SSMN 200th Jubilee Celebration Homily, by, Father Richard Flores

200th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

HOMILY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019

Given by Father Richard Flores

St. Andrew Church, Fort Worth, Texas

Today we gather to give thanks and celebrate a significant milestone in the life of a community. The Sisters of St. Mary celebrate 200 years of living the Gospel as women religious and 200 years of service to God’s people. We do so on a day when we celebrate one of the more unusual feasts in the church’s calendar because today, we don’t commemorate a particular saint, or an event in the life of our Lord or His Mother, Mary. Rather, the Church turns our attention to a building located in Rome. Specifically, it is a church that is officially called the Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, or the Lateran Basilica for short. It’s the oldest of the four major basilicas in Rome, and as such, serves as the official “nome,” or cathedral, of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. St. Peter’s gets all the attention, but it’s the Lateran that is really the “Pope’s church.”

It’s an impressive space. The nave is lined with statues, larger than a human person, depicting the twelve apostles. The interior is perfectly designed and measured to obtain the highest quality of sound so that microphones and sound technology is really unnecessary since sound carries so well throughout the basilica. You will also find remarkable objects such as the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul that are kept atop the baldacchino that stands over the main altar. To the left side of the high altar, a large block of wood framed by precious marble is said to come from the table where Jesus and his disciples gathered for the Last Supper. The Lateran Basilica is literally a time capsule containing the story of the Catholic Church within its walls. However, its treasures are not only within the church but outside as well.

If you go to the square across the street from the Basilica, you will see a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, with his arms outstretched. It commemorates an important moment in church history: the Lateran is where Francis journeyed from his home in Assisi in order to seek the Pope’s permission to begin his religious community. If you remember the story, his inspiration to begin his community, with the goal to live the Gospel in a radical way, began with a voice that told Francis to “Rebuild my Church.”

Well, if you step back from the statue of Francis and stand behind it, and look at it from a particular angle, between St. Francis’ outstretched arms you see the Lateran Basilica. He appears to be holding it up with his hands. It’s a great image— a great lesson for what we do today.

We come together in this holy place, this church. Like its counterpart in Rome, this and every church building is brick and mortar, wood and glass. But—ultimately—it is supported by the arms and labor of those who love it. Ultimately, it is the people. It is you. It is I. It is this community of religious women, the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, who come together as they mark 200 years of loving service to the Church they love. Here, we have a connection to this special day we celebrate in the lives of these Sisters gathered in prayer and thanksgiving, as well as in the many parts of the world where their work also thrives.

“You are God’s building,” St. Paul writes to the Corinthians. “You are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells within you.”

There are many parallels between the times St. Francis lived and began his community of friars and the times when the first members of this community gathered in order to begin a life of prayer and dedicating themselves to live in total dependence on Jesus Christ and in service to His people.

Francis lived in a time of upheaval, a time marked by wars---wars between neighboring kingdoms, wars between Christians and a growing religious movement, Islam. Finally, there was a war within the Church itself marked by a decline in religious life and fervor within Christianity itself. It was at this time that the Spirit inspired Francis to begin his community that would restore the centrality of the Gospel as a way of life and rebuild the Church by taking the Gospel to the local towns and villages and evangelizing the baptized who had become lukewarm and complacent in their faith.

I have no doubt it was the same Spirit Who guided a humble Belgian priest, Father Nicholas Joseph Minsart, to gather a small group of women, including Josephine Sana and Elizabeth Berger who would help him in re-establishing a Catholic presence following the chaos of war and persecution, when the faith was almost destroyed by the turmoil of the French Revolution. It was a time when the Church needed witnesses of faith, but also persons with strong minds and strong bodies to rebuild her through prayer and care to the needy—in other words, reaching out to the “urban poor,” who were the abandoned and forgotten of this time. They were women deeply committed to their faith living among the marginalized and witnessing to their love for God through their care and commitment to the people they served. They were a sign that God had not forgotten them. He was among them.

While religious life was still forbidden, the seeds of this vocation were firmly planted. Other women heard the news of this band of women wanting to live together in order to support each other in living the faith. Soon, others joined them, but what work was God calling them to do? Soon the answer came as families came expressing their need for the “Pious Women of St. Loup” to open schools in order to educate their daughters in the fundamentals of reading and writing, as well as teaching them their Catholic faith. Eventually, in addition to rebuilding the Church through prayer, through the witness of their presence among the poor, there was added the charism of education, health care, and outreach to the needy.

It wasn’t until 1835 that these women were able formalize their commitment to God and the Church by pronouncing the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, finally solidifying their commitment to serve the people of God as women religious.

Those first leaders, Josephine and Elizabeth would not live to see the seed they planted bear fruit. Rather, it was Rosalie Nizet, who would eventually carry their work forward, becoming spiritual leader of this new religious family as Mother Claire, the first Superior General of the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur and it wasn’t long before this small community heard still another call beyond their country.

