Farewell Homily June 24, 2023

 

I’ve been thinking about this homily for six months.

In my head, I wrote at least three different homilies. The first overflowed with gratitude to God. The second overflowed with gratitude to you. And the third began “You can’t possibly expect me to say anything tonight, so Archbishop Miller will preach!”

Well, the Archbishop will not preach. When he told me he could not make it in time because of a prior Mass in Surrey this afternoon, I got the feeling he was secretly pleased that I was forced to confront my famous emotions head on.

However, the homily I’d really like to give—deeply grateful reflections on the most fruitful years of my life, looking back on the past sixteen years with wonder and awe—will remain in my heart, the words unspoken.

You’ve all heard the slogan “know your limit, play within it.” That’s what I am going to do at Mass tonight.

You’ve also all heard, many a time, my favourite Bible verse: Romans 8:28, God works for good in all things. I think that my tendency to choke on emotional thoughts has turned out to be a blessing tonight. Guided, I hope, by the Holy Spirit I decided not going to look back; not even to talk about the present; I am going to speak of the future of this irresistible parish of Christ the Redeemer.

I got the idea in a planning meeting at the Pastoral Centre where I work. One of the senior staff said he was going to present a SWOT analysis.

My immediate thought: “A SWAT analysis. And I said to myself: I know things are bad, but surely they’re not that bad!

Turns out that a SWOT analysis—S-W-O-T—is a clever way of looking at an organization or situa-tion.

S stands for Strengths. W stands for Weaknesses. O stands for Opportunities, and T for Threats: S.W.O.T. The first two—strengths and weaknesses—come from within. The second two—opportunities and threats—come from outside.

Before we move on to this SWOT analysis let’s stop for a moment to recall that we are gathered to celebrate the birth of St. John the Baptist. It wasn’t planned that way, but it’s perfect. The Gospel for this feast tells the dramatic story of the naming of this great saint. I’ve read it many times—I always focus on poor Zechariah. I didn’t pay any attention to what he called his son, since John is such a common name… like Smith.

But while I was preparing this homily, I stumbled across something quite delightful and relevant to my thoughts about Christ the Redeemer tonight. The name John means “God is gracious.” That sums up in three words so much of what I wish I were able to say tonight. God has been gracious to me, God has been gracious to us, and has called us to be his gracious presence in the world, as we become ever more an irresistible sign of his salvation.

We’ll come back to John, but first let’s turn to the strengths,  the strengths of our parish community and what these mean for the future. Near the top of the list is vision: this parish knows what God wants; it knows where it’s headed; and it knows how to get there.

Early in my time at Christ the Redeemer we spoke often about forming intentional disciples. We’ve worked hard at that. But somewhere along the way we realized that to form intentional disciples we needed to be an intentional parish. And that is what we are becoming and will become more and more.

An intentional parish requires three things to succeed. First, unity. If there is disagreement or even uncertainty about what we’re going, we will surely never get there. Now I have a bird’s-eye view of parish life in the archdiocese, and I know that our parish is second to none in harmony.

Second, openness to the Holy Spirit. Unity is a gift from God himself, and vision must be shaped by carefully discerning God’s will with the Spirit’s help. I look ahead with great confidence precisely because I know that the parish’s strengths are not rooted in human wisdom or gifts.

Now let me contradict myself! A third tremendous strength is the emergence of teams. Teams aren’t simply a way of multiplying volunteers: they’re a whole new way of doing things.

Without teams it’s just not possible to accomplish some aspects of our vision—some aspects of the mission we have. It takes teams to become welcoming and hospitable to visitors; it takes teams to express charity and compassion for the needy, the sorrowing, the refugees; even our vibrant prayer ministry involves teams.

Most of all it takes teams to evangelize widely. Reaching large groups of people demands equally large numbers of volunteers.

John the Baptist was the last solo evangelizer! He had a unique call from God, from his birth. No one, not even St. Paul, had such an assignment. From Jesus onward, spreading the Gospel has demanded teamwork.

The pandemic was an amazing example of what teams can do; it’s been difficult to keep that energy going post-pandemic but I’m confident that teams are what will drive the parish forward in the years ahead.

Of course, we have weaknesses. Despite our best efforts, some of us are still reluctant to invite others to know Jesus or even to bring them to church events. Effective evangelization requires a culture of invitation, which—let’s be honest—takes us out of our comfort zone.

Connected to this particular weakness in our parish is a strong tendency to over-protect our personal time. When someone pointed this out, I was very quick to defend our parishioners by saying how busy everyone is. The person I was talking to—a very busy person—looked me straight in the eye and said, “people find time for what matters most to them.”

