Reflections on our Bicentennial Celebration this past Sunday

By Cardinal Justin Rigali

Our Holy Father, whose presence in our country we celebrate as you read these words, has often spoken of joy as one of the characteristics of a genuine Christian life. From the very beginning of his Pontificate, Pope Benedict has spoken about “the joy of being a believer in Christ.” Many commentators have spoken about the serene joy that he projects and a recent book, which seeks to summarize the Pope’s theological vision, refers to his sense of joy in Christ. We know from our own human experiences that, while there are things which may give us momentary pleasure or make us happy, only a genuine and deep-seated experience, founded upon what is good and true, can bring us lasting joy. Since Jesus is the perfection of God, made Flesh for us in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, we can find the greatest and most fulfilling joy in Him. The joyful celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which we have been celebrating for this past year, culminated in our Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated this past Sunday. It was a truly joyful event, because it was a celebration of our belief in Jesus, who alone can completely fulfill the desires of the human heart. This week, in the joyful spirit of faith, which is so beautifully taught and lived by Pope Benedict XVI, I would like to share with you my joyful reflections on our recent celebration.

A celebration of faith
Above every other blessing which the Church of Philadelphia has received in the course of these two hundred years, the greatest reason for our joy is our faith. Saint Peter, the first Pope, writes of the gift of faith as being “more precious than gold” (1 Peter 1:7). The faith has been preached, in union with Peter, for two hundred years in our local Church and even long before that, through the zealous missionaries who labored here under the sponsorship of their own dioceses, Religious Orders and the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome. It is very important for us to give thanks for our faith as something which is not the work of men or women but the Revelation of God. Even the Pope is at the service of truth and not the creator of new doctrines. The First Vatican Council declared: “The Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.” This is why, even as a bishop, Pope Benedict chose as his episcopal motto an expression which means “co-workers in the truth.”

It is especially important for us to acknowledge the importance of our faith, revealed to us by God, in these times in which God has willed us to live. It is easy to accept mere sentiment as a substitute for revealed truth. It is more convenient to create our own God, with characteristics which we would like Him to have, than to embrace the truth of who and what He is as revealed to us through His word and through His Church. It is easier to deny the challenges of the truth and create our own path than to follow the example and teaching of Jesus. To these challenges, we who are the recipients of the gift of faith and who rejoice that it has been preached in our local Church for two hundred years, must respond by listening to the words of Jesus. When he corrected His disciples for giving in to a merely popular and human sentiment, He said: “It shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:26). To any of those challenges, which would tempt us to accept a faith other than that taught to us by Jesus, we must answer as the martyr Saint Justin (died 165) did. W
hen he was brought before the Roman prefect and was threatened with death because he was accused of believing in “an idea,” he responded: “It is not an idea that I have; it is something I know well and hold to be most certain” (Acts of the Martyrdom of Saint Justin and his companion saints).

A living Church
Another aspect of our celebration that I would like to point out to you and give thanks for is the fact that the Church is a living and continuous reality. Those who were at Sunday’s celebration will have noticed that, from among the various Eucharistic Prayers we can use in the Liturgy, we made use of the First Eucharistic Prayer, or Roman canon. You may recognize it as being the one which has the option of including a fairly long list of names. These are the names of the Apostles and early martyrs of the Church. They were included spontaneously as part of the prayer of the early Church and they continue to be part of our patrimony. Surrounded by so many bishops at Sunday’s Liturgy, who came to give thanks with us for our two hundred years, I could not help but think of the glorious continuity and stability of our faith, built upon the Apostles. As our Auxiliary Bishops read those portions of the Eucharistic prayer, which contained all of those names, I could not but help think of the fact that we are their successors, in this living Church of Philadelphia. We are the living fulfillment, along with you, Christ’s faithful, of Christ’s promise that His Church will last until the end of time and His command that the Gospel be preached to the far ends of the earth.

It also gives us pause to remember that the Church of Philadelphia has tried to repay the debt it owes to those who came here to preach the Gospel and transmit the faith. We have done this by sending forth bishops, who were priests of our own local Church, who have gone on to serve other local churches as their bishops. Many of them also honored us by their presence. Their presence reminded us that although, as I said at the Episcopal Ordination of Auxiliary Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, we are proud of our local Church and its riches: “We are never more ourselves—the Church of Philadelphia—than when we embrace the Church’s universal faith and discipline, and are open in charity to the needs of the universal Church, which by her nature is missionary” (Homily, July 26, 2006).

The blessing of our country
The love of one’s country is part of our human nature. Indeed, the love of place, the love of home and the love of one’s heritage comprises part of the glorious dignity of the human person. We are also grateful, in this our Bicentennial year, that we have been able to flourish as a Church and as faithful Catholics, in the United States of America. Many of the characteristics of our country, which have been with it from its foundation, have enabled the Church to progress freely and to preach the Gospel and perform its works of charity. As we give thanks for these blessings, which do not arise from human will or the opinion of the majority but consist in the “unalienable rights” which were proclaimed as being one of the gifts of God at our foundation, we recall that every right must be protected and defended. In two different addresses, given on the occasion of the appointment of new ambassadors to the Holy See, Pope Benedict referred to some of the great blessings of our country: our example of uniting people of good will, based on valuing “the role of religious belief in ensuring a vibrant and ethically sound democratic order”; our “historic appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public discourse and in shedding light on the inherent moral dimension of social issues” (Address, February 29, 2008); and our “generous charitable outreach to the disadvantaged and the needy on every continent” (Address, November 12, 2005). We pray that our beloved country and its leaders will always remember that God is not an abstract notion, thought up by some individual or sect but a loving Father, who created us and cares for us and created us to live as a community of brothers and sisters. This belief can never be harmful to the common good because God is the Supreme Good.

Those “behind the scenes”
At the conclusion of Sunday’s Mass of Thanksgiving, I particularly thanked those who worked so hard “behind the scenes” so that all could take place in an orderly, dignified and prayerful fashion. Whenever I visit those in parishes or institutions that are part of our Archdiocesan family, I know that many people work very hard before my arrival. I also know that this is not done for me personally but to honor the office of the Bishop, who is sent by Peter’s Successor to preach and teach in this local Church. I thank all those good people again as part of our Bicentennial act of Thanksgiving.

Finally, I think of all those who quietly pray, suffer and fulfill their vocations according to God’s plan with great fidelity. As the Church teaches in the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, all of these people help to build up this local Church by their fidelity.

I consider it a special blessing that on the day of our Bicentennial Mass of Thanksgiving, as we also prepare for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in our country, the Church presented before us in the Liturgy of the Hours a beautiful writing from one of Pope Benedict’s predecessors, Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604). As we celebrate on earth, Pope Saint Gregory reminds us to look ahead. He writes: “Beloved, let us set out for those pastures where we shall keep joyful festival with so many of our fellow citizens. May the thought of their happiness urge us on! Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. We must not allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going” (Homily 14).
April 17, 2008