Archbishop Kevin's homily at the Rite of Election

At Saint George's Cathedral, Southwark
on Saturday, 24th February, 2007

 

 

As I looked through the readings for today’s Rite of Election, and as I reflected on the liturgy, three words seemed to keep coming back to me: journey, community, and faith.

All of us, and especially the candidates and catechumens, are on a journey, a journey which is unique to each one of us but which also has much in common with the journeys of other people. Those who are going to be baptised, and those who are going to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, are at a special moment in your journey in which you have been led by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been at work in all the circumstances of your life, in ways that you have been aware of, and ways of which you have been quite unaware. God is ever present, present in every moment, and your presence here today is a response to God’s presence and God’s actions. The reading from Deuteronomy speaks of God’s action in bringing his people out of slavery in Egypt on a journey to the Promised Land. This year we celebrate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade and it is good to recall that God always seeks to bring us out of bondage and into new life. Today is a moment on that journey when the Church recognises what God is doing in your life. The formal enrolling of your name is a sign of God’s choice, God’s action, God’s calling. So today we praise and thank God for that.

But our journey is not made in isolation. It was the people of Israel that were freed from bondage and, when God gave them the Law, he made something that would bind them together as a people. The new Israel is the Church and your journey is a journey to become part of a community, part of a people – to belong. I think some of the most beautiful lines in the Old Testament are in the Book of Ruth, where Ruth says to her mother-in-law:
                        “wherever you go, I will go,
                        wherever you live, I will live.
                        Your people shall be my people,
                        and your God, my God.”              (Ruth 1:16)

Entering the Church is belonging to a community of faith. In the first instance it is your own parish, your own Eucharistic community, and it is good that your godparents, sponsors, family, your fellow parishioners, and those clergy who have been able to come, are here with you today. And you are here in the Cathedral with me and the other bishops of the diocese as a sign that your belonging is to the diocese of Southwark, a unique local Church with its own history and its own future and you are becoming part of it at a time when we are consulting and reflecting together on where the Lord is leading us as a people in these days and at this time.

And you become part of the Catholic Church throughout the world, of which Pope Benedict is the focus of unity.

And all this happens in faith. You have been gifted with faith or you would not be here today. Why is it that it is so hard for people to believe today – to believe and to give themselves to God in faith? We’re so focused on ourselves whereas faith takes us out of ourselves and focuses us on Jesus Christ. It takes the focus off our own plans and schemes, our own fears and fantasies and onto the Lord. This is never easy. But it is the way to true life. The Gospel today, which is the temptations of Jesus in the desert, is very appropriate. The devil offered him the whole world but Jesus said “no”. He only wanted to do the will of his Father. And for all of us, but especially the candidates and catechumens, today is a key moment on the journey of faith, away from slavery, from the self life into communities, into communion with God and with other members of the Church. And in that journey we discover our unique vocation, our unique task in the service of others, in the service of the body which is the Church. Prepare intensely with prayer and with faith for the celebration of the Easter sacraments, for full communion and ever deeper life in the heart of the Church. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. The artwork in this liturgy gives us a visual focus. In your churches you have the crucifix. You have the tabernacle. Stay focused on the Lord who calls and he will lead you into the fullness of life.