From Archbishop Donoghue

Ordination of priests
June 5, 1999
Holy Spirit Church
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[See Georgia Bulletin account]

Dear Friends in Christ,

Not long after His Resurrection, our Lord appeared one morning to St. Peter, St. Thomas, and some others, who were fishing in the Lake of Galilee. Peter had seen Him standing on the shore, and could wait no longer for the slow boat to put in - he hiked up his garments, jumped into the water, and waded to shore. Perhaps St. Peter ran so eagerly towards our Lord on this occasion, because he remembered too well, another time, when just as eagerly, He had run away from our Lord - run away from being identified with Him, run away from sharing in His judgment, His Passion, and His Death. That is one way to understand what St. Peter did - a headlong dash to get to our Lord on the distant shore, where He waited, ready to grant forgiveness and absolution, ready to apply the soothing remedy for all of St. Peter’s guilt and painful remembrance.

But another way of looking at the scene, is to see with history’s eyes - to realize, that more than his own guilt, it was the Holy Spirit who catapulted Peter across the waters that morning - for this meeting was to be one of the last great councils between our Lord in His visible human form, and the man who was now to take charge of His Holy Church on earth, and our Church down to this very day and hour.

Christ sits down with His men, He enjoys their company at breakfast - one might even say that He enjoys His human and earthly existence one more time, before ascending to the Father, where He is till the last, the final day. He eats, converses, listens no doubt - and then, to Peter directly, He speaks words that are to be the rule for all who will lead in His name: Feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep.

Christ called around Him that day His first priests, and He calls us today - the ordained, the about-to-be ordained, and the Faithful of the Church. He speaks these words to us all, for truly, we are charged, with sacramental authority, to care for one another. But especially today, Christ speaks the words to you, the three men who will now become His priests for ever.

“Feed” - for your first action, your first duty will be always to the Sacrament of the Eucharist - it is by this action, that you provide the Faithful of the Lord, His Holy Church, with the necessary food for their souls, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ;

“My” - for truly, these sheep are the Lord’s, and you must guard them, and keep them from becoming anyone else’s sheep, by teaching and by exemplifying for them, His word, His Gospel, His way of life - not according to your own light, but in obedience, according to the light of His Holy Spirit, who is the life and the will of the Catholic Church;

“Sheep” - for the Faithful are the beloved of Christ, who look to Him for care, for protection, for guidance - as He is their Shepherd in Heaven, so we must be shepherds in His name here on earth.

Dear friends, this is the position to which God calls all priests by planting in them a vocation, and when I place my hands upon these young men today, to bestow, according to my duty, this position, they are the hands of Peter, who hastened to our Lord in contrition, and who was entrusted then with those most precious to the Lord - His Sheep, His Faithful, His “children”, as He called them that morning by the lake, so long ago, but really, only today.

We - His priests and servants of the Church - we do not come to this position any better than St. Peter himself - we all bear the scars of sin, of those times when we have betrayed the Lord and run away from Him, out of fear, out of arrogance, or out of ignorance, because we have failed to understand the words He has spoken to us. But now, with the grace of Orders, the Holy Spirit will be with us, to open our eyes - and the sight of all those old scars will remind us of what not to do again - remind us that if any new scars are to be added, they are to be scars of heroic virtue, from wounds like the wounds of our Lord, and gained through the most dedicated kind of self-sacrifice, the most willing desire, to accept suffering for the sake of others. St. Peter was thus chastened and healed and envisioned, and we see the results in the fact that we are gathered here today.

Let us now do as he did - and I especially enjoin this upon our newly ordained - confess to the Lord first, that there is nothing we can hide from Him any longer - that there is no power left in us to resist His will for us: “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” And then, to put into action what He has told us to do: “Feed my lambs…tend my sheep.”

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This homily was delivered at the ordination of Fathers Brian Joseph Higgins, Adrian C.H. Pleus and Michael S. Sherliza on June 5, 1999 at Holy Spirit Church.