Homily of Fr. Austin Walsh on the 80^th Anniversary  
of the St. Joseph Shrine, 24 April 2004

We are here on this 80^th anniversary of St. Joseph Shrine to celebrate and to remember.

In our first reading, from the Book of Genesis, Jacob experiences God in one of the theophanies that happen all through the Hebrew Scriptures.  At those times, the Jewish people made sure to put up a marker, a shrine, a way to remember that this was the place where they had encountered God.

The early Church didn’t do that.  The early Christians were considered criminals, and so they didn’t dare build churches.  They met in each other’s homes—at dawn—to celebrate the Eucharist.  They understood clearly something we had forgotten –until Vatican II reminded us – that the Church isn’t a building, that the Church is the People of God.  The early Church understood that intensely.  They met in secret, they didn’t dare celebrate publicly – but they were the Church.  It wasn’t until the Edict of Milan,  when Christians began to be tolerated and when Christianity was made the official religion of the empire, that churches were built and the People of God celebrated openly.  Later on, especially in the Middle Ages, churches came to be associated with miraculous events, and pilgrims came to see and to share in the wonders.

In this Shrine to St. Joseph there have no miraculous events in the usual and narrow sense of  the word.  But one miraculous event that did take place was a man of God, Father Thomas Judge, who believed that there should be a place where people could gather to experience God, a place from which they could be called to mission and, more specifically, a place especially where and from which he could help immigrants, especially the Italian immigrants in the New York area whom he and his follower were reaching out to.

This Shrine has come full circle.

And he came here to provide a place where lay people could understand what the Church really was.  This was arare thing in those days when most people still thought of the Church as being mostly buildings.  Fr. Judge believed that every Catholic was a missionary.  He believed strongly that the Church was everyone who was baptized.  If you are baptized, you are the Church; and if you are the Church, you are called to mission.

And so we come to remember that this Saint Joseph Shrine was started by a man who really didn’t know how much future there was.  Don’t forget that when Fr. Judge died in 1933 the group that came to the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity consisted of three priests and a few more Brothers.  That didn’t bother him.  He had Sisters, but not many.  He had around him a larger ring of followers, that founding group of the Missionary Cenacle Family, the “Outer Cenacle,”the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate, from whom the two religious congregations and the Blessed Trinity Missionary Institute sprang.  And he had an abundance of hope.

He trusted most in the providence of God, and he thought big. With as few followers as he had, he took over academies in Puerto Rico and other works because he believed deeply that these were the works of God and that God would provide whatever was needed.

While we don’t come here to remember many miraculous healings that have taken place over the years – at least not in the traditional sense of miraculous – we do know that countless miracles of another kind have happened here: people have been reconciled, people have come to know they are unconditionally loved by God, and people have come to realize that they are, in the truest sense of the word, Church.  We remember that Fr. Judge was convinced that everyone is called to mission, and that here at St. Joseph Shrine that conviction bore miraculous fruit in uncountable ways and numbers.

The second reading is a reading that Fr. Judge could identify with: “You are God’s building.” You!  And then St. Paul asks, “Do you not realize that the spirit of God dwells in you?”

The basis of the Church’s social teaching isn’t the Constitution of the United States or even the Documents of Vatican II.  The foundation of our social doctrine is the fact that each of us is a tabernacle of the all-holy God.  Because every human person is “God’s building,”we should genuflect to one another.

That is why what we do in this church has to be repeated out there.  It is no good to just come to worship.  It is no good to come here just to celebrate Eucharist unless we areEucharist for the world, unless we allow ourselves to be broken and poured out for all our brothers and sisters.  For everyone.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said that “Some things in life are holy, many things are precious.”  Humanity as the Holy of Holies is one of the precious things.  It is only when we come to discover that, that what we do as Church, how we offer worship and praise to God has meaning.  Speaking in Scripture, God said in effect, “Listen, I don’t want your sacrifice at the tabernacle, if you are unjust.  I don’t want any of that nonsense.  All that incense is nothing if you do not do justice.”  Father Judge called us to worship that would overflow into ministry.  We are called to be Church not just in a building but in the world.

            Remember that incident in the Gospel when the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and told him that they really didn’t think he was strong enough to be the Messiah?  They said to him, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for somebody else?  Are we wasting our time?”  What did Jesus say?  He did not say “I am the second person of the blessed Trinity.  I existed from all eternity.”  He said, “Go tell John what you have seen and heard: the deaf hear, the blind see, the crippled walk, and above all, the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

            That is the way we really are Church, that is the way we truly honor the memory of Fr. Judge and the eighty years of this Shrine.

            If someone comes into this church tonight and says, “Is this the Church of Jesus Christ or should we go someplace else?” they are not going to be impressed by theological arguments, as true as they may be.  They are not going to be impressed by our argument for apostolic succession.  They are only going to believe that we are the Church of Jesus Christ if we say, “Well, we tell people of the presence of God.  We open their ears to hear God’s words.  We give them courage and strength so they can take the next step to knowing the need and starting the journey of conversion.  And above all, we preach the gospel to the poor.”  Then we are the Church.  Then we are the People of the Shrine of St. Joseph.

This Shrine has changed in many ways over the years, but it has never changed its emphasis on calling people into ministry, never the emphasis of calling people to prayer.  That is our fall-back, that is how we honor the memory of Fr. Judge, that we call people to ministry.  The real miracle here is that we feel – and make other people feel – that we are the Church and that each of us is an apostle.

“There are different gifts” but the same Spirit is the gift to all of us.  Let us continue the ministry of St. Joseph Shrine.  Let us pray to God to call young people into our communities, into our Missionary Cenacle Family, so that we continue in this ministry.  Father Judge was convinced that it would continue, that it will continue  is our conviction too.

Last night we had a banquet as part of this celebration.  The people of the Shrine – all who worship and minister here – came to show their appreciation to the Missionary Servants of The Most Holy Trinity, especially those at the Shrine.  They gave beautiful testimony to our confreres – and to the embarrassment of our confreres, some of whom began to slip under their seats.  One of them said later, “I didn’t know I would have a eulogy so early!”  This publictestimony to my confreres who touch the lives of so many people touched me deeply.  In our touching your lives, you in turn touch ours.  Please remember that, and remember that when you leave church you continue to beChurch.  The only reason for the building is to provide a place where the Church can meet, where the Church can pray, where the Church can offer sacrifice.  When you celebrate Eucharist, you become Eucharist for this world that so longs for the good news of God’s love and salvation.

But we are a Church in transition.  We are a Church with many problems.  We are a Church, though, that must keep its eyes on Jesus, always knowing that he is looking after us.

The easy thing is to go back.  Going back is a certain trip because you know where you are going.  You’ve been there before.  To go forward demands faith and trust.  And it is the Spirit calling us into the future whom we have to listen to.

In a book he wrote many years ago called “Tradition,” the theologian Jaroslav Pelican asked a question and answered it: “What is the difference between Tradition and Traditionalism?  Tradition is the living faith of the dead.  Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.

            So we, my brothers and sisters, who have died with Christ  are called to that living faith, to a trust in the Spirit of God.  Through the centuries, the Church has been through difficult times.  The Church has had to do penance.  The Church has had to admit its sinfulness.  But the Church – and we are that Church –knows that Spirit of God dwells in it, in us, and that Holy Spirit calls us to a future that makes us one with Jesus, our Redeemer.   

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