Commemoration of Saint Peter Canisius

Mass for the Saint John Paul II Shepherds Guild

December 21, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

II Timothy 4:1-5
Psalm 40:2 and 4, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11
Matthew 5:13-19

“Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.” We have just prayed this responsorial psalm together in union with the whole Church for our own lives as disciples and for our priests and for those in discernment and formation for a priestly vocation. To do the Lord’s will is the summation of any vocation rooted in Baptism but in a particular way the priestly vocation which is so intrinsic to fostering the fidelity of all of the baptized to the call of the Lord, that each may fulfill their response to God’s call with accountability to their promise, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”

This is exactly what Saint Paul is admonishing Saint Timothy to do when he writes to him the words that we have just proclaimed, “Be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.”

The pastoral vocation of priests and bishops especially involves three aspects that are at odds with the current myths that divert our culture from the sound doctrine of the Gospel of Christ. These three aspects are responsibility, accountability, and mercy. Responsibility flows from within the free will of a person, the source of free actions. Responsibility comes from maturity in human development. When a person is responsible, that person acts in relation to other people in a morally sound manner. The person who is responsible always seeks to do what is right.

Accountability is the public recognition and acknowledgement that one has acted responsibly in fulfilling their duties to the larger community. In the case of a priest, that the priest has discharged his ministries of teaching, sanctifying, and pastoral oversight in accord with the expectations set forth by Christ in His teaching and in His example. Responsibility and accountability for a priest are fused together in the priest’s promise of obedience taken to his bishop and his successors. For a bishop, responsibility and accountability are further fused together by his stewardship as a father of his priest-sons’ obedience and in his own obedience to the Deposit of Faith passed on in Scripture and Tradition and in communion with the Holy Father in Rome — the Successor of Peter — who confirms the Church in Communion. There can be no true responsibility without accountability because human beings need to live in society with other human beings as governed by law.

This is part of the sound doctrine that many today will not tolerate — they exalt responsibility but only in freely being true to one’s authentic self, but they reject accountability to God or to anyone else, especially to the Church. The priest and the bishop especially are called to be men of responsibility and also accountability in their own lives so that the faithful can live their lives likewise as Christ intends in the tranquility of order.

Responsibility is the precursor to accountability, and accountability is the precursor to judgment. Judgment is the precursor of mercy. We cannot experience mercy without God’s judgment. People flee from judgment because either they have despaired of God’s mercy, or they presume to love their sin more than they love God and do not want to let go of their sin, preferring instead to live by the myths of excuse and presumption. This is seen in the expressed demand that the Church not only grant permission for sins but also approbation for their sins. This plays into the devil’s hand. Venerable Fulton Sheen wisely taught that when the devil tempts us, he convinces us that our sins are no big deal and of little consequence, but immediately after we sin, he tells us that our sin is so horrible that even God cannot forgive it and there is no hope. The lie of the devil is that our sin defines us, the truth of Christ’s Gospel is that our baptism defines us, and we belong to Him in love.

The priesthood, like the vocation to the consecrated life of nuns and monks is not simply a matter of a lifestyle choice and wardrobe. The sound doctrine of the priesthood is the loving obedience of lives lived for Christ and the salvation of souls through responsibility, accountability, and mercy. Christ affords the priest the opportunity of a pastoral intimacy with Him as the priest strives to live such a life instructing the faithful members of His Church in the sound doctrine that they are defined by Christ and baptized into the communion of the Church with its hierarchical nature established by Christ who came to serve and not to be served.

As we move closer to the celebration of Christmas, celebrating God’s free gift of His Son for our salvation, we ask the intercession of Saint Peter Canisius to pray for our priests, seminarians, for those discerning vocations, and for me, your bishop, that we can remain responsible in living our vocations with accountability to the sound teaching of Christ’s Gospel as instruments of His mercy that conquers all sin and error through His selfless love. “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”