The nation's de facto primatial see (actually the US has no such thing, and Baltimore has prerogative based on its being first) has a new occupant as of this afternoon --and huzzah! Here's a 20 minute press conference from this morning. The guy's awesome...and look how the press is eating out of his hand.
Fantastic photos and coverage here.
Terrific homily, too. You'll want to RTWT.
I mentioned to you that the Church continues not just the rising but also the dying of Jesus Christ. We’ve just been through a litany of ways that the rising of Jesus radiates in the Church in this historic archdiocese. But we’d be naive if we overlooked the dying, wouldn’t we?
For indeed not only the Resurrection but the cross, the dying, of Christ goes on:--As we are tempted to fatigue in our works of service and charity;Shortages and cutbacks, people mad at the Church or even leaving her, and our seeming inability to get the Gospel message credibly out there . . .
--As we continue realistically to nurse the deep wounds inflicted by the horrible scandal, sin, and crime of sexual abuse of minors, never hesitant to beg forgiveness from God and from victim survivors and their families, committed to continue the reform, renewal, and outreach Pope Benedict encouraged us to last year, when, among many other places, he urged us in this very cathedral, “to respond with Christian hope to the continuing challenges [of] this painful situation...”
-- The cross is there as more and more of our people are burdened under financial woe and uncertainty;
--As strains on the family take their toll, or as the Church is ridiculed for her teaching on the sanctity of marriage;
--As we struggle to keep our parishes and schools strong, and recognize that we need a new harvest of vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, religious life, and faithful, life-long, life-giving marriage;
. . . are we not at times perhaps like those two dejected disciples on the road to Emmaus? They were so absorbed in their own woes, so forlorn in their mistaken conclusion that the one in whom they had placed their trust was dead, so shocked by the shame, scandal, and scorn of last Friday . . . that they failed to recognize Jesus as He walked right alongside of them!
I say to you, my sister and brother disciples now on the road to Emmaus, let’s not turn inward to ourselves, our worries, our burdens, our fears; but turn rather to Him, the way, the truth, and the life, the one who told us over and over, “Be not afraid!”, who assured us that He “would be with us all days, even to the end of the world,” and who promised us that “not even the gates of hell would prevail,” the one who John Paul the Great called, “the answer to the question posed by every human life,” and recognize Him again in His word, in the “breaking of the bread,” in His Church.
Let Him “turn us around” as He did those two disciples, turned them around because, simply put, they were going the wrong way, and sent them running back to Jerusalem, where Peter was, where the apostles were, where the Church was.