St. Francis, early after receiving permission from Pope Innocent to begin his religious order, quickly began the work of evangelizing the Church as his friars traveled throughout Europe preaching the Gospel and more importantly modeling it by their lives of poverty and simplicity. Soon their work spread beyond Europe to the Middle East and eventually throughout the world.

The same was true for the new community of Saint Mary. Mother Claire heard first hand of the many needs of the New World that was the United States, especially among the immigrants who were reviled and looked upon with suspicion then, just as they are today. Beginning in New York, the Sisters “eventually came to Texas in 1873. Here the first missionaries---Mother Emilie, Sister Mary Angela, and Sister Stanislaus had only one small goal they hoped to accomplish for the glory of God, in His Name: they hoped “to do a little good.”

As I said there are many parallels to St. Francis and the founding of his community and the celebration that gathers us today, the 200" anniversary of the founding of the Sisters of St. Mary. But what ties these two events to the gospel we have just heard?

Today’s gospel is disconcerting for many of us who think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, showering mercy on the sinner. Today, Jesus does some spring cleaning. Maybe we have seen some paintings of this scene. Jesus holds a whip, poised to strike. All around him is confusion. Merchants are holding up their arms to protect themselves, tables are overturned. Animals are set free and run away. Coins are spilled all over the place. Bystanders are dashing for cover. What does it all mean?

Some say it is righteous anger. A pilgrimage to the Temple was supposed to be a sacred experience. But that sense of the sacred was destroyed by the atmosphere where the buying and selling of animals for sacrifice was taking place all around them, and because pilgrims came from all over the world to pray and offer sacrifice, the coins they carried from throughout the Roman Empire contained images of the emperor and other pagan gods and so had to be exchanged for standard Temple currency, the only currency allowed to be offered to God. This made the Temple little more than a shopping mall, a place where business was taking place rather than worship of God.

Like this scene, the Church, from its earliest days, has been torn apart by conflict, beginning with the question of whether Gentile Christians should be circumcised. There was dissention and violent clashes over the nature of Christ. In medieval times, the Church suffered greatly from an overemphasis on power, prestige, and politics. But God sparked a reform when he told St. Francis of Assisi, “Go and repair my house which you see is falling into ruin.” Francis “repaired” the Church, not by a violent confrontation with those harming the Church by their lives of corruption and wealth, rather, he repaired the Church by founding an order focused on living the Gospel in the midst of the world and serving the poor.

Today we celebrate a group of women who answered that same call to repair the Church in a time raked by violent persecution and war. Beginning with the vision of a humble priest, Josephine Sana, Elizabeth Berger, and Rosalie Nizet began a work serving the poor and forgotten in Namur, Belgium–a work that eventually would spread to 10 counties throughout the world. We remember the foundresses and all those who would come after them serving the poor and forgotten here and in many parts of the world—people who otherwise felt overlooked, discarded, and helpless. Because of them, the least of God’s people found a seat at the banquet table.

The Church, with good reason, has been rocked with news over years of abuse, scandal, and cover-up. Finally, we gather to celebrate what is good, the Church at her best, because of the work of these women and many others throughout the world who are part of this community of faith and love. Like St. Francis, they continue to quietly rebuild the Church in a time of crisis–serving the poor, teaching both young and old, working in parishes as catechists, leading missions, facilitating dialog between persons of different faiths and cultures, serving those imprisoned, reaching out to those in other counties as a witness of Christ’s presence.

We gather to offer praise and thanksgiving for the important lessons we learn from their lives and charism: They are lessons of selflessness and sacrifice. The lesson of living in total dependence on Jesus Christ. The lesson that we must turn our backs on the things of this world to truly be a disciple.The lesson and challenge never to ignore the poor, the stranger, and outcast because ultimately it is rejecting Jesus himself.

Their lives and commitment remind us that God’s care and protection continues today. A little more than 50 years ago, Pope St. John XXIll called the Second Vatican Council. The result? The Church is not a building of stone, steel, glass, nor the beautiful art it may contain. Rather the Church is everyone: “Come to Him, a living stone...chosen and precious in the sight of God, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

In other words, the Church is Father Minsart, Mother Claire, Mother Emilie, Sister Mary Angela, Sister Stanislaus, Mother John Berchmans, Mother Albertine; it’s Sister St. John, Sister Miriam, Sister Louise, Sister Francesca, Sister Rosemary, Sister Yolanda and Sister Inez. Then there is Sister Gabriela, Sister Immaculée, and the many others who make up this community here and around the world.

It’s easy to be concerned about the current state of the Church, but the story of the Sisters of St. Mary is ultimately a story of hope in the face of great adversity and uncertainty. Their story is still another lesson, and perhaps the most important: put your faith in God. He has never forsaken the Church, and He never will. That doesn’t mean the Church is exempt from problems and challenges. But God can use them to purify it, bring it healing, and make it more beautiful.

For 200 years, the Sisters of St. Mary have been a sign of hope that God is truly our refuge and strength. He will remain with His Church—and with us—as long as there are those who continue to do God’s work to “do a little good.”