Download homily delivered by His Eminence Cardinal Donald

Ritz-Carlton
Washington, D.C.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
5:00 p.m.
OPENING MASS OF THE 2015 ACCU ANNUAL MEETING
HOMILY
by
His Eminence
Donald Cardinal Wuerl
Archbishop of Washington
Before beginning these reflections I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity
to celebrate with you this 2015 annual meeting with its theme Bold Vision, Courageous Voices:
Forming a New Generation.
In a particular way, I want to thank Michael Galligan-Stierle, the President and CEO of
the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, for his gracious invitation. I also want to
thank Father Michael Garanzini, President of Loyola University in Chicago and the ACCU
Board Chair. I also want to recognize Father Friedrich Bechina, the Undersecretary of the
Congregation for Catholic Education. Your presence adds a special dimension to this meeting.
It is an honor to reflect with all of you on the mission and ministry we all recognize as so
significant in the life of the Church. How appropriate that this annual meeting dedicated to
Catholic higher education should begin with the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Here we find
our spiritual identity and energy. We also listen because we know that the liturgy is a pedagogue.
What is it then that the part of Saint Mark’s Gospel chosen for the Liturgy today tells us?
Today, I would like to touch on three points all of which I think are instructive for us and
particularly appropriate for this meeting.
First we hear that Jesus is our teacher. The people who heard him were astonished and
amazed because he taught with authority. The second point that is clear in this Gospel reading is
that Jesus’ authority grew out of his identity. And finally, the third point, is the meaning or
application of this revealed teaching for us today.
Among the many sobriquets for Jesus is “the divine teacher.” His teaching superseded all
other teaching because he is the eternal Word, God from God and light from light who took on
flesh so that he could speak to us in our words. The letter to the Hebrews puts it this way, “In
times past God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors to the prophets; in these last
days he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he
created the universe…(Hebrews 1:1).”
One of the most striking depictions of Christ, the Divine Teacher is the mosaic of the
third mystery of the luminous mysteries of the rosary showing Jesus proclaiming the coming of
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the kingdom. In the Our Lady of Pompeii Chapel at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception this title is brought to life.
The second point that stands out from the same Scripture reading is that Jesus’ authority
grew out of his identity. With calm serenity and complete confidence, Jesus could teach, reveal
a whole new teaching, because he was speaking out of the knowledge that was his because of
who he is. “The people were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as on having
authority.”
Those who came to believe in him realized that his words were the words of everlasting
life. That he was different than all the teachers who went before him and that he really was the
Son of God.
We all recall the story of the challenge to some of Jesus’ teaching that included the
departure from the ranks of discipleship of a number of his followers. Jesus in turn asked Peter
and the remaining disciples, did they too intend to leave him.
Peter’s response is the response of every believer. Where would we go? You have the
words of everlasting life? But those words were meant to be passed on. The revelation was
meant to continue, the Word made flesh was intended to remain in some way present to all of us.
That brings us to our third point. Our own conviction that we have an identity that allows
us also to pass on the revelation and thus to speak as having authority.
All of us who teach in the communion of the Church teach with an authority that rests on
and reflects our identity as participants in the proclamation and deeper understanding of the
received revelation.
The Church’s teaching mission endures in those whom Jesus sends – his Church. Jesus
taught and so the Church teaches. As part of that teaching ministry, the Church establishes
schools to provide an academically excellent education in the context of the revelation, of our
Catholic faith, and in the environment of Catholic life.
In a particular way, having been born from the heart of Mother Church, Catholic college
and university play a significant role in the essential mission we are called to today – the New
Evangelization. The theme you have chosen for this annual meeting – “Bold Vision,
Courageous Voices: Forming a New Generation” – is reflective of the call and challenge of the
New Evangelization. We bring the encounter with Jesus and his Word to the experience of a new
generation with their own lived experiences and questions.
In the wake of the Synod on the New Evangelization which met in October of 2012, Pope
Francis wrote his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). In this
document, our Holy Father uses a word that that he often uses – parrhesia, meaning “boldness.”
He exhorts us all to fearlessly go out, full of fervor and on fire with the Spirit, to proclaim the
newness of the Gospel (EG 259).
Its newness is precisely in its hearers – since it is the same perennial Gospel that Jesus
announced. Because the hearers are new the presentation must be fresh, inviting while at the
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same time faithful. The Responsorial Psalm today puts it this way: “If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.”
What brings a new urgency to our mission is the acknowledgment of just how widespread
and profound are the social currents, often described generically as secularism, have, like a
tsunami, washed across much of our culture and taken with it the previously accepted societal
understanding of objective right and wrong, the common good, and the truth and dignity of the
human person. It is against this background that we are called to a New Evangelization and, in
order to go against the current, only bold and courageous measures will do.
At the same time, in a positive and encouraging vane, we can see that more and more
people are not satisfied that the secular order is able to content the longings of the human heart.
They want, they need, something more. The answer to so many of the questions facing the world
today is precisely what we, the Church, have to offer them.
