Our Work as Church (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Our Work as Church

August 17, 2016

This last week saw the birthday (August 15) of Blessed Oscar Romero, Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated in 1980 as he was celebrating Eucharist.  His feast day in our Lesser Feasts and Fasts cycle of commemoration is March 24, the day of his death.  A servant and advocate for the poor, Romero was killed by paramilitary troops defending the privilege of the wealthy elites then ruling his country, backed by U.S. governmental support.  The beginning and end of his life are bracketed by Feasts of the Blessed Virgin, whose Magnificat declares the ultimate vindication of the cause of the poor:  August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin, and March 24 is the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel to her.

Romero said the following about ministry in the Church, lay and ordained, and it gives us grounds for hope in the ultimate success of our efforts, a broad view of what it means to be Church: 

“The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.  No statement says all that could be said.  No prayer fully expresses our faith. No program accomplishes our mission.  No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about.  We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.  We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.  We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that this enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+