The Good Work in You

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Sometimes a particular phrase has a way of taking our minds back to a specific point of time.  For example, whenever I hear or read the phrase we heard from the epistle–“May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment”–I am taken back to the day of my ordination, when Bishop Boyea said those exact words to me after I made my promises to be the priest the Church calls me to be.  
    In many ways I looked at my ordination as an ending.  And after eight years of seminary formation, that’s probably not surprising.  It had seemed like forever since I started at St. John Vianney College Seminary immediately after high school in 2002, and it even seemed like a relatively long time since I had started Sacred Heart Major Seminary in 2006.  And while the first and most important goal of seminary is proper discernment of God’s call (or not), the farther along you get, the more you look forward to ordination to the priesthood.  That last year, as a transitional deacon, you’re looking at chalices, vestments, and trying to plan for the ordination reception, so ordination especially seems like the goal.
    But the words that are said before the man is ordained treat it, not as an ending, but as a beginning.  God has begun the good work, and we pray it finds its way to completion, on the day of Christ Jesus.  And, in retrospect and with the blessing of age and hopefully the acquisition of a bit more wisdom, ordination really is a beginning, more so than an ending.  And the years that follow really demonstrate how that good work is moving closer to or farther from completion.
    But the same is true for the other sacramental vocation, the vocation to Holy Matrimony.  Instead of eight years it’s around eight months or proximate preparation (sometimes more, sometimes less, based upon the date of engagement).  But there’s still all that planning and excitement for the “big day.”  Still, the big day is not the ending (though, and I’m sure the father’s of the bride are especially happy for this, it does end all the spending for the day of celebration).  The wedding day begins a lifelong commitment to the other, a good work, that finds its completion on the day when the bond of marriage is broken by death, by meeting the Lord.  That’s why we do marriage prep: to help the couple prepare, not so much for the wedding, but for married life and all the days that follow the wedding.
    But this is also true for all of Christ’s faithful.  When the priest baptizes us, a “good work” is begun, that will not find its completion until we meet the Lord, either at our death or at the end of time on the last day.  Either the parents or the one being baptized makes promises, just like a man makes promises on his ordination day, and a couple makes promises on their wedding day.  And every day that follows, God gives us all we need so that our “charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding.”  Our growth in holiness is really a growth in love of God and love of neighbor, as we understand better and better how God has made us for Himself, and how we can show that love to Him directly, as well as to our neighbor, with whom God identifies, especially the poor and outcast.  
    But so often we want to act like we should be a finished product.  We figure that, if we were truly holy, we would be done.  But the saints show us, time and time again, that we are never done growing in holiness.  Bishop Mengeling, who turns 94 on Tuesday, says frequently, “I’m not done yet!”  And he doesn’t just mean that he’s still alive.  He readily admits that he is still growing in holiness, and while continue growing for the rest of his life.  

    So don’t get too discouraged if you’re not there yet, if you’re not the saint that you want to be, and that God wants you to be.  Certainly, don’t give up or grow lazy and complacent.  But the work of your sanctification is a lifelong work.  It’s not something that you get to retire from once you reach a certain age, or have accomplished a certain number of achievements.  Even for me, if I make it to the age of seventy when I can become a senior priest, it’s not like I can stop living as a priest and give up my vocation.  No, I’ll continue it until death.  And for married couples, they can’t give up because their children have all grown, or when they’re retired from their jobs.  Marriage keeps going “until death do [you] part.”  
    The call of holiness is to daily give God what is His due, that is, everything.  Even while God gives us some authority over our actions, all things are from God and belong to Him.  Each day God calls us to render to Him everything that we have: our life, our family, our work, our leisure, everything.  Just because we offer it to Him doesn’t mean that He will take it from us.  Sometimes it’s simply that we are willing to offer what is most precious to God, like Abraham did with Isaac.  But it is a good work that continues throughout our life, until, like Christ, we offer our last breath to God as we commend our spirit into His hands.  May God, who has begun the good work in us, bring it to fulfillment on the day of Christ Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.