Bulletin
Pastoral Vision Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastoral Letter
Advent 2004‘I still love you and believe in you! Simply knock and the door to my presence will be opened to you.’ (A paraphase of Jesus’s words to us at Advent.)
A wonderful reminder of Advent to all of us, without exception, is that, no matter how weak or helpless we may feel, no matter how discouraged we may be by the sins and failures of the passing year, God steps into our lives each Advent, reminding us that He will never give up on us, even when we may have given up on ourselves. Our hopes and dreams can be realized! Nothing is impossible with God! God loves me! Actually, these three words sum up all of the inspired Word of God – ‘God loves me’.
Exactly one year ago, on December 8, 2004, the Pastoral Vision for our Archdiocese was promulgated. At its heart is the call to a personal encounter with Jesus. In fact, at the heart of human wisdom is the understanding that, without love, no human life is fulfilled. At the heart of divine revelation is Jesus’s gift of love to all who will welcome Him. Human wisdom and divine revelation meet in the heart of every man and woman humble and honest enough to admit the inability to love and be loved, as the human heart desires, without the help of God.
The Pastoral Vision has at its centre a call to each of us to be men and women of prayer, to read the four Gospels with the main purpose of meeting Jesus, and to experience the greatest encounter with Him this side of heaven in the Eucharist and the other sacraments.
As I wrote the Pastoral Vision last year, I wanted to communicate honestly my vision for our Archdiocese, aware that God, in His Providence, had chosen to call me as your Archbishop. At the same time, I wanted to do my best to be faithful to Vatican II and to Pope John Paul II’s exhortation to all of us in America expressed in the document, Ecclesia in America. By the providence of God, I was assisted in this effort by all the priests of our Archdiocese at our annual convocation, and by the laity of the Archdiocese through the consultation conducted by Archbishop Spence with all of you, which was summarized in the report submitted by the Archdiocesan Committee for the Implementation of Ecclesia in America.
Now, a year later, I am wonderfully encouraged on two fronts: first of all, by the signs of my own health returning, which I take as God’s blessing on the work we have begun; and, secondly, by the fruits of the good work done throughout the Archdiocese in making this Vision a reality. (Please note that I am well aware that God works through all of us, and I proudly acknowledge, with heartfelt gratitude, the power of your prayers for my recovery; as grateful as I am to the good medical professionals in Kingston, I rate your prayers as the most significant cause for my returning health.)
It is impossible to encompass in the space of this short pastoral letter all the examples of the Pastoral Vision implemented by you throughout the Archdiocese. Schools have taken my invitation to heart and have concentrated on the Gospel of Luke this past year to help students meet a compassionate Jesus as Luke saw Him. They have had a focus on service, promoting charity and forgiveness, and they have reached out to the poor, the lonely, and the deeply unhappy through initiatives such as breakfast programs, and food and clothing drives. Young people throughout the Archdiocese have been open to letting me speak to them about Jesus at catechesis sessions modelled on the World Youth Day format. Individuals have taken seriously the call not only to meet Jesus personally in the Gospels, prayer, and the sacraments, but to deepen the understanding of their faith through attending lectures, through study groups, and through serious reading, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Priests have been wonderfully cooperative, as seen in the focus they have given the Pastoral Vision at deanery meetings and in their own parish leadership role. Our religious communities have intensified their efforts to meet Jesus in the poor and the sick and have renewed their study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents on the Eucharist, all of which have been a priority for their associate members. The staff at the Diocesan Centre have had a number of meetings to ascertain how we can best serve the whole Archdiocese in many ways, but especially in implementing the Pastoral Vision.
What now? Four things I would ask of you as we begin this Advent:
1. By reading and studying Matthew’s Gospel, begin now to meet the Jesus that Matthew and his community came to know and love;2. Mark the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception by a renewed appreciation of Mary. The fact of the Immaculate Conception is, in reality, the great sign of hope that Advent holds for all of us. A special prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of America, is being distributed throughout the Archdiocese;
3. Learn to fall in love again with the Eucharist: to love the Eucharist as did our forefathers in faith – even to the extent of risking their very lives to attend Mass. Pope John Paul II has asked us to especially appreciate the Eucharist this year;
4. Re-read the Pastoral Vision, analyzing it and your response to it in the different light of Jesus that is particular to Matthew’s Gospel: Jesus, the authoritative interpreter of the law; Jesus, whose authority is the authority of God and who rewards us according to our actions – even to the extent of saving those who do God’s will without knowing Jesus.
May God be with us this coming year in all the power that Matthew sees in Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, and may Mary be our hope and our model, as she reminds us in the Gospel of our diocesan feast day, that, "With God, all things are possible".Sincerely in Christ,
^ Anthony G. Meagher
Archbishop of Kingston
Pastoral
Vision
for the Archdiocese of Kingston
Promulgated on the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
December 8, 2003
Anthony G. Meagher
Archbishop of KingstonThe renewal of the Church in America will not be possible without the active presence of the laity. Therefore, they are largely responsible for the future of the Church." Ecclesia in America #44
"For us even to begin this, two acts of faith are necessary: first, to believe that God is counting on us to be His instruments in revealing Jesus in our world today; and, second, to believe that each of us shares in the life of Christ to the extent that the Holy Spirit will enable our weak efforts to bear rich fruit.
