Of all the places my almost forty years of priesthood had led, this Cathedral Church is always at the center. I’ve lived and worked in Rome, in Washington and in Boston for protracted periods of time, but Saint Paul’s on High Street is the place I always come back to. Maybe it has something to do with a line from W.C. Fields: “Home, is where they always have to take you back.”
Here I was ordained a Priest, here buried my parents and served as your Rector for two and a half years. And now I’m back to this Holy Church, this seat of the Bishop of Worcester, this house of God.
The very word for Church, as you may know, is ecclesia: the place God gathers us to himself as he offers the perfect sacrifice of the Cross. And what a motley crew we are. It’s like James Joyce’s description of the Church: “Here comes everybody!”
Sometimes I look at this place and I think back on Bishop Flanagan or Bishop Harrington or Bishop Riley. Often, and daily, I think of Bishop McManus, our shepherd and the one who presides over the Church in Worcester from that Cathedra as our chief teacher and shepherd. He is the one to whom I owe obedience and respect. And how blessed we are to have a shepherd so easy to obey and respect and love.
At other times in this Cathedral Church I think of Selma or Justin or Eddie. And often I think of you and of me, each with our own gifts, as Saint Paul says, and each a part of the fabric of the rich tapestry which is God’s Church in Worcester.
We are all so very different. Some of us are good at service, at getting things done. Some have a lot of wisdom, and some are teachers. Some have the most extraordinary faith, even in the face of really painful crosses and trials. Others have a way of healing just by the gentle way they speak, or the extraordinary ability to forget themselves and just listen to you with an open heart. Still others can accomplish all kinds of mighty deeds…they are amazing. While some seem almost prophetic and are so good at figuring out what is going on and offering the best advice.
No one person in this Cathedral, including this priest, has all of these gifts. But to each the Spirit gives certain charisms, for our good and the good of all his Holy Church. And each of us, despite our differences are made one in Christ, who called us here in the first place.
And what does he do with us when he gets us here? Well, he transforms us. He changes us. Just like he changed those big old jugs of plain old water into exquisite vintages of fine wine.
In fact, what God does here in his Cathedral Church is just like what he did at that wedding feast in Cana. The mother of Jesus was there, we are told, just as she is here, watching over us.
And when the wine runs short, she intercedes with him. When the trials of this world wear us down, when we are too weary to think or too confused to know where to turn, she intercedes with him on our behalf. "They have no more wine," she tells him. They have run out. Then she turns to us, in all our sorrows or distress, and says those five precious words: "Do whatever he tells you.” Then Christ takes the water of our lives and transforms it into the finest wine.
He takes our suffering, and joins it with his Cross, giving it meaning and somehow making sense of it all. I think of the old woman dying in the Nursing Home whom no one comes to see. But she looks up at that cross on the wall and joins the pains of her body and her very soul with his, joining her life to the perfect sacrifice of praise first offered on the Altar of the Cross. And thus her suffering is transformed into something holy, eternal and good.
He takes our foolishness, and infuses it with his wisdom, giving it sense and direction, helping us to understand the eternal Truth which is his love for us. He teaches us to let go of our infallible narcissism and embrace not our self-serving perversions of the truth, but the one Way, the one Truth and the one Life, who is Jesus Christ, and him crucified and risen from the dead.
He takes our littleness and embraces it with his omnipotence, picking us up when we fall, leading us home when we are lost and giving us courage when we are afraid. He transforms all our fears, our trembling and our distress, into the all-powerful presence of the Eternal God who renews the earth with his love.
And thus, just like at Cana, every day, in this Cathedral Church Christ reveals his glory to us, that we might come to believe in him.
