Installation Address as Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish, Newman Center
University of Kentucky
Diocese of Lexington
September 13, 2009
The Bernini colonnade
outside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome represents the arms of the Church reaching
out to embrace the whole world. The Irish novelist James Joyce once described
the Catholic Church as “Here comes everybody” (Finnegan’s Wake). Look
around you tonight. You see that it is true. Everybody is represented here:
people who express the social justice mission of the Church; those who express
the devotional life of the Church; those who strive for inclusiveness in the
Church. All are here. Some embrace all these facets of the Church. All are
here, even members of other dioceses, my friends from Knoxville and Boston. All
of us represent the multicolored panes of a stained glass window, distinct from
one other, yet all contributing to the one creation: the mystical rose window
that symbolizes the heavenly city toward which we are all heading. We, who are
Holy Spirit Parish, the Newman Center, belong to something greater than
ourselves. We are members of the Diocese of Lexington, headed by the Diocesan
Bishop. Despite our uniqueness, we are parts of the Roman Catholic Church, and,
as St. Ignatius of Loyola was so fond of saying, we must ‘think with the
Church’-– or at least try to do so, especially when it might be difficult.
I stand here tonight as
your new pastor, yet no one stands alone. I have a wonderful staff: long
serving, competent, dedicated and vigorous. And a series of great pastors have
preceded me – four of them. When I was a student of the theater, I marveled
that no matter how great a playwright or a director might have been (Ibsen or
Stanislavksi), that artist did not emerge whole cloth from nowhere.
Predecessors gave a foundation and inspiration for his or her vision and
practice. The same is true for a new pastor. I have inherited a tradition (Fiddler
on the Roof)– and I am well aware of it. The names of Elmer Moore, Larry
Hehman, Dan Noll and Tom Farrell are vibrant and living in the memories of many
here. I am well aware of their contributions, and I am learning even more as I
hear people tell the stories of their associations with these men. Fathers
Hehman, Noll and Farrell, I ask you to stand so that I, together with this
community, might thank you for your living legacy to us. …..My brothers, I
thank you for all you have done for me to inform and guide my pastorate that I
have inherited from you at the hand of our Bishop. Thank you, Bishop Gainer,
for entrusting this mission to me; I pray I prove worthy. I have my brother
priests and deacons who are here tonight to support me. And I have all of you,
the parishioners, the People of God; I count on your prayers.
Thank you all for accepting me as your pastor. We go forward together in hope,
with respect for each other’s gifts, to be nourished by Word and Sacrament. May
we become what we receive, and know the Living God in our own lives. May we in
turn, encourage each other and move outward to the world, to build up the Body
of Christ, assisting Christ in the transformation of the world in the
particular places where we live and move and have our being, for the Greater
Glory of God. We give praise and thanks to God for this work that he has
given us to do together. “Here comes everybody indeed.” And finally, knowing
God’s love more and more, may we say together with Mary, “The Lord has
done great things for me, and Holy is His name.” Praised be Jesus Christ, now
and forever!
