Photo Caption: Msgr. Doug Hennessy, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Bloomington and a golden jubilarian, delivers the homily during the Diocese of Peoria’s 2013 Jubilarian Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following is the full text of the homily by Msgr. Doug Hennessy at the June 27 Mass for Jubilarian Priests at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria. (See news story here.) Msgr. Hennessy, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Bloomington, was ordained 50 years ago and will celebrate both his golden jubilee and retirement on Sunday, July 14.

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Whether we answered “Present” a few weeks ago or years ago, or “Adsum” 50 years ago or more, we said yes to a calling. By God’s merciful grace we said yes to a calling which specified and focused the baptismal call we share with all the Church. We accepted that call to follow and serve the Lord in the ministerial priesthood of his Church.

John Paul II in “Pastores Dabo Vobis” wrote, “The Holy Spirit poured out in the sacrament of holy orders . . . configures the priest to Christ, the head and shepherd of the Church, entrusting him with a prophetic, priestly and royal mission to be carried out in the name and person of Christ.” (#27) It is an exalted, awesome identity and mission to which we have been called.

But this is lived in very practical and mundane ways. I’d like to reflect briefly with you on some more down to earth ways in which we are configured to Christ as we carry out our priestly work. By no means intending to be complete, let me suggest four ways in which we, as we preside at the Eucharist, and in our daily rounds, strive to fulfill our priestly role.

FOUR WAYS WE FULFILL PRIESTLY ROLE
When we preside at the Eucharist, we are privileged to articulate the community’s faith. We do this by our preaching, striving to focusing the Scriptures on the particular shapes of grace and sin within this community. We do this by giving voice to the central events of our history within the Eucharistic Prayer and being the instrument of Jesus’ coming among us under the appearance of bread and wine.

Secondly, we orchestrate and bring together the diverse gifts and roles within the gathered community. Sometimes this can be quite a challenge — think new servers, ushers, sometimes temperamental musicians, lectors, a particularly sluggish assembly. Again and again we strive to harmonize a church gathered into one, united act of worship and praise.

Thirdly, at the Eucharist we stand as a necessary, essential sign of the connection between the local community and the larger Church of diocese and world. We believe the Church cannot be authentically Church without the tangible links to a bishop and through a bishop to Rome and the Church around the world. At Eucharist the priest is the often unnoticed, unconscious, but very real sign of the catholicity of this gathering of the Church.

Finally, we stand among a priestly people as one who has quite publicly and unconditionally bet his life on the ultimate truth and reality of what we are doing. Not that others haven’t also done this. But we stand in the midst of our people as one who has quite publicly staked our lives on the truth, the reality of what we celebrate.

Not that this is easy, nor do we do it perfectly. We know ourselves too well. We know our sin. We know our doubts. We know our tepidity. But we also, most amazingly, know God’s foolish choice of us as earthen, but graced and privileged vessels of his faithful, unconditional commitment to us all.

DAILY ROUND OF PARISH, PRIESTLY LIFE
I would also insist each of these unique ways in which the priest is in the midst of his people at Eucharist reflects the way in which we are in the midst of God’s people, the way in which we live the Christ life, seek to love as Christ does, in the daily round of parish and priestly life.

We articulate the community’s faith, not only in the various teaching opportunities we have, but especially, and more often by presence than with words, as we stand by them as they cope with sickness, loss, with sadness and joys, with the marvelous range of human life we are privileged to share in parish life.

We enable and orchestrate the different gifts of the community as we encourage the catechist, or cantor, work with the parish council and committee, express gratitude to the funeral lunch group or those who work in the food pantry, listen patiently to someone who has a new idea or an old complaint.

We are the link person, not only at the altar, but also when we remind the Finance Committee that putting parish savings (if you have any) in the diocesan loan fund is an expression of our Catholic identity and charity, when we remind the parish of the political implications of faith, when we remind the diocese of the sometimes impossible demands of schedule and/or programs. (I am convinced that this is one of the ways in which the cross is experienced in a diocesan priest’s life. Stretched between the needs of people within a local community and the needs and concerns of the larger Church, we often share very consciously and concretely in the cross of Jesus.)

Finally, as one who has bet our lives on the truth of the Gospel, we provide a living pledge of God’s unconditional acceptance, steadfast love, and relentless forgiveness. We do this as we are present to people as they are dying, when they are struggling with some addiction or family issue, and most obviously in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

BEYOND OUR EFFORTS, JESUS IS AT WORK
The former ordination rite used to say “Agnoscite quod agitis. Imitamini quod tractamini.” The present rite says: “Know what you are doing. Imitate the mystery you celebrate. Model your life on the mystery of the Lord’s cross.” In the celebration of the Eucharist, we touch and taste the vision that directs us, the love that inspires us, the strength that keeps us going. All that we deal with in the course of each day, this is what we lay on the altar at each Eucharist.

As we experience Jesus taking and transforming this into the only adequate praise and thanks of the Father, we realize how intimately He is involved and at work not only at the Eucharist, but in the whole of our ministry. We realize beyond our own successes and failures, Jesus is at work, bringing the world through Himself to the Father. And we realize what an extraordinary gift and grace we have been given, to share in the ministerial priesthood of Christ and His Church.