Homily for the Ordination to the Priesthood of Deacon Tho Bui. SDB: December 29, 2007

Given by the Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton.

Deacon Tho, your sacramental ordination to the ministerial priesthood signifies that you belong to Jesus Christ in a unique way. You are entrusted by Christ with the word of God which you are to keep and to preach. You do not proclaim yourself but Jesus Christ. A priest does not build his own kingdom nor his own following but promotes the gospel because he belongs to Jesus Christ in a unique way.

The world today is hungry for spiritual truth but in many ways does not understand what it is looking for and seems to seek it in all the wrong places. The world wants the accomplishments of a rapidly advancing technology; it wants a highly successful economy; and it looks to establishing and maintaining peace through the force of military might. Advances in science and in the standard of living are good but not ultimate. They cannot become false gods, making them to be an end-all of human existence and well-being. That is why the priest cannot belong to the world but lives in the world to speak the truth of the gospel and the reality of God.

Because the priest belongs to Jesus Christ in a unique way, he must first of all be a man of prayer, engaging the word of God in a dialogue of receptivity, that is, receiving the word of God in conversation with God. Then he must act on the word of God as Jesus said: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” It is only prayer which will keep you from losing heart when God seems distant and the human limitations of the Church discourage you. The priest does not live in some kind of idyllic state where he is not tempted by the desires of the world and of the flesh. The priest understands well that the power of his priestly ministry does not come from himself but from God. As priests we are clay jars which can break easily if we are not careful and faithful. Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco in his lecture on the great American Catholic writer of the last century, Flannery O’Connor, quotes her insight into the humanity of priests: “It is impossible to find out the hidden love that makes a man….give up his life to the service of God, however bumblingly he may go about it.” With all our limitations and weaknesses we must be careful to always speak faithfully the word of God and not our own pet ideas or theological ideologies. Like the great Fathers of the Church we must unfold the word of God in a way that speaks to real human situations in which people, including ourselves, find themselves.

I believe that St. John Bosco was impressed by St. Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, from 1602 to 1622, because he showed people how ordinary life can be sanctified and that ordinary people in the ordinary things they do in everyday life can demonstrate love for God and be done in imitation of Christ. St. Francis de Sales rejected the fanaticism of his times by a pastoral zeal that was gentle and meek. A very good lesson for our times. The story is told that St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesian Society of St. Francis de Sales, on the day he entered the seminary, dressed in his clerical garb, was given these words by his mother: “To see you dressed in this manner fills my heart with joy. But remember that it is not the dress that gives honor to your state in life, but the practice of virtue. If at any time you come to doubt your vocation, I beseech you, to lay it aside at once. I would rather have a poor peasant for my son than a negligent priest.” Don Bosco was no negligent priest, but the power of his work came from God.

Last Update January 2, 2008