"It will be in our local parish community that we will live out this call to renewal, this call to be Church together – in Marmora, Carleton Place, Morrisburg, Centreville, and in all the other parishes of the Archdiocese of Kingston . . ."
Archbishop Anthony Meagher
Pastoral Vision for the Archdiocese of Kingston 2003
"I am asking you to undergo a "conversion" – that you not only live your faith, but that you study and understand it, with the conviction that God counts on you to pass it on to others. This conversion should move us from seeing the Church as primarily bishops, priests, and religious, to seeing it as the Body of Christ, in which each one of us is an important member . . . . "Would that all were prophets", Moses said, when some were upset by laymen speaking about the things of God. Moses’s hope has come true with Jesus, and each of us is called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the mission of Christ – namely, His role of uniting all men and women to God."Archbishop Anthony Meagher
Pastoral Vision for the Archdiocese of Kingston 2003
Prologue
– A personal noteA few months ago, I was asked what in my own personal history was inspiring me in the formation of this pastoral vision. There are three factors stretching over thirty years which have been key influences on me. The first was a talk I heard shortly after Vatican II. I was in Ottawa attending a meeting of the National Federation of Councils of Priests. The speaker was Gerald Emmett Carter, then Bishop of London, and later Cardinal Archbishop of Toronto. Bishop Carter had been a participant in Vatican II, and he spoke that day of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The gist of his message was that the Holy Spirit directs the Church in a strong and wonderful way, but that, as priests, we should not presume that the Holy Spirit tells the Pope what to do, who in turn tells the bishops what to do, who in turn tells the priests what to do, who in turn tells the people what to do. Rather, he indicated, the Holy Spirit goes where He wills and may very well speak to the hearts of lay people and inspire them to take real initiative in bringing about the reign of God. This talk was a formative influence on me as parish priest for twenty-five years and continues to be today.
The second influence has been the life and writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman. In the mid 1970s I read The Spirituality of John Henry Newman, by C.S. Dessain. This began a lifelong respect for Newman and his way of thinking. At the time, I did not realize just how much influence Newman had had on Vatican II. If I had to choose one aspect of Newman the theologian that I admired, it would be his balance. Newman, a convert to Roman Catholicism, was drawn to the Church by his knowledge of Church history, and his strong conviction that apostolic succession was an essential mark of Christ’s Church and necessary if truth were to be preserved in the essential aspects of faith and morals.
On the other hand, as a Catholic, Newman was an outspoken critic of bishops of his day who felt that the Holy Spirit spoke through only themselves and that the voice of the laity was of little or no value in the weighty decisions that had to be made. Newman was adamant that, although the bishop does have an authoritative role as overseer, this role often demands listening to the voice of the Spirit spoken through the lay people. In his great knowledge of Church history, he pointed out that, during the Aryan heresy in the early Church, it was often the laity who safeguarded the truth that Jesus was truly God and truly man, in opposition to a significant number of bishops who were undermining this truth. Newman was truly a man of wisdom. His wisdom was reflected in his balance, but his wisdom continually caused him grief.
The third influence on me has been the deep involvement I had with World Youth Day over a period of five years, beginning in 1997 and lasting through and beyond World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. As Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee overseeing World Youth Day, I was constantly made aware of the direction Pope John Paul II wanted our Church to take through the influence of our young people. That he loved them and trusted them was obvious, and that he counted on them and, therefore, made great demands on them was equally obvious. Nevertheless, he always connected them to the whole Church, reminding them of their importance in parish life, and reminding us older people that the Church needs the qualities of youth: hope, a sense of adventure, a belief in life, and joy – joy that makes us dance and sing. He has stated many times that the Church must be forever young and that he himself, an 80-year-old, had to remain young with it. He challenges people of all ages to carry the banner of Christ’s Cross within our culture every bit as much as he has challenged our young people at the World Youth Day events of Paris, Rome, Toronto, Denver, Krakow, and on and on.
Pastoral Vision
"Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them."
Numbers 11:24-30My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
God in His providence has seen fit to have me installed as Archbishop of Kingston for however long or short a time that may be. I ask you to work with me and with one another towards achieving the vision of the pastoral plan that I now propose.
The foundation of our vision is our unshakable faith. It is the faith that God the Father, in His love for every human being whom He created in His image, has sent His Son, Jesus, to be with us and to give us the wherewithal to live the true dignity and wonder of our humanity; that is, the wherewithal to love unselfishly and to be loved; to live today in a world where all are brothers and sisters who love one another as Christ has loved us; and to live tomorrow sharing eternal happiness in the personal love of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It is obvious from a cursory glance at our world, our secular history, and our religious history dating back to Abraham, that the vision I will present is impossible to realize without the power of God which is most clearly shown through His love. It is our hope and trust in God’s love which designates us as Christians and calls us to place our total trust and our very lives with Jesus.
