the wounded as they traveled. When they got to a camp, where they would live for months, he stole food for the injured, and helped organize the camp, and every night he prayed the rosary with American soldiers: hundreds attended, even those who did not believe in God.
He was a missionary of mercy and truth.
Fr. Kapaun was mocked, and tormented, tortured by the camp’s authorities. He stood for hours on an ice block, naked in the cold. As he grew weaker, he joked with the men, to keep their spirits up, and he baptized soldier after soldier. The name of Christ was always on his lips.
By March, he had pneumonia, dysentery, blood clots, lice, and open sores. He celebrated an Easter service on March 25, at sunrise. He asked the men to pray the rosary with him. They prayed the stations of the Cross. The men sang together.
Shortly thereafter, Fr. Kapaun was taken from the camp, to die of starvation and neglect in the so-called deathhouse. When he left, he told the soldiers “I am going where I always wanted to go.” He blessed them, and on May 23rd, 1951, with the name of Jesus on his lips, he died.
Fr. Emil Kapun died a missionary of mercy, and a missionary of truth.
Dear sons, become missionaries of mercy, missionaries of truth.
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Fr. Stanley Rother was a graduate of Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary, a fellow alumnus of three of you, and many of us in the Diocese of Lincoln. He lived and studied in the same places we did. He was a priest of Oklahoma City. He was an ordinary man, in many ways. As a student, he struggled with Latin, like some of us did! In fact, he almost failed out of seminary. Still, the Lord had extraordinary designs for Fr. Rother.
Five years after he was ordained, in 1968, he went as a missionary to Guatemala. He lived among the Tz’utujil Mayan Indians. They called him Padre Francisco—Father Francis-- because they had no equivalent of “Stanley” in their language. The student who struggled with Latin translated the New Testament into the Tz’utujil Mayan language. The seminarian who almost flunked out of the seminary built a radio station so he could catechize in far-flung villages. He said Mass, and fixed trucks, and helped families in the fields at harvest time.
He was a missionary of God’s mercy and truth.
Fr. Rother was kind and joyful, present in the lives of his parishioners. Civil war broke out in Guatemala. His people were killed, or kidnapped, or disappeared into the jungle. The government repressed the Church. His radio station was smashed to bits and all the staff was killed. He was placed on a death list, a bounty on his head.
He wrote to his bishop, who wanted him to return to Oklahoma: “the shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger. Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for our people, that our presence among them will fortify them to endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom.”
On July 28, 1981, Fr. Rother was killed—shot twice in the head inside his rectory. His heart was buried under the altar of the parish church in his village, Santiago Atitlan.
Fr. Stanley Rother was martyred -- a missionary of mercy and a missionary of truth.
Dear sons, become missionaries of mercy, and missionaries of truth.
--
St. Edmund Campion was born in London in 1540. He was raised an Anglican. He swore the heretical Oath of Supremacy, and was ordained an Anglican deacon in 1564 at the age of 20. In 1571, he became a Catholic, and in 1573, he became a Jesuit. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1578, and shortly thereafter returned to England.
The practice of the faith was outlawed at that time. Those who practiced the faith were heavily fined, or imprisoned, or worse. Campion had to pose as a jewel merchant in London. And, of course, he carried the most precious of jewels: the Gospel and the Most Holy Eucharist.
He taught the truth, preaching, and bringing the sacraments across England. He was hunted by the king’s men. He was always in danger. He was hidden in houses, in priest holes as they were called, and he travelled through countryside under the cover of nightfall. Eventually, a spy discovered his identity. He was imprisoned in London Tower, tortured, and tried for treason. He told his accusers: “My charge is, at free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors in belief, to cry alarm (spiritual) against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many of my dear Countrymen are abused.”
Fr. Edmund Campion was sentenced to death. With companions, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, but he sang the Te Deum—“We praise thee, O God, we praise you as Lord,”while he was being led to death.
He was a missionary of mercy, and missionary of truth.
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Dear sons, these holy priests were martyred as missionaries of mercy and truth. The Lord may not call you to martyrdom. I pray that he will not. But he does call you as priests, to give your whole lives, to be missionaries of mercy and truth. He calls you to be prepared, as these ordinary men were, to be heroic martyred witnesses of the Lord’s mercy and truth.
In your priesthood, you will discover that mercy and truth depend upon each other. That teaching truth depends on showing mercy. And showing mercy depends upon teaching the truth.
In Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.” St. Paul provided a corollary: without charity, truth becomes a resounding gong or clashing symbol.
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare put it thusly:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
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Dear sons, if you are to be priests of the Eucharist, faithful servants of Jesus Christ, mercy must season justice. If you are to be priests of the new evangelization, and witnesses to Christ in a world in need of him, you must be missionaries of mercy, and missionaries of truth.
May almighty God bless you, and bless your priesthood.