Since we only have seven days in a week and twenty-four hours in a day, individuals will need to change some priorities if we are to move ahead, they’ll need to put their baptismal call ahead of chairing the strata council or serving on the golf course board. I don’t dare say anything about coaches!

And speaking of priorities, stewardship manages to be both a strength and a weakness at Christ the Redeemer. Parishioners show remarkable generosity when presented with extraordinary needs: when the roof eventually gives up, Father Paul will have no problem finding the money to replace it. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that regular weekly giving is stagnant and doesn’t show the enthusiasm typical of a thriving evangelical church. Continuing and growing our commitment to excellence requires not only volunteers but paid leaders able to devote their energies to our mission full time. And that requires not special donations but ordinary support.

Before looking at opportunities, one last weakness. We’re still waiting to see the full fruits of our efforts to promote Eucharistic devotion. There is all kinds of evidence that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament strengthens the committed and helps the weak commit. Yet there is sometimes a general lack of reverence toward the Real Presence here in the church that we will need to overcome to reap all the benefits of being a Eucharistic community. We need our visitors to see what we believe and how we stand before the Eucharistic Lord in his house.

Opportunities, well they abound. You can’t miss the signs of new housing going up in the area. Single-family houses are being replaced by townhouses and apartments, giving young families a chance to come back here. You only need to look around on a Sunday—or today—to see the young families, the new families with their children at Mass.

Immigration is an opportunity and a challenge. There are many new Canadians in our area who are looking for a connection. They don’t find their former religious culture meets their needs and they are open to exploring our Faith.

And finally, threats.

Today, as I mentioned, we’re celebrating the birth of St. John the Baptist and his place in the history of our salvation. But we can’t forget that on another feast day we remember his death. The greatest threat as the parish moves into the future is the society in which we live, which is becoming almost daily more hostile to Christianity and Christians.

We encounter this threat chiefly in two forms. The most insidious is the effect on our young people who, under the influence of social media and the entertainment industry, are almost brainwashed into beliefs that are incompatible with discipleship. It demands superhuman effort by our families, and our school, and our parish to keep them united to Christ and his Church when they reject so much of the Catholic understanding of the human person and of the family.

The second form that this threat takes is the blatant prejudice against professing and living the faith at work and in the public square. What was first a problem mainly for doctors, nurses, and pharma-cists—and we have all those in the parish—became a problem next for lawyers. Now almost no one can escape the so-called cancel culture, whether a banker, an athlete, or a counsellor.

This will make ordinary churchgoing increasingly difficult. Sixteen years from now there will be few parishioners who are not willing to suffer for their beliefs. The others will have left us.

Christ the Redeemer faces lesser challenges as well. These need to be acknowledged as we look ahead. It’s increasingly difficult, in the labour market, to hire staff of every kind, including teachers in our schools. Our location is both hidden away, not visible to passersby, and beset by traffic problems and limited public transit. And always the issue of housing prices casts its shadow.

I don’t know what John the Baptist would make of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. He really had only one strength, that given him by the Holy Spirit and deep-ened by prayer and penance in the desert.

He had few opportunities, preaching in the wilder-ness and on the riverbank. Yet his voice echoed with such power that the religious leaders could not ignore it or dismiss it.

Threats, on the other hand, he had. Like the prophets of our day, he upset the powerful. Fulfilling his mission to be a voice crying in the wilderness cost him his life. He was not beheaded because he proclaimed Jesus as the Lamb of God but he was beheaded because he defended the natural law of marriage. It was the ultimate in cancel culture.

As we ponder the example of John the Baptist, we can ask ourselves where we fit ourselves in terms of our SWOT analysis of our parish. Are there some things we might do to be part of its strengths? Could we get involved—more involved—in overcoming the weaknesses and seizing the opportunities?

Most of all, in our lives of prayer and worship and service, let’s think about John’s laser focus on Jesus. John had a central message, proclaimed it tirelessly, always keeping the attention off himself, pointing literally to the Lord, the Lamb of God.

John, like King David, was a man after God’s own heart, a man who carried out God’s wishes. The Lord now speaks to us as he spoke in the first reading. He says, “You are my servant … in whom I will be glorified.”

God has given every member of our parish community the same task he gave to John the Baptist, and for the same reason. We are all called to be a light to the nations so that salvation may reach the ends of the earth.

It’s a daunting task to say the least, and we will sometimes be as discouraged as Isaiah was, feeling we laboured in vain. But the battle is the Lord’s, the Lord who rewards us for our labours both now and in eternity.

Yes, we face weaknesses and threats—but they are no match for our strengths and opportunities. The parish can look to the future with hope and with confidence if each member responds to the Lord’s call.

It all depends on you.