The following is Bishop Caggiano’s homily given at the Diocese’s 70th Anniversary Mass, Saturday, October 21, 2023
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,
“To thine own self be true.”
I remember reading those words for the very first time in freshman English class. Of course, they come from the opening acts of probably one of the most famous plays ever written in English, written by Shakespeare – Hamlet. And at the time I remember it so vividly because it struck me as both quite reasonable and also quite challenging. Reasonable because I would think everyone and anyone would want to live a life of authentic integrity, to be at peace with one another and be at peace to reveal who we are to the world, who / whatever that person may be. But challenging because, as I learned in 13 and I learned at 64, it is a work in progress to live that life of deep integrity, authenticity. To be able to truly be true to oneself.
Now people of goodwill will strive to do that, for obvious reasons. But for you and I, on this most important day, gather as believers and followers of the Lord, we must remind ourselves, my friends, that for us it is not an option. For we are called, each of us, to be true to our own selves in Jesus Christ.
For consider who we are. That although all of us are sinners, nonetheless on the day of our baptism we were claimed by the Father and made His sons and daughters in Grace. On that day you and I were forgiven original sin and all the sins we may have have committed up to that point. And we be given a destiny and a mission of holiness, destiny of eternal life. And all of us baptized are the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, so the very Living God and me inspiring us, enlightening us, giving us the Seven Gifts of His Grace so that by being true to who we are in Christ, we may become His presence in the world.
We can add our voices to Peter and to Thomas in response to the question we heard today from the Lord: who do you say that I am, being true to ourselves? We can say you are our Lord and our God, you are our Our Savior and Our Redeemer, you are the deepest desire of my heart, you are my only lasting hope.
And when we are true to ourselves in Christ, we take seriously the great call the Lord asks of us, to find the time to recognize His presence, to encounter Him over and over and over again, every day. To fall more and more in love with Him because He is the center of my life, and yours. And with Him we have everything. And without Him we have nothing.
But my dear friends, on a day like today when we gather here to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of our local Church by the successor of Peter himself, reminded that to be true to ourselves in Christ means that we must always remember discipleship is never lived alone.
Look at this church, look at the diversity of God’s people. Who alone could claim us as His own and forge us into a family where the bonds of grace are more powerful than the bonds of blood and nature? Look upon this gathering here in all our different vocations. And who are we, in fact, but branches of a divine vine? We are members of a living, mystical body. The world out there thinks we’re some venerable human institution that does some charitable work, helps educate kids…they kind of tolerate us in the modern world. But they are blind to what we see.
Because you see, my friends, in this Holy Church, what we see is that you and I are the assembly of those who worship and open the doors of eternal life. Here is where heaven and earth meet. Here is where we receive the fortaste of the banquet that will never end. It is for this reason, my friends, that we gather here to remember that we are the universal sacrament of salvation. For there is no salvation without the presence of Christ. And we are His living presence in the world. We, who are His disciples, we are the sons and daughters of His heavenly Father.
And on this day when we remember the founding of our local Church seventy years strong, we come here with gratitude. For we stand on the shoulders of giants. Bishops, priests, deacons, women and men in consecrated life, lay faithful of every race and language and culture. For seventy years, nearly four generations before us, they struggled with zeal, with courage, with fidelity, with generosity, and made the church alive and real in so many ways that I could not even begin to enumerate here today.
We come here with thanksgiving, as we look to the past that we have as a local Church which was certainly not without difficulty, not without challenge. But life is filled, at times, with challenges. But with a heroism and a zeal and a fidelity, that there is no way I can fully describe. And we come here to give thanks that we are part of that family, that is part of another family that began in the upper room with the apostles, our lady, and the great Martyrs of our Church.
We would not be here if they had not come before us. And today we thank them. And many of them have gone to the Lord and we pray that every single one of them rests in the glory of everlasting life.
But my friends, we must remember they did not have an easy time of being true to themselves. Consider, in this state, it was until the end of the second decade of the 19th century that Catholics were actually given the right to vote. It was in the 20th century that fellow Christians stopped gathering together, to oppose Catholics to have any role in society. It has not been easy. And yet those who came before us in the individual struggles they faced, and in the corporate struggles this assembly faced, they remained true.
And so in this moment of Grace I want to remind all of us that we are no strangers to challenges, are we not? Certainly. But the challenges of our modern world are different. For what do we face? We face the spectre of mediocrity, irrelevance. We face the spectre and the challenges of that world that wants us to simply go away. And we are going nowhere.
I invite you, my friends, as we begin this writing this new chapter in the life of our local Church, that we strive to be true to who we are in Christ. That each of us strives to seek radical Holiness so that our Lord is not a mystical, historical figure but He is the friend who caresses our heart every day. And despite my faults and yours, to also seek to accompany each other, all of us, as sisters and brothers, so that we could realize the vision of Augustine, our Patron who says “the tears of one are the tears of all. The joys of one are the joys of all.” And zeal in joyful optimism that shining fervently in faith, hope, and love. That world out there that wants to make us irrelevant will stop in its tracks and come to realize that what it seeks, what it hopes for, what it longs for, it can find it right here in Jesus Christ.
You know, we all know “to thine own self be true”, Polonius’ words to his son in the first act, third scene of Hamlet. But he offers that advice to his son because a fruit comes from it. If you read the rest of the line it says, and I am paraphrasing, that one who does that cannot do harm to his brother or sister.
My dear friends, on this joyful day when we move forward in optimism and grace, let us consider what it is that awaits us. If you and I, this day and every day, are true to who we are in Christ, the scriptures told us we will rise resplendant. We, you and I will see the beginnings of a new Heaven and a new Earth. You and I will be invited to become members of a Kingdom that will never end. And my friends, we will have the great Grace to be able to answer the question of the Lord. Looking Him straight in the face and to proclaim to Him what our life as individuals, and as this one family of faith, will proclaim to all the world: you are my Lord and my God. To Him be glory and honor, now and forever. Amen.