This act of faith is the manifesto that has been handed down to us for twenty centuries and preserved both by the blood of martyrs and by the witness of those who have lived the power and the joy of God’s love. Our immediate challenge in the Archdiocese of Kingston is to appreciate the gift of Jesus in our midst and to live the words of our prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done". The answer to this challenge does not lie in the power of any one of us or any group of us, nor does the answer lie in some sort of a religious ‘coup’ where God’s will is legislated throughout our land. The vision can be realized only when we who call ourselves Christians or Catholics truly become what our Baptism and Confirmation call us to be and, without fear, reveal to others – all others, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists – the unconditional love God has for them.
If I had only known the hope to which God is calling me . . . .
What is God’s will for us? Simply this – Christ has entrusted to His Church the mission of drawing all men and women to Himself in order that He may give them love and life. He has given the Holy Spirit to His Church, to us, so that our weak efforts will be successful. The key here is for us to realize that we are the Church – all of us, not some select group of bishops or priests or religious – all of us individually and together.1 This surely includes those active in our parish communities – the lector, the Eucharistic minister, the man and woman and young person present at Mass every Sunday. But it also includes the fragile, broken believer, the one who feels discomfort even walking into a church. We are all God’s people; we are all part of God’s Church. We must all be ready to welcome and encourage those who might be timid or fearful of replying to God’s call. Moreover, we must be confident that the Holy Spirit will guide and direct all of us as we respond to this call. Many are doing it every day in a most wonderful manner.
Both Vatican II and, most recently, the Church’s document, Ecclesia in America, have given us practical guidance, divinely inspired, and it is up to us to translate this guidance into what is lived in our Archdiocese. Often, the problem with our Christian faith, to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton’s words, is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but, rather, that it has scarcely been tried. I would like to follow in the direction of my predecessor, Archbishop Spence, and go about the business of actually trying to live Vatican II and Ecclesia in America, or, as it is better put, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it motivates us in our world today. For us even to begin this, two acts of faith are necessary: first, to believe that God is counting on us to be His instruments in revealing Jesus in our world today; and, second, to believe that each of us shares in the life of Christ to the extent that the Holy Spirit will enable our weak efforts to bear rich fruit.
It will be in our local parish community that we will live out this call to renewal, this call to be Church together – in Marmora, Carleton Place, Morrisburg, Centreville, and in all the other parishes of the Archdiocese of Kingston. As men and women become involved in a Landings Program, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a food bank, the choir, the spirit of Ecclesia will live, and the call of Vatican II will be answered. However, for most laity, this call will be answered in their ordinary places of living, and this certainly includes the workplace2. Here, God counts on us to bring the presence of Jesus. This will be a mission in which pastor and people work collaboratively. There may be different names for this shared response of faith; however, really it is just being faithful to the call of our creed. For only by working together will we succeed in bridging that gap between faith and life.
At our Convocation of Priests in mid-September, the following words were addressed to me: "Our world is filled with those longing for hope, truth, and peace – longing to know the love of God – and, Bishop, you and I are unable to reach these people. Only our lay people can bring the Gospel of Jesus to them!" What Father Terry Lynch said that day was true, and, consequently, it is difficult to underestimate the importance of the role of the laity in our Archdiocese.
Putting this into personal perspective, I look back at my short three years as a student at the University of Toronto. These years represent a time in my life when I had little focus or sense of direction. I had no idea then what I wanted to do in my life. Not surprisingly, my study habits were haphazard. All of that changed when I answered what I believe was God’s call to study for the priesthood at St. Augustine’s Seminary. I studied the Gospels, Church history, sacramental and moral theology – and I prayed (something I had always done) even harder to be the man Christ wanted me to be, because I knew that, if I were ordained a priest, others would be counting on me in the most important matter of life, knowing Jesus Christ.
I am asking you to undergo a similar "conversion" – that you not only live your faith, but that you study and understand it, with the conviction that God counts on you to pass it on to others. This conversion should move us from seeing the Church as primarily bishops, priests, and religious, to seeing it as the Body of Christ, in which each one of us is an important member. In other words, I am asking all of us to revisit our own Baptism and Confirmation, understanding that, when we were baptized and confirmed, we were anointed with the oil of Chrism and proclaimed to the world as priest (one who brings God to others), prophet (one who speaks God’s Word through the power of the Holy Spirit), and king (one who shares Christ’s kingship of victory over selfishness and death). "Would that all were prophets," Moses said, when some were upset by laymen speaking about the things of God. Moses’s hope has come true with Jesus, and each of us is called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the mission of Christ – namely, His role of uniting all men and women to God.
