Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Vespers: 28^th World Day of Consecrated Life

February 2, 2024
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle Parish
Fort Worth, Texas

Psalm 11:1-5, 7
Psalm 129
Colossians 1:12-20
Hebrews 4:15-16

Many of us learned in clinical pastoral education, and even more so in our religious formation, that it is insensitive to respond to the expressed suffering of others with the response, “I know how you feel.” This response is seldom uttered by the truly empathetic and usually is made as an introduction into a diatribe about one’s own sufferings. It is most often a response that is not spoken as the fruit of listening but simply to pacify another person in preparation for moving on to another subject.

Yet, the prophesy spoken by Simeon in the Temple that is part of today’s readings for Mass underscores the truth that the author of the Book of Hebrews proclaims that Christ does know and care how we feel. God becomes fully human in Jesus Christ and in that full humanity is made known God’s empathy and compassion for sinners and the graced possibility for human beings to truly express and experience empathy for others who suffer the effect of both moral evil and physical evil. Simeon proclaims Jesus Christ to be the light of the world in the Temple, that is prophesied to be destroyed by those who oppose the new and eternal Temple, Jesus Christ Himself. True compassion can only be spoken about after it has been demonstrated through listening and empathetic actions. The concerned look on the face of one listening to another’s suffering, the kind gesture of an embrace in grief, the attentive presence to one falsely accused are all manifested in the sacrifice of the cross.

It is one of the particular graces attached to the life of the consecrated religious woman or man to manifest compassion as essential to a life of Christian holiness. Consecrated religious do this not only through their apostolic ministries attached to the charisms of their orders’ founders. They first do this through fidelity to prayer on behalf of those who suffer, beginning with their own sisters and brothers in the life of their community and religious order. Community life offers redemptive suffering through inconvenience answered with patient and attentive listening with intentional presence. This is why exceptions to authentic community life should be rare and only considered temporarily for the sake of furthering the apostolate of the religious charism.

As Pope Francis said today in Rome, an obstacle to waiting for God’s mercy as Simeon and Anna did is when we adapt “to a worldly lifestyle, which ends up taking the place of the Gospel. Ours is a world that often runs at great speed, that exalts ‘everything and now,’ that is consumed in activism and seeks to exorcise life’s fears and anxieties in the pagan temples of consumerism or in entertainment at all costs. In such a context, where silence is banished and lost, waiting is not easy, for it requires an attitude of healthy passivity, the courage to slow our pace, to not be overwhelmed by activities, to make room within ourselves for God’s action.”

I join myself to the Universal Church and the Local Church of the Diocese of Fort Worth in thanking God for you and for your gift of compassion expressed in your consecrated witness and faithful apostolates through which Christ shines brightly as the light of the world.