At Propagation of Faith convention

Homily preached by Archbishop Thomas Wenski April 17, 2012 at the convention of Propagation of the Faith directors, held in Miami April 17-19.

“Thus Joseph, also named by the Apostles Barnabas (which is translated a son of encouragement), a Levite, a Cypriot by birth, sold a piece of property that he owned, then brought the money and put it at the feet of the Apostles.”

In your work, you encourage modern-day Barnabases to be generous with the contributions of time, talent and treasure for the support of the Missions.  And their generosity is so important to this work.  We thank God for that generosity – for this generosity is inspired not so much by what we do “to cultivate” those gifts but rather by the great favor shown to them by God:  grace has inspired graciousness.

Such grace is evidenced not only by the generosity of these donors who give so much to the missions but also it is manifested by the generosity of pastoral care workers in the mission field, especially those who have given their lives.  Last year, Fides – the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Society - reports 26 pastoral workers who were killed, one more than the previous year. The majority of these deaths occurred in this hemisphere where 13 priests and 2 lay workers were martyred.

Thank God for the generosity of our donors and thank God for the generosity of these modern day martyrs. The Blood of Martyrs is the seed of the Church. At the service of human promotion and evangelization, the Church continues to grow – supported by the blood of her martyrs as well as the sacrificial giving of her faithful.  Pope Benedict has said:  “…there is always a high price to pay for living the Gospel consistently.”

During the Great Jubilee Year celebrations thanks to the efforts of Pope John Paul II recognition was given to the fact that the 20th century was the century that witnessed more martyrs for the faith than at any other time in our history.  And, I would say that while this was occurring most of us in the West were oblivious to this fact.  In fact, while in many countries, the refusal to obey man rather than God meant prison, torture, death or at least persecution, discrimination and harassment, we in the West witnessed a softening of our missionary zeal to bring the gospel Ad gentes.  Rather than engaging the world, we retreated into our own “comfort zones” or worse we surrendered to the spirit of the age.

No one ordered us “Not to preach in his name” as Peter and John were by the Sahedrin when after Pentecost they set about to proclaim “repentance and forgiveness of sins”– too often we found our own excuses not to. Their zeal for souls was not the “bitter zeal” that too often today characterizes some in the Church today who spent so much energy fighting ideological battles with their fellow Catholics whom they perceived to be “either too liberal, or too conservative”.  Nor was their zeal constrained by “human respect” or the erroneous idea that preaching the gospel was some type of religious imperialism or colonialism.

Their zeal was a fruit of the Holy Spirit given to them at Pentecost.  That loving Spirit is still given to the Church today – without measure.