Homily for the Memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Diocesan In-Service for Teachers

October 15, 2021
Nolan Catholic High School
Fort Worth, Texas

Romans 8:22-27
Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11
John 15:1-8

Today in our life as the Church we celebrate the memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus also known as Saint Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite Reformer and Doctor of the Church. Saint Teresa writes, “Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you, everything passes but God remains. Patience attains all, he who possesses God lacks for nothing; God alone suffices.”

Christ never speaks to us by means of chaos and emotional frenzy; He speaks to us amidst chaos but calms chaos and disorder through the authentic gift of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit of wisdom and docility. To be docile does not mean to be timid, to be docile means to be teachable by the truth, and docility comes to us with the Spirit’s gift of fortitude to be disciplined in living obediently your current calling as educators. To be docile as a teacher in the apostolate of Catholic education means to never forget that one is first a disciple of Jesus, a student, and a learner, even if Christ teaches us through the students whom we teach. I believe that this is a very important point of the Gospel for us to be reminded of especially amidst the chaos of our contemporary times in our nation, in our culture, and even in our life as the Church. “Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you, everything passes but God remains. Patience attains all, he who possesses God lacks for nothing; God alone suffices.”

Even more hopeful is the way that God chooses to liberate us from our fears, to be sufficient for our needs, and to be one with us through the gift of His Son. In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus states, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire, and they will be burned.” Branches are one with the vine, they are indistinct from the vine when fused together through the nature of organic plant life. Yet, when they fall from the vine they soon die. It is the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, that keeps us as branches one with Christ the vine through our status as believers and baptized members of His Church, the People of God. We do our part to maintain our unity with the Vine through prayer and an active sacramental life including confession and Holy Communion.

The cause that the Advocate pleads is the mission of Communion of the Church. That which the Advocate defends us from is the return of the fear and troubles that are the bitter fruits of sin. The Holy Spirit is the advocate that will not allow this chaos to return to human beings through their belonging to the Church’s mission through Baptism. You who belong to the apostolate of Catholic education in the Diocese of Fort Worth have an important part in this mission. Decide again to accept the calling to share in this mission by rejecting chaos and living fully your participation in the education of your students and their families in the order of nature and grace, in right reason and faith. Discern in the light of the Holy Spirit what it is that Christ is calling you to do with your lives as teachers and as disciples; how is He calling you to serve; who is He calling you to become in light of the truth? It is His sacred humanity by which He redeems our humanity as fused together as the vine and the branches as revealed in the Gospel. “Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you, everything passes but God remains.  Patience attains all, he who possesses God lacks for nothing; God alone suffices.” It is hope marked by brave patience that quells all our fears.

Saint Paul writes to the Romans, “For in hope we were saved. Now, hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? If we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance. In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

After the celebration of this Mass, 104 of you will receive tokens of appreciation for your significant years of service: five, ten, fifteen, and upwards to forty years of service in the apostolate of Catholic education in the Diocese of Fort Worth. Today is also a time for us each to thank God for affording us the patience not to give up and to move on. Patience is very much part of the lifeblood of education and in a Catholic framework this patience is the marrow of the theological virtue of hope. We really do not know the fruits of our hard work with our students until many years down the road when they become virtuous and faithful adults. 

So, we rely on the virtue of hope that our students will become virtuous members of families and of the common good of society with the education that they have received through the instrumentality of our service — the graces which we ourselves received through the human efforts of teachers and administrators and staff who helped us along the way. As Saint Teresa of Avila also stated, “If we expect to please Christ and receive an abundance of His graces, God desires that these graces come to us from the hands of Christ, through His most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.”