Once during a panel discussion at a secular university, a skeptical professor asked me
what the Church brings to society. This is a question I’ve been asked in different ways. I
remember speaking to a large group of teens and a young woman stood up and asked it a little
more personally, “What does the Church have for me?” Her tone was genuine, seeking,
searching, imploring.
In his encyclical Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI explained that “the entire activity
of the Church is an expression of love” (19). The Church brings what it has always brought: We
bring to a humanity that is staggering under the weight of so many unanswered questions of the
heart a fuller vision of life. We bring an encounter with Jesus Christ.
The human heart naturally yearns for the presence of God. Christian life is defined by a
personal encounter with him in Jesus. He is Emmanuel, God himself in our midst – visible,
audible, tangible – who gives life to us and who announced the coming of a kingdom of truth and
life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.
In the Sermon on the Mount presented in Matthew’s Gospel, we hear of a new way of life
and how it involves the merciful, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who
mourn, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit. Here we learn of the call to be salt of the earth and a
light set on a lamp stand.
Later in that same Gospel, we hear the extraordinary dictum that we should see in one
another the very presence of Christ. Jesus’ disciples are challenged to envision a world where not
only the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given drink, the stranger is welcomed and the naked are
clothed, but also most amazingly sins are forgiven and eternal life is pledged.
How does this happen? How is this extraordinary vision of the kingdom realized? What
do we need to do to make this happen? How do we change the world?
Pope Francis tells us that in order for our message to be heard we must go out. How
many times does that phrase appear in his homilies, talks and speeches? Go out and meet and
then accompany.
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It is not enough that we simply announce the Good News at a distance. We are
challenged to actually meet people where they are and then begin to accompany them. Meeting
and simply being with people does not accomplish the goal that Jesus sets before us. Rather we
are to begin to accompany them, hopefully all of us getting closer to the Lord Jesus.
Catholic colleges and universities are places “to encounter the living God who in Jesus
Christ reveals his transforming love and truth,” affirmed Pope Benedict during his visit here in
2008. As a manifestation of the life and mission of the Church, they have the unique capacity to
meet so many young people and to begin to accompany them on their journey that includes the
spiritual dimension of human life. Catholic colleges and universities are an intellectual and moral
blessing sorely needed in our society today, precisely because of what you bring that is so unique
and enriching.
As the Gospel today tells us, Jesus taught with authority. We recognize that he has
authority because of who he is – “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). We also recognize
that this divine pedagogy remains the model for us today. The truth – the very revelation of who
Jesus is – he shares with us through the Church. Jesus did not leave us orphans.
When Jesus prepared to return to his Father, he called those he had chosen and anointed
them in the Holy Spirit to continue to teach everything that he had made known to them. Then he
sent them to proclaim it even to the ends of the earth. “He who hears you hears me,” Jesus told
the Apostles then, and he says it to their successors, the bishops, today.
Some 28 years ago at one of my first school visits as a bishop, a fourth grade youngster
made this same point – the apostolic tradition – the apostolic succession by telling me that he
found it amazing that I knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew
Jesus.
For the truth of our message to have an impact it must not only be heard but experienced.
Our message must not only be spoken but lived. As Blessed Pope Paul VI reminded us, “Modern
man listens more to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers it is because they
are witnesses” (Evangelii nuntiandi, 41).
The task is not just to announce, but to adapt our approach so as to attract and to urge an
entire new generation to find again the uncomplicated, genuine and tangible treasure of
friendship with Jesus. Particularly in the sacramental life of the Church, they can find the life,
the grace, which nourishes, heals and cleanses.
We are all called to be missionary disciples, but as the Synod on the New Evangelization
noted, Catholic colleges and universities have a particularly important role to play. In your
conference theme, you have already identified some of the qualities needed to carry out your
mission: a bold vision and courageous voices.
In the early Church, the word that describes the Apostles after the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost is “bold.” No longer timid, Peter boldly stands up and preaches the Good
News of the Resurrection. Paul boldly announces the Word in frenetic movement around the
world.
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Today, as the theme of this annual meeting reminds us, we must show a similar boldness
born of confidence in Christ. Ours is a bold vision, we are to be courageous voices, forming a
new generation. We cannot be indifferent to the spiritual desert of today’s society and culture.
We cannot be lukewarm, but must be on fire with the Spirit.
Pope Francis urges us to be Spirit-filled evangelizers who proclaim the newness of the
Gospel with parrhesia – boldness – not only with words, but above all by manifesting Christ’s
boundless love in our lives (EG 259).
Dear friends we must always be open to Christ and his gift of the Spirit. The lives of the
first disciples who encountered the Risen Lord were never the same afterward. The same is true
for us today and can be for those we teach.
By forming a new generation in the bold vision of Christ, we form a generation that will
help transform the temporal order from a society desperate for compassion and kindness to a
kingdom of hope, love and peace.
This is your bold vision – may you always be its courageous voices.
February 2, 2015