The Peace Pulpit is made up of the Sunday homilies of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a retired Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
I thought it might be appropriate today to begin our reflection on the scriptures by sharing with you a brief anecdote. It's a very brief scene from a famous play, written by George Bernard Shaw about St. Joan of Arc.
In this play, when Joan is before the king on trial, one of the officers asks, "How do you mean, voices?"
[Editor's Note: Bishop Gumbleton preached this homily at the confirmation ceremony at St. Timothy Church, Trenton, Mich., Jan 11, 2009.]
Maybe the first thing I should say as we begin to reflect on our scripture lessons today is how important it is for you to say yes to that question. When I say, "Do you wish to be confirmed?" and you say yes, what are you saying yes to? This is what's really important. You could think of it as, "Well, I'm saying yes to a ceremony. I'm going to be anointed with oil and people will pray over me. So I say yes to that ceremony and it'll be all over in 45 minutes or an hour and then we go, and everything is the same as before."
You may remember on Christmas day and the second Mass of Christmas, the Gospel of Luke told us, after the shepherds had come to tell Mary and Joseph all they had seen and heard and then were leaving, "Mary treasured all these messages and continually pondered them in her heart."
We’re grateful to the children and their leaders for providing us with a visual presentation of what we heard in the gospel lesson this evening. It takes much effort through pageants like that and even more through our reflection -- careful, prayerful reflection -- to try to get a grasp of the mystery that we celebrate tonight.
As Sr. Marie mentioned at the beginning, we will be celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation at the end of this liturgy of the word, and I think if we listen very carefully and deeply to the message that we've heard from these three readings, it will help to prepare us very well for this sacrament.
Editor's Note: If you are looking for Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés' column for December 18, please follow this link: Blessed Mother: Appears To Us Daily. Bishop Gumbleton's homily begins below:
If we listen carefully to the scripture lessons today, we, I'm sure, will discover how well they fit in with what we've been reflecting on over the last day and a half, how we have to change our hearts, how we are to have the mind, the heart, the attitude, the spirit, the way of Jesus. What Paul spoke as I opened the retreat: "Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who though he was God emptied himself," and so on. We have to undergo a deep, deep change within ourselves.
As we look about us this morning, we notice, of course, the differences in the decorations that we have in church this morning, because we are beginning a new year in the church. We're beginning this season of Advent, the time of special preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. So we have different colors, purple vestments, the blue and white that show joy, the advent candle, and readings that remind us of the coming of God into our midst.
[Bishop Gumbleton delivered this homily to the Confirmation class at St. Mel Parish, Dearborn Heights, Mich., Nov. 17]
Your teachers and pastor have given me very powerful testimony that you have prepared for Confirmation and they're confident that you're ready to be confirmed, so I have no doubt that you are well prepared and ready for this sacrament tonight. However, because it is such an important moment in your life (and I want you to be thinking about this), it's a moment when Jesus, through his spirit, enters into your spirit, deep in your heart and touches you in a very deep way, something that can change your whole life, so it's a very important moment for you.
I don't know if this ever happens on any other Sunday or feast day, but there's something very strange about the scriptures today because they seem to indicate that we really ought not to be celebrating the feast of the dedication of a church building, which is what we're doing in this liturgy commemorating the dedication of a huge building located in Rome that has now been designated as the pope's official cathedral church, built in about the fourth century, after Constantine had converted and Christians were free to celebrate in churches.
Sign up to get NCR updates by email. Existing users: change your preferences here. Enter your email address in the box below and click “Go.”
Not all of our content is online. Subscribe to receive all the news and features you won't find anywhere else.
