Saturday, September 27 @ 1:00 PM
St. Augustine Cathedral

My dear sisters and brothers,

It was about this time of the year, early October, late September, that I and a few of my newly found friends in my freshman class at Regis High School were moaning and bemoaning the fact that we had to take Greek every day. And worse than that, we had a quiz every single day. And as we were going on and on, no one realized that standing behind us was our Greek teacher, Father James Kelly, a Holy, Holy Jesuit. He turned to us when we saw we were just frozen. He said something I have never forgotten.

I was fully expecting to be reprimanded, but he actually had that fatherly tone. He said to us, Gentlemen, you have a choice to make. You either live your life counting your challenges or problems, or you live your life counting your blessings and your joy It all hangs in the balance. I thought, Thank God we didn’t get jug.

But all these years later, how true he is, how true that was and still is. You and I, as people of faith, we know what it means to count our blessings because each time we come to the altar of God and we bring to Him our blessings and joys in our triumphs and our problems and our broken hearts.

But we give thanks for the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. We give thanks for entering into the mystery of his death and resurrection. Each time we come to His altar, we enter into that mystery in which you and I have been saved. Certainly, there are problems and challenges in life, but our lives are marked by blessings. The greatest blessing of all is is to have a savior and redeemer who has set us free.

As a community of faith, today is a day to count a blessing that is hidden in our midst, a blessing that you and I have come to recognize in our parishes, in schools, in our hospitals, in institutions that give care to the sick and the needy and the poor. All of you, my friends, who are being honored, you are the blessing in our midst.

And today, we as your sisters and brothers, are giving voice to what you are pastors and your sisters and brothers in all the places you serve, I have the privilege to say on behalf of all of them, thank you. Today, we give thanks for every single one of you. And there’s much to give thanks for. First and foremost, all that you do in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Consider all the lives you bless in hidden ways and ways unknown to you, the children you sit with and tutor, those you visit in the hospital who perhaps have not had a visit for weeks, for those who receive food from your hands that otherwise would go hungry, for all the quiet work that’s done in the office of a rectory without which the parish could not function. For those of you who stand before young people and try to transmit the faith with joy in a world that says, Don’t bother, and the list goes on and on and on. In all that you do, my friends, you are a blessing, and you are the vehicle of blessings for others.

And today we say to each of you, thank you. But more than that, you are also remarkable women men of integrity, faithfulness, generosity, zeal, and courage. And your witness converts more hearts than that which you do. The many lives you bless may not say it to you, but I can say it for them today, thank you for being the people that you are in Christ.

But allow me one last item to thank you for. You know, my dear friends, today, as you will hear in the closing prayer, today is the feast of Vincent de Paul, a man who arose in a time of the church in the end of the ’16th, beginning of the 17th century, in a time when the church was coming out of scandal and corruption, attempts to reform and be renewed, a time when the church was trying to reestablish its trust and witness, in a time when the church was finding its footings so that the faith could go to the four corners of the earth in that time that is eerily similar to what you and I are living now.

Vincent de Paul came forward as a man who devoted his life for the poorest of the poor, whoever he or she was. He even taught his priest’s information that if the door knocks and someone is poor, interrupt your prayer, for that act is your prayer to give glory to God. You see, my friends, Vincent de Paul was an evangelizer of his age. And all of you, my friends who are being honored, you are equally evangelizers in our new age, where the world is not so much interested first in hearing our words as seeing words put to action, and you do it countless ways every single day.

I personally, and on behalf of the Church, thank you for being the evangelizers we need right here, right now. You know, my dear friends, it is important to say thanks It’s the heart of who we are as believers. But the truth is, there is one other thanks that awaits all of us, and that thanks will not come from my lips. It will not come from the lips of Father Kelly. It will not come from the lips of anyone you serve. It will come from the lips of the Savior and Master. For when our earthly pilgrimage is over, he will look you and say, ‘Thank you, good and faithful servant, come to the place I have prepared for you from the beginning of creation. ‘ My friends, congratulations. And may I end by simply saying, ‘Thank you’.