Homily for Christian Brothers' Jubilees

Homily for the
Christian Brothers’ Jubilees

Oct. 8, 2024
Eph 4: 1-6
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Home, N.R.

At their assisted living and nursing home, the Brothers celebrated 5 jubilarians of 60, 70, and 75 years in their congregation.

“I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received” (Eph 4: 1).

Paul has been imprisoned on account of his preaching the Gospel.  That gives him a certain moral authority to urge the believers at Ephesus to be faithful to the Gospel:  “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.”

They didn’t initiate their faith.  Rather, God the Father called them.  We believe that’s true of our vocation as religious, the manner in which we live out our basic call to follow Christ.  It’s also true that we are “prisoners for the Lord,” for he has captured us and taken us as his own.  We are captivated.

Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians is sound teaching for every Christian, regardless of vocation.  But it’s absolutely necessary within the intentional community that we form—or God forms thru his call—with our brothers.  Paul urges “all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another thru love” (4:2).

Those virtues are essential for living in unity of spirit, in peace, according to the charism of our religious family.  They are the only “manner worthy of the call.”  If we live in unity with our brothers, we’re living in unity with Christ, our one Lord, and we have solid hope that our call will reach its perfection in a final, permanent union with the “one God and Father of all” (4:6), who created us for eternal love, who created us (as the priest celebrant prays during the preparation of the gifts) to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity, who treats us with gentleness, patience, and unfathomable love.