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Anniversaries—A Time to Remember, A Time to Look Ahead

Reflections on the 35th Anniversary of My Ordination.

This Fr. Gerry Creedon homily was delivered at St. Charles on June 22, 2003

FRANKLY I WAS of the opinion that I should forget about my 35th anniversary of my ordination because it just a reminder about getting older, but people made such a fuss over it and gave me so many gifts, I couldn't ignore it.

So it has me thinking a little about 35 years back to when I was ordained in 1968 and what the world was like. There was a phrase that was like a poem that people were repeating back then:

"The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ."

These were the opening lines from a Vatican II document on the church in the modern world. These lines resonated with me back then and they still do. I was going through the seminary at a time when the church was taking a fresh look at itself. There were two pivotal documents: "Lumen Gentium" on the nature of the church, published in 1964 and "Gaudium Et Spes", the church in the modern world, published in 1965.

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They radicalized our thinking about the church. "Lumen Gentium" made clear that the church wasn't just an institution or organization that mediated God to us. It described church as the people of God served by the hierarchy and the institution.

This idea that the church is God's people grew out of an encyclical of Pius the XII called "Mystici Corporis Christi", a reflection on the mystery we celebrate today on the Feast of Corpus Christi. The church isn't first a structure and an institution; it is the body of Christ, a dynamic community filled with the spirit.

Vatican II offered a model of the church that gave the primacy to God's people. The clergy, laity, and all the rest of our structures are secondary; we are one people baptized of the spirit. This Council unveiled a democratization of our image of the church. We were called to renewal. AGGIORNAMENTO was Pope John's word. He wanted to update the church in all of the structures and elements of its life. We were going to leave medieval times behind us and enter a New World, a new church.

The other document, "Gaudium Et Spes", proclaimed that the church wasn't for itself. The purpose of the church wasn't just the salvation of souls. The church was intended to be a community of faith in service to the whole of humanity, especially the poor and those in any way afflicted. The church's aim was the establishment of God's reign of peace over all of creation. Justice, equality, truth, love, and peace would characterize the Kingdom. The Great figure who inspired all of this reorientation was John the XXIII. The first of his two major encyclicals "Mater Et Magistra" (church as mother and teacher) spoke of an end of global inequality. His second, "Pacem in Terris" (peace on earth) asked for a reappraisal of war with an entirely new attitude and a rethinking of the militarization of our world. We would find new and alternative ways of establishing peace through human rights, an international order and global structures that would be strengthened, not weakened.

We are called to part of the renewal of the church from within. Within the seminaries we read the moral theology of people like Bernard Haring. This German-born Redemptionist made clear that Catholic ethics not only embraced our sexual peccadilloes but also the structures of sin in our society, economy and history. He broadened our sense of responsibility with a morality that would be founded in love and justice.

Back in 1968, we listened to the theologians and teachers of faith. We were also attentive to the words of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, who were assassinated the year I was ordained. We knew there was a connection between civil rights and faith. We believed with these prophets that we could not be a people of faith and inattentive to oppression in any form.

Two years before Ireland celebrated the anniversary of the Rising of 1916. I remember being in a play in 1966 taking the role of Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of that revolution. At the heart of his thinking was the idea that Easter and freedom were linked. My thoughts still go back to the words of Patrick Pearse: "I've squandered the splendored years that the Lord God gave to my youth in attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil. Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me but God." He was willing to spend himself and risk his life for an end of slavery, dependency, and oppression.

While these great figures inspired the youth of that generation, the people who most touched my own life were those closest to me, my father and my mother. From my father I learned the compassion of the Gospel. From my mother I learned a very important lesson, "Never take no for an answer!"

Lessons from Each of My Pastoral Assignments

Reflecting over the years of my experience in pastoral ministry, I realized that each position I was assigned taught me something.

Starting off in 1968 at the Blessed Sacrament in Alexandria I experienced liturgies in the church basement, a creative empowering worship that was full of life and energy. It offered an experience to the church as God's people at prayer and praise.

I went to St. Luke's in McLean where I learned that you could be rich and still be a Christian. There also had the good fortune to get to know Mrs. Robert Kennedy and her extended family.

I went to Good Shepherd in Mt. Vernon for 12 years and for 12 years we worked on reconciliation. How can you bring together left-wingers and right-winger and all in between ideologically, theologically, and politically? So divided was this controversial congregation that my first homily was printed word for word in the Washington Post! Yet we came together.

For 7 years I served as director of Catholic Charities where I had the opportunity to see how the church could professionalize its work of social concern.

In the four years I served in the Dominican Republic on the Haitian Border, working with Bishop Grullon Estrella, I came to see the reality of what the Vatican Council documents anticipated. I witnessed a church that integrated justice and faith. Faith based neighborhood communities would say, "Next year we want five catechists and we want to build a bridge" or "Next year we want three animators of the community and we want to build a school".

We had a Bishop who believed a priest in his diocese to be successful should give away his authority to empower God's people.

Of course all of this was to prepare me for the people of St. Charles. We are the oldest and the youngest parish in Arlington. We are poor and wealthy. We are settled and immigrant. We are Anglo, Euro-American, Latin American, African American, Asiatic and much more. We are brother to our sister parishes in Haiti. We are the body of Christ. We are the people of God.

An anniversary is a time to remember dreams, visions, and hopes about the church, but more than that it is a time to look ahead and move forward.

The pledging of $2.2 million in Rooted in Faith-Forward in Hope on top of the $3 million given to the Build the Spirit Campaign are a tangible sign of that commitment. Let the new community center we are about to complete serve as a pledge and a covenant to strengthen a church. We will renew ourselves to form a community of faith that will be God's people. Diverse yet one, in this place we will support one another and reach out to make a difference in Arlington County and beyond.

In upcoming weeks our government will determine whether we will give a living wage to workers who work for Arlington County as they do in Alexandra. I am hearing that some are organizing against this idea. Faithful people will say justice matters for those who work for our government by cleaning windows, floors, and bathrooms. They do not have to drive 25 miles to get here because they can't afford to live on our wages.

"Lumen Gentium" and "Gaudium Et Spes" are as relevant today in 2003 as they were in 1964 and 1965. The renewal of the church hasn't happened yet; we are just beginning. We are like a giant that slowly wakes up. Let's rise together.

  or  2003 Homilies