Archbishop Dolan: Love for Jesus and His Church Must be the Passion of our Lives!

By Catholic Online
11/15/2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

You and I believe with all our heart and soul that Christ and His Church are one.

Perhaps, brethren, our most pressing pastoral challenge today is to reclaim that truth, to restore the luster, the credibility, the beauty of the Church "ever ancient, ever new," renewing her as the face of Jesus, just as He is the face of God. Maybe our most urgent pastoral priority is to lead our people to see, meet, hear and embrace anew Jesus in and through His Church.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan

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BATIMORE, MD. (Catholic Online) - Here is the full text of the first formal address of the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, given Monday morning in Baltimore to his brother Bishops of the United States who are gathered in a General Assembly.

*****
Archbishop Timothy Dolan

My brother bishops: it is with that stunningly simple exhortation of Blessed Pope John II that I begin my remarks to you this morning.

"Love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!"

You and I have as our sacred duty, arising from our intimate sacramental union with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to love, cherish, care for, protect, unite in truth, love, and faith . . . to shepherd . . . His Church.

You and I believe with all our heart and soul that Christ and His Church are one.

That truth has been passed on to us from our predecessors, the apostles, especially St. Paul, who learned that equation on the Road to Damascus, who teaches so tenderly that the Church is the bride of Christ, that the Church is the body of Christ, that Christ and His Church are one.

That truth has been defended by bishops before us, sometimes and yet even today, at the cost of "dungeon, fire, and sword."

That truth -- that He, Christ, and she, His Church, are one -- moistens our eyes and puts a lump in our throat as we whisper with De Lubac, "For what would I ever know of Him, without her?"

Each year we return to this premier see of John Carroll to gather as brothers in service to Him and to her. We do business, follow the agenda, vote on documents, renew priorities and hear information reports.

But, one thing we can't help but remember, one lesson we knew before we got off the plane, train, or car, something we hardly needed to come to this venerable archdiocese to learn, is that "love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!"

Because, as the chilling statistics we cannot ignore tell us, fewer and fewer of our beloved people -- to say nothing about those outside the household of the faith -- are convinced that Jesus and His Church are one. As Father Ronald Rolheiser wonders, we may be living in a post-ecclesial era, as people seem to prefer

"a King but not the kingdom,
a shepherd with no flock,
to believe without belonging,
a spiritual family with God as my father, as long as I'm
the only child,
"spirituality" without religion
faith without the faithful
Christ without His Church."

So they drift from her, get mad at the Church, grow lax, join another, or just give it all up.

If this does not cause us pastors to shudder, I do not know what will.

The reasons are multiple and well-rehearsed, and we need to take them seriously.

We are quick to add that good news about the Church abounds as well, with evidence galore that the majority of God's People hold fast to the revealed wisdom that Christ and His Church are one, with particularly refreshing news that young people, new converts, and new arrivals, are still magnetized by that truth, so clear to many of us only three months ago in Madrid, or six months ago at the Easter Vigil, or daily in the wonderfully deep and radiant faith of Catholic immigrants who are still a most welcome -- -- while sadly harassed -- -- gift to the Church and the land we love.

But a pressing challenge to us it remains . . . to renew the appeal of the Church, and the Catholic conviction that Christ and His Church are one.

Next year, which we eagerly anticipate as a Year of Faith, marks a half-century since the opening of the Second Vatican Council, which showed us how the Church summons the world foreward, not backward.

Our world would often have us believe that culture is light years ahead of a languishing, moribund Church.

But, of course, we realize the opposite is the case: the Church invites the world to a fresh, original place, not a musty or outdated one. It is always a risk for the world to hear the Church, for she dares the world to "cast out to the deep," to foster and protect the inviolable dignity of the human person and human life; to acknowledge the truth about life ingrained in reason and nature; to protect marriage and family; to embrace those suffering and struggling; to prefer service to selfishness; and never to stifle the liberty to quench the deep down thirst for the divine that the poets, philosophers, and peasants of the earth know to be what really ...

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

matoke
1 year ago
We are now rejoicing and giving our God thanks after getting the good and very touching Gospel of Jesus Christ on your website today.We thank you also for obeying God's voice and you accepted to work for Him and you made this wonderful website.We had been looking for so long the friends of God like you to come in our church by God's grace and love to teach us His Word but today we are very thankful that we have find you by God's love.Kindly,we are from the Village where there is no good work of God like the one we have seen on your website.So we pray for you to come and minister in our church even one day.We are after the word of God from you and in your ministry.

Kindly,bless us with areply by God's love and grace.

We are remaining keeping you in our prayers .

Pastor Matoke and team
abey
1 year ago
The Church needs to take greater pains, through its members, to make its people, many who are lost due to the lack of understanding the Purpose of Jesus Christ- His mission.as the Bible states, to Redeem man of his sin, to GOD & his task to destroy death. The knowledge of the utmost importance of the Lord from Heaven His birth on earth, his death & His resurrection in order to save man, Leading to the understanding in detail, the requirement of man "To Live In Christ," such that he "Die In Christ " so that he may be "Raised in Jesus Christ ", the Covenant of GOD. Understanding the old testament helps us to to know something about GOD & what he requires of us, for our own good. Syncretism was the very cause, The Apostasy leading to the loss of Faith & disobedience, which Israel fell into , all the more relevant today among men.
Liam Keyes
1 year ago
Amen! Amen! Joseph,I could'nt have said it any better myself. Please e-mail me leekee1@live.com, Thank you and May God, His Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and St. Padre Pio be with you all through your journey.
Joseph
1 year ago
Archbishop Dolan's speech is well-meaning but - I am afraid to say - utterly useless given the world we now live in. A secular, militant atheist world, materialistic and contemptuous of God and all things spiritual. A world of sinners who do not even realise they are sinners because the Church has for decades totally failed in her divine mission to instruct, inform and educate people about the fundamental truths of the faith (sin, redemption and salvation; or an individual's refusal and final damnation in Hell), in order to carry out her primary task i.e. save souls. She has failed to stand up and boldly, robustly denounce and unequivocally condemn the sinfulness of modern western society and its godless embrace of moral relativism, its defiant march towards the clifftop and over the edge into the abyss of bottomless nihilism.
It saddens me to say it, but until the Church hierarchy recover a true sense of the Church’s historic mission and wake up to the fact that we are living in a new barbaric age, an age that must be countered not by facile optimism but by seasoned Christian soldiers, grounded in the hard realities of the faith and fighting the good fight of truth (however painful and politically incorrect that truth may be), bold and forthright in clearly stating the Christian offer of salvation in the teeth of Hell's damnation - a damnation redeemed (if the offer is taken up by the sinner) by Christ's precious blood on the Cross. Will such language cause a social and media firestorm? Absolutely! In the same way that the words of the Prophets, of John the Baptist, and of Christ himself offended so many, and 'turned the world upside down'.
The time for bland, vague, well-meaning platitudes has long gone - and the tragedy is that too many of the people who do not seem to realise this are still at the helm of the ship: a ship that is, in the meantime, trying desperately to battle her way through what is perhaps the greatest and most dangerous storm for Christianity since the first martyrs were being gleefully thrown to the lions by crowds of highly 'civilised' romans baying for more 'entertainment'.
Axel
1 year ago
This man is incredible. I so loved his talk that I just started writing my first book of quotes ! Cheers from France.
Nathan
1 year ago
Outstanding! This Archbishop "gets it." Right on.
Mike in Ca.
1 year ago
I truly look forward to hearing Bishop Dolan speak. Such a simple truth, "Love for Jesus and His Church is the passion of our lives!"

Thank you Bishop, thank you.

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