Homilies

Joan Stellern, OP
Diamond Jubilee Homily - May 20, 2007

Through many dangers, trials and snares  we have already come.....

And here we are.....celebrating.....
  60    65    70     75     80    years of consecrated living.

We have all experienced the ups and downs of such a life,
  and we consider how far our faith and dedication have taken us.

We have wrestled with, and survived failures,
disappointments and diminishment.

We can resonate with Stephen
  as he saw those rocks coming at him;
  yet he came to understand that those very stones were the way
  to Jesus.   JESUS, the love of his life.

With Stephen, we long to see the face of our beloved.

And we have seen glimpses of Jesus in so many ways:
  in the faces of hundreds amd hundreds of children we've taught,
  and in the families whose lives we have touched
  during years of teaching, caring for, rejoicing and sufferig with them.
We pray for them.   We love them.

We sit here today, as jubilarians, surrounded by those we love,
  and those who love us.....

We face with courage what lies ahead,
  confident that the goal of our life will be achieved.

Just a few minutes ago,
  we were privileged to hear the intimate conversation of Jesus with God.

Jesus prays for us.
   to be brought into the tender and all-consuming love of the Trinity.

Father, as I am in you and you are in me.....
that they may be one in us.

That the world may know that they may be one as we are one.

Our longing for union and intimacy
  are the very desires of the heart of God.....

to bring about the precious unity in the Church we love.
     to be caught up in the intimate life of the Triune God.

These are the desires of our beloved Jesus.
   These are our desires.
Oh, we have work to do, you and I.

The world is in need of our consectated living.

The very things we want to do with joy and energy
   are the things the world needs from us:

            The world needs our prayer and preaching.....

            The world needs our love.....

            The world needs our ability to see Jesus everywhere.

The world needs to be embraced as it is...

  in its brokenness....in its confusion and violence..

Yet the world is bubbling over with life and creativity,
  with unbelievable newness.

Our opportunities for passionate living are endless.

Let the prayer of Jesus be heard again:

Father, that they may be one.
That they may be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you.

And we will be ready to cry out with the Spirit and the bride:

  AMEN.    COME , LORD JESUS.

            When we've been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sum, we've no less days to sing God's praise
then when we first begun.