This discourse of our blessed Lord and Savior is given to his Apostles at the Last Supper.
We hear our Lord's words, but in this particular passage we don't see the gesture which occasioned it,
occasioned our Lord's words, namely the washing of the feet of his disciples.
And as always in our Lord's life, the words and the deeds go together.
Our Lord explains to his Apostles that if he has done this, then they are also to follow his example,
and to realize that while he is Lord and Master, they are the servants.
And so if the Lord was willing to put himself in the service of his own disciples,
how much more should they be prepared to put themselves in the service of the sheep that are entrusted to their care.
He also talks about his betrayal and implies that he will suffer and die because of his words,
because of his truthfulness.
And that too will be a path which the Apostles will be called,
to follow.
Today we celebrate the feast day of Saint Catherine of Siena,
who followed our Lord also along the path of service and sacrifice.
She entered the Dominican Third Order and placed herself at the service of the poor and the sick.
And she was tremendously gifted.
From a mystical point of view, from a point of view of her moral life, her spiritual life, she was saintly.
And God called her to intimate communion with him and raised her up among her brethren in the Third Order
to be a light and an example.
And so she followed the path that our Lord had set out for her.
And it was a path of suffering confirmed by the sacred law.
By the sacred stigmata which she received from him.
And many came to her for counsel and advice and for consolation, for spiritual counsel.
And she was able to give it, even to the Church.
She went to Avignon, to Pope Gregory XI, to call him back to Rome and to help end the Great Schism.
And she ultimately obtained her goal of getting the Pope back to Rome.
But she did it through a path of suffering and sacrifice for the Church and for souls.
Our Lord points out to the Apostles in the Gospel today that as his Apostles,
the ones that he would send out into the world to proclaim the truth and to speak in his name,
that they would be called to service more than anything else.
Elsewhere, of course, he talks about how while the Apostles were sort of jockeying for position
and figuring out who was the greatest among them,
he explained to them that they were thinking wrongly.
That it wasn't that way at all.
That they couldn't be like worldlings.
They couldn't be looking for the highest place.
Even though they would have great authority.
Think about it.
The Pope and the Apostles, the founders of the Church, had tremendous authority.
But our Lord was making it clear to them that it wasn't about their own position within the Church.
It wasn't about what they were receiving and what they would possess.
It was about how they would put into practice what our Lord had taught them.
It was how they would bring to bear upon the good of souls the gifts that he had given them.
And I think about this because we live in a time which is in great need of reform,
both within the Church and in the world.
And all of us who are baptized are called to be prophets.
And that means rather than speaking things that are unknown
or things about the future that are revealed to us by God,
it's really not what it means when a person is baptized a prophet.
What it means is that we are called to speak in the name of God
and to speak his truth to the world,
even though it may be unpopular and unwanted.
That is our mission.
We have to speak the word in season and out of season,
even if we are light people.
We have to be witnesses to the truth of Christ,
first of all by the way we live,
and then also by our public witness and by the words that we speak.
But the prophets, as we know in the Old Testament,
whose role was more to speak in the name of God
than it was to foretell the future,
suffered a great deal.
And very often were killed
by the people that they proclaimed the truth to.
And when they went out to speak,
they went out on the mandate of God.
They didn't go out on their own authority.
Sometimes they didn't want to go out at all.
They were compelled to go out,
because God had given them this mission.
And so they went out because of the mission
and not because of some personal idea
or inspiration
or personal natural motive that they had.
They went out for God.
And they suffered for it.
And it's like this with St. Catherine,
because sometimes people invoke St. Catherine
as an example of someone who corrected bishops
and even popes.
And was willing to stand up to corruption
within the church in her own age.
But sometimes what they don't realize
is that she was an extraordinary soul
who was also called to extraordinary suffering
and who was willing to do it.
And that complementary to her prophetic role
was her continual commitment to the works of mercy,
taking care of the poor and the sick and the needy,
and committing herself to the welfare of souls.
And that's what made her witness and her words powerful,
was the fact that before anything else,
she lived that other aspect of her baptism,
which is the priesthood.
All of us are called to offer sacrifice.
All of us are called to unite our sacrifice
to that of Christ.
And that's the real power behind
whatever we say or whatever we might want to do
in the world, in our families or in the church
to make things better.
It is the power of the priesthood.
And it's what gives not only conviction
but credibility and power
to the words that we speak and the things that we do.
It's like Padre Pio.
Sometimes people will remark how Padre Pio
is sometimes gruff and direct
and forthright in his dealing with souls.
But Padre Pio had street credibility, you might say,
because he spent 16 hours a day in the confessional.
You might say he earned the right to be a little grumpy
when he had to listen to people's sins all day
for 16 hours a day.
He's also a southern Italian,
which explains a lot, I think, as well.
But aside from that, Padre Pio,
you know, was there day in and day out.
And while sometimes he may have sent people away
from the confessional,
he was always there when they needed to come back
and obtain the mercy of God.
And so even though Padre Pio
had that aspect to his life,
he was a spiritual father for thousands,
tens of thousands, perhaps, people
who came to San Giovanni Rotondo
and looked for the mercy of God.
So as we reflect upon the lives of the saints,
and in a particular way today,
St. Catherine of Siena,
we can ask for the grace
to be truly committed to the welfare of souls
as she was, and to the good of the Church.
In this time, which is so badly in need of reform,
we need to be prophets, it's true,
but we also need to fully live
the baptismal priesthood,
which is our opportunity to offer sacrifice.
Today, in the extraordinary form,
it's also the feast of another Dominican saint,
St. Peter Martyr, or Peter of Verona,
who was a contemporary of St. Dominic,
and who was entrusted
among the early members of the Order,
who were preachers,
to preach against the Albigensian heresy.
Again, prophetic role.
But he was fully committed to the welfare of souls,
and was a good shepherd who didn't run
when the wolves came.
He ultimately paid with the cost of his own life
for his willingness to speak the truth.
He was assassinated by some of the Albigensians,
he was martyred by an axe to the head,
and as he lay dying,
the tradition is that he wrote the creed,
the first words of the creed,
in his blood on the ground
as an expression of his perseverance in the faith
to the last drop of his blood.
So we pray to these great saints today
and ask that as penitents,
especially us here at the friary,
who,
our Franciscans committed to a life of penance,
that we understand
that we have to begin with ourselves
and transform our own lives
so that we might have the grace to help others.
Thank you.
Thank you.
© transcript Emily Beynon