By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at Vigil Mass on the occasion of Fr. Darius Zarebski's Silver Jubilee of Ordination. Saturday, April 25, 2015 at St. Ambrose Church.
On this the fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church traditionally reads the gospel passage in which Jesus describes himself as the “Good Shepherd”. Now I remember a story of a young priest who was celebrating Mass for the school children and this gospel was the gospel of that Mass. In his homily he decided to engage the children and ask them questions. They tell lawyers never to ask a question during a trial that you don’t know what the answer will be. This priest probably should have listened to that advice. These kids lived in the city and probably never had been on a farm or even seen a sheep – and when he asked them: “What is a shepherd?” most of the kids just looked at him with blank stares – until one kid bravely raised his hand and said, “Father, isn't a shepherd a mean dog?” The boy didn't have any experience of shepherds tending their flocks; but he obviously had not a too happy experience with a German shepherd.
Well, today we celebrate the silver jubilee of the Father Darrius’s ordination to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. “Pastores dabo vobis, I will give you shepherds”, Jesus promised in speaking of those whom he would call to serve God’s people as priests. How better to describe the essence of the vocation to the priesthood than by saying that a priest is called to shepherd God’s people and lead them by his teaching and example to the refreshment of their souls by sharing with them the Word of God and the Sacraments of the Church, the sheepfold where the sheep come to recognize their shepherd’s voice and follow it. Today, we join Father Darrius in giving thanks to God for the gift of his vocation. Father Darrius is a member of the Society of the Divine Savior. The Salvatorian Fathers, a congregation of missionary priests, was founded in 1881 by the Venerable John Baptist Jordan, “to strengthen, to defend and to spread the Catholic Faith everywhere in so far as this is committed to us by Divine Providence”.
The motto of the Salvatorians is “The Savior’s mission is our passion”. And Our Savior’s mission to bring to good news to the ends of the end has led Father Darius from his native Poland, then to Canada and now here in sunny Florida and St. Ambrose Parish. I know that Father Dalton appreciates the service of this man – and I am sure that you, parishioners of St. Ambrose do so as well.
In an increasingly secularized world where many have lost the sense of the transcendent, the priest is an enigma, a sign of great contradiction. In a world in which people live, in the words of Pope Benedict, “etsi Deus non daretur” – as if God does not matter – the Church will always seem “out of step” and irrelevant. Such a Church will often be regarded if not with scorn and ridicule then with utter incomprehension. But as St. John writes: “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3: 1). Again to quote the Pope emeritus “…we priests experience this: the ‘world’ does not understand the Christian, does not understand the ministers of the Gospel. Somewhat because it does not know God, and somewhat because it does not want to know him. The world does not want to know God so as not to be disturbed by his will, and therefore it does not want to listen to his ministers….” Yet, by Christ’s design, we are "in" the world "for the life of the world."
This call of the Church to be “in the world” and to be “for the world” has been strongly emphasized in the two years since Pope Francis has ascended to the Chair of Peter. He has criticized a “self-referential Church,” a Church closed in on herself. A priest, Pope Francis tells us, is not to build walls but bridges. And he has challenged all of us to “go out of the sacristies and into the “outskirts” “where people of faith are most exposed to the onslaught of those who want to tear down their faith.” During a Chrism Mass homily, Pope Francis reminded us priests that the priestly anointing we receive is not meant to just make us fragrant; rather, it is meant “for the poor, the prisoners, the sick, for those sorrowing and alone.”
The world desperately needs the priest’s witness that God in fact does matter. This witness is made more compelling by a priest’s detachment from material comforts and signs of status, by his readiness to obediently be available wherever his superiors may send him, and by his chaste celibacy which is the source of spiritual fecundity. This is what Pope Francis would call being a priest who goes out of himself and lives like a shepherd with the “odor of the sheep.”
The celibacy which is freely embraced by the priest or the consecrated religious affirms and proclaims that all human intimacy finds its deepest meaning and fulfillment when experienced as a participation in intimacy with God himself. Understood in this way, celibacy in no way contradicts the dignity of marriage but presupposes and confirms it. (cf. Familaris Consortio, 16). Celibacy, to be sure, is not easy; but then again neither is Christian marriage easy, for both require the gift of oneself in imitation of Christ’s own gift of himself on the Cross.
The priesthood of Jesus Christ is a tremendous gift that we priests have received despite our limitations, our sinfulness and our unworthiness. We carry this treasure in “vessels of clay” – and so we beg of you, dear people of God, your prayers and your encouragement that we may preserve in our vocation serving God and his Church with fidelity and with zeal.
And today, we all offer prayers of Thanksgiving to God for Fr. Darius, we also give thanks for his parents and for the Church of this native Poland, who nurtured him in the Faith and inspired within him the courage to say “Yes” to God’s call. The Polish Pope and Saint, John Paul II, once described the priestly vocation as both “a mystery and a gift”. 25 years ago, Father Darius was ordained a priest and since that day he has embraced the gift of that vocation and has entered into that mystery which enables the priest, in communion with Jesus to act in his name and in his sight, as a shepherd of souls.
In today’s gospel, when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd”, we can understand what Jesus meant as we look at this Polish shepherd of souls. For Father Darius not only knows what a shepherd is, he knows the shepherd. And as he has done for 25 years, may he continue to “strengthen, to defend and to spread the Catholic faith so that the people entrusted to his care will also come to know better the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. For “the Savior’s misson is our passion.” Ad multos annos, Father Darius!
