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The mission of San Antonio
Sept. 13, 1987 was a historic day in the life of our church here in San Antonio. Pope John Paul II’s apostolic visit remains an inspiration for my ministry here. I’m humbled sometimes to think that this holy man and heroic leader once spent the night praying and resting in the apartment that is now my home at Assumption Seminary.
The day he spent in San Antonio was filled with teaching — including a homily at a Mass attended by some 350,000 people, and three important addresses to seminarians, charity workers and the Hispanic community.
In my next few columns I want to meditate on his words in San Antonio 20 years ago. These words are so relevant that they sound as if they were spoken yesterday. And they reveal the Holy Father’s deep insight into the needs of our local church and the wider issues facing American Catholics.
He began the day with an outdoor Mass at Westover Hills, the only Sunday Mass he celebrated during his pastoral visit to the United States that year.
In his homily he recalled the first Mass celebrated on our soil — by Father Damián Massanet along the riverbank on the feast of St. Anthony, June 13, 1691.
The Holy Father knew our history and he believed that we should, too. It’s a struggle in this culture. But we have to hold fast to our Catholic identity. We have to remember who we are, where we came from, and what God calls us to do.
San Antonio, John Paul said, has a very special calling that flows from our history as a “a meeting of cultures, indigenous and immigrant” from every part of the world. San Antonio is “a crossroads ... a symbol and a kind of laboratory testing America’s commitment to her founding moral principles and human values.”
God has given our city and our local church a unique and important vocation. San Antonio is called to be a light to our nation — a shining example of how peoples of many different continents, races, languages, customs and religions, can live together in freedom, truth, compassion and peace. This is the great ideal that John Paul held out for us. It remains a vital personal goal that I have for my ministry here.
In God’s providence, peoples from all the “ends of the earth” have come to make their home in San Antonio. We must proclaim God’s Word to our neighbors, by our words and our acts of selfless love. We must show them the power of God’s love to change and renew their lives.
Reconciliation was the key theme in the pope’s homily. First, the need to strive for greater reconciliation on a social level — among races and among peoples. But he also chose San Antonio to deliver an eloquent call for a return to the sacrament of penance.
His words inspired me in writing my pastoral letter earlier this year, The Tender Mercy of Our God.
I believe what John Paul taught. This sacrament is the great sign of hope for our world. We can’t be reconciled with our families and neighbors unless we’re first reconciled with God.
Penance, as John Paul said, sets us free to love again. And we can’t live without love.
“If man opposes love and lives without love,” he warned, “death takes root in his soul and it grows.”
That’s what sin is. It’s the refusal to love. The sacrament helps us come to our senses. It gives us a way to say to God and to our neighbor, “I’m truly sorry. I’m ready to love again. I ask your forgiveness and I promise to make amends for the injury I’ve caused by my lack of love.”
The Holy Father reminded us: “There can be no truly Christian living without an openness to the transcendent dimension of our lives.”
Let us take up his challenge. Let’s devote ourselves to being more open to Jesus Christ in our lives. He alone shows us the face of our Father, the needs of our brothers and sisters and the meaning of our lives.
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