Consecration of Bishop Bill Wright
For some obscure reason I believed for a time that today, June 15, was the feast of St. Isidore, bishop of Seville in southern Spain who died in 636 A.D. When I checked this assumption I found that Isidore was not listed in our Australian church calendar and his feast is celebrate elsewhere on April 4.
On first hearing his name I knew nothing about him, but did a little research intending to use him as a starting point for a meditation on the role of a bishop. You could argue that bishops as successors of the original twelve apostles are an older group than the priests, who, the Council of Trent tells us, were ordained priests at the Lord's Last Supper, which they attended as apostles. Certainly the order of bishops is older than the cardinals, who are a non-scriptural development attached to the Church of Rome. Cardinal Bishops originated in the eighth century and the cardinals' prerogative to elect the pope only dates from 1179.
The unity of the Catholic Church down through the ages and across the continent is a miracle of grace, wise government and precedent established over the ages, linking together the local bishops with the successor of St. Peter, presently Pope Benedict in Rome: He is the successor of Simon Peter, whose love was queried by the Lord and who was told three times to lead Christ's lambs and Christ's sheep. To ensure this unity the Papal letter of appointment is read out publicly at the consecration ceremony and examined by the members of the local college of consultors. The bishop is the hinge of unity, which is not the same as uniformity, within his local Church and with the wider Churches within the province and nation and across the world.
I won't detain you much longer with Isidore except to say that he was bishop in a difficult time. The Roman Empire had broken down in Western Europe in the seventh century and the barbarian Goths and the Visigoths had conquered Spain. They belonged to a religious group called Arians who did not believe in the divinity of Christ, like some Christians today. Isidore managed to bring many of them into the Church and was a great champion of education, which he encouraged in many ways as he battled to heal his society and his Church community. This proper religious education is no less important today.
Over the centuries the Church has experienced many difficult times, when corruption had to be exposed and rooted out and the healing balm of genuine Christian teaching had to be applied so the slow work of healing could begin and continue. The role of the bishop is crucial here as he tends the garden, trimming the plants and sometimes pulling out weeds, which always come out more easily when they are small. Every bishop today, surrounded by his co-workers the priests, faces formidable challenges.
To acknowledge the duties of a bishop on his Episcopal ordination day is not to downgrade the role of the lay faithful or the religious. Their tasks go together and reinforce one another. The Second Vatican Council was explicit in its endorsement of the role of the baptised and so we have parish councils, school boards, finance councils, levels of democratic involvement not present before Vatican Two. But the greater task of the laity is to take the Christian message out into the wider society as a yeast. Catholics are a significant minority in Australia, more than a quarter of the population, while regular worshippers are a much smaller minority. The secular pressures on us from the majority are enormous and without hard work and a clear vision to resist we shall more and more take on the colours of those who surround us. The bishop has to be a public teacher, a regular part of the give and take with the rest of society, committed to dialogue, but a leader of the Christian resistance. Certainly no serious Catholic can be reconciled to continuing and regular decline.
The bishop before all others is a defender of the apostolic tradition, those core teachings spelt out in the baptismal promises and the solemn creeds we profess at Mass. It is these calls to faith which inspire us to follow the two great commandments of love, for God and one another, which the Old Testament prophet Isaiah foreshadowed as good news for the battlers and healing for the broken hearted, for all the victims of injustice. It is Christian teaching and Christian action which bring the oil of gladness and replace the ashes of mourning with beautiful garlands.
While the bishop is a shepherd and is called to lead and rule as well as teach and sanctify through his prayer and the celebration of the sacraments, his work is basically a service. He should be a father and brother to the battlers, to the sick, to all those in need and distress. One of his first duties is to serve and support his brother priests, whether they are young or old, active in the ministry or retired. The success or failure of every bishop's work depends a lot on how much he can inspire the loyalty and industry of the priests for the Church's work while respecting their many different gifts and dispositions.
And every local Church needs new leaders to step forward as the next generation of priests, religious, lay leaders; as Catholic teachers, nurses, social workers; as politicians of Christian inspiration.
I say tonight to all the young people present, especially those who already know Christ well and love the Church, as I say to many other young Catholics, that the basic situation is very clear. Unless a goodly number of you step forward into leadership, then we will not be able to maintain our present strengths, much less develop and expand to bring further healing into society. I am sure God is calling. Please God the young and generous will answer.
The ordination of a new bishop is always a happy occasion, a celebration of hope, another step in the evolution of a rich and precious tradition. An ordination ceremony should also be an occasion of deep popular prayer. So I ask you all to pray for your new bishop that he will be strong and courageous, open and sensitive to the call of the Spirit and truly become an overseer of the Church according to the model of Jesus Christ, our teacher, priest and shepherd.
We make this prayer through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.
© Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
This item 9646 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
