Together on the Journey: A Weekly Word from Archbishop Hebda
Yesterday, Bishop Izen, Bishop Kenney, and I were blessed to join many of you at the Cathedral of Saint Paul for the culmination of our Archdiocesan Passport Adventure. Thanks to all who made the pilgrimage to the cathedral and to all who participated in the Adventure over these past months, accepting the challenge to visit seven of our parish churches for Mass. You certainly deserved even more than the wonderful ice cream offered to all those who had completed the Adventure.
When we first began to dream about the Passport Adventure, growing out of our Year 2 focus on the Mass, my prayer was that the experience would give us new insights into both the beauty of our Catholic liturgy and the Real Presence of Christ. It was my hope that by participating in Holy Mass in new surroundings and perhaps experiencing the celebration of the liturgy in different languages and even different rites, we might together grow in our appreciation of how the Eucharist has been forming this local Church into a community of believers for more than 175 years. Whether Holy Mass is offered in the magnificent surroundings of a cathedral or the more humble setting of a country church, or whether the liturgical music is supported by a magnificent organ or even unaccompanied, the core ritual of the Eucharist always gives us an opportunity to worship our God, to be nourished with Word and Sacrament, and to be sent out for the mission of spreading the Gospel and loving our neighbor.
It seemed wonderfully providential that we would have been concluding the Adventure on the feast of Saint Carlo Acutis. You might recall that this newly canonized teen-aged saint had such zeal for the Eucharist that he created his own online “passport experience,” establishing a website that gave virtual pilgrims access to documented Eucharistic miracles throughout the world (amazingly, the website still exists today).
I was delighted to hear stories from so many of you about how you had encountered Jesus in your Passport travels across the Archdiocese and beyond. We are indeed blessed with many beautiful churches, excellent preachers, and welcoming communities. I was intrigued by the number of folks who indicated that they were bringing new ideas back to their parishes for how the Eucharist could be celebrated with renewed reverence and dedication. I was not surprised, however, to hear that the experiences more often than not heightened the appreciation that our pilgrims had for their home parishes and for our forebearers who both built our parishes and made sure that we would encounter the Good News of Jesus.
In his letter to the Romans, our heavenly patron, Saint Paul, quoted the Prophet Isaiah: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring [the] good news” (Romans 10:15). We must always be grateful to the men and women who planted the faith in this Archdiocese over the past 175 years. After a service that was held on Saturday morning at Resurrection Cemetery for families who had lost children in childbirth or in the course of a pregnancy, I stopped to pray for my episcopal predecessors and for the priests buried in the cemetery’s clergy section. I’m always amazed by how many of our priests came from overseas or from distant parts of our country to bring the good news to the faithful of our Archdiocese. What a blessing they were! That obligation now falls on all of us to do the same. While this year’s Passport Adventure has ended, how wonderful it would be if we could now commit as families and individuals to bringing hope to the corners of our Archdiocese and beyond, making Jesus known and loved. Indeed, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!”
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